“Does it matter what you like, Spanish?” I asked. “Why did you agree to see me? You didn’t like that; you couldn’t have, considering that I shot and killed your boy-friend last fall. Yet you were just as sweet as sugar to me over the phone. Why? What are you scared of, Spanish?”
She said angrily, “Don’t call me—”
“I’ll call you anything I damn well please,” I said. “And you’ll take it smiling. And we both know why. We both know that the guy I killed last fall was a dirty sneaking murderer who didn’t even have the nerve to do his job right. You didn’t know it last fall when you came storming to the hospital to avenge him—neither did I, for that matter. But we know it now. Don’t we, Spanish? And we know something else, don’t we?”
She whispered, “What else do we know?”
I said, “We know that your brother wasn’t just along for the ride. He had a loaded gun, too; and if I’d taken another trail that morning I’d have been Tony’s pigeon instead of Paul Hagen’s. Do you think Tony would have shot any straighter, Spanish? Or would he have got buck fever too?”
She bowed her head so I could not see her face. Presently she whispered, “What are you going to do?”
I did not speak at once. Then I laughed. It was a harsh and ugly sound in the darkness.
Her head came up quickly. “You didn’t know!” she gasped. “You didn’t know! It was a trick—”
She hit me. I caught her wrists and held her. I don’t like to be hit by anybody, even a woman, without hitting back; if they want to deal with the situation on that plane, they can damn well take the consequences.
I said, “Don’t do that again, Spanish. Just because I’ve got a Ph.D. doesn’t mean I don’t get mad like ordinary people; and you’re spotting me damn close to sixty pounds.” She relaxed slowly. I felt the tension go out of her. I released her. She looked down, rubbing her wrists, and said dully, “I didn’t say anything.”
“You said enough.”
“Do the police—”
“They don’t figure in this. It’s a private venture.”
“How did you—”
“When it happened last fall, I was willing to pass it as an accident. Since then, too many other things have happened; it simply had to fit in somewhere.”
“The police investigated very thoroughly. They didn’t find anything. You can’t prove anything, Dr. Gregory. The fact that… that you bullied me into betraying myself is not evidence.”
I said, “I’m not looking for evidence, Miss Rasmussen. And I want to apologize for my crude behavior. I knew I’d never get anything out of you by being polite. All I want is information. My wife is missing. I’m trying to find her.”
“Your wife! What makes you think Tony—”
“The trail begins with Paul Hagen and Tony. Hagen and I had never met, yet he shot me. We agree now it wasn’t an accident. Since he didn’t know me, he could have had nothing personal against me. It follows that he must simply have been obeying orders. I’m gambling that the people who’ve got my wife—whether she went with them voluntarily or otherwise, there’s some doubt—were also obeying orders, from the same source. If I can find the man who ordered me killed, I’ll have the man who’s got Natalie. Does that make sense?”
She said, “You make it sound like… like a kind of mad conspiracy!”
“Mad is the word, kid,” I said.
“I don’t know whether to believe you or not,” she said. “If Mrs. Gregory is actually missing, why aren’t the police and F.B.I. looking for her?”
“They’re looking,” I said. “But they’re operating on a somewhat different basic theory. They think she’s in hiding. I think she’s been kidnaped. How did you learn the truth about Hagen and your brother? Did Tony break down and tell you?”
She hesitated. After a while she nodded. “He couldn’t keep it to himself, particularly after… after I’d made such a fool of myself at the hospital. I didn’t believe him at first. Deliberate, cold-blooded murder! Why would they do a thing like that, Dr. Gregory? Why?”
“That’s what I was hoping to learn from you.”
She shook her head quickly. “He wouldn’t say. All he said was that… that you had to die. I couldn’t get him to explain.”
“Will you let me talk to him?”
“I can’t stop you,” she said. “But if you’ll wait and let me explain to him what you want… It’s not a trick, is it, Dr. Gregory? You’re not just trying to get evidence against him to take to the police?”
I said, “If I got a kick out of turning people over to the police, you’d be behind bars right now, Miss Rasmussen.”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I’m remembering that.”
I said, “I’ll call you in the morning.”
She looked at me for a moment, started to speak, checked herself, turned, and walked away. I watched her go out of sight. She walked like a boy, lightly, but without putting any sex into it at all. I looked around, got my bearings, and made my way back to the car.
He must have been crouching behind the spare tire, which, in that model, has been brought back into the open and wrapped in tin just as it was on the cars in which I first learned to drive. That’s called modern design. I don’t know whether I heard him or caught the shadowy movement out of the corner of my eyes as I was putting the key into the lock; all I knew was that it was time to hit the dirt, gabardine suit or no gabardine suit. As I dropped, I felt the tug at the back of my coat and the thin, cold, painless sensations of a razor-edged blade parting the skin.
I struck the ground and rolled, knowing that he was hovering above me like a hunting hawk, looking for an opening; I reversed myself suddenly, rolled against him, brought him down on top of me, and kicked myself clear. Then I was on my feet, and he was coming up. I kicked him in the face—it was like dealing with a snake; I didn’t dare get close enough to use my hands. He went over and rolled away and it was my turn to stalk after him, waiting for a chance; but I hadn’t jarred him loose from the knife, and I couldn’t see how to close in without letting him use it again. He cut at my legs. I jumped back, and he got his feet under him and crouched there. The knife was a splinter of light in the darkness. He swore at me in Spanish, which is a good language for the purpose.
I thought of the .270 and the three boxes of shells locked up with my camping gear in the trunk of the car. To hell with the shells; all I needed was the gun. It would have been a pleasure to use the butt on him. There was nothing to be gained by running; he was younger than I and had not spent most of the past few months in a hospital bed. Besides, I didn’t want to run. If you spend enough time outdoors with a gun in your hands, you establish a certain picture of yourself in your own mind: the picture of a guy who can take care of himself. It may be a childish ideal; it may even be a fake; but you don’t betray it by running from a hopped-up kid with a switchblade knife.
I reached slowly into my pants and brought out my pocket knife. It was the boy-scout pattern with screw-driver, leather-punch, and can-opener. The cutting blade is about two and a half inches long. I opened it without taking my eyes off the boy in front of me.
“Antonio,” I said softly. “Killer Rasmussen.”
I started moving forward. He hesitated, and started moving back. He did some weaving and feinting. I paid no attention. We shuffled slowly along in a curious kind of rhythm. His black hair was hanging into his eyes. His nose was bleeding from my kick and the blood was dripping from his chin. He reached the Pontiac and began sliding sideways along it. I had put it where the angle between two walls made enough of a pull-out to get it off the street; he sidled along the door and fender and reached the adobe wall and the end of the line. I could feel blood warm and wet all down my back.
“What’s the matter, Killer?” I whispered. “You want me to turn my back again, is that it?”
He made a sound in his throat and lunged. I watched a fencing match once, in college. The thing I noted particularly was that in the epee bouts, where the target is any part of the
body, the good ones did not pay much attention to the torso. They made their points off the other man’s sword-arm; after all, it was closer. I watched the knife come driving at me; when it was within range, I reached in past it and cut, at the same time stepping forward and aside to meet his body with hip and shoulder.
The shock was considerable for a recent invalid; but I managed to keep my feet. His head was at my shoulder; I slammed my knife-hand at it, using the hilt for brass knuckles since I couldn’t twist around to get the blade into action. I had him pinned between me and the fender of the car. He was making a lot of noise. I hammered his head again, my left hand groping for his right, not knowing whether it was still armed or not. I turned and slammed a knee into him, butted him in the face, slugged him in the stomach, and remembered that I had a knife. I stepped back to see where to put it. Deprived of my support, he fell to the ground. The switchblade knife was lying six feet away. I walked up to him stiffly, and toyed with the notion of slitting his throat. At the moment, the idea seemed to have a lot of merit…
The red front door was locked when we reached it. I worked the knocker, which was shaped like a horseshoe, I guess for good luck. I used it and got no response. It did not seem to be working very well, either as a knocker or as a good luck charm. After about thirty seconds of waiting, I tried the latch. It gave. I pushed the door open, got a fresh grip on the boy, and hauled him inside. There was light in the living room; and light also down the hall to the left.
“Tony?” the girl’s voice called, from that direction. “Who’s there? Tony?”
I dragged my burden that way. We met in the bedroom doorway. Nina Rasmussen had next to no clothes on. She gave a little gasp, and grabbed a dress from the back of a chair. Sometimes her reactions were very naïve and corny. I had been married too long to go into a frenzy at the mere sight of a female without a dress on. She backed away still farther as I came across the room. I reached the bed and dumped my silent companion upon it.
TWELVE
I KILLED HIM three times in my sleep. I tore his throat out, cut his heart out, and opened him up from crotch to breastbone. Maybe I was regretting lost opportunities. It wasn’t a restful night. In the morning I got up and cleaned up the bathroom, where I had made a gory mess patching myself clumsily with the little first-aid kit I keep in the car, after first sneaking into the hotel by a side door. I rolled up the clothes I had been wearing and locked them in my suitcase so they wouldn’t scare the maid when she came in to make the bed. I shaved, put on slacks and a loose wool shirt, and went to breakfast in the dining room, a low, wide-open room with lots of tables, pleasant enough, but without the character of the bar. I ordered eggs, orange juice, toast, and coffee from a girl in Mexican costume. She went away. I leaned back to wait and straightened up again; I should have gone to a drugstore and sat on a backless stool.
A shadow fell on the table, and a voice I recognized said, “Good morning, Dr. Gregory. You’re up early.”
“That makes two of us,” I said. “Sit down, Van.”
He looked down at me for a moment longer. “You’re looking well,” he said. “Congratulations on a complete recovery.” He made as if to slap me on the back.
I said, “If you’ve got any use for that hand, better take it away before I bite it off at the elbow.”
He withdrew the hand and laughed, pulled out a chair and sat down. “For a theoretical scientist, you have a practical knack of surviving some very awkward situations, Dr. Gregory.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “And where the hell were you, may I ask?”
“Not there,” he said. “The report only reached me around midnight.”
“And your men?” I said. “All paralyzed?”
“One man,” he said. “How big a staff do you think I maintain on the appropriation they give us? And how many bright and well-trained young men are attracted by the salaries we can afford to pay? When they do have training it usually isn’t police training. Maybe you’re lucky he didn’t try to intervene, considering the vague notion most of them have of handling a gun. After all, it’s not supposed to be a shooting job; we’re supposed to get help when we want somebody arrested.” Van Horn grimaced. “Anyway, he was watching you, not the car; he had no way of knowing the boy was lying in wait for you there. Before he could act, you had the situation well in hand.”
I leaned back cautiously, so the girl in the Mexican costume could set the table. “Had breakfast?” I asked. “Well, how about a cup of coffee?”
“I’ll have coffee,” he agreed. The girl went away. He said, “Do you mind telling me what you’re trying to do up here? Besides get yourself killed, I mean.”
I said, “What makes it any of your damn business, Van? I’ve been suspended from my job; that lets me out as far as you’re concerned.”
“No,” he said, “it doesn’t. You’ve still got information in your head that certain people would give a great deal for. Come on back to Albuquerque and settle down where I can keep an eye on you.”
I said, “You go to hell.” I grinned at him. We had always understood each other, in a subtle sort of way; at least enough that we didn’t have to be polite to each other. “You can’t have it both ways, Van. When the Government of the United States decides that I’m trustworthy enough to be paid a salary again, I’ll think about taking orders from its hired hands even when they aren’t directly my superiors. In the meantime I’m an unreliable sonofabitch without a string on me. So run along and stop pushing free citizens around.”
He said, “You know perfectly well that your suspension wasn’t meant as a reflection upon your personal—”
“It may not be a reflection on my character, but it sure as hell puts a crimp in my income. What do you want for nothing?”
He said, “I don’t want you to disappear to turn up with your head blown off or a knife in your back.”
I said, “I’ve been taking care of myself with fair success and no help from you. What are you going to do if I come back to Albuquerque, sleep at the foot of my bed like a police dog? If somebody wants me dead, and can find somebody with a little guts and brains to do the job, I’ll be dead, here or in Albuquerque. If he can’t produce any better homicidal talent than I’ve met so far, I’m reasonably safe anywhere. In any case, there’s no indication that anybody’s interested in picking my brains with anything more delicate than a .30-30 bullet. And, to put it very bluntly, what the hell’s the difference to you and the Project whether I’m alive or dead? You’re not using me anyway.”
He looked at me for a moment, and looked down at his fingers, busy filling his pipe. “I’m sorry you feel that way,” he said.
“I don’t feel that way,” I said. “I’ve only worked for the government for slightly more than a third of my total life. I don’t expect them to have developed any faith in my loyalty and discretion in that brief space of time. After all, it’s only twelve years.”
He said, “Dr. Gregory—”
“Don’t give me that line about protecting me from having to make a terrible choice,” I said. “I know what’s expected of me if somebody calls up and offers to trade me Natalie’s life for certain documents or figures. It’s something we all live with; and it’s something against which you can’t protect us, because they don’t have to telegraph their punch with a stupid kidnaping to do it. All it takes is a phone call, or maybe an envelope with a candid photograph inside, and a hint to the effect that a gun could take the place of the camera. I don’t guarantee that I’d react the way you’d want me to; but that’s something you can’t tell about anybody, since it’s something no man can tell about himself. But that’s not what you’re worrying about, is it? Because you don’t really think she’s been kidnaped. What you’re worrying about is the possibility that my wife herself should call me up and in dulcet tones ask me to join her in Mexico or Nicaragua or Hong Kong or Vladivostok—with the contents of the laboratory safe.” I looked at him without affection. “Go home, Van. Stop bothering me. There was a tim
e when I thought you were a pretty good guy for what you are. All security agents are pests; but for a pest you weren’t half bad. You seemed to figure that your job was protecting secret information instead of censoring people’s consciences, which was a refreshing approach after some security characters I’ve met. But I guess I overestimated you. After all, your job is to judge people; and if that’s the way you judge me, you’re a flop. Get out of here and let me eat my breakfast in peace.”
He was a funny guy; when I looked at him, his face was quite pale, but his ears were red. He looked down at the loaded pipe in his hand, and put it away in his coat pocket without lighting it. Then he put the pouch away. Then he picked up his hat from a near-by chair and got to his feet, started to say something, thought better of it, and walked away. I almost felt like calling him back and apologizing for being mean to him—almost, but not quite. I finished my meal, paid for it and the extra cup of coffee, left a quarter tip, and went out to the drugstore near by on the Plaza.
The morning air was cold and the sky was cloudy. There were the usual Indians on the street with long black hair tied around with red or blue ribbons that did not make them look at all effeminate; there were the usual old men sitting on the benches in the park-like center of the Plaza. They would sit there all day. Maybe they sat there all night; I had never checked. I went back to my room with my purchases. When I came in, Nina Rasmussen was sitting on the bed facing the door.
I stopped and looked at her. She was wearing an honest-to-God dress for a change; a plain, blue, zip-down-the-front style with no local color. She was wearing stockings and dark pumps with high heels; the girl was dressed fit to kill. It wasn’t a happy thought. There was a purse in her lap. She was holding it tightly.
I said, “Okay. I give up.” I turned slowly to close the door; then, with my back to her, lifted my hands and placed them against the panels, somewhat hampered by the package I was holding. “You can do it,” I said. “A steady hand, a clear eye, and a little courage, is all it takes. Right between the shoulder blades now. I’ll hold still for you.”
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