When I turned around to tell Dr. K. we had made it, he was gone. His knapsack was gone too. I hadn’t heard a thing.
“He must have jumped out when we stopped at the last intersection,” said Wilson, looking back.
“Didn’t you see him in the mirror?”
“I didn’t see a damn thing,” he said. “I was looking ahead.”
He sounded as if he didn’t believe it himself. I’m sure he was wondering the same thing as I was: was it humanly possible, or even inhumanly possible, to snatch a man out of a car without anyone seeing?
Wilson drove more carefully on the main road so that he wouldn’t attract attention. Even so, something alerted the motorcycle cop who tore up the road behind us and signalled Wilson to pull over. I wondered if it was the shiny new automobile, or the Illinois plates, or maybe it was something else.
We came to a stop and the cop brought his bike alongside. He stood there, straddling his machine impassively.
Thoughts started racing through my mind. The car was stolen; it would not have been reported yet—unless someone had fixed that phone line to Newfane and called ahead specially. I was carrying a gun I did not have a license for, and I was in the company of a man who was a known criminal. On top of that, this was Vermont, and if they wanted to get technical about it, I was not licensed to work anywhere in this state. If the cop felt like dragging us in for questioning, I did not have to tell them anything, but I’d get thirty days and my Chicago license would be shot.
Then there would be Wilson in the next room, spinning his version of events. He was a sharp operator and a quick thinker. He could call on some big hitters from back home. I knew who the fall guy would be.
We had to persuade the cop to let us go.
Wilson and I exchanged looks and got out. Wilson extracted a five from his pocket and palmed it. Small-town traffic cops don’t like motorists from the big city, but a fin is a good soother.
The cop was perfectly still. He was wearing a helmet and goggles, and one of those leather masks they wear when it drops below freezing. His goggles were dark tinted, with no sign of eyes behind them.
“Good day, officer,” said Wilson.
“Stay there,” growled the cop, his gloved hand on his holster, and we both froze two paces away.
Seconds passed and a truck went past. The cop did not move a muscle. It was as though he was welded to his bike.
“We’re not moving,” said Wilson. “Do you want to see a driver’s license now?”
The cop did not reply. The truck dwindled into the distance and disappeared over the curve of the hill. The Luger was tucked into my waistband under my jacket.
“Stay there,” said the cop, and this time I could hear the buzz in his voice.
The hairs at the back of my neck prickled.
“Nice motorbike you have there,” said Wilson after a pause. He scratched his nose with too-elaborate casualness. “Sorry, I’m not supposed to move, am I?”
A farm truck was approaching from behind us now, struggling on the slight gradient.
“What are we waiting for?” I asked. I was no longer worried about having my license revoked. I was worried about going back to that anthill and facing what was there. I wondered how much time we had before Walter Brown or someone else turned up to take us back.
“Don’t move,” said the cop. “We have to wait here.” It was as though he were listening to a faint voice shouting orders from a long distance away.
“Nice uniform,” said Wilson, leaning closer. “Except the badge, that’s a cheap imitation. Want I should get you a real one?”
“Wait here,” repeated the cop.
So long as we did not move, he didn’t seem to care what we said. Another farm truck ground past and carried on, shedding wisps of hay in its wake. I tensed, wondering if the cop was waiting for the way to be clear before making his move. But he stayed there like a statue.
The Luger is an automatic pistol. I had a round in the chamber, but the safety catch was on. Only morons carry a cocked gun at their waist without the safety. That meant I would have to draw it with my right and release the safety with my left before I could shoot. I had checked where the catch was, but had no chance to practice. There would likely be some fumbling, and with a strange gun I wouldn’t be sure of hitting with the first shot even at close range.
Cops all carry double-action revolvers like the Smith & Wesson .38. With those you can leave the hammer down on an empty chamber, and when you pull the trigger it brings the next chamber around and fires. So no fumbling with a safety. The cop would have to be asleep not to get the first shot.
Moran could probably have drawn and hit the cop from twenty paces faster than you could blink, and done it with any handgun around. Not me; I’ve always ducked out of situations where gunplay was likely to be involved. Nor had I spent much time at a shooting range; if you prepare for a situation it’s more likely to happen. Too many guys convinced themselves that being a crack shot meant they would win every time. Which I guess included Moran.
Wilson scratched his nose again with the same exaggerated action, careful not to make anything that looked like a threatening move. He turned his head to look around, checked out the road, glanced at me.
“Nice day,” Wilson said. There was no sound now but the wind, no cars coming. “How ’bout a cigarette?”
There was no response, and Wilson reached slowly into his pocket, took out a pack of cigarettes, and extracted one with an easy flick. Then he replaced the pack, took out a Ronson, and fired it up. Our eyes met; he glanced a question at me, I nodded.
“Can my friend have one?” he asked. Then, with a smile, “Sorry, didn’t mean to be rude, I should offer you one first.”
Wilson stepped forward, proffering the pack with a flick of the wrist which sent a shower of cigarettes cascading around the cop’s knees. When it came to distraction, Wilson was a pro: the eye automatically follows movement whether you want it to or not. I had the Luger out, safety catch off, and stepped forward.
“Don’t move,” said the cop, as I held the gun against his thigh and pulled the trigger.
The gun jumped in my hand—it had more of a kick than I expected—but the shot went right where I meant it to. I felt as if I had just laid down four of a kind to scoop the pot.
“Uh,” said the cop. It was not a cry of pain, or even surprise. It sounded more like a belch, or the sound when a movie skips a few frames by mistake.
For a stupid second Wilson and the cop and I all looked down at the small, scorched hole in the black leather encasing his leg.
Maybe I should have shot him through the chest, but cold-blooded murder takes some practice. A slug through his thigh wouldn’t kill him, but it would take his mind off stopping us.
“Plug him again,” said Wilson. His hand was in his jacket pocket, and for the first time I wondered if Wilson was armed too.
“Don’t move,” said the cop.
The way he said it really spooked me. There was no change in his expression, no indication he even realised I’d just shot him through the thigh and he should be screaming in pain. I fired again without thinking, and again, and again, and the cop just stood there on his bike. He jumped a little with each impact as though I’d poked him, but that was about all.
After the fourth bullet he seemed to sigh and exhaled a cloud of thick white steam or smoke. It poured out of him, mainly from his mouth, but also out of the bullet holes. He was enveloped in a sort of mist of it all over. Then he toppled over, the motorcycle coming down on his injured leg.
Wilson had started moving as soon as I fired. He was in the driver’s seat, had the engine started, and was already pulling out when I jumped in the car.
“Should have put one in his head to finish him off,” said Wilson. He was looking hard in the rearview mirror, his foot down.
“I did,” I said.
The cop was still moving. He gave no sign of pain, but wriggled out on his elbows and knees with disturbing, an
imal-like agility. Wisps of smoke surrounded him as though he was burning inside. It didn’t bother him much, but he was slowing down.
“He’s not getting up,” I said, looking backwards. The fake cop was scuttling around his bike like an enormous bug, or a turtle that can’t get up when you put it on its back.
What the hell was in those bullets? For that matter, what the hell was in that cop outfit?
“Jesus Christ,” said Wilson as the cop disappeared behind us. “What a freak show this is. Let’s get back to Chi’.”
We drove all the way to Burlington without talking.
VI
Wilson parked the car down a side street well away from the station in case anyone was looking out for it. The two of us shared a compartment for the journey to Chicago’s Union Station. Wilson insisted in putting his valise on the rack by himself, in spite of his shoulder. As the train gained speed we both began to relax. Perhaps we had both been expecting something at the station. The sense of pursuit was wearing off.
“What a caper,” he said at last, offering me a cigarette. “Too bad we didn’t get Dr. K.’s filter. That was some smooth bourbon he made back there. It breaks me up.”
“Too bad,” I agreed.
“I knew that idiot Moran would spoil it for us all,” he said. “Didn’t I tell you he would?”
I nodded, watching the scenery go by. I unfolded the newspaper from the vendor at the station. The world was pretty much the same as we left it. No mushroom men, no nocturnal buzzing horrors, just the usual murders and accidents.
“You ever hear of an outfit called Transnational Development?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said.
“Who are they?”
“Who can tell? They paid top dollar to have some parties rubbed out a year or two back. Where do they come in?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“What are you gonna tell Wade?” asked Wilson. “He’ll want to know what happened to his money.”
The fields and forests went by the window. It was all green and charming, and there were few dark shadows under the trees.
“Did you ever work the Spanish Prisoner?” I asked.
“I worked every game you ever heard of, and then some,” he said.
“Care to explain it to me?”
“It’s easy as pie,” said Wilson. “You make up something the mark wants— like an inheritance, or a cargo of silver, or buried treasure if it’s not too corny. And you make out that he can get it if he spends just a bit of money, paying for papers or bribing an official or something. But you have to make it exclusive; only he can get it. And you keep stringing him on, keeping the something just out of reach, asking for more money each time. Until he runs out of money or gets wise.”
“Pretty close to what we just saw, don’t you think?” I said. “The special filter is the ‘something.’ Kept just out of reach, with a phony story about a crazy German scientist who wanted it to be a secret. And at the end the scientist and the filter disappear, along with the money.”
Wilson’s hand was in his jacket pocket. It looked as if he had something in there, maybe about the right size to be a little Browning .25 automatic. It’s the sort of gun that wins you second prize in a shootout, but it’s just dandy for shooting a man in the back of the head at point-blank range. Or in the front of the head if he happens to be unarmed.
“Nice try,” said Wilson, “but no cigar. You saw what happened to Cristillo and Ricca and the others.”
“Guns with blanks and stage blood,” I said. “It was kinda dim lighting. People make up a lot of what they think they see. There’s a shot and a guy falls down, you assume he’s been hit. But it ain’t necessarily so.”
“Wait a minute,” said Wilson. “Are you saying I was mixed up in a scam?”
“Put it like this: I know your line of work.”
“You’re a hard case, Jones,” he said. “If I was running a game it’d be a lot slicker than that. Hell, maybe I’ll use the idea someday. I’d have a shack in the woods instead of that underground place, and end it with a raid by phony G-men. Hustle the mark away so he’s glad to get out alive, and have the whole show burning down for a grand finale. But Jones—you could have killed the bogus cop. And even I wouldn’t have a guy put a bullet through a car windshield I was driving.”
“It’s a smart piece of trick shooting,” I said. “And I’ve got Dr. K.’s gun: maybe it’s loaded with blanks.”
“Horse feathers,” said Wilson. “Ricca’s brains were blown out ten feet away. You saw the same as I did what Moran did to those guys with the Tommy gun. And what happened to Moran after. You saw what you saw, and you can’t talk a way out of that.”
“Maybe not,” I said.
“If it’s any consolation,” he said, “I’ll be sending some boys with a trunkful of dynamite to blow up that hole and any others like it. Nobody messes with us.”
“I’ll figure out a story for Wade,” I said at last. “About how dealing with the gangs isn’t a smart idea when they turn on each other like dogs.”
“You tell him,” said Wilson.
“And it’s too bad about his investment. But my fee is the same either way.”
“Attaboy,” said Wilson.
After that the adrenaline wore off and I slept for most of the way, or at least dozed. I kept seeing bad things whenever I got to the edge of sleep, and the sound of the tracks turned into an insistent buzzing voice. But I was fully awake as we approached Union Station. Wilson showed his impatience, getting his valise down and looking at his wristwatch.
“You want help carrying that?” I asked. “It looks kinda heavy.”
He gave me a sharp look.
“When we went out with Dr. K., I couldn’t help wondering if maybe you were lagging behind deliberately so you could leave some markers so you could find the way,” I said. “Maybe you came back that night too and put on some white robes to see if you could sneak in and grab the filter.”
“Could’ve been anyone you saw.”
“You see,” I said, “it strikes me that maybe you never were just a cheap sharper—maybe that was all a blind. Maybe you’ve got another line. Maybe it wasn’t Moran that put a wire around Louie Cristillo’s neck. We were supposed to think it was because he’d talked about garrotting Germans in France. But the angle was wrong. Moran was a lot taller than Cristillo, but the angle of the garrotte around his neck, you could see it was done by a shorter guy, not a taller one.”
“Says you.”
The train had jerked to a stop, and I could hear people getting out of other carriages, but neither of us moved.
“And if I was to ask the storekeeper about who’d been in to buy some wire, what do you think he’d tell me? You said you were talking to him in the store this morning.”
“You’d better go back and ask him,” said Wilson. His hand was moving toward his jacket pocket.
“Also, when those pieces of the still were all over the floor, there was one piece that was missing—the filter. It would take someone pretty smart with their hands to get that out, wouldn’t you say, and stash it under his jacket? Someone who didn’t trust Dr. K. to give us the real formula, who wanted to be sure he had a working model. They say people who can’t be trusted don’t trust others.”
“There’s just one problem with your theory, Jones,” Wilson said with a slight smile. “You packed the Luger in your case before we got on the train.”
He was pointing the gun at me from inside his pocket. I gave him my best sneer.
“Try again, buddy, you don’t fool me with that one. Any kid can pretend their finger is a gun.”
He whipped the .25 out of his pocket and flicked the safety with his other hand, as easily as a conjuror pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Wilson was fast, but I move fast too. As he raised the gun I blocked it with my left hand and hit him on the chin with a straight right.
It wasn’t my best, but it was a solid punch and Wilson went down like a sack of potatoes. I took hi
s valise, leaving him mine in exchange. Carrying two would make me conspicuous. I hopped out of the carriage as quick as I could. Knocking a guy out cold isn’t like in the movies where they stay down long enough for the hero to untie the heroine and explain the plot to her.
I figured I had a slow count of ten before he came around.
Wilson was up again right on cue and heading down the platform fast. I watched him pushing through the crowd of grey suits, head scanning from left to right. There were too many suits to cover; rule one of being a private detective is knowing how to blend in. He started to run after a guy in one direction, then stopped when he saw it wasn’t me. He headed off fast the other way. He didn’t realise I had stepped out of the carriage and then into the carriage on the next platform and watched him go.
As an afterthought I went back and picked up my valise. There was a book of chess problems in there I didn’t want to lose. There were also some bullets left in the Luger I might be needing.
VII
The next morning, I presented myself at the residence of Mr. Spencer Wade. I was clean and sober, shaved and washed, brushed and scented. I was in a fresh suit. The smell of mildew never did leave the one I had worn in Newfane. It was a pity I had to get in by climbing over the garden wall, but I didn’t like the look of the two types sitting in a car opposite the entrance. I didn’t know their names, but I knew their business.
The flunky did not bat an eyelid when he opened the house door. He conducted me to the conservatory, and I found myself again in a bamboo armchair among the lush green foliage.
Spencer Wade joined me five minutes later. He seemed anxious until I pointed to the parcel wrapped in brown paper on the glass table in front of me. He was still wearing the signet ring with the wavy-W design.
“I brought you something,” I said. “Seems like your Dr. K. wasn’t a phony after all.”
“That’s excellent news,” he said, unwrapping it from the brown paper and weighing the small cylinder in his hands. “So this is the filter. How does it work?”
“Inside it are ceramic discs, that’s all I know,” I said. “There’s no instruction manual. I guess you can find some smart guys to take it apart and make you a million more just like it.”
The Dulwich Horror & Others Page 19