Message From Malaga

by Helen Macinnes

  “At least they don’t know about it. And I don’t expect they’ll waste time in scouting around the garage. And if one of them does, then he’s going to give us warning: I stuck a watering can and a couple of tin buckets just behind that door at the top of the stairs.”

  “We may need that warning. Waterman was with O’Connor this morning. They had a good look at this house. With binoculars. Was that long flight of open steps visible, do you think?”

  Sam looked at him quickly. So he guessed. He’s not easy to fool. “It was,” Sam admitted slowly. Then he grinned and said frankly, “Bob told me about it, warned me to check on it.” He laughed it off. “I wasn’t as bright as I seemed, eh?”

  “Or I wasn’t as stupid as I felt.” Ferrier glanced at his watch. Not long to wait now. “What’s the plan of operation? Have we any?”

  “Bluff. That’s all we have going for us. Bluff, and keeping our lines of communication open. Come on!” Sam pulled out a king-sized cigarette case from his pocket, extended its two small aerials, adjusted them as he moved toward the terrace. “Al?” he asked quietly. “Everything okay? Yes, I’m in place. Here’s Ian—get his voice level—just in case.” Sam handed his two-way radio to Ferrier. That’s the off switch, this is the on. You speak a couple of inches from there, and listen here.” He stopped pointing, “Or do you know all about it?”

  “Not this type. Nothing so neat and sophisticated.” Like you, thought Ferrier. He spoke to Al. “This is Ian. Coming over clear?”

  “My God—it’s Gary Cooper.”

  Another joker, Ferrier thought. “Okay. Hickory dickory dock. Over to you. And away we go.” He handed the radio back to Sam. And at that moment, the telephone rang. Ferrier and Sam looked at each other, then Ferrier stepped indoors. Tavita had picked up the receiver. She was speaking in Spanish, quickly and at some length.

  “Anything important?” Sam asked, joining Ferrier.

  “Something about a photograph—a private call, I think.”

  “You take this.” Sam gave him the radio that looked once more like a cigarette case. “I want you to stay outside, on the terrace. Keep out of sight—Lucas knows you, doesn’t he? I’ll be with Tavita. I’m her cousin, spending the night here. At least, we’ll see if that will keep them more subdued. Sure, they’ll search the place, and we’ll let them. And if they threaten Tavita, I’ll threaten them right back.” He opened his jacket, showed a revolver tucked into his belt. “That’s when you call Al. He will get help here right away. And then you join me, waving this around to back you up. You’ve used an automatic before, have you?” Sam had produced a very neat model indeed from a trouser pocket. “That’s the safety. Then you just point and pull. Tenderly.”

  Ferrier took the automatic, made sure of the safety catch. “Bluff?” he asked sardonically.

  “Until it’s called,” Sam said grimly. “By the way, Al reports that there’s activity around the cars outside the hotel. They are getting ready to leave.” He glanced over at Tavita, who was remarkably silent.

  Tavita had replaced the receiver. She stood looking at it as if it were a viper coiled on her table. Sam, who had been about to start explaining to her what to expect in the next hour, exchanged a puzzled glance with Ferrier. She said slowly, “They’ll never stop. They’ll keep after me, after me, after me.” She drew a deep breath, raised her eyes to meet theirs. “The police are coming here again. Inspector Cruz is sending two of his men to show me a photograph. I have to examine it, try to identify it. He thinks it may be the man who threatened me—the impostor—the man who wrote the anonymous letter. If so, they will arrest him tonight. It is urgent—most urgent—”

  “Cruz telephoned? You recognised his voice?” Sam asked quickly. “Are you sure—”

  “It was his assistant who telephoned. And from the right police station. I checked. I am not stupid.” Her voice had sharpened. She picked up the paper that Cruz had left her. “And there is its address. Read it for yourself.” She held it out tensely to Sam. He took it, glanced at it, handed it to Ferrier. “He was polite, but definite. Either I look at the photograph here or Inspector Cruz will ask me to come down to his office.”

  “When are they coming?” Sam asked.

  “Eight o’clock.”

  “Eight o’clock?” Sam almost swore, managed to choke the word into silence. He said to Ferrier, “That’s the way it goes: you prepare a plan and then you never use it.”

  “We may need it yet.” Ferrier’s frown deepened. “There’s something I don’t like—”

  Tavita broke in. “Oh, Ian—why must you always question everything? You give yourself so much worry, so much trouble. And for nothing. The police are coming. So let us think how they can help us. I’ll tell them I’ve been threatened again, this time by men who pretend to be journalists and—”

  “No,” Sam said sharply. “Better not mix the police in this.”

  “But I will. This is my house. And I will.” She stamped her foot; her eyes flashed. “You are so stupid, both of you. The police will frighten away these men—”

  “No,” Sam said. “No police.” Stupid, are we? These men wouldn’t be scared away permanently. They’d return, to search and question. She was only postponing her troubles, even adding to them. He looked at Ferrier for help.

  Ferrier said, “Tavita—Inspector Cruz came to you about the letter. Right? And Captain Rodriguez came to you about Fuentes. Isn’t that so? Their business was separate. Rodriguez didn’t question you until Cruz had left.” But Waterman had listened to Rodriguez, Waterman had heard Tavita’s answers. He most certainly had. “So how could Cruz have learned about any impostor?”

  “From Rodriguez himself,” she answered impatiently. “They met together and talked afterward. Didn’t they?”

  “We don’t know that,” Sam said.

  She ignored him. “Couldn’t they?” she asked Ferrier.

  “They could have, but—”

  “Then you frightened me for nothing.” She turned abruptly away. “I shall be in my room until they come,” she said coldly, ending all argument At its door, she paused with one last question for Sam. “Why are you so afraid of our police?”

  “Afraid? You’ve got me wrong, señorita. I just don’t believe in lying to them—any police, anywhere. Never pays off. Think that over for the next few minutes, before you come out to meet—?”

  She closed the door in his face.

  “Four minutes,” Ferrier said, “if they are punctual.”

  Sam calmed down. “Quite an act,” he said, giving one last look at Tavita’s door.

  “She has been putting on a damned good act. She’s scared, far more than she’ll admit. She’s exhausted and frightened, and she has just about had it. Do you blame her?”

  Sam looked at Ferrier reflectively. “So that’s the reason you didn’t press too hard.”

  “Well, she may have been right. They could be real cops. I think they’re fakes, but I don’t know. There’s one sure way of finding out, though.” He moved over to the telephone, looking at the paper with Cruz’s number on it.

  Sam reached the telephone first. “No,” he said softly. He put his hand down on the receiver, held it in place. His eyes were determined.

  “Then I’ll try it another way,” Ferrier said angrily. Quickly, he crossed to the window, flipping open Sam’s cigarette case, and stepped out on to the terrace. Luck was with him. He got Al almost immediately. “Urgent. Get to a telephone. Is that possible?”

  “Yes.”

  “Here’s the name and number.” Ferrier read them out carefully. He heard Sam’s footsteps. “Ask Cruz if he has dispatched two policemen to visit Señorita Vergara’s house at eight o’clock tonight. Are they authentic, or fake? Give him my name when he asks for your identification. Got that?”

  “Yes,” said Al, “but this means the police on top of you. One way or the other. Does Sam want that?”

  “He won’t have to meet them. He leaves as soon as the real police turn up. No
w make that call. Urgent!” He switched off contact, closed the radio. Sam was standing behind him, strangely quiet. At least, thought Ferrier, he didn’t try to stop me. That would have been an ugly moment. Good God, thought Ferrier, are my nerves stretched as taut as Tavita’s?

  Sam said angrily, “I hope you know what you were doing.”

  “As much as I’ve known in the last forty-eight hours.” Ferrier slipped the radio into his pocket. In the other one, the automatic lay heavily. He shook his head, looked up at the sky. Dusk had come, and the first stars were glimmering.

  “What you don’t understand,” Sam said, “is the fact that the job isn’t over yet.” He was annoyed, perhaps resentful.

  “It is for you,” Ferrier said amicably. “Your mission is completed once you get Fuentes out of Spain. And he is out. Isn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “And still blissfully asleep?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what’s—”

  “O’Connor isn’t out. And he won’t be out until he leaves Madrid around three this morning.”

  “I don’t get you.”

  “Yes, that’s what I told you. You don’t get it.” Sam allowed himself a patient sigh. The twenty-seven-year-old father explaining the facts of political reality to a thirty-seven-year-old son, thought Ferrier wryly. Sam was saying, “If the opposition picks up one good hint that Fuentes is in our hands and out of their reach, they’ll make one desperate move to get him back. In exchange for one of us. Not you, not me—someone really important.”

  “Bob O’Connor,” Ferrier said softly. And he was vulnerable, travelling alone with Waterman. “Surely he has taken some of his own men along,” he added worriedly.

  “One only. He is leaving the way he arrived. Then he had Mike. Now it’s Burt. Couldn’t risk more. Had to play it easy and natural. Mustn’t give Waterman any reason to wonder—”

  “Waterman won’t be travelling alone.” He would have at least a couple of men following O’Connor’s car, ready for any signal they’d receive. Yes, thought Ferrier as he pulled the cigarette case out of his pocket, they’d have gadgets like this one; they’d be geared for any message from Granada. “Take this,” he said, handing over the little two-way radio to Sam. “You stay out here, keep your lines of communication open. I’ll deal with the police, real or fake. Also with Tavita. I know her better than you do.”

  That settled any argument before it started. Sam pocketed the radio. “She’s the weakness,” Sam said. “She’s liable to—”

  “I’ll keep her from embroidering her story.” Ferrier was thinking of O’Connor again. Yes, one piece of information pulled out of Tavita could unravel everything. “I suppose Waterman would be snatched along with O’Connor—anything to keep his cover intact—and then turned loose as of little value.”

  “You learn fast.”

  “And Burt?”

  Sam looked at Ferrier grimly. “Yes, there’s a lot at stake, right here in this house.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s after eight. They’re late.”

  “They’ll be here.” As Sam had said, there was a lot at stake. And I, thought Ferrier, imagined it was all over except for one last gesture toward Tavita. “Tell me, Sam,” he asked, “did Bob talk with Amanda Ames?”

  “Now what brought that up?” Sam asked, tried to shrug Ferrier’s question away. “If she got back to the hotel before he left, of course he’d—”

  “She isn’t back yet?” Ferrier’s voice had sharpened.

  “Look, Ian, I’ve been busy. She’s probably there now.” Sam looked at Ferrier’s face. Better not tell him we are worried, too, he decided; worried enough to keep a good man, Al, stationed in a car near the hotel, waiting for Amanda instead of being here with us; worried enough to have a couple of local friends scouting around all the taxi drivers who picked up fares from the Generalife towards five o’clock this evening. “I’ve worked out an idea for getting her away from Martin’s tender care. And from Gene Lucas, too. She isn’t going back to Málaga, that’s for sure. We’ve got it laid on.” And now all we have to do is find her, Sam thought. He kept his voice cheerful, his face impassive. “By the way, how much did you tell her about Fuentes?”

  “Nothing.” Ferrier glanced quickly at Sam. “Why do you ask?”

  “Just curious,” Sam said, but there was relief in his eyes.

  “You think she’s been—”

  “I’m thinking nothing.”

  “If anything has happened to Amanda—” began Ferrier, and then checked himself. Who’s to blame? Myself most of all, he thought bitterly.

  “Keep your cool, man. One problem at a time. Otherwise none of them is solved. You’ll only foul everything up. Let’s get this job—Just a moment!” He pulled the cigarette case from his pocket, silenced its sudden buzzing as he opened it, answered Al’s call. It lasted only a few seconds, but it left Sam thoughtful. He closed the cigarette case. “Al got through to the police station but couldn’t wait for any reaction. Too much happening outside the hotel. O’Connor, Waterman, and Burt have left for Seville. Followed by a Chrysler with American registration and three men—two local talent, one big blond who came from Málaga. Well—” he shrugged his shoulders—“that’s three less for us to cope with.”

  “What about Lucas?”

  “He left ten minutes earlier. In his own car, with luggage. That smooth guy, the one with his hair plastered close to his head, came right behind him in Amanda’s Buick. And their last car, a Mercury, has just driven off. Two men unknown. They took the road to this house.”

  Ferrier’s thoughts raced. Lucas might seem to be leaving Granada, but he wouldn’t—not until he had made sure of Fuentes’ whereabouts. But Amanda’s Buick? “That smooth guy—if he has thin brown hair, a small round head, a two-button suit, a prissy smile—”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Jeff Reid’s killer.”

  Sam’s lips compressed. “Department Thirteen? We must look out for that one. He’s possibly—”

  The doorbell rang.

  Sam said hurriedly, “If that’s the police, I’ll keep well in the background. If it isn’t, then we play it by ear, take it as it comes. Can do?”

  Ferrier nodded.

  “Give me a signal if they’re for real. Light a cigarette.”

  “And if I have never seen them before, but have my doubts?”

  “Kick a cushion,” Sam suggested with a grin.

  Ferrier half smiled. Sam had an answer for everything. Then just as suddenly, Ferrier’s smile faded. But no answer for Amanda. He turned away, hurried toward the hall. As he walked, he pulled the automatic from his pocket, where it bulged through the linen too noticeably, and stuck it into his belt. He also remembered to switch on all the hall lights and glanced quickly back at the terrace to make sure. Sam wasn’t visible. There was only a band of dark shadows, all the deeper because of the focus of light on the hall.

  The bell rang again. Ferrier braced himself, unlocked the door, swung it wide. Two uniformed men stepped inside.

  24

  The two men were strangers to Ferrier. No weapons visible, he noted. Their khaki-coloured uniforms seemed authentic. But then, as he told himself, he wouldn’t know what kind of police these were. What he did know was the make of car that stood outside the door. American, big and black. He could only allow himself a quick glimpse and no sign of interest, before he closed the door. “A little late, aren’t you? You were lucky to find us at home.” That seemed an easy, natural beginning. He wished his voice didn’t sound so strained.

  The two men stopped staring at him. They were middle-aged, thin, dark-haired, dark-eyed. One of them began talking rapidly in Spanish while the other locked the door and tested it.

  Ferrier pretended not to notice. “Sorry,” he said to the talkative one, “I don’t follow you. Do you speak English?” The man looked at him blankly. “I’ll let Señorita Vergara know you’ve arrived,” Ferrier said equably, sticking to English. He led the way into th
e room. Well within view of the terrace, he kicked a floor cushion aside. One black Mercury plus one locked door added up to a very big doubt indeed. He didn’t need to hear the men’s quick interchange behind his back.

  They were worried. They hadn’t expected to find him here. “I have a bad feeling about this,” the talkative one was saying. “The woman was to have been alone. That was what we were told. And where is she? Search!”

  Better keep them away from the terrace, thought Ferrier, and he wasted no time but walked over to Tavita’s door. It opened before he reached it, as if she had been waiting for her cue.

  And it was a grand entrance. Even Ferrier, worrying about his automatic—these men might search him, discover it, leave him more helpless than he felt now—was lost in admiration. In the few minutes Tavita had spent inside her bedroom, she had added colour to her cheeks and lips, smoothed her gleaming hair, broken the black of her chiffon dress with pearls and elaborate earrings to match. In one hand, she carried long black gloves, a small satin purse. Over her other arm was a heavy silk stole, brightly green, loosely folded. She paused in the doorway, looked at her visitors, said, “Ah, the policemen...” Then she moved with easy grace toward the couch, dropped the gloves and purse there. Ferrier followed her, eyeing the green stole, deciding. “You were late,” she told the strangers. “Another five minutes and you would not have found me here.” She gave Ferrier a warm smile as he lifted the scarf from her arm. “Thank you, darling. This will not take long.” She turned to the two uniforms again, held out one hand imperiously. “Now show me the photograph, and we can all leave.”

  Quickly, Ferrier slipped his automatic under the heavy folds of green silk, laid the stole beside the purse and gloves. He faced the men again, hoped they wouldn’t notice that his jacket was now unbuttoned. They didn’t. They were too astounded by Tavita. So this is how she has decided to play it, he thought as he watched her. Gay and charming, slightly de haut en bas, definitely beautiful. He glanced at the two middle-aged clods to see what effect this could have on them. Considerable. But then they looked at each other, sobered up dutifully. The silent one made amends for his momentary weakness by scowling angrily. He’s working himself up into a good hate, thought Ferrier as he noted the man’s eyes travelling around the room with intense bitterness. A strong ideologue, this one: if I can’t have all this, you won’t, either. A Spanish throwback to less deviationist days; he ought to travel more, see how the other half of his comrades lived. The talkative one was more of the coexistence type: my peace, yes; your peace, no. He began stringing words together in a fine flow of rhetoric that meant little but kept Tavita listening intently while his friend slipped quietly into her room. He was out again, moving quickly to the terrace door—a bad minute for Ferrier—and stepped outside. But he found nothing there to alarm him, and he was back in the room, moving soundlessly to the studio. (Rubber-soled shoes, Ferrier noted. These boys had come prepared.) Again his visit was brief. He ended his lightning tour of inspection by yanking the telephone cord out of its socket.