He forgot one thing.
I liked it that way too.
I let him get right in position before I did what I had to do. I broke his voicebox with one stab of my fingers and while he groped at his throat with surprised urgency, screaming in absolute silence, my fingers wrapped over his and broke every one of the bones from the palm to the tip. My knee didn’t miss. It rammed the socket between his thighs, turning his whole belly into a mass of terrifying pain that bulged his eyes out into great white orbs. He had been too used to winning. He had been too confident that he was the best. He had been too used to watching the terror in others, and now it was on him. It wasn’t a little thing now. There would be no stopping point and he knew it. He started to shake his head, unable to speak at all, consumed by physical agony he had never known before, yet even then, given any release, he would have done anything to avenge the terrible thing done to him.
Before he could I reached up, had his head wrapped in my arm and with one furious twist I broke his neck and threw him off me like a lump of dirt.
There was another one in the palms. He was a little guy with a birthmark on the side of his face and a hole in his chest from one of the shots I threw at them. A loaded but unfired .303 rifle lay under him and a .38 snubnosed revolver was in his belt.
I dragged the remains of the big guy back and piled him on top of the other one, then threw the rifle down on the wet earth. Nature appreciated the gesture, let me see the tableau in her fiery brilliance a few seconds, gave another booming sound of gratefulness for the entertainment and watched me walk away.
Nobody was watching. The noise and fury of the storm had covered it all.
I found the ladder that had put Niger Hoppes on the roof and went up it, reached the slippery wet tiles, and made my way to the other side where he had stood, the place marked by the chunk my .45 had taken out of the ceramic. Clever. He had played it cleverly, covering me from front and rear, thinking ahead the way I would have myself. He would have a feeling for these things too, knowing the possibilities, realizing others could be sensitive to any unseen presence and prepare for an eventuality.
How long had he stood there waiting for the right moment? And was it really Niger Hoppes who had chosen to accomplish the mission? He answered it for me himself. It was lying there in the rain gutter caught in the overlap of the tile, a slender white tube, finger-long, stamped with the name BEZEX.
I tossed it back, satisfied, then climbed down and found his tracks faintly etched in the wet soil, leading to a path and angled out toward the road. I didn’t bother following them. He had had the time and the facilities to make his escape. Now he’d have to choose another time and another place.
Niger Hoppes wasn’t around any longer. I could feel it. The thing was gone.
With very little work from a standard pick I got Camille’s door open. She hadn’t changed positions at all. Her breathing was heavy, forced through accumulation of mucus in her throat. She sniffled once and coughed as I closed the door.
Dave Elroy picked up the package Ernie Bentley had sent me through General Delivery and dropped it off a little after eight. The cloud cover still obscured the sky, the rain falling monotonously, and even at that hour there was a dawnlike quality to the day. He handed me a container of coffee he had brought along, then sat down and listened to what I had to tell him about the night before.
When I finished he whistled through his teeth, grimacing. “You can’t leave those bodies out there.”
“I’m not going to get tied down making big explanations yet. That’s all we need to blow the act.”
“Okay, it’s your baby. Check their ID?”
“Nothing there. The usual assortment of junk that would have been faked. When the police get to them they’ll check out the specifics. At the moment they can’t help one way or another.”
“So who’s on the hook?”
I grinned at him slowly. “That’s where my ‘official’ status gives me a degree of immunity, buddy. Self defense in the line of duty. I’m not worrying about the future. You call in to Newark and let them sweat it out.”
“You sure like to take chances, kiddo,” Dave said.
“What’s it like in town?”
“Crowded,” he told me. “More are coming in all the time. They’re not the tourist types. It’s worse than Los Alamos when the Manhattan Project was in full swing. I hear a dozen people have been rounded up on general charges and are being held incommunicado in a government depot until the air clears. The hustlers saw them coming and cleared out overnight. You can’t even find a bookie in town.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“What’s with the package?” Dave asked.
I opened the wrapping and took the top off the box inside. A pair of finger-length inhalers made of white plastic bearing the Bezex label were nestled inside with Ernie’s note on top of them. I looked at the addresses he delivered the real things to, then went over his explanation of how he had cut their effectiveness in half. If anybody used them they’d be needing another in a hurry. I peeled off the cellophane wrapper from one of the deadly little containers, remembering the way Ernie used to look when he read one of the reports, thinking we were the hard cases. Hell, he was in a class by himself. He invented death and we just pushed the buttons. What he didn’t invent was the way I could pull the switch on Niger Hoppes, hoping it was Hoppes who got the cyanide capsule and not some poor slob who didn’t deserve a killer’s death. The best idea he offered was spotting the samples around. I dropped the capsule in my coat pocket and put the other one in my shaving kit, then handed Dave the list of stores that would have the Bezex.
I said, “Check with the owners of these places and get a description of anyone who buys the things. As far as they’re concerned, you’re a follow-up representative for the company and make it look good.”
“And if there’s a contact?”
“Cover it. Stay with him out of sight and get to me through Charlie Corbinet. I won’t check in around here at all. It’s better if I keep moving. Just don’t close in on the guy unless you have help.”
“Hell, Tiger, I’ve handled them before.”
“This is a top gun, buddy. Your action has been investigative more than trigger jobs. If you get that close and you’re sure of your man, don’t take a chance. Kill him.”
“No talk?”
“No talk,” I repeated. “There isn’t time for it. We want Agrounsky, not Niger Hoppes. He’s only an obstacle.”
Dave lit a smoke and smiled at me across the room. “You guys are like fighter pilots during the war. One of you has to be eliminated so the bombers can either get through or be shot down.”
“So let’s keep the odds on our side,” I said. “What are you packing?”
“A .38 and a shiv on my leg.”
“Remember your training.”
“How could I ever forget it?” He laughed. “Take care, Tiger. You’re the real target.” He went out, shutting the door quietly, and I heard his car start up and drive off. I piled all my loose clothes into a laundry bag, threw them in the back seat of my own car and hung a Do Not Disturb sign on the door of my room. I didn’t want any cleaning woman coming in and finding that hole in the closet and the chipped brick from the wall just yet. There was time enough for that when somebody stumbled over the bodies in the palm grove.
I rapped on Camille’s door three times before I heard her stir. She came awake slowly, got out of bed and walked across to open the door and peer at me through the opening. I got a sleepy smile and stepped inside. She had my shirt on, clutching it shut at the middle.
“You left me,” she accused.
“The way you were sleeping I didn’t want to bother you.” She tucked her head against my shoulder a moment, then looked up at me. “It’s my fault, really,” she said. “After seeing
... that man, well, I took a couple of sleeping pills and on top of the excitement I sort of faded out.” Her nose crinkled and she stifled a sneeze. He
r eyes had a watery glaze and I could hear a wheezing as she talked.
“Forget it. You needed it.”
“Has ... anything happened?”
“Plenty. You slept through it all.”
“Can you ... ?”
I knew what she was going to say and shook my head. “Get dressed. We’re moving out.”
Without another word she nodded and turned back to take her clothes off the hangers in the closet. Outside, the rain hammered down and from afar off there was a majestic rumble of thunder as the storm paraded by over the state.
Camille went into the bathroom to dress and I sat on the edge of the bed waiting for her to finish. Beside her handbag on the night table was a packet with the top torn off, a prescription issued to her from a New York pharmacy with the instructions to take one or two capsules before bedtime. Idly, I flicked the ten remaining from the original dozen back in the envelope and stuck it in her bag.
And outside the world churned in utter anxiety, stirred by contemptuous nature who laughed gleefully at the pitiful efforts being made to emulate her strength and fury.
Outside was a killer and a team behind him checking and double checking, following every lead, hard on each trail that would take them to the ultimate survival factor.
Someplace out there Agrounsky was still sitting, coming to his decision, and sooner or later something or someone was going to make it for him. With all the deviousness of a warped mind, he had chosen his place well. He had left no track, no trace. The hungry animal of embittered philosophy had commandeered a genius’ mind and guided it to where it could do the most damage. Now it just sat and ate away at the vital parts until it was self-consumed by its own destructiveness.
I picked up the phone and dialed Vincent Small’s number. It rang a half dozen times before a querulous voice said, “Hello?”
“Small?”
“Yes, this is he.”
“Mann, Vincent. You alone?”
“Quite. There are ... policemen outside.”
“Everything all right?”
There was a hesitation before he said, “Yes. I’m all right.” My voice felt tight and edgy. “Talk to me, friend.”
“There’s nothing really. It’s just that ...”
“Well?”
He sounded tired, all the jubilance he’d had when we first met gone from him now. “I ... you remember how we asked the realtors about Louis possibly buying a place somewhere?”
“Yeah. What about it?”
“I don’t know. One of them called last night. He said there was another man asking the same thing.”
“Local?”
“No ... a stranger. He only called because he wanted to locate Louis if he was interested in property. He had a few sites available.”
“Any description?”
“Very vague, that’s all. The man had on dark glasses and, well ... it was raining out and he had on a slicker with a hat pulled down low so he really didn’t get a good look at him.”
“Then why are you scared?” I asked deliberately.
Vincent Small didn’t answer at first. He took a long time before he said, “I called some of the other real estate people. He was there too.”
“You’re not saying it all, Vince.”
I heard his swallow audibly, then he blurted out, “The first one told him we had been asking the same thing too. He didn’t mean anything. He just said it and ...”
“Did you call Boster?”
“Yes.” His voice turned tinny as he said, “He ... didn’t answer. It may not mean anything....”
As quietly as I could, trying not to scare him, I said, “You call in those cops and have them sit there beside you. Don’t you let anyone else in unless you know they’re from the police. You sit tight, understand?”
“Yes, I understand.”
He was still talking when I held the button down long enough to break the connection, then dialed Claude Boster’s home.
Nobody answered the ring.
She came out as I put the phone back, saw my face and said,
“What is it, Tiger?”
“It’s breaking.” I looked at her, debated the advisability of leaving her alone, realizing she could be used as a lever against me if it became necessary, then said, “Let’s go, kid. You stay with me.”
She didn’t argue and didn’t ask questions. She went out and got in the car, her eyes following me all the way as I went around and got in under the wheel.
I looked up at the sky and somehow I could feel the thing again. It was out there waiting. I cut by the spot where two men were still sprawled in the brush with sightless eyes open to the rain, bodies stiff in the penalty of death, waiting to be found and remembered, then angled up the drive and took the highway back to town.
The gas gauge was almost on empty, so I stopped at the nearest service station and told the attendant to fill up the tank. While he did I went inside to the pay phone and dropped a dime in the slot, then dialed Captain Hardecker’s number.
When the desk sergeant put me through I said, “Mann, Captain. I need a favor.”
“Naturally.” There was something funny about the. way he said it.
“Okay, do I ask or not?”
“You’re sharp, Tiger.” I heard a pencil rap against the phone and he added, “They’ve removed your cooperation factor.”
“Nice of them.”
“My information on you gets wilder all the time. Nobody tells me anything except about you.”
“I’m available.”
“To me, but not to them. They’d like very much to have you out of the picture.”
“Sure, I know.”
“And what’s the favor?”
“Do I get it?”
“Why not? I have the feeling that if you’re forced to you could trade goodies with me.”
“If I have to,” I said.
“So ask.”
“Call your men outside of Claude Boster’s place. I want to see him.”
“Consider it done. You’re on the hot sheet and they’ve been given some pertinent instructions over my authority to nail you, old feller, but in this district I still pull a little weight. I may need some excuse to explain the move if the roof comes in though.”
“You have it then. Will you hold it?”
“Shoot.”
“Two dead men in the palms beside my hotel. I killed them both. The bullet hole in the room will fit the picture so use it as a diversion. I’ll give you the details later.”
It stopped him a second, then he told me, “That comes under county business.”
“The sheriff will be glad to have your help, Captain. Inform the boys pushing you of what happened and you’ll see some jumping after they identify the characters. It’ll make you look good.” I glanced at my watch. “Give me an hour first.”
“No more. If I had any sense I’d play this by the book and roll all over you.”
“There’s no job security in being dead,” I told him and put the receiver back.
The attendant had filled the tank, checked the oil and took the bill from my hand. He gave me back the change wishing I had never stopped there in the first place because he was soaking wet and tired of bothering with outsiders who didn’t know enough to stay out of the rain.
I got in the car and turned the key.
Camille laid her hand on top of mine. “Tiger?” she said tentatively.
“I’m scared, kid,” I told her.
CHAPTER 11
The two cops in the prowl car had discreetly pulled up fifty feet away from Claude Boster’s drive to avoid seeing me in case they had to answer questions later, but both of them made a careful check through the rear window and satisfied it was me, went back to their conversation. Footprints in the wet lawn made a continuous path around the house, evidence of constant patrolling, an occasional rain drenched butt flipped here and there.
I rang the bell, waited, looked back at Camille who was peering through the dripping windshield anxi
ously, then rang again. When nobody answered I told her to wait, then went around and tried the back door. That brought no response either.
The only other place he could be was in the workshop and if he had the phone cut off it would explain his silence.
My feet slipping on the wet grass, I cut diagonally across to the gravel path, reached the door, and hammered on it. I called to him, the heavy air muting my voice. I kicked at the bottom of it, then put my ear against its solid bulk and listened.
Inside there was the faintest tinkling sound, that of glass breaking against concrete. I said, “Damn it!” softly. I tried the knob of the door again, but knew it would be no use. Even the .45 couldn’t tear those locks loose in time. I hugged the side of the building, edged around the side under one of the windows, hoisted myself up enough to see part of the unlit gray interior of the building, then figured the odds and swore again.
Someone cornered there could take me apart with no trouble at all. A shot fired from the inside wouldn’t be heard at all, an escape would be quick and easy with the cops pulled off their beat. He could even have watched the entire action, realizing why it had happened, and could have waited for me knowing it would be worth while.
But I couldn’t take the chance.
I swung the nose of the .45 against the window, smashed it, broke out the jagged shards left in the frame, then tore the meta! blinds out and threw them down behind me. It wasn’t time to think or consider the consequences. It had to be done now.
My hands grabbed the sill, I lunged in and over with one motion and fell hands out to the top of a bench, the gun almost going out of my fingers. I didn’t stop ... I kept on rolling, got to my hands and knees and skittered beneath a bench to a packing crate and crouched behind it.
For five seconds I had been exposed. An expert marksman would have had the time.
The By-Pass Control Page 19