"Very neat, sir," I murmured. "But you don't really think I'd hand you a loaded gun, do you?"
I mean, it was the automatic reaction. I still was very far from comprehending what was happening and what it all meant. The simple fact was that a man was aiming a gun at me, and this, we'd had drilled into us, was a hostile act demanding instant and violent retaliation whenever possible. A man who aims a gun at you is a man who can kill you, and you don't want to leave people like that standing around. To be sure, this was a man who, two seconds earlier, I'd have said I trusted implicitly; but a gun is a gun and a threat is a threat, and I'd been trained to react first and do my heavy thinking later. And it worked.
It worked well enough that his glance dropped to the weapon for the briefest instant. It was the wrong response. There's only one answer to the old empty-gun gambit. It's the same as for the look-out-there's-somebody-behind-you routine. You just pull the damn trigger. You may wind up with a dead man on the floor, but there's a better chance of its not being you. As he'd said, it had been a long time since he'd attended to these matters personally, and I guess he was rusty. He did look down. I still had the Colt Woodsman in my hand, muzzle down. I could have shot him, of course. That I didn't was a matter of ballistics, not sentiment-I was quite through with sentiment for the night. But a.22 doesn't pack enough punch to stop a man cold. He was holding a powerful weapon; he might still have managed to kill me, even if I'd put my little bullet squarely through his heart. I struck with the barrel instead, knocking the.38 from his hand.
His reaction was quick enough; he got my gun-wrist in some kind of a hasty lock, not a good one, but good enough that the girl had time to dart forward, grab my pistol by the barrel, and twist it backwards hard. Only the safety, still on, kept it from discharging. I had to let her take it from me; in another instant she'd have jammed and broken my finger in the trigger-guard. But Mac wasn't big enough or young enough to hold me with the incomplete grip he had. I tore myself free and reached far outand clipped the girl as she tried to back away with the gun, sending her sprawling. The.22 jumped out of her hand and slid under the bed.
I was aware that the door had burst open, but Mac was closer and had to be attended to first. He was trying to say something. I didn't know what, or why he'd waste breath on speech at such a time. I was disappointed in him. He should have kept up on his own training system. I feinted, brushed his parry aside, and chopped him down like a tree. The girl was shouting something at me. I'd never heard such a garrulous bunch of conspirators. You'd have thought we were running a conference for radio and TV announcers instead of a fight.
Mac was at my feet, the back of his head exposed. Even, without the reinforced shoes we used to wear whenever possible, one good kick would have done the job. But the girl was yelling instructions now, and other people were rushing towards us from the open door; there wasn't time to make the kill.
They were all over me as I turned. I couldn't reach the knife in my pocket. I'd spent too much time on Mac; I never got set to give them a real battle. There were too many of them; I knew they had me. There was nothing to do but grab a throat out of the melee and hang on. I used the guy as a shield in front and concentrated on squeezing the life out of him, trying to ignore the characters beating on my head and back. If I couldn't get them all-and I couldn't-I might as well do a good job on the one I had. We went down together. Presently I felt my fingers slipping. He was getting away from me, but not under his own power; and I didn't think he'd be singing in the choir next Sunday. Well, neither would I…
When I came to, I was lying on one of the room's twin beds. In the other bed, somebody was having trouble with his breathing. I can't say it bothered me. I mean, it was a matter of professional pride. I hadn't been very bright tonight. I'd been sentimental and gullible by turns, I'd let myself be licked and overpowered, but at least they couldn't say they got me free of charge. I looked up to see Mac standing over me. I didn't seem to have hurt him much. That was all right. I didn't hate him. He'd taught us that, too. He used to say that hating an enemy was a waste of time and energy. It was only necessary to kill him.
"You damn explosive lunatic!" he said softly. There was an odd, possessive note in his voice. It sounded very much like pride, although that didn't seem likely. "One forgets," he murmured. "I should have remembered that I was dealing with one of my old wartime people, instead of this new crop of pampered incompetents. I shouldn't have made the mistake of threatening you with a gun. How do you feel?"
It didn't seem like the proper time for a recital of aches and pains. "I'll probably live long enough to suit you," I whispered. "However long-or short-that may be."
He smiled. "You're soft, Eric. You should have killed me when you had me down."
"There wasn't time."
He chuckled. "You almost broke young Chatham's neck."
"My apologies for an incomplete job," I whispered. "I'll try to do better next time."
"I should be angry with you. We went through four years of war together. Do you really think I'd…?" He checked himself. "I retract the question. The mistake was mine. I shouldn't have tried to be clever with the gun. After all, you were taught to go for the throat when threatened, all of you, like savage dogs."
I whispered, "What are you trying to say, sir?"
He said, "Use your head, Eric. You're in your own room, in one of the best hotels in south Texas. There have been shouts and screams and violent blows. Where's the house detective? Where are the police?" I watched his face and said nothing. He went on: "Does it seem likely, if I'm working for the people you think, that I'd also have the full cooperation of the authorities and the hotel management? We had the rooms on either side of you emptied, also above and below, to avoid any chance of having a guest killed by a stray bullet. That is why we closed in on you here, where we could control the surroundings. In the open, in a running fight, innocent people might have been hurt. At first we'd hoped to be able to approach you when you were alone and enlist your aid, but there was some doubt about your attitude, and anyway, you were never alone. So we laid our plans to take the two of you together. I'm glad it worked out this well. Knowing you, I was afraid we might have to kill you."
I licked my lips, still watching him closely. "Sorry to have caused you. concern."
He smiled briefly, and said, "The F.B.I., as a matter of fact, isn't at all happy about your position in this matter, which is why I took the trouble of getting some statements from you on the record… Oh, yes, there's a microphone in the room." He shook his head quickly, as if reproving himself. "No, I won't pretend to be omniscient. lb be perfectly honest, I wasn't quite sure where you stood myself, until I talked with you. After all, she's quite beautiful. She's made men forget their loyalties before now."
"Tina?" I whispered.
He looked down at me. "Eric, just because an attractive woman gives you a fifteen-year-old recognition signal and a plausible story…! Tina left us just three weeks after you did, right after the war. She was discharged in Paris. She's had no connection with us since. In fact, there's strong evidence to indicate that she'~ formed other connections… – The next time somebody tries to engage you in criminal activities in m~ name, I wish you'd get in touch with me directly!"
"I certainly will," I said drily. "Just leave a carc with your address and telephone number."
He sighed. "I suppose that's a fair criticism." H was silent briefly. Then he asked, "You believe me, don't you?"
"Oh, yes. I believe you. I guess."
I was tired, and I didn't want to think about it any more. I didn't want to think about Tina tonight. Tomorrow would be soon enough.
CHAPTER 23
IN the morning, I woke up alone in the room. There was sunlight at the window. They'd cleaned up the place. It looked tidy and innocent, like a room in which nothing had ever happened-and when you came right down to it, not much had. There'd been a little scuffle, that was all. Suspense and surprise, deceit and disillusionment, in themselves do
n't mark up the furniture.
The other bed was empty and neatly made up. I remembered vaguely hearing its erstwhile occupant being carted off to the hospital for some repair work on his larynx and windpipe. This should have made me feel terrible,-of course-a bright and patriotic young fellow undergoing emergency surgery on my account. But as I've mentioned, we were never strong on esprit de corps. The dope should have had sense enough to keep his throat out of other people's hands; and if he'd had any training at all, he'd been taught how to break a strangle-hold, either with a smashing upward drive of both arms-hands locked together-or finger by finger. It wasn't my fault if he panicked and forgot his ABC's.
The whole affair seemed, in retrospect, like a remarkably stupid business; and my part in it had certainly been no less stupid-to put it very charitably- than anybody else's. Well, you can't be smart all the time, but I had to admit that some people seemed to maintain a slightly higher average than others.
There was a knock on the door, and Mac came in without waiting for my response, followed by another man, who closed the door and made certain it was locked before coming forward. He gave the impression of being a man who'd spent his life locking doors carefully before discussing matters of vast importance. Since Mac had said there was a mike in the room, and I had no reason to believe it had been removed, I wasn't too impressed by this concern for locks and doors.
The man was, I judged, a well-preserved fifty, with the rangy, powerful build of a college football star who'd put on a little middle-aged weight and would have put on more if it hadn't been for the rowing machine and the handball court. His face had a hint of Lincolnesque angularity, of which he was aware. It was the only angularity about him. In all other respects he was a real smoothie.
I was interested to see that he was carrying Tina's handsome fur piece carefully folded. He held it gingerly, with a hint of dramatized embarrassment, the way some' men handle anything recognizably feminine, as if they want to make damn sure you understand they're not in the habit of fondling items of this kind and get no kick from it. You see them in the dress shops around December, putting on an act as if they thought the black lace Christmas lingerie would bite them.
I glanced at the mink stole as he laid it on the foot of the bed. It was a clue, no doubt, but I didn't try to interpret it. It could have been taken off her body-alive or dead-or she could have dropped it as she made good her escape. And why had it been brought here and planted conspicuously on my bedclothes? That, too, would become clear in due time. It was nothing worth wasting cerebral energy on until I knew more about it.
I looked at Mac and said, "How many keys are there to this trap, anyway? I might as well have put up a cot in a public john."
Mac said, "I brought Mr. Denison to see you. Show him your credentials, Denison, to make it official."
The latter-day Lincoln showed me some credentials that had impressive words on them, although I suppose he could have got them with a box of Cracker-Jacks.
I said, "Fine. He's seen me and I've seen him. What do we do now?"
"He wants to ask you some questions," Mac said. "Answer to the best of your ability, Eric. There's full cooperation between Mr. Denison's organization and ours."
I liked that little word "ours." It meant I was back in the fold, at least for the time being.
"Full?" I asked.
''Full.''
"Okay," I said. "What do you want to know, Mr. Denison?"
As might have been expected, he wanted the whole story, and I gave it to him. He didn't believe a word of it. Oh, I don't mean he thought I was lying. But he didn't think I was telling the truth, either. He didn't think anything about it, one way or the other. He was just collecting spoken words from one M. Helm, as a doctor might have collected specimens of my blood and urine.
"Ah, well, it looks like we've got most of it," he said at last. "You say-" He referred to some notes he'd taken. "-you say this woman at one point showed you a membership card in a certain subversive organization?"
"Yes. She claimed to have found it among the dead girl's effects."
"It was probably her own. You don't happen to recall the number of the card?"
"No," I said. "The code name was Dolores."
"If you'd examined the physical description of the holder with reasonable care, Mr. Helm, I think you'd have discovered it couldn't very well have applied to Miss Herrera."
"Perhaps," I said. "They were both dark-haired girls of about the same height. The eyes were different, of course." I found myself wondering, quite irrelevantly, just how some hardboiled party official had gone about describing the color of Tina's eyes.
"And you say the body is hidden in the old Santander mine?"
"That's right. Check with Carlos Juhan in Cerrillos, he'll tell you how to get in there. You'll have an easier job if you take a jeep or four-wheel-drive pickup."
"It seems to me…" Denison hesitated.
"Yes?"
"It seems to me you lent yourself to this scheme without much thought. I can't quite understand how a reputable citizen, with a wife and three small children, could allow himself to be persuaded-"
Mac spoke up abruptly. "I'll take it from here, Denison. Thanks a lot for coming up."
"Yes," Denison said. "Ah, yes. Of course." He went out, rather stiffly. Mac followed him to the door, and locked it behind him; then strode to a picture on the nearby wall, took a microphone out from behind it, and pulled out the cord by the roots. He tossed the mike into the wastebasket, and turned to look at me.
"You don't know how lucky you are, Eric," he said. I glanced at the door through which Denison had gone. "I can guess. He'd love to see me in jail." Mac shook his head. "I wasn't referring to that, although it's a point." He came to the foot of the bed, and reached down to stroke the soft fur of Tina's mink stole, without embarrassment. "She got away," he said. "She hid in the hotel, trying to wait us out, but they caught her outside. They got her gun and made her clasp her hands at the back of her neck, but it seems there was a little throwing knife…"
"I didn't know she had that. She must have taken it off the body when I wasn't looking." I grimaced. "I bet she didn't hurt anybody much. She never was much good with a knife."
"Well, one of Denison's men is having some stitches taken in his face, but I suppose you could say he wasn't seriously hurt. The other one just got this fur wrapped around his head. By the time he could see again, she was gone. So I guess you could call it a draw, this time. She got away, but at least you're alive to tell us about it."
I looked at him for a little. He did not speak. I asked the question he was waiting for. "What do you mean," I said, "this time?"
"Oh," he said, "she's used the same technique before, pretending to be carrying out my orders. But the other suckers were dead when she left them." He looked at me for a moment. "She's been looking up all our old people, Eric, the ones she worked with during the war. It's surprising how many of them seem to be ripe for a little excitement, even the settled ones with families. When I recognized the pattern, I sent operatives to warn all her likely prospects-but Herrera didn't reach you quite in time." After a little silence, he said, "She must be found and stopped, Eric. She has done enough harm. I want you to find her and stop her. Permanently."
CHAPTER 24
WHEN I paid my hotel bill, the woman at the cashier's window smiled pleasantly and said, "You come back, Mr. Helm."
I didn't know why she'd want me back, after last night's ruckus, and she probably didn't know herself, but the phrase has become almost obligatory for employes of business institutions throughout the southwest. Whether you drop in five times a day or don't ever expect to see the place again, you're always told to come back.
Driving north from San Antonio, there's the usual freeway routine-at least, they called them freeways out in California when I was there. Maybe the lbxans have another name for them. Driving was a cinch, and I had plenty of time to think. My thinking revolved mainly around Mac's expression when I t
old him to go to hell. At that point, he'd stopped being his new, sociable, smiling, peacetime self. Well, I hadn't put much stock in that act, anyway.
There wasn't really much he could do about it, short of calling in Denison and having me arrested for something, which apparently didn't appeal to him. Instead, he'd told me how to get in touch with him, if I should change my mind, and stalked out, leaving the mink stole lying on the foot of my bed. It was in the back of the pickup now, as I drove north along the four-lane highway that, as near as I could figure out, more or less followed the route of the old Shawnee Trail to Kansas. So I wasn't rid of her entirely, and if you think that wasn't Mac's idea in leaving it, you don't know Mac. He'd saddled me with something of hers he was reasonably sure I wouldn't sell, burn, or give away. There was only one way for me to get rid of it; and while it was a long chance-after all, I had no idea where she'd gone, and he probably knew it-I was sure that if it should happen, he or some of his people wouldn't be very far away.
Well, that was his worry, or maybe it was Tina's. If she wanted her furs, she could come and get them. If he wanted her, he could come and get her. I wasn't going to play delivery boy or bird dog for either of them. I'd had my little fling at reviving my old, tough, wartime self, and the experiment hadn't been a howling success. I was going back to being a peaceful writer looking for material, a devoted father and a faithful husband-although the last might take some doing, after what had happened.
I got off the concrete and went down the little back roads from which I could see and feel the country, zigzagging northwards. I slept in the truck that night. It rained hard the next day. If anybody was following me in anything but a jeep, he had lots of fun. In places, it was all the truck could do to make it through the gluey gumbo, for all its cleated tires and four-speed transmission. I didn't mind. The nice thing about driving a truck is, you don't have to worry about the wheels falling off just because the road doesn't happen to be perfectly smooth and dry.
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