Her porcine features seemed to swell. ‘Don’t you talk to me like that! No matter what you make up, I’ve told you everything I’ve got to tell.’
‘Mrs Vogler, I could subpoena you,’ he said feebly.
‘What’s that?’
‘That’s getting a court order served on you, and that would force you to appear in court and take the witness stand and tell what you know about Frank Griffith.’
‘You just do that,’ she said. Then she added shrewdly, ‘Because all I’d tell about Mr Griffith and the way he brought up his boy would be favorable, mightily favorable to him.’
Barrett sighed and nodded. ‘You win, Mrs Vogler. I know when I’m licked.’
‘I’m glad you have some sense, young man.’
‘And I hope you’ll have a good trip,’ he said. He started to go, and then he said, ‘Where can I find a telephone in this neighborhood?’
‘If you mean mine, I just as soon not have you use it. There’s a drugstore on the corner. They got a phone. And, Mr Barrett, about Frank Griffith, I wouldn’t bother with him any more if I were you, because you won’t find anything against him.’
A word from the wise, he thought, and he left for the corner drugstore.
In the drugstore, near the soda fountain, there was an open public telephone on the wall.
In moments, he had Maggie Russell on her private line. She recognized his voice, and she was mildly surprised.
‘Maggie,’ he said urgently, and then realized that in his new Fayeless world he had addressed her by her given name for the first time, ‘I must discuss a few things with you. Maybe you can clear them up for me.’
‘Can you give me a clue?’
‘Frank Griffith, for one thing.’
‘I see. Certain subjects are difficult to discuss on the phone.*
Then would you mind doing it in person?’
‘I - I’m not sure.’
‘Maggie, I know the rules. But I have to see you. I have some questions. Maybe you can provide the answers, maybe not. Just speaking to you would be of some help to me. I don’t wa^nt to put you on the spot. Still, if we could have a quiet dinner tonight.,.’
‘Tonight ? Well…’ Her last word hung in the air, then she went on. ‘Possibly. Is this strictly business - or business and pleasure?’
‘Some business, but just seeing you would be a pleasure.’
‘Won’t Faye Osborn mind?’
‘Who’s Faye Osborn? No, that’s over with.’
‘I see…. Where are you now?’
‘I’m in Van Nuys, but I’m on my way to the office. I have to check on something there. That’s part of it.’
‘I’ll meet you at your office,’ she said. ‘Is eight o’clock all right ?’
‘I’ll be waiting, Maggie.’
It was evening now, twenty-five minutes before eight o’clock, as Mike Barrett entered the towering high-rise building from Wilshire Boulevard. Going to the elevators, he listened to the echoing clack of his footsteps in this futuristic cavern.
This was Friday night, and the building had been abandoned by all save the scattered janitors lost somewhere well above the ground floor. The marble walls were bleak and indifferent. The elevators were on self-service.
Presently, he consoled himself, Maggie Russell would arrive and there would be humanity and warmth.
Inside an elevator, he pressed the button for the fifth floor, and slowly he was carried aloft. The loss of the Jadway letters, followed so quickly by the loss of Isabel Vogler, had been a shattering blow. He wondered why he had instinctively turned to Maggie Russell. Speaking to her, he had made it sound as if he had a specific problem she might help him solve. Yet, actually, he was not sure what he really wanted of her. Perhaps it was that the real enemy was invisible to him, but known to her, and she might offer him some
insight without betraying her allegiance. That was the business. Perhaps it was only that she was she. And that was the pleasure.
The elevator had glided to a halt, the doors quietly parted, and Barrett emerged into the corridor.
The next step was the first in his counterattack against the hidden opposition. The constant frustrations, followed by the chance reminder of electronic eavesdroppers, followed by the information that ‘repairmen’ had dismantled his telephone while he was out of the office, had led him now to seek final confirmation of the enemy’s devastating espionage. He must examine his telephone. If, indeed, it had been bugged, then he would reveal this sensational discovery to the press and public. The exposure would indict no one by name. Yet the implications would be comprehended by one and all. It would be the beginning of a bid for public awareness of the ruthless nature of the prosecution forces, perhaps even a bid for public sympathy toward the defense, and the start of the defense’s counterattack in the critical arena outside the courtroom. Even though, he knew, his revelation might come about too late.
Barrett inserted his key into the lock, opened the door toDonna’s dark office, and turned on the overhead light. Leaving the reception-room door open for Maggie, he went to Donna’s desk. No messages. The electric IBM typewriter wore its gray hood. The Dictaphone rested in silence.
He was eager now for a look at the telephone in his office.
He crossed the inner corridor to his door, opened it into the shadowy room, stepped inside, fumbling with his left hand for the light switch. Unexpectedly, he heard a creak, a movement, an inhalation behind him, and the chill that instantly enveloped him froze his fingers above the light switch.
There was Someone.
He had started to turn, when suddenly an arm hooked in front of him, closing in on his neck. Choking, he raised his hands to clutch at the strangling arm, to tear it free. There was a vise clamped on his throat, as he clawed at the arm, and the black room was filling with crazy dots of meteors and stars.
Savagely, panting like a cornered animal, he had freed himself from the muscular noose, and was trying to twist around to get at his unseen assailant, when a fist clubbed against the side of his skull, and his knees buckled. His outstretched hand found his desk and kept him from falling completely, and then wildly, gasping, he staggered upright and forward, plunging at the giant silhouette before him. He had hold of the other now, trying to pin down the flailing arms and hammering fists, trying to wrestle the monster to the floor. But the attacker’s arms rammed upward, breaking Barrett’s hold, and sent him reeling against the desk.
The black form closed in, and Barrett lashed put, missing, and tried to slide away along the desk. The black form followed relentlessly, and suddenly it had speech.
‘Get him,’ it growled.
Instinctively, Barrett tried to wheel around to protect himself from what was behind him and unknown. In that split second of turning, he saw there was another hulk, arm rising and slashing down toward him. Desperately he tried to duck, as the butt of a pistol drove past his face and smashed into his chest.
Pain opened like an umbrella through his body, and then it spiked upward into his head. His head rolled and his knees were rubber, and as he saw the shape of the arm rise and fall again, he tried to cover his head, but a weight crashed against his skull, and the floor flew up to meet his face.
He felt the rough nap of the carpet on one cheek, and a sticky rivulet roll down past a cheekbone, and brilliant colors swirled behind his eyelids, and faintly, distantly, he heard a reedy voice sing let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.
Colors dissolved. Life died.
Blackness. Nothingness.
Inside his head, he awakened to a world of inky hue, and he sought freedom from this bottom of the Cimmerian lake, and gradually, ever so gradually, he floated to the surface.
He felt a damp coolness across his forehead and cheeks, and at last the refreshing air and the scent of perfume.
Inhaling deeply, he tentatively opened his eyes.
There was a face above his own, fuzzy, shimmering, and then it became defined. Soft black hair and green eye and crimso
n lips.
‘Maggie,’ he whispered.
‘Yes, Mike.’
‘What are you - ?’ To make sure it was not a dream, his gaze strayed past her to the ceiling fixture, then to the office couch and chairs and open door. Once more he returned to her. His head was in her lap. His coat and shirt had been removed, and he was stretched on the floor, and she was sitting on the carpet, legs tucked beneath her, holding his head on her lap while one hand caressed his brow and the other held a wet handkerchief spotted with blood.
‘Are you all right, Mike?’ she asked with anxiety. ‘How do you feel?’
‘I’m not sure. Okay, I guess.’ His hand came up to his temple. ‘Feels a little like someone is using a pile driver up here, and against my chest.’
‘I’m not surprised. You’ve got a lump almost the size of an egg on the back of your head. And you were bleeding along your neck when I found you. I cleaned it. The skin was scraped, torn a little. I took off your shirt. The only other thing I could find was a nasty bruise on your ribs. Do you want me to call your doctor ?’
‘No … no … I don’t think so. Wait, let me sit up.’
He made the effort, and she assisted him. As he came upright his brain felt scrambled and his vision blurred again, but then, quickly,
his head felt better and clarity of thought and sight returned.
‘What happened, Mike ? I got here five minutes ago. The door to the suite was wide open, and the light was on in the reception room. All the other lights were out. I didn’t know what was going on. I called for you. No answer. And then I heard what sounded like a moan. It was from this room. So I came in and turned on the lights, and there you were. It was frightening. I was going to phone for an ambulance, but then I thought I’d see how you were first. Are you sure you’re better?’
‘I’ll live. One codeine should do it.’
‘Do you have some?’
‘In the bathroom. I’ll get the -‘
‘Let me.’ She leaped to her feet, looked around, and, following his pointing finger, disappeared into the bathroom.
After a moment, Mike Barrett struggled to his feet. When Maggie Russell returned with the white pill and a glass of water, he quickly downed the pill.
“Thanks, Maggie.’
‘Now can you remember what happened?’
He remembered vividly. ‘After phoning you, I drove back from the Valley. I came up here, and the second I entered my office, before I could turn on the light, some big fellow jumped me from behind. I got free from him, but then he called out to someone else, so there were two of them. The other one started to pistol-whip me. I went down, and I think I heard them saying they’d better get out of here. Then I guess I passed out.’
‘But who was it? And why?’
‘I don’t know who. It was dark. I’d just walked in, and my eyes didn’t have time to adjust. But I have an idea who was behind it and maybe why.’
The telephone.
He turned around. His desk looked like it had been swept by a small typhoon, and the carpet was strewn with papers and a chair was overturned. On the desk his telephone stood in its accustomed place, but the base was dismantled, its casing removed so that the inner mechanism lay exposed.
Head still aching, chest throbbing, he walked stiffly to the telephone and studied the instrument.
“They got away with it,’ he said at last.
‘With what?’
‘I came back to the office wanting to make sure, and now I am sure, unless the telephone company is offering a new judo service for subscribers. Someone planted a monitor in my phone, and then they must have found out I knew - that means my secretary’s phone had been bugged, also, because I hinted at it pretty broadly when I called her from New York - so they came back after hours to remove the evidence. I happened to stumble in on them.’ He poked at the telephone. They took this apart, removed me device, but I
came in before they could put Humpty Dumpty together again.’
‘But who would - ? You should call the police.’
‘The police?’
She seemed puzzled by his tone, and then some vague comprehension crossed her features. ‘Oh,’ she said.
‘I’ll enlighten you in a little while,’ said Barrett. ‘First I’d better call my partner.’
He went into the reception room, and before dialing he examined Donna’s telephone. He pried at the casing with a thumbnail. It was loose. Yes, they had come here shortly after Donna had left - they must have waited for her to leave, and she had appearently left late - and then they had removed the electronic bug from her telephone before getting to work on his own.
He lifted up the receiver and dialed Abe Zelkin at home.
He had hardly finished saying hello when Zelkin asked worriedly, ‘Mike, what’s this Donna told me ? About our missing out on those Jadway letters?’
‘Abe, it’s a long story, but I’ll make it short and save details for tomorrow.’
Recounting what had happened at Olin Adams Autographs, he hurried on to tell how they had all overlooked the obvious from the time that they had lost Christian Leroux to the opposition. Then Barrett related the assault upon him in his office, and the condition of his telephone.
‘To heck with that,’ Zelkin was saying. “The thing is - your condition. Are you sure you’re okay?’
The codeine had begun to take effect. Tm feeling fine, Abe. I’ll see how I am in the morning. Maybe I’ll look in on Doc Quigley. What’s tomorrow? Saturday. I’ll drop in on him at home.’
‘I want you in shape for the trial Monday morning.’
‘I’ll be in shape,’ said Barrett grimly. ‘Maybe our case won’t be, but I will. As to our case, that brings me to one more piece of bad news. I went straight from the airport to Van Nuys. Abe, I hate to tell you, but we’ve lost Mrs Vogler.’
He could hear the sharp intake of Zelkin’s breath. ‘No kidding. How did it happen? The telephone bug again?’
‘No, this time it was another device. It’s called the Osborn Gambit. To fill you in briefly …’
In passing, he had mentioned Mrs Vogler to Faye, he said. Hell, when you’re going steady with a girl, you should be able to feel your secrets are safe with her. Not so with Faye. He had underestimated the bonds of Faye’s father fixation. She had been the device by which his intention to use Mrs Vogler had been transmitted to her father, and from her father this information had been passed on to Frank Griffith. And then, simply, Barrett spoke of the scene with Faye last night, his refusal to play the Osborn game. As a result, he had lost Faye and, because money usually undermined principles, he had failed to hold on to Isabel Vogler.
‘So on Monday morning, Abe, I’m afraid we’re going up against a howitzer with a bow, just a bow, not even arrows.’
‘Never mind about that. We’ll do our best.’ Zelkin hesitated on the phone. ‘I’m sorry about you and Faye.’
‘Faye’s the least of it. That one wasn’t made in heaven. It would never have worked. As for the vice-presidency - let’s be honest -I’d look lousy in a yachting costume. I once suffered mal de mer just reading Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea. Besides, I had an offer of a permanent partnership from a friend named Abe Zelkin. I’m going to write and ask him whether it’s still open.’
‘Cut it out. If I wasn’t so worried about you, this would be one of the happy moments of my life.’
“Then we’re partners, Abe. From here on in, rise or fall, it’s Zelkin and Barrett.’
‘Barrett and Zelkin. The sign goes up tomorrow.’
‘We’ll flip for top billing. Then the first order of business is this. Those specialists in counterbugging you originally had in, that outfit that detects eavesdropping equipment. Can you get hold of them again?’
‘I certainly can - and will.’
‘Are you sure they’re really good?’
‘Mike, they’re the best. When they’re through, we’ll be foolproof once more, every bug exterminated. They come in with two things
. Something called the Sentry 101. They plug it into every phone, and the dial tells if there’s a tap on. Then they use a thing called the Sweet. It’s a box with antenna and dials, and it shows up any hidden transmitting equipment. And this time we’ll have them put a jammer next to each phone. They’re around two hundred fifty dollars each, but we can rent them, and they are guaranteed to garble any wireless tap put on in the future.’
‘Great. I think my phone and Donna’s are clean now. But we’d better have our offices looked over, anyway. Including your office, Leo’s room, even Phil Sanford’s hotel suite. Everything should be checked and debugged. Can you get that outfit in on Monday ?’
‘I’ll have them in Saturday.’
‘Not that we’ll have any more secrets. I’ve just about run out of leads. Still, you never can tell what’U turn up. If we do get another break, I want them to hear about it first in court.’
‘Mike, have you given a thought to who is behind this?’
‘I could make a good guess. Let’s discuss the louse after we’ve been debugged.’
Having finished his phone conversation with Zelkin, Mike Barrett returned to his office.
Maggie Russell had restored order to the room and was gathering up the last of the papers. Silently he observed her as she rose and walked to his desk. Her hair was attractively tousled and her hips moved nicely beneath the short, swinging chiffon dress.
She caught him staring at her, and she flushed.
“Thanks, Maggie,’ he said. ‘Well, I’m all set now. I promised you dinner. What are you in the mood for ?’
She did not reply at once. Finally she said, ‘Mike, I didn’t mean to listen, but I couldn’t help overhearing part of your conversation on the phone.’
‘There was nothing private.’
“The part about Faye Osborn.’
‘I told you about that earlier, didn’t I?’
‘I thought it was only part of the lure. To get me to meet you and make me feel more comfortable.’
‘I wouldn’t do that, Maggie.’
(1969) The Seven Minutes Page 37