The Infiltrators

by Donald Hamilton

  Walter Maxon started to speak impulsively, and checked himself. He licked his lips, and asked quietly, “Why?”

  “For the reason she stated. She’s an intelligent person and she knows me quite well. She knows there is only one thing that could cause me to betray the trust of a client and… and friend, as I did.”

  Maxon asked softly, “Blackmail?”

  Baron nodded. “A firm like this is very vulnerable. It was demonstrated to me, quite convincingly, how we could be destroyed in a very brief space of time if I did not agree to what was asked of me. There were large corporate clients who were already uneasy because of Madeleine’s troubles… Well, never mind the details; but there were also, I’m afraid, specific instances where we had, as they say, sailed a little too close to the wind. At least it could be made to look as if we had, and with one of our attorneys—a photogenic and newsworthy young female attorney—already indicted for a serious crime, the publicity would have ruined us.”

  “Exactly what were you supposed to do?” I asked.

  He shrugged his big shoulders heavily. “Exactly what I did do. She was to be rendered harmless. A confession would be satisfactory. With her husband already missing under incriminating circumstances, she would be no further threat to anybody as his confessed accomplice. No matter what she dug up later she wouldn’t get anybody to take her seriously, not after admitting her guilt, not even if she were treated leniently by the law and allowed probation or a suspended sentence. But her credibility had to be destroyed by a confession, I was told; that was mandatory. Either that, or she must be tucked away safely in a penitentiary after a conviction that would serve the same purpose.” He grimaced. “So I concentrated on getting the best bargain I could out of the prosecution… But you know what happened. She wouldn’t accept any agreement that involved a guilty plea. She left me no choice at all. The evidence against her wasn’t really overwhelming and I could probably have created doubts in the minds of the jurors… And there were legal maneuvers I could have tried that might well have proved effective. I simply did not try them. You know the result. I have found it a hard thing to live with, these past eight years.”

  Maxon started to speak again, but changed his mind, improving my opinion of him. At least he knew when to keep his mouth shut.

  I spoke to Baron: “How were the demands presented?”

  “By telephone.”

  “And you threw to the wolves an innocent young woman of whom you were rather fond on the strength of one mysterious phone call?” When he didn’t speak, I said, “I see. There had been other cases. They were called to your attention. Object lessons, so to speak.”

  He nodded. “The voice listed three examples. I could investigate them, if I liked, before making up my mind. One didn’t require investigation. It involved a client of ours who’d apparently persisted with a suit after being warned to settle. Of course we’d had no suspicion at the time, although I’d noticed that he seemed to be under heavy pressure of some kind. We won the case for him. Three months later he shot himself, after some rather messy private affairs were made public—he was a man whose reputation for rectitude was very important to him. I checked out the other two situations. They were farther afield—one was in another state—but both had ended in disastrous publicity for the individuals and organizations involved.”

  “Did the caller give a name?” I asked. When Baron hesitated, I said, “A name like Tolliver, perhaps?”

  “I see!” Baron nodded slowly. “So that’s what you’re really here about. Chief Cordoba considered that story about civil rights a bit thin. Well, I’m happy to learn that something is being done about it at last; and I’m relieved to have my own sin off my chest. What… what do you plan to do, Mr. Helm?”

  “About you?” I shook my head. “Legal ethics don’t concern me, Mr. Baron. Mrs. Ellershaw will want her reputation cleared eventually; what further compensation she’ll require for the career and the years that were stolen from her is up to her.”

  He said, “I would have done my best to make it up to her in any case.”

  I said, “However, I think for the moment it’s best to leave the situation as it stands. Her exoneration can come later. You can thrash it out with her then. For the moment, helping us, she’ll be more effective in her present status as a lady still trying desperately, and perhaps hopelessly, to regain the good name and the civil rights that were taken from her by the court’s decision.” I glanced at Maxon. “I hope we can count on your cooperation, Mr. Maxon.”

  He hesitated. “I’ll do whatever Madeleine wants.”

  I said, “She’s agreed to help us out, and I think she’ll appreciate any assistance you can give us, even if it merely involves sitting on your hands and keeping your mouth shut. You’ve probably already gathered that this is not a simple case of one young woman being ruthlessly crushed when she got in somebody’s way. It’s not even a local phenomenon. It’s nationwide, and it’s been building for nine or ten years, maybe even longer. We suspect that the focus of the infection is somewhere in this general area. If your active help is needed, you’ll be asked. In the meantime I hope you won’t make any grand gestures that’ll louse things up for us, like stamping the tainted dust of Baron and Walsh off your shoes, with loud speeches of moral condemnation.”

  “I understand.”

  I looked back to Baron. “I think we’ve got certain things in common, sir,” I said. “You’d like to preserve your firm and your reputation while at the same time setting right, as far as possible, the injustice for which you were responsible. As far as Mrs. Ellershaw is concerned, she’s very bitter at the moment, as you’ve heard, but I think she can be persuaded to be reasonable. However, there’s still the mysterious Mr. Tolliver, and he may not like the way you’re now giving aid and comfort to someone he’s gone to considerable lengths to eliminate, one way or another. So it’s in your interest to help us identify and deal with him, so we can get him out of your hair.” I paused, watching him. “You didn’t happen to recognize the voice, by any chance?”

  Baron hesitated briefly. “He used some kind of a distorting device on the phone that made it sound tinny and unnatural. But…”

  “Yes?”

  The big man cleared his throat. “Mr. Helm, I may be absolutely wrong in my suspicions. I have no evidence at all… But you say that this national conspiracy, or whatever it is, has been developing for some ten years, and that it’s run from somewhere around here?”

  I shrugged. “That’s the assumption upon which I’m operating. There are undoubtedly agents and teams investigating other possible areas, but I was told this was the most promising lead we had. Whom do you suspect, Mr. Baron?”

  He shook his head doubtfully. “I hate to make wild accusations, but there’s a certain individual who arrived in Santa Fe about a dozen years ago… The voice on the phone used some seagoing turns of speech that seemed familiar. I don’t want to discuss this with you further. I never even said it—and you, young Walter, never heard it. But I suggest, Mr. Helm, that you take a good look at a certain Admiral Jasper Lowery. Good day, sir.”

  Going to the door, I looked back. Baron had risen to watch me leave. I could read nothing in his expression; but he certainly was big, standing there in his fine, high-ceilinged office in the sunlight from the big windows.

  “Mr. Helm. Just one more thing.”

  “Yes, Mr. Baron.”

  “When you speak to Madeleine of this…” He paused, and went on: “It would be frivolous to talk of regrets or apologies. But please assure her that the interim position I offered is hers if she needs employment and can bring herself to work here again; and that I will in any case find a legal remedy for her situation, regardless of the cost to myself or the firm, whenever you feel the time is appropriate.”

  Leaving, I wondered what the two men remaining would have to say to each other, Madeleine’s devoted young admirer and her reluctant old betrayer. It should make for an interesting conversation. Downstairs, I saw
no sign of her, and I turned to the blond receptionist to ask the question; but before I could speak, my troubled lady emerged from the alcove behind the stairs with her face freshly washed and her lipstick freshly applied and her hair freshly combed. She let me hold for her the quilted jacket she’d taken off; and she zipped it up as we emerged on the portal, although the day had warmed up considerably while we were inside.

  “Well?” she asked at last, as we started for the street.

  “Great performance, Mrs. Barrymore.”

  Her face was pale with the strain of the scene she’d just been through, but she tried to shrug in a matter-of-fact way. “It wasn’t as if I hadn’t played the part before. All I had to do was remember all the awful, whiny, poor-little-me routines I put on for you right after I got out, and edit them slightly for a new audience.”

  “A little more than that, wasn’t it? You threw everything at him but the sink, suspicions you’d never hinted at before.”

  Her shoulders moved awkwardly under the violet ski jacket. “You needed a paranoid lady; you got one. I mean, you can suspect anybody if you try hard enough; so in order to shake them up, as you wanted, I dredged up all the ugly disloyal little thoughts I’d never really allowed myself to… Matt!” She stopped to stare at me, her face suddenly quite bloodless under the Arizona tan. “Matt, I wasn’t right, was I?”

  I said, “Mrs. E, you hit the jackpot.”

  “Oh, no!”

  She’d stopped, beside me. I stopped and turned to look at her. “You really didn’t know?”

  After a lengthy silence, she said almost inaudibly, “Maybe I didn’t want to know. Maybe I never let myself know. Tell me what he said.”

  I said, “Well, the word is you exaggerated just a little. He was not responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, or the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, or the Johnstown Flood. He didn’t even plot to drive you insane by having you sample the lousiest, dirtiest jail cells clear across the country. And he most certainly had nothing to do with the recent attempts on your life. But he damn well did allow you to be sent up, kind of by default.”

  She licked her lips. “I guess I must have realized that when I looked over the transcript you lent me. I just didn’t want to face it.” She turned away from me and started walking again. I saw her throat work convulsively, and her voice had a choked sound when she spoke again: “Go on. Tell me everything.”

  Keeping pace with her, I gave it to her more or less verbatim, ending up with: “So you’ve got employment of sorts if you want it, and exoneration when you want it.”

  She didn’t seem to hear me. She said softly, “I used to worship him, Matt! I mean, really. If… if some time when we were working together he’d asked me to please slip off my shoes and panty hose and lie down on the couch and haul up my skirt, I’d have been a little sad because it would have meant the end of a working relationship I treasured, but I wouldn’t have hesitated for a moment, at least not before I was married. Of course he never did. One of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life was to walk in there today, like that, and say all those terrible things to him. But I must have known subconsciously… I must have needed to know, one way or the other.”

  I said, “Of course you realize that you’re free now.”

  She glanced at me sharply. “I don’t understand.”

  “We’ve got no strings on you anymore. You don’t need us anymore. It was kind of understood that we’d clear your reputation, if at all possible, in return for your help. Well, it’s cleared. All you have to do is go back to Waldemar Baron and tell him to put the legal machinery into motion, and there you’ll be, a respectable citizen once more, entitled to the abject apologies of the society that misjudged you so wickedly and mistreated you so cruelly.”

  She looked at me sharply, disturbed. “Matt, do you really think I’d do that, leave you in the lurch?”

  “No,” I said. “But I had to make sure you understood that you could if you wanted to.”

  She laughed. “And you’re forgetting the fact that somebody’s trying to kill me and I do need you, to keep me alive.”

  I grinned. “There’s that minor problem, to be sure.” I glanced at my watch. “Well, I feel we’ve made some progress, thanks to you. We know considerably more than we did this morning, and if Baron’s to be believed about the voice he heard on the phone, we even have a possible lead to the mysterious Mr. Tolliver. How about a good lunch to celebrate? The Cortez is only a couple of blocks from here.”

  Her face was strained and preoccupied once more. “I suppose it really is a triumph of sorts, but I don’t feel much like celebrating, Matt; and I’m not really dressed for…” Then she glanced at me sharply. “More of the shake-em-up campaign, Mr. Helm?”

  “The idea was to display you in all your old haunts, shockingly coarsened and hardened by your years in the pen, bitter and vengeful and dangerous. Wasn’t it? And if they turned away customers in jeans, these sloppy days, they’d lose half their clientele. But we’d better get there fast before the business-lunch crowd descends on the place.”

  16

  The maitre d’ of the Restaurant Cortez, who was also the proprietor, was named Alfredo Hernandez: a tall, lean, hidalgo-type character, black-haired, with a neat black mustache and a neat black suit. He was very good indeed, recognizing Madeleine immediately and addressing her by name, showing every indication of pleasure at greeting an old customer, even one whose appearance and style of dress showed distressing changes. I noticed that he carefully made no reference to how long she’d been away—the only hint he gave that he was quite aware of where she’d been.

  He also recognized me, although I’d never been a regular; and he said that certainly we could have a booth along the wall, Mr. Helm, this way, please. He maneuvered the heavy, half-round table out of the way to admit us to the semicircular settee, returned the table to a comfortable position, and summoned a waitress to take our drink orders.

  “Whatever you’re having,” Madeleine said when I asked her preference. “Well, a good quick jolt is indicated, I guess. A vodka martini.”

  “It must be ESP,” I said. “Two vodka martinis, please.”

  We sat in silence waiting for the drinks to arrive, watching the place fill up. The decor was turn-of-the-century red-leather-and-plush-and-velvet; you half expected Diamond Jim Brady to swagger in with Lily Langtry on his arm, but, coming from outdoors yourself, you wouldn’t really be able to see him, or her, until your eyes became used to the low light level inside. Very cozy illumination. When a trio of pants-wearing middle-aged ladies stopped by our booth, I thought they were simply pausing to let their eyes get properly accommodated so they could make their way to the table indicated by Hernandez without bumping into anything. Then I saw that the leader of the group was staring at us with an expression of cold disapproval.

  The woman was rather tall and bony, but quite handsome, and her expensively tailored black pantsuit didn’t look too bad on her narrow body. Well, if you like pantsuits. There was a frilly white blouse. Her graying hair was very carefully arranged about her thin face. I thought she was about to address Madeleine; but after a long moment she turned away in a very pointed manner and spoke to her friends instead, saying loudly:

  “Well! I suppose Alfredo is obliged to let in anybody who doesn’t create a disturbance, but one would think an ex-convict would at least have the decency to ask for the back room if she must patronize a respectable restaurant!”

  They swept on, leaving the people at the nearby tables staring our way curiously, or carefully not staring our way curiously. When I looked at Madeleine, there were lines of strain around her mouth, but she spoke with the same dreadful clarity the tall woman had used:

  “In case you didn’t know, Mr. Helm, that mouthy old bitch is Adelaide Lowery. Her mother used to run a cheap boardinghouse in Annapolis, which made it easy for her to grab herself a future admiral. You know the kind of noovow reechies from the East who move out here; and before they�
��ve got their fucking bags unpacked they’re acting like their ancestors came down the Santa Fe Trail by wagon train. Instant old-timers, we call them… I think the waitress wants our orders. What are you eating?”

  We both took the day’s special: sauerbraten. When we were alone once more, Madeleine glanced towards the table where the tall woman had settled and was now conversing very brightly with her friends.

  “Did I sound like a vulgar felon type, I hope?” Madeleine shivered slightly. “Brrrr, it’s like jumping into an icy pool, coming home like this; the first shock is pretty breathtaking. But I guess you can get used to anything, even being a… a second-class citizen, fair game for witches like that.” She swallowed hard. “God, after that little exchange, I feel as if I were sitting here naked. Talk to me, Matt.”

  “You talk to me,” I said. “Tell me about the Lowerys. I suppose that’s the wife. Kind of a coincidence running into her like this, when I heard the name for the first time only half an hour ago.”

  Madeleine shook her head. “Actually, it’s not so strange. She eats here every day, holds court you might say.”

  “What do you think of Baron’s suggestion? Could her husband, this retired admiral, be the Tolliver we’re looking for?”

  “I suppose it’s possible.” Madeleine frowned, thinking hard. “The Lowerys hit Santa Fe—I think it was the year you and I met on the Chavez case—like the hordes of Attila the Hun. Socially speaking, of course. They really took this town by storm. I mean, one day nobody’d ever heard of a Lowery, and the next day everybody knew the name.” Madeleine hesitated. “But shouldn’t we be asking ourselves whether Waldemar really thinks Admiral Lowery is this mysterious and intimidating voice on the phone, or just wants us to think he thinks so.”

  I glanced at her sharply. “When you start suspecting a guy, you go all the way, don’t you? Of course you’ve got a point, but it’s the best lead that’s been offered us so far, because it’s the only lead. To hell with Baron’s motives in suggesting it. We can’t afford not to check it out. So give me the Lowery story as far as you know it, please…”