I grinned. “We’re always alert, we never-sleeping guardians of democracy. You know that.”
“Never-sleeping, hell,” said Ellen Blish crudely. “Just what do you claim to have been doing this evening? Well, I guess it wasn’t exactly sleeping, at that.”
“You are a disgusting little snoop,” I said severely. “And why is it that a man’s going to bed with one girl—it was strictly in the line of duty, of course—invariably gets all other females in the neighborhood all worked up, even if they have no designs on the guy themselves? Or have you?” When she didn’t speak, I went on: “Incidentally, you can tell our friend in Washington that I’m kind of allergic to creeping security. He told me quite definitely that if we had any agents up this way who might possibly be of use to me, I would certainly have been informed at the start. What was the point of his lying about it when we were going to meet anyway? That’s the kind of compulsive secrecy that makes me want to lose my lunch.”
Ellen said, “It wasn’t known when you talked with him that we were going to meet, or that I’d be in a position to be useful to you. I’ve been working way inland on a problem that seemed to have very little connection with your job, but at the last moment the people I was working with—the group I’d infiltrated, to use the jargon—picked me to make this delivery on the coast. I couldn’t very well refuse. It was an honor, I was told, a mark of trust and confidence. Well, maybe. Anyway, I had to scramble like hell to catch this ferry. Do I hear apologies?”
“Sure,” I said, “if you want to hear them. And I do have a question. If there’s somebody close enough to Holz to watch him, why doesn’t the guy just pull the trigger and get the job done?”
“Because that’s not his job. He’s a watcher, not a trigger-puller; he’s not up to tackling the Woodman. You’re the specialist in triggers, my friend.”
I nodded and studied her for a moment, knowing that we were far enough north now that there was nothing much inland of us but wilderness, clear across the North American continent. It didn’t seem like the place for a fragile little blonde in a pale blue linen playsuit.
“You’d better watch yourself when you go back to whatever it is you’re doing,” I said. “I figure I’m under suspicion—if nothing else, the fact that Holz is heading this way proves that. If your Communist associates suddenly and unexpectedly picked you to make contact with me, that could mean their top brass has its eye on you, too, and brought us together for some tricky reasons of their own.”
She moved her shoulders briefly. “It’s occurred to me, but there isn’t much I can do about it.”
“Why didn’t you identify yourself when we met in the bar?”
“Your brunette sexpot was sneaking around. I didn’t want her to get any ideas…” Ellen steadied her cup as a series of mild jolts went through the ship; then she drank the last of her chocolate and stood up. “I guess that means we’re docking. I’d better get down to the car deck. Good luck, Eric.”
“The same,” I said.
She was laughing gaily as she left the table, as if we’d just shared a final joke. “Tell that pretty black doggie goodnight for me,” she called in a high sweet voice and was gone.
I waited awhile; then I went out on deck. Visibility was poor, so I can’t say much about the town of Petersburg, only about the dock, and it looked pretty much like any ferry slip in a fog at night. I stood on deck watching the cars drive ashore without knowing which one was being driven by the girl who’d called herself Blish. Checking up on my Communist contact, even to the extent of identifying her transportation, would have been contrary to my orders. Well, Grant Nystrom’s orders.
Then I watched the cars come on board. It should have been an equally profitless occupation since, from my observation post high above the loading ramp, I couldn’t see anything of the drivers. Luck was in my favor, however, if it was luck. Presently a white station wagon nosed its way down to the hole in the ship’s side and out of sight; an elderly Plymouth built back in the days when that particular company was conducting some unique experiments with tortured sheet metal. I knew the car. I’d sat in it once with a gun at my head, far to the south in a town on the banks of the Columbia River.
I drew a long breath and made my way below. I went straight to my truck, resisting the temptation to do a little scouting among the newly loaded cars up forward. We were pulling away from the dock, and barring accidents, murders, or helicopters, whoever had driven the Plymouth aboard would still be on the ship in the morning.
I checked the camper door. My faithful telltales indicated that my guest had either been very clever or had stayed put as I’d told her to. There was no indication that she’d been away from the truck. I stepped inside and turned on the light. Libby sat up in bed abruptly, as if startled out of a sound sleep. Her short, dark hair was tousled and she was wearing a wristwatch and nothing else. She ran her fingers through the hair and glanced at the watch.
“My God, I must have fallen asleep again,” she said, yawning. “What took you so long?”
“Blondie said she was leaving the ship here. I wanted to make sure she did.”
“Did she give you the right coin this time?”
“I hope so. I haven’t had a chance to check it out.”
“Are you going to let me see it?” she asked, swinging her legs out of bed.
“Sure,” I said. “We’re colleagues, aren’t we; fellow soldiers in the secret war against international evil?”
Libby laughed. “You don’t sound as if you trust me very much, darling.”
I grinned and picked up a handful of lacy black stuff that had somehow found its way to the floor and tossed it at her.
“You’d better put this on, for what it’s worth,” I said, “so I can keep my mind on numismatics.”
Actually, sexy as she looked sitting there naked, she wasn’t distracting me at all. I opened the phony quarter and found the tinfoil disk that was supposed to be there, but my mind wasn’t on coins, either, no matter what interesting material they might contain. I was thinking very hard about an Indian called Pete and a car I knew that he knew damn well I knew. Say he’d come this far up the coast on an earlier ferry, which was quite possible. Say he’d left his station wagon in Petersburg, flown north to Anchorage, and returned in time to meet my ship with his rather distinctive old vehicle, the question was why.
It looked as if I was being presented with something clever in the way of decoys, meant to attract my attention to one man while I was being stalked by another.
22
Sitka looked like a city still under construction, which seemed odd considering that it was supposed to be one of the oldest communities on the coast, dating from the days when this far northwestern territory was claimed and governed by Russians. I decided that the unfinished effect was mostly due to the fact that the city fathers had apparently just discovered sidewalks and, mad about their new and unique invention, were laying concrete all over town.
It was raining steadily but not very energetically as the taxi carried me toward a display of totem poles that, I’d been told, was one of the main attractions of the place. This was not, however, my primary reason for going there. I was involved in another of the complicated contact routines some deskbound Communist genius had devised for the benefit of a courier named-Nystrom.
After the ship had docked and the first rush of shoregoing passengers had subsided, I’d taken Hank for a walk so that he wouldn’t forget what dry land looked like—not that any part of this drizzling region could really be called dry. At least the pup’s welfare was the ostensible object of the expedition. Actually, I figured, I was displaying myself on shore with dog and whistle so somebody could get a good look at me for purposes of later recognition.
Hank had been deliriously happy at encountering grass and rocks and trees again after twenty-four hours of doing his stuff on greasy metal. I’d let him enjoy himself for ten minutes by the clock, after which I’d taken him back on board and stuck him into th
e camper to wake up Libby, figuring it was about time the girl got out of bed.
When I strolled off the landing ramp a second time, dogless, a taxi drove up right on schedule. Transporting me through the muddy little town, the cabby gave me a lengthy tourist spiel, telling me all about a pre-Communist Russian gent named Baranov who’d once been uncrowned king of the area; about a fine old Russian church that had burned down; and about the great Good Friday earthquake of a few years back that actually hadn’t affected Sitka much although it had played hell elsewhere along this coast.
His chatter made me uneasy at first, but I came to the conclusion that it held no coded messages to which I was supposed to respond in kind. The guy was just talking because he was nervous, and because he always talked this way to tourists off the boat and wanted our relationship to look perfectly normal.
He let me out by a grove of totem poles standing in front of a neat, park-service-type building, inside which, I was sure, I could learn all about them if I had the time and the desire. The poles themselves were quite impressive: tall, slender timbers, carved and painted, reaching up into the gray sky. The masklike wooden faces were much less garish than I’d been led to expect by photographs I’d seen, and the muted colors went well with the misty day.
But I hadn’t come here to study primitive art, and I went on into the building and made a pretense of taking in the exhibits before wandering into the little movie theater off the lobby. It was dark inside. On the screen, a copperfaced gent was showing the steps involved in totem-pole construction. He reminded me a little of Pete, although Pete was probably not a member of the totem-carving Tlingit tribe.
I found an aisle seat near the rear, as instructed, and settled down to watch. Some time passed, which I spent wondering just what the real Pete was up to and what Hans Holz had in mind for me. Well, there wasn’t much doubt about his basic intention, but I could speculate on whether he’d had himself smuggled aboard the ship to do the job or was waiting for me further up the line.
I became aware that someone had entered the theater by the door I had used, letting in a moment of daylight. A small, slight man paused at my row, murmured an excuse, and made his way past me with some difficulty, since theater seats are seldom spaced adequately for legs as long as mine. After the man had settled down somewhere off to my right, I felt under the seat-arm he’d used to steady himself briefly. I found a small container about the size and shape of a bottle cap stuck there with some kind of tough rubbery contact adhesive.
I pried it loose, and pickup number four was completed, but I felt a little deprived at not having got a chance to use the identification spiel that I could now rattle off quite glibly.
After watching the educational film a little longer, I glanced at my watch like a man afraid of missing his boat and hurried out, leaving my latest contact sitting there in the dark. I’d never got a good look at his face, but Mr. Smith’s boys would have him spotted if they were on the job as they should be—another fish for the dragnet, to be hauled in later, with friends if possible.
The waiting taxi driver returned me to the dock, still spouting his mechanical spiel. I wondered if he’d stop talking when they took him off to jail. When I reached the camper, a little piece of unraveled screen wire that had been caught in the crack of the door a certain way—one of my telltales—was no longer visible.
I hesitated. It could have been done by Libby leaving, of course, or even returning to learn if my mission on shore had been successfully completed. And even if someone else had entered the camper, the chances were slight that they’d planted a bomb, or were waiting inside with gun or knife. Like me, Holz would undoubtedly have orders emphasizing discretion. He would wish to perform a neat and quiet operation that would not reflect discredit on, or draw attention to, his current associates. Alone on the promenade deck at night, I’d be taking a chance, but on this crowded car deck I was reasonably safe.
I opened the door deliberately. Libby was no longer there, but a familiar, stocky, Indian-faced gent was sitting in the dinette. He didn’t really look much like the Tlingit carver in the movie. My fine, big watchdog had his head on the intruder’s knee and was letting his ears be scratched, with a blissful expression on his silly black face.
“Nice dog,” Pete said, glancing at me as casually as if we’d arranged this meeting in advance. “I always like dogs. Can’t say as much for people.”
“Sure,” I said. “I saw you drive aboard last night. Figured you’d be around to see me sooner or later. How about a beer?” I pulled the camper door shut behind me, and turned to the refrigerator. “Tough about Stottman,” I said.
Without looking, I was aware that Pete’s fingers had paused very briefly before continuing their skillful scratching. “What do you know about it?” Pete asked.
I said, “Hell, I found them, man. I’d been out on that Lake—Francois Lake—making contact as ordered. When I came back to the cabin, there they were on the kitchen floor, all three of them. God, what a mess! I just grabbed my stuff and lit out fast, before the cops caught me there knee deep in blood and dead bodies. Do you want a glass?”
“What?”
“A glass? For the beer?”
“No, the can’s okay.” Pete took the beer I gave him, swallowed deeply, and passed the back of his hand across his mouth. “That’s your story,” he said.
I sat down facing him. “That’s my story,” I said, drinking from my own can.
“Mr. Stottman didn’t like you much.” Pete’s voice was flat and expressionless. His dark eyes watched me steadily.
“I didn’t like Mr. Stottman much,” I said. “Come to that, I don’t like you much. So what?”
“You didn’t report. Some people higher up are annoyed. They had to read it in the Canadian papers.”
“Stiffs aren’t my business, friend. I’m not required to report anything to anybody. I just carry the mail.”
“Mr. Stottman had a funny idea you aren’t exactly what you pretend.”
“I know Mr. Stottman’s funny idea,” I said. “He made it pretty clear. Frankly, I think your Mr. Stottman was a paranoid crackpot who should have been put away in a room with upholstered walls.”
Pete drank more beer and studied the can thoughtfully. “Paranoid,” he said softly. “Hell, I’m just an ignorant redskin, Nystrom. Don’t waste those big words on me.”
I grinned. “Sure, you’re stupid like Hiawatha.”
“That imaginary, romanticized creep!”
“Sitting Bull, then. Mangas Colorada. Chief Joseph of the Nez Percé.” He remained silent, and I went on. “Okay, for the sake of your limited intelligence, which I don’t believe in for a moment, let’s just say that friend Stottman was the kind of sick guy who sees enemies and traitors where there aren’t any. I took time out to drive clear to Seattle just to humor him. I got myself a copper-riveted, brass-bound identification to make him happy, and he still wouldn’t drop his crazy suspicions. So they got him killed, and we’re sorry about that, but—”
“How do you figure?” Pete’s voice was sharp.
“If he’d minded his own business,” I said, “he’d still be alive down in the state of Washington where he belonged, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t have got himself shot, carelessly walking in on a couple of guys laying for me.”
“Mr. Stottman didn’t walk into places carelessly. And he never used a knife. Those other two guys were killed with a knife, it said in the paper. He didn’t even carry a knife, Nystrom. I did the knifework for both of us when it had to be done.”
“So he took a knife from one of them. They weren’t very bright, judging by their clumsy tailing techniques—they’d been following me a whole day. It wouldn’t take a genius to disarm one of them. Only Stottman wasn’t quite fast enough with the blade when he did get it, and the other got off a shot.”
“You didn’t say anything about hearing a shot.”
I said, “With an outboard motor running, how much could I hear, a mile out on the lake?�
�
“You’ve got answers for everything, don’t you? But if it happened like you say, and the punks were laying for you, Mr. Stottman saved your life.”
“Who asked him to? I handled the creep with the rifle in Pasco, didn’t I? I could have taken care of those two. Hell, I knew they were around, I was just waiting for the right time to ditch them or deal with them when your friend blundered into the line of fire and got himself massacred.”
“Pretty cocky, aren’t you? For a mere courier who never killed a man in his life before this week. Where’s your knife, Nystrom? Could it be in the hands of the cops, labeled exhibit A?”
I hesitated, shrugged, took out the Buck knife, and slid it across the dinette table. Pete looked down at it and up at me. He picked up the knife, opened it, ran his thumb along the edge approvingly, and tried to close it.
“Press the back of the handle near the end, there,” I said. “The blade locks. Keeps it from shutting on your fingers when you’re skinning out your elk.” I reached out and reclaimed my knife. “Just what the hell is your theory, Pete? That I mowed them down, all three of them? That makes me pretty good, doesn’t it? Thanks for the compliment.”
“You’re pretty good, all right,” Pete said. “Whoever you are. The question is, are you good enough? Thanks for the beer.”
He gave the pup a casual pat, pushed him aside, and went to the door and stopped, looking back. I met his look. It was a moment of understanding. Regardless of what had been said he knew quite well that I’d killed Stottman somehow, and I knew that he was going to make me pay for it somehow, if he could. He was announcing the fact quite openly.
Of course, he wasn’t being completely frank. He wasn’t telling me that he was delivering his flamboyant challenge, threat, or whatever it was, in order to keep my attention firmly fixed on him while another man sneaked up for the actual kill.
23
After leaving Sitka, we spent the rest of the day cruising along sheltered passages between large, spectacularly mountainous islands—well, spectacular when the fog let us see them—with thickly wooded shores. At least the forests were thick where the lumbermen hadn’t been at them, but in many places it looked as if a mad barber with giant clippers had been at work, leaving the dirty bare skull of the earth shockingly naked.
Matt Helm--The Interlopers Page 16