The Steel Mirror

by Donald Hamilton

  Ann came up to him. He did not answer the question in her eyes. He did not even want to consider the possibility that he had struck down an innocent passerby, who doubtless, in spite of his pain, was carefully taking note of their appearance, and of the beautifully illuminated Illinois license plate staring him in the face from the rear of the convertible ahead.

  Emmett glanced at the shiny wet face of the man, and at the gun in his own hand, and shivered a little; in his mind a sudden clear picture of the man reaching for the weapon and he, John Emmett, instinctively pressing the trigger and becoming a murderer. He held the gun out to Ann.

  “Stick it in the glove compartment,” he said as she frowned at it. “I can handle him without it. But it looks as if you were elected to change the tire.”

  He knew that he did not trust her to hold a gun on the man, either; he could not trust her not to shoot. They were very close to the edge of something dark and irrevocable, but there was still hope as long as nobody else got killed.

  No headlights followed them when they drove off again. The road let them down through a slot in the mountainside where the walls towered black above them and they could hear the rushing water of a mountain stream far below, never seeing it; then the canyon widened again and there were no more trees except for the scattered, stunted desert junipers of the foothills, black in the sudden morning twilight.

  Ann said, “It’s funny, the way there aren’t any trees above a certain point up there; and then there aren’t any below a certain point down here.”

  Her voice sounded rusty with disuse. They had not spoken for several hours.

  Emmett said, “Above the timberline, the cold kills them. Down here they don’t get enough water.”

  She said, “I wish I could wash my hands.”

  He glanced at the slender, grimy, somewhat battered hands she displayed in the light of the dashboard. There did not seem to be much to say about them. If you wanted to make something of them, you could remember her, by way of contrast, in the restaurant in Jepson where they had first talked together, grimacing at her white gloves with fastidious distaste because they were minutely soiled. Perhaps this was the comparison she wanted him to draw, he thought; but a contrast that could be wiped out by a bar of soap and a swab of mercurochrome did not seem to him of any great significance. He thought the contrast in himself, then and now, was rather more important.

  Ann’s voice asked abruptly, “Do you think he’s going to be all right back there?”

  Emmett shrugged. “Somebody’ll find him.”

  “But if he should try to drive… What if he went off the road? He might be killed.”

  He glanced at her. Then he stopped the car and pulled up the emergency brake, and cut the engine. He felt his hands beginning to shake, and his stomach muscles were fluttering as if he had been cold for a long time. After a while he started to fill his pipe. He felt her take it, and the pouch, from his hands. He brushed at the spilled tobacco in his lap.

  “Why don’t you keep your big mouth shut?” he asked savagely. “What did you want us to do, take him to a hospital?”

  She did not answer. He watched her fill the pipe carefully, rather inexpertly, not tamping the tobacco down hard enough; but he did not correct her. When she looked at him, her eyes seemed very large in her pale face, the face smudged with dirt and weariness.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve just got the shakes, is all.” She held out the pipe, but he did not take it. Instead he took her by the shoulders, waited for her face to turn up for the kiss, and kissed her. She buried her face in the shoulder of his jacket.

  “What are we going to do, darling?” she breathed. “What are we going to do?”

  He held her without answering. The sun was rising over the plains visible through the shallow notch of the canyon ahead. He felt the sickening tension inside him somehow relieved by her nearness, and his mind began to work again for the first time in hours. He knew that she was crying soundlessly; and he knew when she had stopped. When she stirred in his arms he released her and, without looking at her, threw off the brake and let the car begin to move down the steep canyon road. When it was rolling, he let in the clutch, starting up the engine.

  “You’ve got lipstick on your mouth,” Ann said. “I didn’t think I had any left.”

  chapter NINETEEN

  He watched her carry her suitcase around the corner of the filling station, which was precariously balanced on a few square feet of level ground between the road and the slope of the canyon wall leading down to the creek below. Standing beside the car, he lit his pipe, feeling already the promise of heat in the early morning sunshine on his back. The tobacco tasted strong and harsh to his tongue. A man in overalls came out of the shack with a sandwich in one hand and a steaming cup of coffee in the other.

  “Fill her,” Emmett said. “Can I use your phone? I want to call Denver.”

  “I reckon,” the man said. He put his cup aside and came forward without haste. “Have the operator tell you what it cost when you’re through.”

  Inside, Emmett could hear sounds of movement through the thin partition at the rear of the office. He looked at the wall for a moment, and studied the long-limbed figure of a girl on the calendar tacked to it. The girl was blonde and was wearing very little except a pair of high-heeled sandals, and reminded him uneasily of Helene Bethke. He turned to the telephone and frowned.

  “Give it a crank,” the attendant shouted, from outside. “Crank like hell and tell the gal your number.”

  Emmett picked up the receiver and wound the crank at the side of the box, filling the office with a tinkling ringing more like the sound of a doorbell, he thought, than like that of a telephone.

  “Give me Denver,” he said when the operator answered. “The Estes Hotel, Denver. I want to speak to Mr. R. Austen Nicholson. Person to person, please.” The operator asked a question. He looked at the instrument in front of him and found the answer. “Mariposa seven four, ring two short, one long.”

  As he waited, he heard Ann suddenly begin to move about again beyond the thin wall, resolutely and a little too noisily, as if determined not to eavesdrop. There was a rush of water from a faucet. The sound surprised him; after a moment he realized that he had not expected the lonely filling station to have running water. There was talk on the telephone; then a voice spoke in his ear.

  “Nicholson here.”

  Emmett said, “This is John Emmett, Mr. Nicholson.”

  “Yes?” The older man’s voice was expressionless, neither in favor of, nor opposed to, John Emmett. It was not, Emmett realized sharply, the voice of a man who had heard a report from an employee with a broken shoulder. He was aware of a small sick sense of panic; the man he had struck must have been found by now. It followed that either the man had no connection with Mr. Nicholson, or he had been in too bad a condition to report to his employer. Emmett thought: Christ, maybe he was from the FBI. But there was no time to think of it now.

  “I’m not alone,” he said into the telephone.

  There was a pause. Mr. Nicholson’s voice asked, “How is she?”

  “Fine,” Emmett said.

  “Is she listening?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you bringing her to me?”

  “No,” Emmett said. “Not directly.”

  “I see.” After another pause, the distant voice asked, “How much do you want, Emmett?”

  Anger tempted Emmett to find out how high the price could be made to go, but he said, “Nothing. All I want is some information and some help.”

  “All I want is my daughter,” the man in Denver said. “Before the police get her.”

  Emmett said, “Well, I’m not going to let anybody railroad a girl into the insane asylum for their own convenience, Mr. Nicholson; on the other hand, if she is off the beam—” He cleared his throat. “You get what I mean, Mr. Nicholson? I mean, she trusts me, more or less. I want to do what’s best for her. I don’t want to make any money
out of it. However, I don’t want to get into any trouble.”

  Mr. Nicholson said harshly, “Don’t you think we’re qualified to judge what’s best for her, young man?”

  “Who’s we?” Emmett asked.

  “Myself, her father. Her doctor and nurse—”

  Emmett said, “That’s a question I wanted to ask. Exactly where was Dr. Kaufman at the time Ann was supposed to be trying to kill herself in Boyne?”

  “Dr. Kaufman?” Mr. Nicholson sounded startled; then he laughed. “Oh, I see!”

  “What do you see, Mr. Nicholson?”

  The older man’s voice said wearily, “Does she claim now that she didn’t try to kill herself?”

  “Yes.”

  “I suppose it’s no use pointing out to you that it’s only eighteen months since she tried it before; and that she’s now trying to claim that that was an accident, even though she admitted at the time… Now she wants us to believe that the latest attempt was Dr. Kaufman trying to murder her? Hell, Emmett,” Ann’s father said roughly, “don’t be gullible. Anyway, Doc was at a University Club dinner that night.”

  Emmett said, “What about checking on it, Mr. Nicholson?”

  “Hell, I was with her the next morning, Emmett. She didn’t say anything then. It’s just something she’s cooked up since to make trouble. If she’d spent as much time learning how to act decent as she has trying to harass her medical attendants…” Emmett remained silent. “Oh, all right,” Mr. Nicholson said. “I’ll put Plaice on it. What else is worrying your goddamned conscience?”

  “Dr. Kissel,” Emmett said.

  There was a pause. “I see.”

  “She wants to see him,” Emmett said. “She thinks he can clear her. If she’s right, if he should say that she was innocent in the French business, that wouldn’t leave her much motive for killing Stevens, would it? I think even the Chicago police would admit that.”

  Mr. Nicholson said, “I doubt it. First of all, since she doesn’t remember, she’s still got the motive, hasn’t she? And second, they’d simply claim we bribed the man. Assuming he says what you hope, young man.”

  Emmett said, “Fortunately, unless you’ve been in contact with him during the past twenty-four hours, there are some pretty reliable witnesses to swear that nobody’s contacted Dr. Kissel. It happens that Dr. Kissel is a little more important, and considerably less accessible, than everybody seems to think. Why do you think I’m calling you, Mr. Nicholson, instead of just driving up to Fairmount and knocking on the door? Because Dr. Kissel isn’t there. He’s working for the government down in New Mexico, and the FBI is keeping an eye on him. That’s why I need you to put pressure on the man in charge, a Mr. Kirkpatrick, to let us see Dr. Kissel…”

  “The FBI!” Mr. Nicholson’s snort was explosive. “And why the hell, young man, should I get involved with the FBI, in addition to my other troubles? Why don’t I just call up the Associated Press and give them the story?”

  Emmett said, “I think Kirkpatrick will agree to keep everything quiet. He doesn’t want publicity any more than you do. You can reach him through the Denver office. Arapahoe six two six two.” He went on in a different tone of voice, “Of course, if you’d prefer for us to try it by ourselves and get picked up trying to crawl through the barbed wire…” There was a period of silence. Then the voice in the telephone, thinned by distance, said, “You’re going to see Dr. Kissel, come hell or high water, is that it?”

  “That’s right, Mr. Nicholson.”

  “Tell me, young man, is this really Ann’s idea, or is it yours?”

  “Well,” Emmett said, “mine, I guess. At least, you could say I’ve taken it over.”

  “I thought so.” The man in Denver hesitated, as if organizing his thoughts. “Suppose I can convince you in some other way,” he went on presently. “All you want to know is what Dr. Kissel is going to say, right? For your own peace of mind; to know you’re doing the right thing for her. Suppose I tell you—”

  “Then you have been in touch with him,” Emmett said quickly.

  There was anger in Mr. Nicholson’s voice when he answered. “Do you think Reinhard Kissel is the only person in the world who knows what my daughter did in France, young man? I only wish that were true. Give me credit for a few human instincts, Emmett, no matter what she’s told you about me—”

  Emmett said, “Ann hasn’t—”

  “I know what she thinks of me, Emmett,” Mr. Nicholson went on. “But before you judge, remember that I’ve given her the finest treatment possible for over three years; I’ve shielded her and protected her; her mother and I have never let her know that we even guessed—”

  Emmett said, “Ann seemed to think you didn’t have any idea until Stevens—”

  “Do you think we wouldn’t check? Do you think I wouldn’t try to find out what had turned my daughter from a normal, rather snippy, young debutante to a suicidal neurotic? And I found out, Emmett. I can show you the reports of investigators who located the survivors of the resistance unit she and her husband were members of in Paris; they all believed Monteux’ wife had betrayed them… I know,” he said as Emmett tried to interrupt, “they could have been deceived or mistaken. But I didn’t stop there. I can show you authenticated photostats of her dossier, completely damning; and of arrest records for those who were caught and executed, all reading identically: Subject arrested on information furnished by Ann Monteux (File 2037-A), wife of gang leader Georges Monteux (still at large)…”

  The door at the rear of the filling station opened and closed, and she came past the window; then she was putting the cheap new suitcase back into the trunk of the car. He saw her turn to look into the dusk of the office where he was standing. Her freshly brushed hair looked light and fluffy in the early morning sunshine, soft and a little disorganized, beginning to escape the discipline of her expensive permanent wave. She had exchanged her wool shirt for a brief scarlet halter that left her shoulders and arms quite bare; she stood for a moment hugging herself as if a little cold.

  Her father’s voice stopped listing the evidence against her. Emmett watched her turn away and get into the car. He did not want to look at her; yet he could not stop looking at her, trying to learn what was the truth.

  “I can get the documents for you in eight hours,” Mr. Nicholson’s voice said in his ear. “Why should I want to slander my own daughter, Emmett? Why should I lie? Goddamn it, young man, do you think I like it?” There was a terrible sincerity in the metallic voice; and Emmett had a momentary vision of how it might be for the parent.

  He said, “Look, Mr. Nicholson, Dr. Kissel is her witness. Don’t you see? For my own peace of mind I’ve got to let her see him.” He hoped it sounded fatuous enough to be convincing.

  When Mr. Nicholson spoke again, he sounded resigned. “All right, I guess I know how you feel. I didn’t want to believe it myself, at first. Maybe I’d like to hear what the man has to say, myself. Call me back this afternoon.”

  “All right, Mr. Nicholson.”

  “Just one thing, Emmett…”

  “Yes?”

  “Just for God’s sake don’t let her get behind you with any kind of a weapon after she learns that you’re actually going to call her bluff and confront her with Kissel. I don’t want to have to cope with two murders in the family.”

  Emmett glanced at the gentle profile of the girl in the car. “What makes you so sure Ann killed Stevens?” he asked.

  “Damn it,” the telephone said, “I have her own word for it, haven’t I? She called me up in hysterics right after beating his brains out and asked me what to do, didn’t she? Why do you think I sent Kaufman and the nurse after her, except to see that she got clear all right?”

  chapter TWENTY

  They crossed the state line into New Mexico in the middle afternoon and stopped in a town where the main street was white glaring concrete wide enough, Emmett thought, to land a large airplane on. In the three-block business section the space along the curb was marked
with neat painted lines for diagonal parking; these still left four clear lanes for traffic in the center. You had the feeling that the stores on the east side of the street did not serve the same customers as those on the west side; that if you lived there you would find it easier to walk a block or two beneath the awnings that sheltered the sidewalk to a store on the same side than it would be to cross the wide street through the burning sunshine to a similar store directly opposite where you were standing; as if the highway had been an obstacle, like a river, dividing the town in two.

  Emmett stood for a moment in the doorway of the drugstore from which he had called Mr. Nicholson again, looking at the fawn-colored convertible parked a dozen spaces away along the sidewalk. It was dusty now; the windshield, headlights, and the front of the fenders splashed with the remains of innumerable insects. When he had first seen it, it had looked like a woman’s car; but now, he reflected, you could tell that a man had been driving it. Somehow a man got a car dirty in not quite the same way that a woman would. He tried to think what was the difference, but his mind was busy with a totally separate problem: how he could be certain that Mr. Nicholson did not mean to double-cross them. After all, once he got his hands on Ann, Mr. Nicholson would have no further incentive for carrying out his part of the bargain. If he could get his daughter safely put away in an institution, Mr. Nicholson could easily deal with John Emmett.

  A slight figure in a scarlet halter and brown slacks rolled above the knees came across the wide street through the sunshine, carrying a large brown paper sack of groceries. Emmett turned away before she could see him and went back through the dusk of the drugstore to the telephone booth. It was too hot to close the door.

  “Denver,” he said. “Arapahoe six two six two.”

  He waited, watching the doorway, but Ann did not come in to look for him. Presently the girl with the nice voice, with whom he had spoken once before, was on the line. “Mr. Kirkpatrick,” he said.