The dog was still barking up on the hill, but I didn't see any lights. Whoever lived up there wasn't coming down to investigate. Maybe he thought it was a backfire from the road below, or a firecracker, or maybe he just liked to mind his own business. Or, of course, maybe he was calling the police. I was hoping that possibility would occur to the other man out in the woods before too long.
He was all right on the road. I didn't hear him coming, and I almost didn't see him. He got up to his car and crouched there, listening, maybe hoping to jump in and get the hell out of there before anything else went wrong with his mission. I had to give him full credit, he was a persistent son of a bitch. Six of his troops taken out by the Cubanos, another one shot down out there in the woods, and he was still there. I'd have been long gone by now. He was waiting for one of us to be careless, because he stayed by the car, not moving, listening hard.
I took careful aim, started to take up the slack in the trigger, and held it. I couldn't shoot the guy like that, and I knew it. I tried to talk myself into it. It looked like Sobel, although in the dark it was hard to tell. I told myself this was the character who pounded in my kidneys, stuck a knife in my ribs. He was all set to do me in. In a fair fight he could take me apart. He'd got out of his medium there in the woods and gave me an advantage, and now I had him. All I had to do was pull the trigger. It was no use, I couldn't just shoot him down. That's the real difference between the professionals and the amateurs. It's not so much skill as attitude. If you're ready to take all your advantages instantly, you don't need so many.
I heard Janie move out in the brush. She was probably wondering what happened to me, and it had been a long time to just sit there listening, probably looking at the body of the other guy. For all her training, she couldn't stay still all night. My target tensed, but he held his pose.
It was a long minute while I wrestled with it, trying to convince myself that I had to shoot. Finally I said, "Drop it and don't move. No, don't try to stand, just let go of the gun."
He didn't move. If he'd tried to run, or point the gun at me, I'd have been able to shoot him, but he didn't do anything. "Let go of the damn gun, Sobel!" I shouted. "I can shoot you five times before you find out where I am." He still didn't move, trying to locate me from my voice. It wouldn't have done him a lot of good, since I was lying down behind a tree with not much showing, but maybe he was a hell of a pistol shot. I thought of aiming for his gun arm, but that was ridiculous. Even in good light I couldn't be sure of shooting that well.
I heard Janie out in the weeds moving slowly toward us. The situation was getting a little silly. The last thing I needed was for her to give him something to shoot at. "Stay out there, he's still armed," I called softly. "Now, for the last time, will you drop that damn gun or do I have to shoot?" But of course I knew the answer. I mean, about all you can do with a gun is shoot it, isn't it? He started a dive, moving suddenly, trying to roll under the car, and I fired three times. The Luger made a flat crack, nothing like as noisy as Janie's .38 had been, and when the echoes died away the damn dog was barking again up on the hill.
Chapter Thirteen
Nothing happened for five minutes by my watch. There wasn't any sound but the dog, and he gave up after a while. I stood cautiously, keeping my pistol ready, but I didn't think there'd be any need for it.
"Janie?" I called.
"I'm all right."
"Good. Let's keep the noise down." I walked up to where she was, almost stumbling over the body of the first man. He was lying face down in the weeds and seemed to be sort of shrunk up, although that was ridiculous. There was plenty of blood. When Janie got to him I took a deep breath. "I suppose we ought to get his papers," I said. "The Agency will want to know who he is."
She nodded and I rolled the guy over. I'd seen him before. "It's Carl something or other," I told her. "Sam says he's East German."
"But—" She was staring at the body. "That may be his name, but I knew him as Bert Packs. One of Vallery's people." She was breathing pretty hard, and I knew just how she felt. It made me feel better to know it was getting to her too.
"Get back to the car," I told her. "I'll get his papers." She nodded and went off, not too steady, while I thought about something else and went through him, collecting everything I could.
She was sitting in the VW when I got back to the road, and I had to do the same thing for Frank Sobel. Then I went back to my tree and hunted around until I found the empty cartridge cases from my Luger, collected them, and got in the VW. She let me drive, and I got the car backed around Sobel's Chevy, turned left and followed the canyon away from the beach, out toward the valley freeways. We climbed through the hills, passing the driveway to the Cuban place, not seeing any other cars. Janie didn't say a word.
"Pretty good shooting," I said. "One shot in the dark, at a running target. You're pretty good with that thing."
She nodded, got out another cigarette. Even in the reddish flame of her lighter she looked pale. "He would have had you if I hadn't . . . . That was my first one, you know. I wonder if you get used to it?"
"I don't know. Dr. Prufro didn't say anything about telling him . . . . He must have, of course. If cleanup squad out there before morning. What do you make of Packs being there?"
"I don't know. Dr. Prufro didn't say anything about telling him . . . . He must have, of course. If Sam knew him as a CP security man down here, he had to be the plant in Information Associates. No wonder they had leaks in that organization."
"Yeah. Well, we plugged that one. They took quite a chance sending him with Sobel to get me, they were pretty confident that I'd never be able to identify him later." We didn't say anything else, drove along the freeway. After a few minutes I put my arm around her, but she couldn't move very close in the bucket seats and the road twisted too much to let me drive that way. We went back into our private worlds without touching. I found a closed gas station and stopped at the phone booth, dialed the number I'd been given.
"Night deliveries, can I help you?"
"Larry." We went through some identification stuff. "Is the chief there?"
"Yes." It took a couple of minutes, then I heard Shearing's flat electronic voice. "Go ahead. You got a problem?"
"Two of them. Both dead. We left them with their Chevy on a deserted dirt driveway about a mile south of the ambush site. I figured you'd want to get somebody out there to clean up before morning. They can't be seen from the road, but we heard a dog bark up on top of the hill, somebody must live up there. The name on the mailbox is Weatherby."
"Couldn't you think of a better place . . . no, I guess you couldn't. You've done well, if the cops have to pick up somebody with a load of dead bodies, right now I'd rather it wasn't you. Tell me about it."
I ran through it from where we'd left the Cubano hideout, giving him the details of where his troops could find the bodies. He whistled when I identified Carl as Bert Packs, but otherwise didn't react at all. It seemed unreal, like something that had happened to somebody else, and I was worrying about his reference to the police. It had been self-defense, but that would be hard to prove now that I had their papers.
"OK. Hang on a moment, I want to see if we can use the same disposal squad as the other operation." He was off the line awhile, came back on. "OK, we've got somebody working on it. Now, how well did you clean up out there? Leave anything behind?"
"No. I found the brass from my gun. I suppose somebody could get casts of the tire tracks if they had anything to compare them to, but I don't see how we can be traced. I'm pretty sure we weren't seen."
"Good. Look, I'm sorry this happened. We should have known those two weren't caught in the earlier action, but that's the trouble with cooperative deals, you lose control at critical moments. You'll be glad to know Nick's part of the operation was satisfactory. He has a hole in his shoulder but he took his man. We shouldn't have any more trouble from that quarter for a while, it will take them at least a week to get in a replacement with authority t
o order removals." There was a long silence punctuated by the sound of a cigarette lighter. "You sure you didn't leave anything up there?"
"No," I said disgusted. "I'm sure I did. When we first got out of the car I took all the rattley junk out of my pockets and dropped it in the weeds so I could move around without anybody hearing me. There's a pocket knife, a butane lighter, and some loose coins up there." I patted my pockets. "I did think to keep my wallet anyway."
"That lighter of yours has your initials on it," Shearing said.
"Yeah, I know. Want me to go back and get it?"
"Hell, no," he said emphatically. "That's all I need, to have you caught wandering around in the bushes with a couple of stiffs. What chance would you have of finding it in the dark anyway?"
"Well, it won't be too far from Carl's body. I emptied my junk near Janie's stand, and she got him . . . . If you looked with a light you might spot it."
Shearing let out a long sigh, something more expressive than words. "I don't suppose Janie left her calling card, or a sweater? You didn't drop anything else?"
"Not that I know of." I turned to her. "Boss wants to know if you left anything back in the hills?" She shook her head. "She says no. So they've got my lighter, what can anybody make of that?"
"You might be surprised what the L.A. sheriff's department can make of anything. Especially if they get a tip from the CP. If it gets out that one of their people is dead, and your initials were on a lighter near the body, it won't inspire trust. OK, we'll just have to see that the disappearance is kept mysterious, and I'll have the troops look for your junk, although I doubt they'll find it. With no bodies out there, it's not evidence of anything. Get back to the safe house and stay out of sight until the meeting tomorrow. Take Janie with you. I don't want her questioned, and she isn't needed at the Hollywood Roosevelt. This time tomorrow we might have this whole thing finished."
"Let's hope so. How do I play it with IA tomorrow?"
"Like nothing happened tonight. You took your girl out, you spent the night together, and you didn't see a thing. Let the CP stew over what happened to their agents, it ought to give them a real headache. Not that we're likely to be bothered with their people for a while after the job we did tonight." He sounded pleased with himself. "Their whole goon squad's down the drain, that's one less factor to worry about in this operation. All right, I know where to find you if I've got anything."
I turned to Janie. "He says we go to the safe house. Both of us. The Cubans are supposed to clean up." We piled into the VW for the long drive back to Santa Monica and Venice. I thought there might be something behind us, and I took enough turns to lose anything but the Batmobile, and I'd have given that trouble. When we pulled into the alley behind the Venice house, it was nearly dawn.
My last-minute briefing was from de la Torres in an upper-story room of that decaying house. I sat in a folding chair using my pocket knife to clean my pipe. The Cubans had found it and the change, but not my lighter. Since it was left near the knife, that was something to worry about, but there wasn't a damn thing we could do.
"We will have Dr. Hoorne available at any moment after you meet them," Sam was saying. "If the money is at all satisfactory, make any arrangement consistent with your cover story. They may want to take you and the money together with Dr. Hoorne, and that is not reasonable given the character you have presented to them. You will want the money, and he will go with them."
"Isn't that kind of dangerous for Steen?" I asked.
"I'll survive," Steen answered. "Hell, you've had all the fun this trip so far, give me a chance, will you?"
"You're slipping, Iron Man," I grinned. "You don't sound much like a watery-eyed electron counter anymore. Just what are you, old college chum?"
"That is none of your business," Sam answered for him. "You have good reason to know he is an expert in his field of physics, and that is enough. This whole mission has been designed to get Dr. Hoorne and the Chinese buyers together, and your speculations are not needed, Señor Crane."
"Yeah." I swallowed the reprimand, but he couldn't keep me from remembering that Steen could shoot holes in the driver of a pursuing car with an unfamiliar weapon, and hold the tiller through a gale. "Once I've got the money, what then?"
"Try to stay alive and bring it back here without being followed." Sam eyes me closely. "You are aware that you have asked for a large amount from their secret funds, and they will not willingly give it up. Furthermore, you cannot rely on any protection from us. The primary mission cannot be sacrificed for rescues."
I nodded, thinking I should have realized it before. It was a little late to back out now. "I can insist on reasonable precautions and procedures from them, of course."
"Naturally. You are not known to them as a fool, quite the opposite. Do nothing foolish now."
"Thanks. I won't. OK, I get the dough and come back here. Then what?"
De la Torres shrugged. "Mr. Shearing takes the money, you are paid for your work, and you have your boat here . . . . A long vacation in the islands will do you a world of good."
"And I never do learn what all this is about?"
"Do you really want to know?" He was serious about the question, and I found on reflection that I probably didn't. I was curious, because something seemed a little odd about this whole deal, but knowing answers like that could be unhealthy.
I glanced at my watch. "About time to start for that little park." I checked the loads in my pistol, tucked it in my belt and arranged the loose shirt over it.
"What do you see in that little gun, anyway?" Steen asked. "It's too big to conceal properly, the caliber's weird, the barrel's too light for accurate shooting . . . . You ought to carry a good .38."
I grinned. "Thanks. I notice you got some good use out of it. I like it. It's as accurate as I am, and I'm used to it. Any more sage advice, O man of laser beams?"
"Nope. Good luck, skipper."
"Thanks, Iron Man. You may need it more than I do."
Chapter Fourteen
I walked to the park. Venice was swarming with people of all shapes and sizes, old Italians and Jews living on retirement in houses they'd bought when they were the only people here, or clustered in former resort hotels converted to homes for the aged, anterooms for the funeral homes that sprouted like ghouls. There were Mexicans who couldn't speak English at all, and the hairy shapeless wonders of both sexes. Artists and musicians crowded the bars. A couple of young girls in floppy outfits strolled barefoot on the sidewalks, shouting with glee when a mail truck pulled over and one of the longhairs burst out. They sat together on a low cinder wall by the street and one of the girls put on the mail carrier's sweater complete with the pony express rider official patch. It was warm and nice and beautiful, and I had no right to think that the taxpayers were paying him to deliver the mail and could arrange their own truth and beauty.
There were blocks of houses separated by sidewalks with no street between rows and houses at all. One block was all in the typical rundown condition, peace symbols and garish colors splashed everywhere, except for one house which had been put back in new condition. An old man sat on its porch staring off into space, not looking at the squalor he now lived in, dreaming with the pride which had driven him to keep his house in order.
I got to the bench very early, but Bev was already there. She sat staring with the same expression as the old man I'd just seen. I noticed that for all that was bothering her she'd put on a spectacular outfit, a dark green playsuit and gold sandals, her hair combed back and tied with the inevitable scarf.
"Hi, kid. Lost your last friend?" I asked her.
She turned with a start, shook the cobwebs out of her brain. "Do I have one to lose? Sit down, Paul, let's talk about this."
"Oh, Lord, another wasted meeting. You don't have the money, right?"
"We have it. Dick's waiting not far from here with—with one of their expendable people. We're supposed to go there, you see they have the money, and get Dr. Hoorne."
>
"What happens after that?"
"I don't know," she stammered. "They give you the money and Dr. Hoorne goes with them to talk to their technical people."
"OK, let's get on with it. Remember, a nice safe neutral place for the meeting. I'm not following you to any lonely spots."
"It will be all right." She made no move to get up, turned to me desperately. "Have you thought about my offer? I could get twenty thousand dollars if you wait until I see some things. Just come with me and tell them Dr. Hoorne has changed his mind, he's found another buyer. Do that for me, Paul, please, I'll—I'll be nice to you, you'll see, we could . . . ."
I cut her off. "Why?"
"Because I'm scared. You should be too. All we've done so far is give them some silly documents nobody's looking for, but your friend knows something important, it says so in the papers . . . . I didn't know what I was getting into, and now it's too late to stop it unless you help. For God's sakes, what can I do? I'll promise you anything, just stop it before it goes any further."
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