"All right," I said. "Report, damn you, but make it fast."
"The fiancй," he whispered. "Named Carisson. Much business on Continent. Raoul Carisson. Little man-"
I said quickly, to save his strength: "Pass the description. I've met the gentleman. What did you find out about Wellington?"
If he had to tell it, the stubborn dope, I could at least hurry him through it. But he didn't seem to hear me. He was off on another tack.
"Under no circumstances take action," he breathed. "This is an order. This is an order. The soft, peaceful sheep in Washington! How can a man defend himself, if he is for~ bidden to kill? He was as slow as molasses in January. Fine old American expression, eh? Did you know I've never been back to the States since the war? Always some new job, some new place. Slow as… I shot him in the shoulder. All I could do, with those orders. Bah! He laughed and gave me this. Under no circumstances… Why not simply order us to commit suicide?"
"Who was it?" I asked. "Who got you, Vance?"
He shook his head. "Nobody. Just a nobody with a gun. Waste no effort on him. Just put another one into Caselius for me, when the time comes." He frowned painfully. "Forgetting something. Oh, Wellington. You wanted to know about Wellington…"
"Never mind Wellington," I said. "We've got to get you to a doctor now."
"No," he breathed. "No. Important. Must tell you about Wellington. Watch out for… Wellington is…" He drew a long breath, and suddenly his eyes opened wide and he smiled a brilliant, bloody smile. "It is too bad, Eric. Now we will never know."
"Know what, Vance?"
"Know if you could… take me…"
Then he was dead, with his wide-open eyes staring past me, seeing nothing, probably, although I can't guarantee that, never having been there. Scratch Vance, a brave man who'd made his last report, not quite complete. It occurred to me I didn't even know his real name. I got up and looked at my hands. They were red. Well, people don't usually bleed any other color.
I heard footsteps in the gravel behind me, and turned to see Lou come running from the hotel.
"What is it, Matt?" she called. "You look so… What's the matter?"
I walked slowly to meet her. She stopped before me, panting from the run. I said, "There's a dead man in the car. We'll have to notify the police."
"A dead man?" she cried. "Who? Matt, your hands-" She tried to pass me, to look, but I put myself in front of her. I said, "I'm protecting you from a horrible sight, Lou, Turn and walk into the hotel ahead of me."
"Matt-"
"Give me an argument, doll, and I'll kick your teeth in. Turn and walk. He was a good man. He doesn't want trash like you near him." She got pale and started to speak and changed her mind. She turned slowly and walked toward the hotel. Walking behind her, I said, "You'll forget I said anything to indicate I knew him."
"He's a perfect stranger to both of us. We have no idea how he came to be in the car. We haven't used the car since yesterday evening. It was left at Direktцr Ridderswhrd's overnight. Don't forget to bear down heavy on the title. It was driven here this morning by Frцken Elin von Hoffman-"
"You want me to say that?"
"Why not?"
"I thought you liked the girl."
"Like? What's like got to do with anything? I like you. Not very much right now, but I'll get over it. But I'll slit your throat at the first opportunity if you say one thing out of line; and if you think that's a figure of speech, honey, just remember what I carry in my pocket and what my business is, and think again."
She said, "Take it easy, Matt."
I said, "Use the names. Ridderswдrd. Von Hoffman. Honest, upright Swedish citizens. Maybe. Anyway~ it'll confuse the issue. And just keep clearly in mind that right now I'd just love to put my gory hands about your pretty neck and strangle hell out of you."
She said, "I didn't kill him, darling."
"No," I said grimly. "You have an alibi, if it happened last night, don't you, sweet?"
She looked around, shocked, and said quickly, "You don't believe-"
"Why not?" I said. "You went out into the night to get your instructions. You came back and followed them, no doubt, to the letter. It's very convenient, isn't it, that we've hardly been out of each others' sight since midnight."
She said, "Darling, I swear I had no idea-"
"Yes," I said, "and you do swear real pretty, doll. And he probably wasn't shot as long ago as last night, but they'd have you take the precaution of getting an alibi, anyway, not knowing exactly when their killer would make his touch. Or maybe you call it a hit, like the syndicate boys back home. But in our outfit we call it a touch. I hope to make one soon, myself."
I drew a long breath. "Well, looking at it objectively, we're in pretty good shape. You know I didn't do it, and I know you didn't do it-not personally, at least. And the company people have had us both in sight all day, thank God. But I think you know who did it. At least you know who's responsible. Don't you?" She didn't answer. "Well, there you are," I said. "A man's been shot to death, but I don't hear you volunteering the description, name, and present address of the murderer…"
The Kiruna police were polite and efficient. They were represented by a nameless officer in uniform and a plainclothes gentleman named Grankvist, whose exact status nobody bothered to explain. He was one of those lean, wiry, bleached-out Swedes. Even his eyebrows and lashes were pale, over pale blue eyes. There was a hint of something military in the way he stood and walked, but then, they've got conscription in that country, and every adult male has been exposed to a certain amount of drill and discipline.
We were questioned thoroughly and asked to present ourselves at poliskontor~t in the morning, which we did. Here our statements were taken, signed, and witnessed, and we were told that we were free to go. Herr Grankvist himself drove us back to the hotel.
"I am sorry that you have been caused inconvenience by this unfortunate affair," he said as he let us out. "I regret that we must keep the car in which the body was found a little longer. Its condition would hardly contribute to pleasant motoring, in any case. But if another car is required, arrangements could be made-"
I said, "No, just return it to the man from whom I rented it, if you don't mind. Tell him that I'll settle with him when I return to Kiruna next week. We've decided to take the train-that is, if it's all right for us to leave town."
He glanced at me in surprise. "But of course. Everything is all cleared up, as far as you're concerned, Herr Helm. It was obviously just an unfortunate chance that caused the poor dying man to seek refuge in your automobile."
He was a little too smooth, a little too polite, a little too reassuring; and when a foreigner speaks to you in English you can never be quite sure which of his inflections are deliberate and which are a matter of accent and accident. We watched him drive away.
Lou said thoughtfully, "Well, there's a little man who isn't exactly what he seems."
"Who is?" I asked. "Come on. If we pack in a hurry, maybe we can catch the ten o'clock train out of here before he changes his mind."
I turned toward the hotel doorway, but she didn't move at once.
"Malt," she said.
"Yes?"
"You were kind of rough yesterday. I didn't mind at the time, because you'd obviously had a shock, but now you might say you're sorry."
I looked at her and remembered certain things about her
– the kind of things you remember about a woman to whom you've made love. "I might," I said. "But I'm not going to."
She made a little face. "Like that, eh?"
"Like that," I said. "Do you want to come along and help me shoot these pix of yours, or would you prefer to stay in Kiruna and sulk?"
There was color in her face, and her eyes were hot and angry, but the advantage was all mine and she knew it. She had to come with me. She had to supervise the taking of the pictures. If I'd had any doubts on that score, the way she swallowed her temper and managed to smile would have settled them for good
.
"Just forget I brought it up," she said lightly. "You're not losing me that easily, Mr. Helm. I'll be on the platform in ten minutes."
Chapter Nineteen
I REALLY had to hand it to the girl. Her motives might be questionable, her morals might leave something to be desired-not that I was in a position to criticize on that score-and her eye for pictures, while accurate, wasn't characterized by much in the way of freshness and originality, but her talent for organization was awe-inspiring.
Usually, on a job like that, you spend half your time waitIng for somebody to find a key to unlock a gate, or for somebody's secretary to get back from a two-hour cup of joe so she can tell you the big boy's left for the golf course and you'd better come back in the morning. There was no such monkey business here. Everywhere we came, they were expecting us; and I'd be led straight to the battlefield, aimed in the right direction, and told to commence firing.
In Luleв I thought she was going to spoil her perfect record. One morning, a polite but firm young lieutenant in the off-green uniform of the Swedish Army had come up to inform us that we were operating inside the military protection district of Bodйn's fortress-that same mysterious fortification that had caused our airliner to make a detour the week before. In this district aliens weren't even supposed to wander from certain designated public roads and areas, let alone set up enough photographic equipment to film a Hollywood super-colossal and proceed to make a careful documentary record of freight yards and docks.
Lou smiled prettily and displayed some official-looking papers, and the boy wavered and asked our pardon. But he had his instructions, and while everything was undoubtedly in perfect order, he would appreciate our accompanying him while he checked with his superiors.
We were working to a pretty tight schedule at the time, cleaning up this eastern end of the job so we could head back to Kiruna, our headquarters, and work our way from there across the mountains to Narvik, in Norway. Any delay that particular morning would have scrambled our connections badly. Lou smiled at the boy again, and suggested he use a nearby telephone first, and call Overste Borg.
"How the hell did you manage that?" I asked, after the kid lieutenant had departed, with apologies. "I was all resigned to bars at the windows. Who's Overste Borg?"
"Colonel Borg?" she said. "Oh, he's an old friend of Hal's. His wife's a darling. They had me to dinner when I was here a few weeks ago. Come on, let's finish up; we've got a plane to catch."
It seemed as if the entire north of Sweden and substantial portions of Norway were populated by old friends of Hal's, usually in fairly high official positions, all with darling wives. It made life very simple for a hard-working photographer. I asked no questions. I just went where I was led and did as I was told. It was a week to the day after Vance's death that we wrapped up the job and took the afternoon train out of Narvik, which brought us into Kiruna Central Station on time at nineteen forty-five-.. a quarter of eight, to you. All official times in Sweden are given on the twenty-four-hour system, as in the armed forces back home. This saves a lot of A.M.'S and P.M.'S in the railroad time tables.
In my hotel room-the same one I'd kept right along- I changed to more respectable clothes. Our old friends the Ridderswдrds were having us to dinner again. Waiting for Lou to let me know she was ready to go, I organized my films and equipment for, presumably, the last time on this particular jaunt. Then she knocked on the door and came in carrying her coat, purse, and gloves in one hand, and holding up her dress with the other.
"The damn zipper's stuck," she said. "Why does it alw~..ys have to happen when I'm in a hurry?"
She deposited her belongings on a chair and turned her back to me. It was the same smoothly fitting black dress she'd been wearing for important occasions right along, but it always gave me a funny feeling to see it these days, although it showed no signs whatever of the early-morning horseplay in which it had once figured. She'd got the cloth jammed in the machinery. It didn't take me long to worry loose the zipper. As a married man of fifteen years' stand ing, I'm officially checked out on zippers, single-engine, multi-engine, and jet.
I closed her up the back and gave her a brotherly pat on the fanny. We hadn't officially forgiven each other yet, but two reasonably intelligent people, reasonably equipped with senses of humor, can't work together for a week without coming to some sort of tacit understanding. I might as well have saved the pat, however. For kicks, you might as well pat Joan of Arc in full armor, as a modern woman in her best girdle.
"All clear," I said. "I asked the desk to call a taxi. It's probably waiting by now."
She didn't move at once. She was looking at the dresser top, where an impressive number of film cartridges stood in neat rows, like soldiers on parade. After a moment, she glanced at me questioningly.
I said, "That's the gather, ma'am. I lined them all up there to see what they looked like. I'll wrap them up and send them out in the morning."
She looked surprised. "I thought you were going to take them to Stockholm with you."
I shook my head. "I changed my mind. Why should I take a chance on their color processing, when I know I can get a good job in New York? As for the black-and-whites, there's a lab I know that can do a better job than I can, working in a hotel sink. It'll mean a little fun with customs, I understand, but I've been told they'll let you send exposed, undeveloped film out of the country, if you merely sign your life away first."
There was a little silence. Her back was to me, but I could see her face in the mirror. It was a mean curve I'd pitched her. She'd expected those films to be lying around for several days longer. She was thinking hard. She laughed mechanically, and touched one of the cartridges.
"My God, there are a lot of them, aren't there?"
It was a typical amateur reaction. The stuff comes out of the factories by the running mile, but the amateur clings to the notion that each square inch is precious and irreplaceable. Lou still had the attitude of the box-camera duffer who keeps the same roll in the camera from one Christmas to the next. I hadn't been able to get it through her head that film, like ammunition, is expendable.
"Yup," I said, "a lot of 'em. And there ain't a cow in the herd worth a plugged nickel, ma'am."
She threw me a quick, startled glance over her shoulder. "What do you mean?"
I said deliberately, "I'm speaking from the artistic and editorial point of view, of course, not the technical. We've got lots of technically beautiful negatives, but as publishable pictures go, all we've got is a bunch of corny, unimaginative junk. I think you know that."
She swung around to face me. "If you feel like that, why did you take them?" she demanded angrily. "Why didn't you tell me-"
"Lou," I said, "don't go naпve on me at this late stage in the proceedings. You've hauled me hundreds of miles and had me expose hundreds of yards of film in weird and rather dull places that had nothing much to do with the article we were supposed to be illustrating. Any time I turned aside to shoot something really interesting, something with human appeal, something a magazine might actually go for, you'd be tapping your foot impatiently and looking at your watch. Now don't give me that wide-eyed look and start asking silly questions. You know why I took your pictures the way you wanted me to. I've been waiting for a man to show. A man named Caselius. I expect him to turn up any time now, particularly if you let him know all this stuff will be leaving the country tomorrow."
She licked her lips. "What makes you think I'm in communication with this man… what did you call him?"
I said, "Cut it out, Lou."
"Caselius?" she said. "Why do you expect this man Caseliьs to come to you?"
"Well," I said, "it's just a childish theory of mine, but I have a feeling he's interested in these pix, even if no editor would look at them twice."
"What are you trying to say, Matt?"
I said, "Honey, I'm not blind, even if I act that way occasionally. Between your connections, and my bona-fide journalistic background, and our
American passports-not to mention the backing of a well-known American magazine
– we've bamboozled the Swedes into letting us make a nice photographic survey of the transportation facilities and natural resources of this strategic northern area. A couple of guys named Ivan wouldn't have got past the first gate, would they?"
She said, "Matt, I-"
"Oh, don't apologize," I said. "It was a bright scheme, and it worked fine. But you're lucky you got a man like me, with an ax to grind, to do your camera work. A real magazine photographer, full of artistic integrity, might have balked at being told what to shoot and how to shoot it. At least he'd have asked some embarrassing questions."
I waited. She didn't say anything. I went on: "I suppose your friends have trained intelligence specialists working in the real top-secret areas we couldn't get access to. But we've done pretty well, as far as I can judge. We've got a set of films on this country that any professional spy would be proud to send in to headquarters. Now all that remains is getting it into the proper hands. Am I correct?"
After a moment, she said, "I wondered… you're not stupid, and still you allowed yourself to be used…
"Honey," I said, "I'm not a Swede. That's one of the discoveries a man makes as he grows up: the discovery that you can have only one woman and one country at a time. Any more and life gets too damn complicated. My folks came from here, sure, but I was born in America and I'm a U.S. citizen and I have a job to do. That's plenty of responsibility.for me. Let the Swedes worry about their own politics and their own security."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," I said, "it's nothing to me who takes pictures of what in this country, Lou, or where those pictures go. Do I make myself clear?" I took her by the shoulders to emphasize my point. "What I'm driving at, Lou," I said, looking her straight in the eye, "is there are your films, right there behind you. Tell your people to come and get them. They don't have to get rough or tricky. You don't have to poison my soup or put a mickey in my drink. The pix are nothing to me. Take them and to hell with all of you. There's just one thing I want out of the deal."
The Wrecking Crew mh-2 Page 11