The Poisoners mh-13

by Donald Hamilton

"There wasn't time. I'll admit she might have been capable of it under the right circumstances, meaning if she was mad enough, but I think you'll agree that she wasn't a cold-blooded traitor with her plans laid in advance. That means she came to L.A. without any prearranged contacts. It takes time to sell out, sir. You've got to find the right people. You've got to convince them of your sincerity. You've got to convince them you've got something worth buying-and then you've got to deliver your information, all of it. If somebody did get one of our people talking about our setup, even a novice agent, would they finish with her and dispose of her in less than a day? You know they wouldn't. They'd want to spend at least a week on thorough debriefing, going over every detail of our training and operations arrangements again and again until they were absolutely sure they'd pumped her dry."

  Mac said, a little impatiently, "Very well. Assuming that she wasn't killed because she'd stumbled on some syndicate secrets, or because she'd got involved in a treason scheme that backfired, what do you suggest as a cause of her death?"

  "I suggest she was trying to help us. I think what she saw, either on the plane or in the airport, was somebody in whom we're highly interested, somebody on the high priority list perhaps…

  "Then why didn't she get on the phone and report it before taking action, as the normal procedure requires, particularly of inexperienced young agents in her category?"

  "Because, as you point out, she wasn't quite professional enough, sir. Because she had a temper like dynamite and you'd just lit the fuse. Because she was mad at you and was going to show you up, by dealing with the situation herself in her own way. She was going to prove to you that initiative and daring were better than conformity and discipline, and to hell with normal procedure."

  Mac said, rather reluctantly, "It's plausible. So your theory is that she spotted somebody important and tried to follow but was detected and killed."

  "Yes, sir. Her attitude was professional enough, but her experience was still pretty limited. I think the guy she was tailing set a trap for her, caught her, and took care of her with his overgrown cannon, after first knocking her around just enough to learn that she was operating alone. And then, because his presence in Los Angeles-maybe even in the U.S.-was supposed to be a very hush subject indeed, he got hold of some local underworld talent and arranged f or them to make it look as if she'd been killed by mistake, so we'd have no reason to investigate her motives and movements." There was a thoughtful silence. Presently I said, "That's the way I figure it, sir. She was pro enough not to get sidetracked on something that was none of our business, but she was amateur enough to try to handle it alone. There's also a third factor that might be important."

  "What's that, Eric?"

  "She'd recently been mixed up in a communist operation in this very area, remember? It could be that she ran into somebody she was in a special position to recognize, better than anybody else in our outfit. Remember the assignment on which I met her, sir. Remember the circumstances. Her husband had been killed in Vietnam. She'd blamed this country for sending him to his death, if you recall, and a fast-talking enemy agent-I never learned exactly who-had taken advantage of her resentment to persuade her to help with a fancy anti-U.S. plot they had going below the border in Mexico."

  "I remember," Mac said. "What is your point?"

  I said, "We broke up the conspiracy, all right, and got all the people immediately concerned, with the help of the Mexican authorities, but we didn't get the ones who'd pulled the strings from up here, north of the border. At least, if we did, I was never told about it."

  "We didn't," Mac said.

  "Afterwards, when I recruited Annette for that job working on our side-she was pretty disenchanted with the opposition by that time, and she had a Mexican prison staring her in the face-I didn't ask her too many questions. I was too busy telling her things she needed to know for the mission coming up. I just kept an eye on her until I was sure she could be trusted. Actually, knowing her low boiling point, I was careful not to antagonize her by probing into her past. I needed her cheerful and cooperative, and to hell with ancient history. But I presume that after our joint assignment was finished, and she was being considered for permanent employment, she was questioned pretty thoroughly-particularly about the people she'd known during her brief career as a subversive."

  "That is correct," Mac said. "And you think she may have come across one of those people again?"

  "Well, it would have given her a special reason for lone-wolfing it, sir. This was information only she had. This was a person only she could recognize. Even if she hadn't been mad at you, she'd have been reluctant to call in and let somebody else get the credit for nailing the guy. If you'd check her file-"

  "I am checking it," Mac said. "I suppose I should have done it sooner, but I admit I was operating on a different theory… Here we are. She gave us two descriptions and a name. The name, she said, she'd heard only once, but she gathered it was that of the man in charge. You'll recognize it, Eric. We've come up against the gentleman before. The name she heard was Nicholas."

  I grimaced. "That's nice. So we could be dealing with old man Santa Claus himself."

  "Santa Claus?"

  I said, "Just a joke, sir. He doesn't call himself that, as far as I know, but you know how some of our people tend to make up nicknames for members of the opposition, even those they haven't seen. Wait a minute. Nicholas is a man who likes heavy artillery, if I remember the dossier correctly. That fancy new computer should have given him to us by now, just from that angle."

  "Unfortunately," Mac said dryly, "that fancy new computer has contracted some kind of electronic indigestion. I'm sending for Nicholas' file but I think you're quite right. As I recall, the lightest pistol he's on record as having used is a Browning 9mm High Power, no Magnum but still something of a handful. In another instance he left a.45 Colt Automatic beside a victim, that's no child's toy, either. Yes, a.44 would suit Nicholas very well, from what we know of his shooting habits."

  "But Annette said she never saw him?"

  "None of our people has seen him, or questioned anyone who has. So far, his cover has never been broken."

  I said, "Then it couldn't have been Nicholas she spotted here in L.A. and tried to follow." I hesitated. "What about the two guys she actually met, the ones she described for you?"

  "One was shot and killed by the Mexican police while resisting arrest after that Mazatlan affair. From what she said, I gather he was the one who recruited her in the first place. The other was just a man who drove a car in which she was transported to a rendezvous. He disappeared, like Nicholas himself-we've had no reports on either of them since. The description Annette gave us fits a small-time European motorcycle racer named Will Keim-Willi, with an 'i'-who got into some trouble with the law and now specializes in driving chores for the opposition…

  "Willi!" I said. "Does he fit the description I just gave you, of the rock-jawed, potato-nosed character in the Ford wagon? Willy, with a 'y'?"

  "I'm afraid I didn't monitor what you fed into the recorder. I planned to play it back later. Just a minute." I heard him find the right section of tape and run it through. "Yes. It could very well be the same man."

  "My God!" I said. "I should have known nobody could drive that badly without working at it."

  "Mr. Keim is apparently an expert at handling all kinds of wheeled machinery."

  "And Annette would have recognized him. He's hard to miss. That could be our lead. Suppose Willi-Willy was still driving for Nicholas, either with or without Warfel's knowledge, probably with. Suppose Willy picked u~ Nicholas at the airport. Say Annette spotted a familiar face and watched to see who joined Willy and was caught doing it. Obviously, she had to be killed. She'd seen old Santa Claus in the flesh and she had enough of the background to know, or at least guess, what she'd seen. So Nicholas took care of the job, arranged for a syndicate cover-up, and had Willy on the spot to see how well it worked out."

  "That could be the way it h
appened, certainly. If it should be Nicholas… Well, you know the standing orders. He is on the high-priority list. We've lost enough good men-and women-to Nicholas."

  "Yes, sir."

  "However, there's a lot of guesswork involved, Eric. Don't rely too heavily on this one theory."

  "No, sir," I said, "but assuming we're on the right track, the big question now is: just what brings Nicholas back to these parts? It must be something fairly important or his superiors wouldn't take the risk of returning him to the scene of a job that flopped as badly as that Mexican operation of his. A lot of underlings were caught and they must know that one might put a finger on their boy somehow-as Annette did. Do we know of anything big brewing down here, big enough to call for a man of Nicholas' talents?"

  "No," Mac said, "we don't know, and we don't really care, Eric. Don't let your curiosity get the better of you. Remember that intelligence is the business of other departments. Your job is Nicholas, and whoever killed Ruby, if they are not the same person. Take care of that. If you happen to learn anything interesting in the process, by all means pass it along, but don't let it distract you from your primary mission…

  VIII

  As a bodyguard, I was a bust. They took out the black man right under my nose.

  I'd been waiting a little ways up the street outside the office when Devlin's people finally turned him loose with the Blame girl, the way we'd planned it. I'd watched him say good-bye to her politely and assist her into the first to arrive of the two taxis that had been ordered at their request. He'd taken the second, which came along, with standard L.A. punctuality, some fifteen minutes later. I'd tailed him in the rental sedan Charlie herself had promoted for me-apparently her newborn spirit of cooperation didn't extend to furnishing me with company wheels-but he'd stayed with the taxi less than half a dozen blocks.

  I didn't think he'd reached his destination, when the cab swung to the curb. I figured he knew, or suspected, that he was being followed, and was about to play some tricks. I pulled into a parking space half a block away, cut my lights, and waited. It wasn't a subtle, high-class, invisible job of surveillance, but I had little hope of staying with him in any case, and none at all if I got cute. He knew me by sight; he probably knew I was there; and it was his city, not mine.

  But it had seemed like something that should be tried, both for his sake and for mine. Watching over him, I might be able to save his life, although it wasn't likely- as a matter of fact, I didn't really think Warfel would be fool enough to strike at either McConnell or the girl, despite what I'd said for effect back in the office. Still, if he were attacked, and saved, McConnell might talk, if he had anything to talk about. And even if nobody made a hostile move towards him, he might lead me to something or somebody significant, although I didn't really have much hope of it.

  But it was a possible opening, and I didn't have so many I could ignore one, and the others were being covered. I watched the cab pull away. McConnell stood for a moment at the curb, at last putting on the jacket he'd carried around with him all night. He turned and walked straight at me.

  There had been, of course, a certain probability that he'd proceed in my direction rather than moving away from me, or ducking into a nearby building, or darting across the street. There were only so many ways he could go. However, I saw from his manner that this had nothing to do with statistical probabilities. He knew where I was parked and he was coming to me, maybe to tell me something important, maybe just to give me hell for shadowing him, probably the latter.

  Abruptly he stopped, looking beyond me. There were headlights in my mirrors, coming up fast. McConnell turned to run. I reached over, hit the door handle on the curb side, dove to the sidewalk, rolled, and came up with a gun in my hand, but it was too late.

  There were two of them, in one of those fat-tired, souped-up, fast-back little sport coupes, complete with fake racing stripes, that are America's current answer to the true European sports car. You may like them or you may not-I don't, particularly-but you've got to admit that not much can beat them for sheer acceleration. Some of them even have pretty good brakes nowadays, a real innovation for Detroit.

  The coupe shot past as I was picking myself off the sidewalk, and slowed sharply beyond me. I saw a short shotgun barrel thrust out the right-hand window. It flamed twice in the night and McConnell fell; then the rub-out men were getting out of there with shrieking tires and snarling exhausts, and I still hadn't had a clear shot at them.

  Punching holes in automobiles isn't exactly what the standard short-barreled.38 Special does best. There's something to be said for the big guns after all, and I'd pulled out the.44 I was still lugging around since nobody else seemed to want it. The coupe was receding fast. I cocked the massive revolver as I thrust it out two-handed, and I let it fire when the front sight blade steadied on the left half of the slanting rear window.

  Even with two hands gripping it hard, the cannon kicked so hard you wouldn't believe it. The coupe swerved violently across the street and plowed into the parked cars there. After a moment, the right-hand door opened and the shotgunner staggered out, still clutching his weapon, a semi-automatic job that would hold at least three shells, probably more. What I mean is, even if he hadn't managed to reload, he probably had ammunition left.

  I saw no reason why he should get any breaks from me, and shotguns scare hell out of me anyway, so I didn't wait for him to swing the weapon towards me. I just knocked him over while he was still looking for a target. The heavy.44 slug chopped him down like a tree. I waited, but he didn't move, and neither did the driver of the car, as far as I could make out through the damaged rear glass.

  My hands were tingling from the kick of the Magnum, and my ears were ringing from the noise, but part of my mind, aloof from the uproar and excitement, reminded me gently that people had been firing that gun, off and on, for a couple of days now, and there couldn't be much left in it-just one live round, if my count was correct. I drew out the fully loaded.38 as reserve artillery and moved up to McConnell, feeling stupid and frustrated standing there, with a pistol in each hand, and the man I was supposed to protect bleeding on the sidewalk at my feet.

  The only excuse I could think of was that protection isn't really my racket, quite the contrary. Besides, I hadn't really believed protection would be required here, which only proved that when you tried to second-guess the opposition you generally wound up guessing wrong. I knelt beside the man on the sidewalk, putting my hand on his shoulder. He stirred almost imperceptibly.

  "Easy there," he breathed, face down on the concrete. "Don't move me or I'll fall apart. Who…

  "It's the honkie bastard," I said.

  He was silent for a moment; then he whispered, "Jeez, a sensitive whitey! What do you want, apologies? Did I hear some more shooting? If you got them, I'll apologize."

  "I got them. A little late, but I got them."

  "In that case, I'm extremely sorry I used a bad word on you, Mr. Helm, sir. Can you ever forgive me?"

  "Go to hell," I said. "I'm going to stick the gun in your hand, if you don't mind. Save me a lot of trouble with the police. Unless you have objections. Tell me if you have. They'll also pin the O'Leary murder on you when they check out the rifling in ballistics, but you don't mind that, since you've already put your brand on that one. Do you?"

  "Hell, no. Any homicides you got lying around. Proud to take the credit, posthumously. Fine word, posthumously. Didn't know I knew words like that, did you?" After a moment, when I didn't speak, he went on chidingly: "You're supposed to tell me I'm going to be all right, man. Aren't you going to lie and tell me I'm going to be all right?"

  I said, "If I thought you were going to be all right, I wouldn't leave you holding the baby."

  He gave a little sound that was half a sigh, half a cautious chuckle. "Yeah, we both know buckshot, don't we? From the way it feels, he must have put almost the whole load of shot into me, both times… Okay, give it to me."

  I wiped off the.44 Magnum a
nd put it where he could grasp it. His hand closed on it, sprained thumb and all. We still had the sidewalk, and even the street, to ourselves. Shots had been fired, a car had crashed, but nobody in Los Angeles gave a damn. Well, that was all right with me.

  "Do you know anything I ought to know, McConnell?" I asked.

  "I don't know anything. That's what I was coming back to tell you, that you were wasting your time tailing me. You know how it is. You know how they are. You get mixed up with them, you do what they tell you. You don't ask questions."

  "How did Warfel persuade you to take the rap for Annette O'Leary's murder?"

  "Persuade!" he breathed. "Well, you can call it that. There's my wife, Lorraine. There are our two boys, four and six. Hostages to fortune, somebody once said. Fortune, hell. Hostages to Frank Warfel. Of course, he promised to have a good lawyer on the job, when I came to trial." There was a little silence; then McConnell said, "See what you can do for Lorraine and the kids, will you?"

  "Where do I find them?" I memorized the address he gave me, and asked, "What about the girl, Beverly Blaine. What did he have on her?"

  "Look at her left arm. Warfel gave her a little taste of acid, and I don't mean LSD. He told her, if a couple of drops will do that to your arm, just think what a pint of it will do to your pretty face…" McConnell's voice trailed off. He was silent, breathing shallowly. "You'd better beat it, Helm," he whispered at last. "Don't hang around on my account. Doesn't feel like I'll be around much longer, myself."

  I looked down at him for a moment longer. It still seemed like a peculiar thing to do to your hair, for peculiar reasons. I mean, I've never felt any particular urge to assume the shoulder-length locks, horned helmet, chain mail shirt, and battle ax of my Viking ancestors. Well, it was his hair, and his business.

  "Okay," I said. "Sorry I wasn't more help."

  "So long, secret-agent-man. Don't forget about Lorraine and the boys."

  "I won't forget."