The Deadly Drug Affair

by Robert Hart Davis

  Dorcus turned her rage on the poor landlady. "Shut that woman up!" she yelled.

  Young Rudolph Betz went over and took Ma Rooney's arm.

  "Better come with me, Ma," he said. "You'll be safer."

  He started to urge her toward the dining room door, but the landlady shook off his grip.

  "I'll stay where I please in my own house," she said indignantly.

  With a sigh of exasperation, young Betz drew a gun. "Get going, you old bag," he said, prodding her with it.

  Betz pushed her on through the dining room and into the kitchen.

  Dorcus swung on Anton Radak. "How much does he know?" she asked.

  "Nothing from me," he said. "I have been with him every time he left the house. Otherwise he has stayed in his room."

  "You think!" she blazed. "How do you know he hasn't sneaked out?"

  "I don't," he admitted. "But what could he learn? I know he hasn't been up to the plant."

  "You watched his room door all last night?" she asked sarcastically. "Why didn't you recognize him as a spy?"

  "Why didn't you?" he countered.

  Dorcus glared at him. Then she made an impatient gesture, took off her raincoat and tossed it over the back of the mohair sofa. She stooped to unzip transparent rain boots.

  When she had kicked them off, she said, "Search him."

  Radak continued to hold his gun on Slate while Kurt Shill searched him. First Slate was made to take off his raincoat.

  When Shill had patted him all over, he stepped back and said, "He's clean."

  Meantime stout Josef Donner had been examining Slate's suitcase.

  "One broken fountain pen," he announced. "Plus this."

  He held up an oddly shaped gun.

  Mark shrugged. "You're getting warm," he said.

  "If I didn't already know it, that would settle it," Dorcus said. "That's an U.N.C.L.E. gun." Then her eyes narrowed and she said slowly, "Something just occurred to me. April Dancer is an U.N.C.L.E. agent too, isn't she?"

  "Who?" Slate said. "Oh, you mean that little girl we met at the convention." He chuckled wryly. "You're beginning to see U.N.C.L.E. behind every bush."

  "I'm beginning to believe it is behind every bush," Dorcus said. She stared at him for a moment, then glanced around. "Does this place have a phone?"

  "Over by the stairs," Radak said. Dorcus marched over to the phone and lifted it from its hook.

  She said, "Operator, I wish to make a collect call to the Rank Baking Company in St. Louis." She gave the number.

  There was a few moments' wait; then Dorcus said impatiently, "It's Dorcus, Marie. Quit asking questions and accept the call."

  Apparently the plant switchboard operator did accept it, for after a pause, Dorcus said, "Ring the boss's office."

  There was another pause, then,

  "Helen? Put Boris on the line."

  Dorcus listened, then said with barely controlled anger, "He left with Miss Dancer at four? Where in the devil did they go?"

  She listened again, finally said, "Try his apartment, Helen. If he's not there, start phoning his regular hangouts. Start with the Chase, because that's where Miss Dancer is staying. Keep trying everywhere until you locate him, even if it takes half the night. Do you understand that? It's extremely important."

  After another pause, Dorcus said, "Overtime, hell! You'll be out of a job tomorrow if you muff this. Get that through your dizzy blonde head!"

  Apparently Boris Rank's secretary was cowed, because Dorcus continued in a more moderate tone, "Have him call me at this number." She read the number from the phone dial. "Another thing. Don't under any circumstances let Miss Dancer know I'm trying to get in touch with Boris. If you reach her first, merely tell her to have him phone you, and that it's about a payroll matter or something. Understand?"

  It seemed the girl did, for Dorcus grunted a good-by and hung up.

  "Is there a basement in this place?" she asked Radak.

  He nodded. "I have not been down there, but the door is off the back hall."

  ''Then let's get this U.N.C.L.E. agent and the landlady out of sight," Dorcus said. "Kurt, tell Rudy to bring that woman back here."

  FOURTEEN

  "STOW THE BLARNEY”

  It was twenty minutes after four when Boris Rank dropped April off at her hotel. He told her he would be back to pick her up at five.

  Twenty minutes later April Dancer had just turned off the shower in her bathroom when she heard the phone ringing. Wrapping a towel around her dripping body, she sped to answer it. It stopped ringing before she got there.

  Probably it had been ringing for some time, she thought. It had rung only twice after she turned off the shower, but she would have been unable to hear prior rings over the sound of the cascading water.

  It always mildly upset April to have a caller hang up before she could reach the phone. She called the hotel switchboard and asked the operator if she knew who had made the call. The girl said the call had been from outside the hotel, but otherwise she had no information about the caller.

  "Was it a man or woman?" April persisted.

  After a pause the operator said, "Sorry, ma'am, but I really don't know. There have been a dozen incoming calls for various rooms in the past few minutes, and I can't associate any particular voice with yours. The only reason I know it was an outside call was that I haven't had any house calls recently."

  "Well, thanks anyway," April said, and hung up.

  April tried to imagine who could have called. If Mr. Waverly wanted to contact her, he would have buzzed her communicator, Perhaps she had misplaced something at the lab, and Shelia Jennings or John Quade were trying to get in touch with her to find out what she had done with it.

  Glancing at the traveler's alarm clock on her bedside stand, she saw that it was not yet a quarter to five. The lab would be open until five. Quickly she dried herself, slipped on a robe and phoned the Rank Baking Company.

  "The laboratory, please," she told the switchboard operator.

  Shelia Jennings answered.

  "This is April Dancer," April said. "Did you or John just try to ring me at my hotel?"

  "Not us," Shelia said. "Why?"

  "I was in the shower and the phone stopped ringing before I could get to it. I thought it might be the lab, because I don't know anyone in town but you two."

  "Sorry," Shelia said. "Maybe it was the big boss."

  It probably had been Boris Rank, April decided. Perhaps he had phoned to tell her he was going to be late.

  But exactly at five the desk phoned to say Rank was waiting for her in the lobby. She applied finishing touches to her makeup and joined him five minutes later.

  Because she didn't know what sort of place Boris Rank planned to take her for dinner, she had chosen a black, backless cocktail dress suitable for any type of restaurant or night club. It was too warm an evening for a coat, so April carried only a light black feathered boa as a wrap.

  Rank looked her over with admiration.

  "Each new outfit I see you in, you look more beautiful," he said.

  "Thank you," she said demurely. "Did you try to phone me a while ago?"

  He looked blank. "Not I."

  "The phone rang while I was in the shower," she explained. "I called the lab, but they hadn't phoned me. I don't know anyone else in town but you."

  "Well, if it's important, they always call back," he said philosophically.

  "I guess so," she said. "Are we going to have dinner here at the hotel?"

  "It is no night out to dine at the same place you live," he told her. "I have a special treat in store for you."

  He took her to a cocktail lounge on Delmar for a drink, then to Busch's Grove in the county northwest of St. Louis for dinner. At Busch's, in addition to an inside dining room, there were individual screened-in dining nooks spaced around the grounds, each just big enough for a single table. Boris Rank had reserved one of the dining nooks.

  They had the house's drink specialty, a
mint julep served in a sterling silver shell, before dinner, then a couple of delicious steaks. The atmosphere was so romantic, the food so good, April Dancers' escort so handsome and the julep so stimulating she found herself wistfully regretting that Boris Rank was an agent of U.N.C.L.E.'s dread enemy, THRUSH.

  As they were having coffee their waiter appeared and said, "Mr. Rank?"

  "Yes?" Rank said.

  "You're wanted on the phone, sir."

  Rank looked surprised. "You're sure it's for me? Nobody knows I'm here."

  "The lady said Mr. Boris Rank, sir."

  Rank frowned slightly, his expression suggesting he felt the waiter could have been more discreet than to disclose the call was from a lady when he was dining with another lady.

  "Excuse me," he said to April, rising from his chair.

  "Of course," she said.

  Rank was gone about twenty minutes. When he returned, he apologized profusely.

  "It was my secretary," he said.

  "You remember Helen. You met her at my office."

  "Yes," April Dancer said. "The blonde."

  "She has been phoning for me all over town, and finally tried here because she knows it is one of my favorite spots. It was she who tried to phone you, incidentally. She was trying to get in touch with me."

  "Oh," April said. "It's a relief to have that mystery solved. Anything serious?"

  "Not now. One of our accountants was having a conniption fit over a check I was supposed to have deposited a week ago. I phoned him at the plant, explained that it was in my safe and promised to take care of it first thing in the morning."

  "I'm glad that's all it was," April said. "Your coffee is cold. Do you want some more?"

  He shook his head. "Let's get out of here."

  As they drove off the parking lot, Rank said, "I planned to take you dancing after dinner, but it's early yet, so we're going to do something else first. How would you like a bird's eye view of St. Louis lights?"

  April looked at him with raised eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

  "The airport isn't far from here. I have a helicopter."

  April thought of her plane hop from St. Louis to Barth and remembered her headache.

  "Light planes tend to give me a headache," she said, a little dubiously.

  "We won't be up long. And we can pick up some aspirin at the airport. "

  "All right," she agreed. "Are you a competent pilot?"

  It really didn't matter, because April could fly a helicopter herself, but in her role of defenseless womanhood she thought she ought to ask the question.

  Rank laughed. "I don't fly at all. But don't worry about it. I have a professional pilot, and he lives quite near the airport. I phoned him while I was away from the table. He will be there before we are."

  There was a drugstore at the airport. Rank bought a box of twelve aspirins and handed it to April. She dropped it into her purse.

  When they reached the hanger where Boris Rank kept his helicopter, they found that it had already been wheeled out. A stocky pug-nosed man in his mid-thirties stood next to it. He was dressed in coveralls and a flying cap with goggles.

  Rank introduced the pilot as Chance Matt.

  "Won't I be cold in these clothes?" April asked, looking at the pilot's coveralls.

  "No, ma'am," Chance Matt said.

  "Inside the bubble it will be as warm as toast."

  April doubted that, having been up in helicopters before. It could get quite chilly at a thousand feet. But perhaps this one was equipped with a heater, she thought.

  They all climbed into the cabin, Mott closed the sliding door, started the rotor turning and they lifted from the ground. The helicopter rose to about a thousand feet, then swung out over the city.

  While it was still warm enough in the cabin, April knew from experience that if they remained at that height very long, cold would begin to seep inside. She glanced around for some sign of a heater and failed to spot any. Well, they wouldn't be up long enough for it to get very uncomfortable, she thought.

  "The new monument overlooking the riverfront parkway development," Rank said, pointing to a huge lighted arch to the east.

  April emitted an appreciative murmur.

  It was a clear night and the lights of the city below them glowed brightly. Boris Rank continued to point out individual patterns of light and explain what they were.

  The airport was at the extreme north end of the city. When they reached its southern limits and the lights below began to appear farther apart, April realized they were continuing on south of the city.

  "Where are we going now?" she asked.

  "Just for a ride," Boris Rank explained.

  The helicopter picked up speed and the lights of the city continued to recede.

  "It's beginning to get chilly," April said. "Ask him to turn back."

  Rank lifted her feathered boa from her lap and draped it around her shoulders. "This will keep you warm."

  "But I'm also getting a headache," April said. "Mr. Mott, please turn around."

  The pilot made no answer. Rank plucked April's purse from her lap, opened it and took out the aspirin he had bought her. Pulling a thermos bottle from beneath his seat, he poured a cup of water, handed it to her and proffered the open box of aspirin.

  April frowned at him, but he was smiling so pleasantly, she temporarily held back the tart comment that rose to her lips. She accepted two aspirin and downed them with the water.

  Rank snapped the aspirin box closed, dropped it back in her purse and took the cup from her hand. He shook the few remaining drops of water on the floor, screwed the cap back on and shoved the bottle back under his seat. Instead of returning April's purse, he dropped it on the seat alongside of him on the opposite side from April.

  "May I have my purse back please?" she said.

  "Why?" he asked pleasantly. "So you can use one of the clever devices in it to make us turn back?"

  April stared at him. Almost casually he drew a thirty-eight automatic from beneath his arm and pointed it at her.

  "What is this?" April said.

  "It should be obvious that you have been uncovered as an agent of U.N.C.L.E.," he said in the same pleasant tone. "It is too bad. I really was becoming quite interested in you."

  April stared at the gun for a moment, then made her voice seductively husky. "I was becoming quite interested in you too, Boris. It started just as another assignment, but they never warned me at U.N.C.L.E. academy that things could happen to a girl's heart. Why do we have to be on opposite sides?"

  His expression became slightly pained. "I only permit the same woman to make a fool of me once, little girl from U.N.C.L.E. You're from New England originally, aren't you?"

  "Yes," she admitted.

  "Well, in the language of your seafaring ancestors, stow the blarney."

  April stuck out her tongue at him. Boris Rank laughed with sardonic good humor.

  "That's what I thought you thought of me," he said. "You U.N.C.L.E. people are too dedicated to have any personal emotions."

  April fell silent, thinking furiously. She wondered if the pilot knew what he was involved in, or was just a paid employee of Rank. Perhaps she could enlist his aid if she could get across to him that his employer was an agent of the world's most heinous organization.

  The girl from U.N.C.L.E said, “Do you know who you're working for, Chance?"

  "Yes, ma'am," he said politely, the first words he had uttered since they became airborne. "THRUSH."

  FIFTEEN

  WINGS OF THE LOST

  The cabin was now becoming uncomfortably chilly. When they had flown south for some time, April asked, "Where are you taking me?"

  "You will know when we get there," Rank said. "Sit still and shut up."

  April wrapped the feather boa more closely around her bare shoulders, sat still and was quiet.

  The sky became more overcast the farther south they got, and finally light drops of rain appeared on the Plexiglas bubble.
It was now chilly enough in the cabin to make April shiver.

  They had flown into a steady but light drizzle and were over an area where there were only a few dim, widely spaced lights below when a bright circle of flares appeared in the distance. The pilot changed direction and headed for the flares.

  Periodically the circle of flares disappeared and the pilot would climb until they became visible again, then make a change of course and drop back to the original height. April realized that this phenomenon was due to mountains getting between them and the flares, and that they must be deep in the Ozark Mountains. She had guessed all along that they were heading for Pig Wallow, but now she was sure of it.

  Finally they were directly above the circle of flares. When the helicopter descended to the exact center of the circle, April saw that it was about fifty feet in diameter and that the flares forming its perimeter were spaced about six feet apart.

  A rain coated figure was waiting just outside the circle, and beyond it April could dimly make out a number of tombstones. They were in the cemetery just outside of Pig Wallow, she realized.

  Chance Mott cut the engine and slid open the door. The air outside was somewhat warmer than it had M.S.been at a thousand feet, but it was still too chilly for comfort.

  The rain coated figure approached. By the light of the flares April saw that it was Dorcus Elias in a raincoat and rain boots. Her arms were loaded with raincoats and galoshes.

  “Have any trouble?" she asked Rank.

  "Not a bit. This is awful weather you're having."

  "You should have seen it a few hours ago," Dorcus said. "I thought it was the second deluge. I had to drive through it all the way from Barth. This is just a heavy dew now."

  She handed the raincoats and galoshes up to the pilot. After looking them over, he tossed a raincoat and a pair of galoshes to April. The raincoat looked familiar. The cabin lights were still on, and by their glow she examined the initials on the inside of the collar. They were M.S.

  So Mark Slate had been taken too, she thought. She slipped on the raincoat, then stooped to pull on the galoshes. They were women's boots, but they were sizes too large.

  "Sorry I couldn't bring you a better fit, dearie," Dorcus said ironically. "I could have brought you a woman's coat, but it was twice the size of that one."