“All right, Charlie,” I said at last. “All right. I’m sorry. Smack me if I get flip again. What’s the favor?”
“You… you won’t tell them at the Bureau, will you? Please?”
“Tell them what?”
“You know.” She made a gesture towards the bed. “The way… the way you found me in here. I haven’t had an attack like that since I was in high school. I thought I was all over them long ago, permanently cured. I don’t know what brought it on, maybe strain; I’ve been working pretty hard on this Warfel thing. They say it’s partly emotional, you know.” She stopped. I waited, and she went on: “Don’t you see, Matt? If… if the Bureau learns about it, and about the way I blanked out in here afterwards while I was supposed to be on duty… We’re all supposed to be perfect physical specimens, you know.”
I hesitated, not because it mattered to me, but because it seemed a little out of character for her—at least out of the character I’d built for her. I was surprised that she’d conspire with me to evade her own organization’s health rules, dedicated as she was to upholding all laws and regulations.
I said, “Your secret is safe with me, Charlie. Sneeze and strangle all you want to. Your people won’t hear a word about it from me.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Thank you very much. I mean it.”
“Sure,” I said. “Anytime.”
“Matt.”
“Yes?”
“It wasn’t fair. What you said. We do care about people as well as laws. We do!”
I grinned. “Well, in that case you’ll be interested to know that some people are going to break some narcotics laws—your specialty, I believe—in a village up the coast called Bernardo, apparently little more than an overgrown trailer court. The time is tonight. Your friend Warfel is expected to join the party briefly, at least long enough to pick up the first shipment of the laboratory’s product, which will then be concealed in a toilet on his boat, the Fleetwind, ready to be pumped out the plumbing at the first sign of trouble. He will return innocently to his home port north of the border and await developments. If none develop within a few days, and the coast seems perfectly clear, he will bring his cargo ashore and, presumably, put it on the market.”
She was looking at me, wide-eyed. “Matt! How did you learn all this?”
I grimaced. “That’s the big catch, doll. The information was fed to me deliberately by some Cosa Nostra characters—well, they called it the corporation, talking among themselves—who thought they were being very ingenious. Maybe they were.”
Her face registered disappointment. “Oh. You mean it’s just a phony lead? Were they Warfel’s men?”
“I didn’t say it was necessarily a phony lead; and they weren’t Warfel’s men.” I told her what had happened since I’d seen her last. She was a little shocked by the Beverly Blaine part of the recital, particularly the end of it. She also made it clear that she didn’t think much of the way I’d let a blonde trick me into a trap. I had a hunch she didn’t really believe I’d done it intentionally, in spite of the information it had gained us. “So you see,” I said, “the syndicate, whatever you want to call it, is trying to clean house. The questions are: Just what do they expect us to do with what they told me, and what are they planning to do that they didn’t tell me about?”
“You mean,” she said, “you think they’re trying to trick us into helping—”
“Sure,” I said. “Hell, in a way they want the same thing you do. They want this dope project stopped. The difference is, they want to keep Warfel’s part in it quiet, and you want to make it as public as you can. So let’s figure out why they’d go to a lot of trouble to hand me all this poop while pretending to have gotten me in there to question me about something altogether different—not that I don’t think they’d have liked to get answers to their questions, but they were willing to settle without them. Anyway, I have a hunch that what they let me hear was the straight stuff, at least up to a point.”
“But why would they want you to know it?”
“Because they know I’m working with you, and they know who you are,” I said. “Because they figure I’ll tell you, as I’m now doing, and you’ll get the Mexican authorities to close down that Bernardo heroin-manufacturing installation, thereby saving the brotherhood, or whatever they call themselves—the corporation—a lot of trouble in a foreign country where their connections may not be quite as strong as back in the U.S. They don’t care who hits the laboratory as long as it’s hit. They just want it out of business, like you do. They know Warfel wouldn’t be fool enough to have anything there that’ll connect it with him.”
“But what about Warfel himself. We know he took the boat out yesterday, but—”
“That,” I said, “is the big problem. They certainly don’t intend to let you get your hands on Frankie in U.S. waters with a big shipment of heroin on board; that’s exactly what they’re trying to prevent. They may have told me the truth about what Warfel is planning to do, or what they think he’s planning to do, but you can be damn sure they intend to alter his plans in some fairly drastic way. But they have to get you thinking you know exactly where and how to arrest him, because obviously you won’t raid the lab they want raided until you’re sure of catching Mr. Warfel red-handed—maybe I should say white-handed—with a substantial sample of the goods.”
“I see,” she said slowly. “So you figure they hope I’ll take care of the laboratory for them with Mexican help, and then—believing their information—hurry north and sit waiting for Frankie to appear with a boatload of heroin, only it won’t happen.”
“That’s right,” I said. “And it won’t happen because Frankie will be taking a long, long dive with an anchor or a chunk of ballast tied around his neck—if they catch him before you do, and they must have some reason to think they can. And the Fleetwind will either sink, burn, blow up, or be found adrift and deserted, another mystery of the sea.”
She hesitated, and looked at me uncertainly. “Matt, please don’t think I’m ungrateful for your help, but actually you’re just guessing, aren’t you?”
I said, “An educated guess, sweetheart, by a guy with a criminal turn of mind. Don’t quote me, but I’ve had the job of removing a too-greedy character or two, myself, in the interest of company public relations. I know what I’d do if I were in the shoes of Tillery, Jake, and Sapio.”
“I see.” Her eyes were steady on my face. “You’re not really a very nice man, are you?”
I said dryly, “You can find yourself a very nice man later, to date and to marry, if you look hard enough, I’m quite sure. Right now, you need a nasty, experienced bastard like me to work with. I’m a pro, Charlie. I’m giving you the benefit of my professional judgment.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” She sighed. “So that’s what you’d do if you were in the shoes of those Mafia characters. What would you do if you were in my shoes?”
“Hell, I’d clean the mud off them,” I said. I grinned at her quick, downward glance; then I stopped grinning and said, “Obviously, you’ve got to take out those three and give friend Warfel a clear run home with the dope, much as it hurts to help that creep in any way.”
“Take them out? You mean—”
“I mean take them out,” I said. “Whether you use three separate bullets, a single hand grenade, or a Mexican jail, doesn’t really matter. As a matter of fact—”
“What?”
I rubbed my sore diaphragm thoughtfully. “Well, it’s strictly none of my business, and as I said, we hold no grudges in this racket, but I do have a kind of personal interest in those three gents. If you’ll handle the Bernardo end, I’ll see what I can do about the Tillery-Jake-Sapio axis. Just remember, if I give you a guy named Warfel, you owe me a guy named Nicholas.”
Charlie frowned quickly. “Why, I thought you said that girl was Nicholas, the one who… who died.”
“I said she said she was Nicholas. It’s not quite the same thing.”
“You mean yo
u think she’d lie when she was about to kill herself?”
“How else could she strike back at me?” I shrugged. “Hell, one way or another she was through, finished, and she knew it, and it was my fault. The least she could do by way of retaliation was leave me with a misleading lie and hope it would louse me up badly, with her compliments. I’m not saying that’s what happened; but I’ve damn well got to make sure it isn’t.”
The tall girl with the glasses was studying me warily. “I see. So you’re not really helping me entirely out of the kindness of your heart, Matt. You’ve still got an ax of your own to grind.”
I shrugged once more. “Does it matter?”
She hesitated. When she spoke again, her voice was cool: “Not unless… unless you mess up this job for me, doing your thing, whatever it is. I wouldn’t advise your sacrificing my mission to yours, Matt. I think you’d regret it.”
I looked at her for a moment. Her face was strangely cold, and there was a hard, bright, fanatic gleam in her eyes. I said, “Why, Charlie, that’s a threat! Are you sure you mean it?”
“I mean it.” Her voice didn’t waver, and neither did her shiny eyes. “This job is extremely important, not only for me but for a lot of innocent people. Don’t spoil it. If you do, you… you’ll be sorry.”
I don’t react well to threats, not even from handsome young ladies in horn-rims who disarmingly admit to having no sense of humor.
“Now it’s my turn,” I said. “My speech on the subject goes like this, Charlie: don’t get in my way, or put any people in my way, no matter what you think I may have done. For one thing, I probably won’t have done it. I have no intention of turning Warfel or anybody else loose with a boatload of heroin; I’m going to do my best to see that you get him. Remember that, if anything goes wrong. But remember another thing, too. If you get mad at me, and send somebody after me, and he interferes with my assignment in any way, he won’t come back, whoever he may be. Okay?”
She said softly, “You’re really quite unbelievable, aren’t you?”
“Hell, one good threat deserves another,” I said. “But I’d better not be unbelievable, because if you don’t believe me, somebody could die. Now let’s stop making faces at each other. You were supposed to check on a guy named Sorenson.”
“Are you still harping on that?” When I didn’t answer, she said, “Oh, all right, I checked on him. He’s had some chemical training, mostly stuff like gas analysis, but he might be able to master the necessary technique. But a more unlikely person for Warfel to pick to run his laboratory…” She paused. I didn’t say anything. She said, “Well, so much for Sorenson. Now what about that syndicate man, Tillery, and his two friends? How do you intend to locate them and deal with them?”
I said, “I’ll worry about the dealing after I’ve done the locating. And I think I have a pretty good lead, just a few doors down the hall.”
“Do you think that blonde will tell you where to find them? Even if she knows, why should she tell?”
I said, “Never mind, Charlie. You have your little secrets and I have mine, and that’s one of them.”
She made a small gesture of distaste. “Well, do it your way. But remember, this is very important, to me and to—”
“I know,” I said. “To thousands of innocent people. I’ll remember. Well, I’ll be on my way as soon as I’ve cleaned up a bit in the john. Help yourself to the phone if you need it… What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. I just remembered, they had another smog alert on the Los Angeles radio as I was driving down. I hope it won’t interfere with our plans. If Warfel should be delayed by weather…” She was silent, obviously considering that and other problems confronting her; then she looked up. “Matt.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t mean to be nasty.”
“Neither did I,” I said. I wasn’t telling the exact truth, but then, I didn’t think she was, either.
16
Approaching Roberta Prince’s room, I made a little bet with myself as I had before, quite recently, under very similar circumstances. I mean, the girl had said she was merely going to fix her makeup while I went and cleaned up in my room, but once she got to thinking about the situation, I was fairly sure other ideas would occur to her, if they hadn’t already. After all, this was Hollywood country or close to it, and once they get a good script out there, or even just a passable one, they’ll all gang up on the poor, lonely little idea and beat it to death.
I knocked on the door and got no answer. Checking, I found it unlocked, as I had left it. I walked in, since I’d told her I’d be back shortly and she’d said that would be fine. The first thing I noticed was that the black and white pants outfit she’d been wearing was kind of scattered around the room along with everything that went with it, intimate and otherwise. The second thing I noted was that the bathroom door was closed and the shower was running. I made a mental check in my mental notebook to indicate that I’d won my own money once more.
I knocked on the bathroom door. “Roberta,” I called. “Miss Prince. Bobbie. Are you all right?”
The shower stopped. After a little pause, the door opened, and as expected, she had on absolutely nothing except a towel wrapped around her head, turban-wise, to protect the long blond hair from the spray. Another towel was being used for drying purposes, but it was carefully deployed, at the moment, so as not to obstruct much of the view.
Her body was more feminine than I’d anticipated, despite its lean greyhound proportions. After all, even greyhounds come in two sexes, and there was absolutely no doubt which one she was. She was smoothly tanned all over. I reflected on the philosophic truth that the difference between being embarrassingly naked and interestingly nude can be just a nice coat of tan.
“Get my robe out of that closet, will you, darling?” she said calmly. “The blue terry cloth beach thing. You’ll see it.”
“Sure,” I said, and grinned, not moving. “Just how long did you stand under that shower, Bobbie, waiting to make this spectacular appearance?”
She was slightly disconcerted; then she laughed. “Too damn long. I’m practically waterlogged. What the hell kept you, anyway?”
“I had a visitor. A lady dope-cop with the sniffles. We had to compare notes and strategy.”
“The sniffles? What’s she got to sniffle about?” Bobbie asked.
I couldn’t see why she should be interested in Charlotte Devlin’s respiratory symptoms, when there were other things in my statement designed to concern her more, but at the moment, feeling out the situation, I was happy just to follow any conversational lead she offered. As for my promise to Charlie, I’d only promised not to tell the people for whom she worked. The chances of this girl discussing with them the health of one of their agents was fairly small.
I said, “Apparently she had asthma as a kid and something brought on a recurrence this morning, but she’s pretty well over it now.”
“That’s too bad,” Bobbie said. “Cops! Wouldn’t it be great if they’d all drown in their damn mucus? If you’re quite through appraising the merchandise, you might get me the robe I asked for.”
I still didn’t move. “Merchandise,” I said, regarding her boldly. “The word implies something for sale.”
She looked at me for a moment. A kind of hardness came into her eyes. “Who said it wasn’t? Are you making an offer, darling?”
“It depends,” I said. “Are we dealing in cash or some other medium of exchange? I’m a government man, Bobbie. They don’t pay us enough that we can afford to take on high-priced, Hollywood-type dames; at least not for money.”
“You’ve got a gun, haven’t you? You’re supposed to know how to use it, aren’t you? I need protection, don’t I? From Frankie Warfel and… and maybe now from those other creeps as well. Why do you think I staged this nudie show, anyway?” There was a little silence. “Well, is it a deal?”
“Sure,” I said. I licked my lips, as if they’d gone kind of dry, which they had. It
was an automatic reaction that annoyed me. “Sure it’s a deal,” I said.
“Do you want to close it now?” Her voice was expressionless.
I shrugged. “Why not? No sense your putting on a lot of clothes just to take them all off again.”
“Well, dump that junk off the bed while I lock the door,” she said, very business-like, and turned away.
I walked over to the bed and yanked everything off it except the bottom sheet and the pillow. When I turned, she was coming towards me, pulling the towel-turban off her hair, which spilled over her slender brown shoulders, pale and gleaming.
She walked up to me deliberately, studied me for a moment, and reached out to unfasten the single button of my jacket that was fastened. She worked the jacket off my shoulders and arms and let it fall. She took the gun from my waistband, made a face at it, and laid it carefully on the bedside table. She pulled my shirt out of my pants all around, and unbuttoned it down the front. I stood quite still. She poked me lightly just below the ribs where some discoloration showed. I winced.
“You’re a sadistic, naked bitch,” I said.
“That’s right,” she murmured. “Isn’t that what you want, a sadistic, masochistic, naked bitch? Do you have any preferences, darling? Any particular way you like to do it? What, no imagination, just sex, sex, sex?” She slipped her hands around my body under my loosened shirt, and pulled me hard against her, and kissed me on the mouth. “At least the man is tall enough for a change,” she whispered. “You don’t know how tired a girl can get, taking a couple of inches off her height just to feed the goddamn male ego! Well, can you take your pants off all by yourself or do you need some help?”
I cleared my throat, and said harshly, “Okay, Bobbie. That’s enough. Cut, as they say in Hollywood.”
It was a gamble, of course. I hadn’t really made up my mind which way to go until the last moment. The safest course would have been to play along, I suppose, but quite apart from the moral aspects, which don’t concern us greatly, there were practical disadvantages to that course of action. I will admit, however, that the thing that swayed me in the end, just a little, was that nice healthy tan and the funny kind of tomboy innocence her face had, close to mine, without all the dramatic movie star makeup.
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