Dog in the Manger: An Eli Paxton Mystery

by Mike Resnick

  Finally I turned off the set, poured myself a nightcap, made my two thousandth mental note to cut down on my drinking until I could afford it, and went off to bed.

  I had been asleep long enough for my back to stiffen up and for a stale taste to spread through my mouth when the phone rang. As I reached for it I noticed that the clock said it was four in the morning.

  “Yeah?” I mumbled into the receiver.

  “Eli? This is Mike Pratt.”

  Suddenly I was wide awake.

  “Where the hell have you been?” I said.

  “Do you know how big an area I had to cover?” he answered. “Hell, I could have been out there for another month.”

  “You found the plane?” I persisted.

  “Yeah, we found it. It had crashed in a mountain range in western New Mexico. Damned near inaccessible. It must have been all they could do to get Binder’s corpse out of there. Then you know what those sons of bitches did?”

  “What?”

  “They set an explosive charge in the mountain so it would cover up the wreckage. Since they couldn’t move it, they tried to hide it.”

  “How’d you ever find it?”

  “We had about half a dozen choppers scouring the flight path, and one of them saw the gouge in the mountain and thought it looked funny, so he got someone to lower him down with a metal detector, and bingo, we had it.”

  “Was there anything left of it?”

  “Yes. That’s why they had to cover it up. Evidently it broke apart on the way down. The engine caught fire and exploded, but the rest of it was scattered over an area the size of a football field.”

  “One sixty-four-dollar question coming up: What else did you find?”

  “Exactly what I thought I’d find,” he said. “I just hope you can make some sense out of it.”

  “Well? ” I practically yelled at him.

  “There were a few broken vaccine bottles lying around the landscape, and probably a whole batch more under it, but I did find an intact one.”

  “Drugs?”

  “No,” he said. “Eli, I had it checked out, and it’s some kind of plague bacillus.”

  “Plague? ”

  “That’s right. I just had a feeling. The way I see it, some wild animal—a coyote, a rodent, something—stepped on one of the broken bottles, cut a foot or a pad, and became a carrier. I don’t know what happened next—I’m not an expert on the life cycle of laboratory-produced diseases—but I’d guess that a dog ran the animal down and killed it, or maybe just picked up some fleas from it. Anyway, however it works, if the dog had fleas, too, it wouldn’t have taken much to start spreading the disease. You know, along with the ten cases in Arizona, there were another dozen on the New Mexican side of the border—and all of them were within one hundred seventy-five miles of where we found the plane.”

  “You’re sure it’s plague?” I said. “There’s no chance you could be wrong?”

  “It’s a laboratory-created plague bacillus,” he replied. “That’s what the lab told me, word-for-word. They also said it had an incredibly short incubation period—something like twenty-four to thirty-six hours. Make any sense to you?”

  “It’s starting to.”

  “Good,” he said. “Because I have a feeling I’m about to get pulled off the case.”

  “Why?”

  “Eli, we must have two dozen Feds knocking around here, plus a couple of CIA spooks. Nobody has told me to keep my hands off yet, but I have a feeling that’s what I’m going to hear when I walk into my office tomorrow morning.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “A little town called Redrock, right next to the Burro Mountains. I figured I’d better call you before they yanked me.”

  “I appreciate it, Mike.”

  “It’s even bigger than we thought, isn’t it?”

  “Much bigger,” I said.

  “Well, I’m glad I was able to help. It also answers my biggest question.”

  “What was that?”

  “You know how wondering why anyone would steal the dog was driving you crazy until you figured out that she wasn’t stolen?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I was going nuts trying to figure out why, if Binder was so dangerous they had to kill him, they didn’t just ship the stuff—whatever it was—on a different flight. I think I’m going to have to teach a course at the Police Academy about getting rid of your preconceptions when they don’t fit the facts.”

  “Speaking of the dog, was there any trace of her?”

  “Yeah. I meant to tell you. She was burnt to a crisp. She was in the front part of the cargo hold, the part that exploded. We found part of the metal gate melted down. There wasn’t much left of the fiberglass crate. You want me to tell Nettles?”

  It was tempting, but I told him I’d do it.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ve got to ask this now, because I think I’m going to be under orders not to talk about it after tomorrow morning: Is Cotter your man?”

  “It looks that way.”

  “Good. When you nail him, find some way to let me know.”

  “If I nail him.”

  “You will,” he said. “And while you’re at it, try to let me know what this whole thing is about. I’ve been thinking about it all evening, and I can’t come up with any reason why he should ship a case of plague germs or serum or whatever it is to a Mexican hospital for the aged.”

  “That much I think I can tell you, “ I replied. “It was a drop point. The stuff is probably earmarked for Guatemala.”

  “Guatemala?” he repeated. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  I heard a voice holler for him in the background. “Gotta run,” he said hastily. “Find some way to keep in touch.” He paused. “I knew it wasn’t drugs. You hang around the border long enough, you at least learn the traffic patterns. So long, Eli.”

  “Good-bye, Mike—and thanks.”

  I hung up the phone and sat on the edge of the bed. It all made sense now, except for the last step. I didn’t know why Cotter was shipping the stuff to Guatemala, or even if it was going to Guatemala. But I had my case: I could prove that the plane had crashed, I could prove that it was carrying plague bacillus in vaccine vials, I could prove Binder’s death had been faked, I could prove Baroness had been on the plane, I could probably come up with enough circumstantial evidence to get a jury to believe that Cotter was responsible for the deaths of Alice Dent and Steve Raith. If I went through enough Monterrey mug files, I could probably even identify the blond gunman and his boss.

  What I needed—the only thing I needed—was the reason behind the whole operation, and the only person who could tell me that was Wilson Cotter. It was time to turn the case over to the police—except the police didn’t want any part of it, and I knew that I was going to have to confront Cotter myself. I didn’t know exactly what I was going to say to him or what pressure I could bring to bear, but I had already decided that if worst came to worst I would make a citizen’s arrest. Then the cops would have to follow through on it.

  I had a feeling that I wasn’t going to be too welcome at the Cotter estate. In fact, there was a damned good chance that I wouldn’t be coming out of it intact, so I tried to protect myself as best I could. I went over my .38 and made sure it was in good working order (which I hadn’t even bothered to do when I’d taken it out a couple of days ago), but finally I decided that the pen was mightier than the sword.

  I pulled out some paper and carbons and started running them through my old portable Allen typewriter. I laid out every detail of the case as I remembered it, but omitting all references to Joan Linwood and Bill Striker. Then, when I was done, I took two of my four copies and put them into envelopes addressed to Jim Simmons and Mike Pratt.

  I figured they’d be short-stopped somewhere along the way, so then I turned to the letter I was banking on. I folded it in thirds, stapled it shut, and scribbled on the back not to open i
t unless she hadn’t heard from me within a week after receiving it—and if she didn’t hear from me by then, to make a hundred copies and send them to every newspaper she could think of. Then I stuck it in an envelope, addressed it to Joan Linwood, and scrawled a phony return address on it. She was my ace in the hole: no one except Pratt, Nettles, and Lantz even knew that I had ever met her.

  After I finished, I sat around waiting for sunrise. When it came, I shaved and showered, got into my suit, stuck the fourth copy in my lapel pocket, and went out for breakfast, mailing the three letters along the way. It was almost nine when I arrived at Striker’s office. I tried to give him the report, but he didn’t want any part of it. Somehow that didn’t surprise me.

  Then, armed with about ninety percent of what I had to know, and a .38 that would probably get me into more trouble than it was worth, I walked back to my car, finally ready to pay a little visit to Wilson Cotter.

  18.

  When I reached the LeBaron, I found a tall, silver-haired man sitting in the passenger seat. He wore a neatly tailored gray business suit, a blue-and-gray striped tie, a blue Oxford-cloth shirt with a button-down collar, and dark gray socks. His shoes were black and freshly shined, and he had a black leather briefcase laid across his lap.

  “Good morning, Mr. Paxton,” he said calmly. “Please get in.”

  “Who the hell are you?” I demanded.

  “My name is Linus Baker. We’ve never been formally introduced, but it might help if I told you that I drive a black Lincoln Town Car.”

  “It took you long enough to get out of it,” I said, eyeing him warily.

  “This seemed an appropriate time,” he replied. “Would I be correct in assuming that you were planning to drive to Wilson Cotter’s home?”

  “Why should you think so?”

  “Because of what Officer Michael Pratt found in New Mexico,” he said. I had my gun out in a flash, and pointed it right between his eyes. He seemed unperturbed. “Come, come, Mr. Paxton. I’m on your side.”

  “If you are, you’re the first,” I said, keeping the gun trained on him.

  “Do you mind if I reach into my breast pocket?”

  “Yes,” I said coldly.

  “I’m not armed. I merely want to show you my identification.”

  “Put your hands on the dashboard,” I said. “I’ll do the reaching.”

  He did as I ordered, and I pulled a wallet out of his pocket. There were some credit cards—Visa, Carte Blanche, Diner’s Club—and then I came to it: a CIA identification card with his photo on it.

  “I assure you it’s legitimate, but if you have any doubts you can call your friend Officer Simmons. He’s already checked me out thoroughly.”

  I knew he was telling the truth, so I handed him back his wallet and put my gun away.

  “Why are you here?” I demanded. “What’s going on?”

  “Shall we go to my office and have a little chat?” he said, opening his door.

  I nodded and walked silently alongside him for a couple of blocks. Then we entered a relatively modern office building and took an elevator to the seventh floor. We got off, walked halfway down a long corridor, and opened an unmarked door.

  I knew I was in Cincinnati’s CIA headquarters. There was too damned much paperwork lying around for the place to be anything but a government agency, and they had some sophisticated communications equipment along one of the walls that looked like it was right out of a science fiction movie.

  “Follow me, please,” said Baker, walking through a doorway that led to a number of small offices. We stopped at the next-to-last one and entered it.

  “Have a seat, Mr. Paxton,” said Baker, seating himself behind a steel-and-glass desk.

  I did as he said and looked around. There was an autographed photo of Allen Dulles on the wall next to his desk, and a painting of George Bush just behind my chair.

  “We haven’t got our Bill Clinton portraits yet,” he said wryly, following my gaze. “I imagine they’ll arrive just about the time he dies or leaves office. I apologize for the condition of the place”—he gestured to stacks of documents piled on the floor—“but I just got to town a week ago, and I haven’t had time to put things in order. This is the office they give to visiting dignitaries, so to speak, and they’d been using it as a storeroom for the past few months.”

  “I thought you guys would be all computerized,” I said.

  “There are some things that are, shall we say, too delicate to entrust to a computer. There are too many fifteen-year-old hackers with modems and unbridled curiosities.”

  “So you just leave all your sensitive material in nice safe heaps on the floor, is that it?”

  “I’ve already explained that I don’t work out of Cincinnati,” he said patiently. “The mess is inexcusable, but it isn’t my doing. On the other hand, this office—this suite of offices—has more safeguards than you can possibly imagine. I would venture to say that an entire platoon of highly trained saboteurs would be unable to break into it. You are here only because you entered in my company.”

  “Why am I here at all?”

  “Because you have ceased being a potential problem and have become a very real one,” he said. “As long as you couldn’t put the final piece in the puzzle, we were content to let you wander around and take Cotter’s attention away from us. But now that Pratt has been in contact with you—don’t bother to deny it, we’ve had a bug on your phone since you got back to town—you know just about everything there is to know. That’s why we’re having this little talk: so you will understand the absolute necessity for silence and cooperation.”

  “You mean Cotter’s working for you?”

  “Hardly,” he replied with a dry chuckle. “Wilson Cotter is everything you think he is, and worse.”

  “You’re putting together a case against him and you need my evidence,” I said, trying not to make it sound too much like a guess.

  He shook his head. “We’ve already got our case.”

  “Then what’s all this silence and cooperation crap?” I said.

  “What do you know about Guatemala, Mr. Paxton?”

  “I know Cotter’s got problems there,” I told him.

  “Cotter’s not the only one,” said Baker. “Let me tell you a little bit about it.” He paused and pulled a modernistic pipe out of his desk. Once he was through tapping in a batch of tobacco and lighting it, he leaned forward. “Did you ever hear of Juan Jose Arevalo and Jacobo Arbenz Guzman?”

  “Should I have?”

  “Not unless you’re a student of Central American history,” he replied with a smile. “They were Guatemala’s presidents in the decade after World War II. They had leftist leanings and ran on platforms of land reform and nationalization of Guatemalan industries. Since most of the land and the industries were owned by major American corporations, it seemed in our best interest at the time to dispose of the leftist regime. We invaded Guatemala back in 1954 with a little help from Nicaragua and Honduras, threw Guzman out, and replaced him with a puppet by the name of Armas, who was only too happy to return the expropriated lands and businesses to their American owners.”

  “It sounds like the kind of thing we’d do,” I commented.

  “I make no moral judgments of what went on before me,” said Baker. “However, the simple fact is that Guatemala has had one dictator after another since 1954. The current one is a General Garcia, who has probably killed in the neighborhood of ten thousand political enemies and dissidents. Garcia is a little more independent than his predecessors: he refuses to accept US aid as long as it’s tied to his human rights situation.”

  “Nice guy,” I said.

  “He is, unless you have the misfortune to be a Guatemalan. He has been extremely receptive to American business initiatives, to the point where we run Guatemala’s economy even more thoroughly than we did through Armas.”

  “Then I don’t see the connection,” I said. “Cotter ought to be delighted with this Garcia.”
>
  “Oh, he is, Mr. Paxton,” said Baker. “He owns one of the biggest banana plantations in Guatemala, and the very biggest coffee plantation, bar none. Garcia is probably well taken care of by Cotter, but in return Cotter not only raises bananas and coffee, but has a goodly portion of the shipping and export business connected with the Guatemalan fruit industry.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “The problem is the FAR.”

  “And who, or what, is the FAR?” I asked.

  “It’s a revolutionary army that’s been stockpiling arms and money since 1954,” he said. “We don’t know their exact strength, but we estimate that they can mobilize more than fifty thousand armed men if they have to.”

  “Patient little bastards,” I said. “That’s a long time to build an army.”

  “True. But now their patience is wearing thin. They’ve destroyed a number of American plantations, and managed to wipe out more than half of Cotter’s last two crops. They are expected to launch an all-out revolution within the next two years.”

  I considered what I’d been told, and suddenly everything started to make sense.

  “That’s right, Mr. Paxton,” said Baker, studying my face. “Now you’ve got it all.”

  “It’s crazy!”

  “It’s not as crazy as you might think. Given the current political climate, and the violent public sentiment against our recent support for the government in El Salvador, it is simply not politically expedient for us to help keep Garcia in power . . . and of course it is contrary to our interests to support the FAR. So Cotter, recognizing the situation and facing a terrible economic loss, took matters into his own hands. He made a deal with the Vasquez Family, one of the major drug suppliers in Mexico. We still don’t know what he gave or promised them, but in return they were to distribute the plague serum, masked as vaccine, to the rebel camps. Children would be injected with it, and rebel sanitary conditions being what they are, Cotter could reasonably predict a full-scale epidemic that would effectively preclude any further rebel threat against his holdings for the foreseeable future. It’s as simple as that.”