I liked that. Whether as Fenn or Martell, he was having to remind himself, now, that he knew all about me, and that I was a potentially dangerous person. He’d taken me too easily, and Paul had probably been easy, too, and when I’d had a chance to act, just now, I’d taken shelter on the floor instead. It had been a long time since he’d had to deal with anything but policemen and hoodlums. It had been a long time since he’d had to deal with any of us, and then he’d done all right, in Berlin. His brain was warning him not to underestimate the enemy, but his ego was telling him these American agents weren’t so much.
Beth said, horrified, “But you can’t just leave the boy—”
Martell grinned at her. “No, I guess you’re right. Joey, take your gun and go in there and finish him off. That’s what you meant, wasn’t it, Duchess?”
She stared at the two of them, pale and wide-eyed; then she gave a little gasp and ran towards the front door. Martell laughed.
“After her, Joey. Keep an eye on her. I’ll watch this one.”
“But you said—” Joey had his gun out.
“Ah, the hell with the kid. He’s not going anywhere. Let’s get out of here.” Martell gestured with the foreign automatic. “All right, Shorty. Slow and easy.” He grinned at me as I moved past. “Just because The Man wants some information out of you doesn’t mean you’re bulletproof. There’s a lot of places I can shoot you where you’ll live long enough to talk.”
That answered one question: why I was still alive. It looked as if the day ahead might be long and eventful, not to say painful. Joey had disappeared outside. I walked slowly towards the door, and spoke without turning my head.
“Having fun, Vladimir?”
I heard him chuckle. “I make a very fine American gangster, do I not, Eric?”
“That foreign gun’s a little out of character.”
“Not at all. They are very popular among the people who are hep, as the saying goes. You must be new. I do not recall seeing your dossier, and I have a good memory.”
I could have told him he just hadn’t checked recently enough, or far enough back—they might still have something on me from the war, although we were supposed to be allies at the time—but it wasn’t the place to boast of my vast and varied experience.
“I’ve seen yours,” I said.
“That’s very good,” he said. “Then you know I do not fool when I tell you to be careful, very careful. No false moves. And no conversation with my Neanderthal assistant. If you should be thinking of trying to play on his patriotic sentiments by revealing me as a subversive person—”
“Has he got any sentiments, patriotic or otherwise? I saw no signs of them.”
“You do him an injustice. I’m sure Joey is full of nice American sentiments about country and motherhood. If you try to talk with him, I will have to shoot you, even if it means that the objectionable Mr. Fredericks never finds his enchanting daughter. Where is she, by the way?”
“She’s safe, for the time being.”
He laughed. “So. Well, we have lots of time, Eric. It will give us something to do while we wait, finding out.”
In passing, I glanced into the living room where young Logan lay near the fireplace. Well, I’d left better men in worse places. He seemed to be still breathing. You never know. One man will die from an infected hangnail, and the next will survive a machine-gun burst you’d think would kill a rhino.
Outside, Joey and Beth were waiting by a big Chrysler sedan that looked familiar. It was the same car in which I’d been brought to Fredericks the day before.
“She’ll drive us,” Martell said, jerking his head towards Beth. “You know the Buckman cabin, Duchess?” He was Fenn again. “Well, take us there. Joey, you watch her close. I’ll ride in back with Shorty.”
We drove off in pale daylight. Twenty-four hours ago, I recalled, I’d been standing on a hill in the desert with a girl and a pair of binoculars, watching a dog catch a rabbit. Now the dog was dead, the girl hated me, and I was watching the sun come up in another place, waiting for some men to catch a man. The cast was different, but the script didn’t seem to vary much. I heard Martell laugh softly to himself.
“That Duke must be quite a character,” he said in Fenn’s best voice. “You’ve got to hand it to him, cool as a breeze. The Man was telling me; he just got word from a spotter down on the border who saw him go through earlier. They stopped him at customs in that damned imported hot-rod and asked him if he had anything to declare. ‘Why, certainly,’ said the Duke, ‘two quarts of tequila and a gallon of rum.’ ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said the customs guy, ‘you’re only entitled to bring in one gallon of alcoholic beverage; we’ll have to ask you to take back the excess or pour it out.’ ‘I say, old chap, that does seem a pity, but the law is the law,’ says the Duke, and he gets out and opens up the trunk and pours out the tequila casually—standing there with the trunk wide open and God knows how much horse in the spare tire! The spotter almost flipped, but the Duke never turned a hair. He closed the trunk, got back into that bomb of his, gave the guy a jaunty salute, and drove off smiling.”
Joey said, “The spare tire? That’s a hell of a corny place to hide it.”
“Maybe, but he made it, didn’t he? The Man says he should be here in four-five hours, the way he’s pushing... Keep your eyes on the road, Duchess.”
Beth asked breathlessly, “What are you going to do to him?”
“Just drive, Gorgeous,” Martell said. “You know what they say; ask a silly question, get a silly answer. That was a hell of a silly question, now, wasn’t it?”
The old Buckman cabin was off the road a little ways, and the low Chrysler had a hard time making it over the ruts. Pretty soon they’ll start building cars that you can’t even get over the hump where your driveway meets the street. Beth stalled twice, braking hard for rocks and bumps.
Martell said, “Just goose it, Duchess. It’s not your car, what the hell do you care what happens to The Man’s muffler?”
We crashed and thrashed up to the place and went out and went inside. It wasn’t much of a house, even for back in the mountains. Whoever the Buckmans had been, they’d moved out long ago. There was a cot, a table, and some wooden chairs in various stages of decay, in the largest room, the one we entered. There was a bedroom of sorts with a built-in double bunk visible through one door, and a kitchen with an old, wood-burning range visible through the other. There’s nothing deader-looking than one of those old iron stoves rusting away from disuse.
“Over here, Duchess,” Martell said, dusting off a chair with a flourish and taking her arm to seat her. His hand stayed a little longer and covered a little more territory than absolutely necessary. “Sit here and stay put.”
Beth sat down, trying to ignore his touch. She had the prissy, head-high, eyes-forward look a certain kind of nice girl gets when she hears a wolf-whistle on the street. I hoped she didn’t mean it. I hoped to God she didn’t mean it. I was going to need her badly, soon.
Martell turned to me. “You,” he said, “way over here. Now let’s hear you talk. Where’s Miss Fredericks? Where are you keeping her?” He looked down at me and sighed, and drew a pair of pigskin gloves from his pocket and started pulling them on. “Keep them covered, Joey,” he said without turning his head. “This one wants it the hard way.”
22
It was a long, rough morning, but I’ve known rougher. Martell’s heart wasn’t in it. He didn’t really give a damn where I was hiding Moira Fredericks, and he wasn’t in any hurry to find out—not yet, at least. He was just enjoying himself and incidentally, I noticed with hope, trying to impress Beth with what a big, tough, mean, irresistible man he was. I hadn’t forgotten his record with the three black marks for falling down on the job on account of women.
I tried to signal her. It shouldn’t have been necessary. A good female agent would have got to work on him as a matter of course. Even the Fredericks girl would have seen where her duty lay and done it without prompting, I
was sure. But Beth continued to ignore Martell, deliberately and kind of desperately. I couldn’t even catch her attention at first. She was doing her best not to watch the proceedings at all, which seemed fairly stupid. How did she expect us to get out of this if we didn’t cooperate, and how were we going to cooperate if she wouldn’t look my way for possible messages?
Finally I managed to establish communications and get the idea across. I saw her eyes widen incredulously. She glanced at Martell, and back at me, to be sure I really meant to ask this of her. Then, after a long pause, I saw her pull back her shoulders bravely, and, after another pause, raise her hands to her hair, which had become more than slightly disheveled during the course of the night and morning.
The next time he looked her way, she answered with a brief slanting glance, quickly withdrawn. There’s nothing that beats, for pure coquettishness, that sidelong glance they give you while busy with their hair. I drew a sigh of relief. It looked as if I might make a soldier of her yet. I even took courage from the fact that Martell was returning to the fray with renewed energy. Apparently, like many other men, he believed wholeheartedly in the theory that nothing made him bigger, in the eyes of a woman, than beating up another man in front of her.
* * *
Some time after eight o’clock I got a short respite when he sent Joey outside to keep watch.
“Logan will probably be coming from below,” Martell said. “This road joins the main highway out on the desert somewhere. It would be his shortest route. But don’t count on it. He might get tricky and swing up into the mountains and come down the way we came. Or he could park out of sight and sneak up on foot. So keep a sharp lookout.” He watched Joey go out the door. Then he took out his gun and came back to me and kicked me in the shin. “Where were we? Oh, yes, you were going to tell me where you’re keeping Miss Fredericks.”
But the worst was over, for the time being. With Joey out of the room, he had to be careful about coming within reach; and he wasn’t getting any real charge out of it now, anyway. His mind was busy elsewhere. He was listening.
When we heard the Jag coming at last, it sounded like a cross between a tractor-trailer rig pulling a steep grade and a buzz-saw slicing through soft pine. As it came closer, I could hear that the big six-cylinder mill was running rough. He needed new plugs all around after that long, hard drive, and a couple of valves needed attention badly. Joey appeared in the doorway.
“He’s coming up the canyon!”
“All right,” Martell said. “Now leave that door open and come over here and put your gun on this joker. The hell with what he knows. Don’t monkey with him. If he moves, just shoot a nice big hole in him.”
Joey pulled out his gun, a large revolver with an orifice in the barrel that was either .44 or .45 but looked considerably larger from where I was sitting. He showed it to me, so that if he had to use it I’d know what I’d been killed with, and walked around behind my chair where I couldn’t see him without craning my neck, which didn’t seem advisable. Besides, I wasn’t going to strain any muscles I didn’t have to. They were all pretty sore by this time.
Martell went over and pulled Beth to her feet. He was very business-like now, with action impending.
“All right, Duchess. Here’s where you come in.”
We could hear the Jaguar turning in from the canyon road, hitting bottom here and there on the primitive track leading to the cabin, as the Chrysler had done. Martell gave a sudden twist to Beth’s wrist, levering it around and up between her shoulder blades.
“Joey,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Watch him. I don’t even want to have to think about him.”
“I’ve got this monkey,” Joey said. “You just handle the Duke. Be careful, he’s supposed to know his way around.”
Beth moaned slightly with the pain of her arm. “What are you going to—”
Martell said, “Play another record, Duchess. Or just shut up.” He listened. The Jag had come to a stop outside. He shoved Beth roughly into the open doorway. “Duke,” he called. “Duke Logan.”
There was a little pause. I heard Joey cock his revolver, behind me. Then Logan’s voice reached us, a little attenuated by distance. “I read you, old chap,” the Duke said. “Loud and clear.”
“You see what I’ve got here?”
“I see.”
“Take out your gun and drop it on the ground. One careless move and I blow her spine in two.”
There was another pause. Logan didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say, although his kid would undoubtedly have made it the subject of six pages of corny dialogue. But the Duke had been raised in a harder school. The cards were dealt, the stakes were clear. He could either play out his hand, win or lose, or he could throw it in and hope for a better deal later—if he was an optimist.
The silence lasted for what seemed like a long time. Then we heard a little clinking sound as something metallic hit the dirt outside. It wasn’t the choice I’d have made, but then, I’ve never liked postponing things, nor has chivalry ever been my ruling passion. The Duke, unlike me, was a gentleman.
Martell moved instantly. He knocked Beth aside, brought up his gun, and fired once. We heard, on the heels of the report, the slapping sound of the bullet striking flesh, the little involuntary gasp of the Duke as he was hit, and the sound of his body falling. Well, he must have known that would be the next thing. For a lady—his lady—he must have considered it worthwhile.
Martell drew a long breath, watching. “If you move one inch more, Duchess,” he said without turning his head in the slightest, “you’re going to need a set of false teeth, which would be a pity. Joey.”
“Yes.”
“How’s your patient?”
“Doing well, Fenn.”
“Keep him covered, but come here.”
There was a shuffling sound as Joey circled around me and backed towards the door.
“Duchess.” Beth, crouched along the wall, her face shocked and white, didn’t answer. Martell said sharply, “You’re asking for it, Duchess! Right smack in the teeth. When I talk, you answer!”
“What. what do you want?”
“Get over there with your boyfriend. Not too close, not too far away. When I turn, I want to see two feet between you, no more no less. If there’s a discrepancy, Gorgeous, I’ll correct it with a bullet. You can have lots of fun guessing which one of you I’ll shoot.”
He still hadn’t turned his head. He was keeping watch through the open door, pistol ready. He waited, as Beth moved across the room to me.
“Joey.”
“Yes, Fenn.”
“Are they over there? Together?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Now listen carefully. He’s shamming unconscious right now, but all he’s got is a bad leg. The gun’s about a yard this side of him. I’d say it was out of his reach, but don’t count on it. Anyway, he could be packing another. Now you come here, tell me when you’ve got him covered, and I’ll swing around to watch those two. Okay?”
“Okay, Fenn, but—”
“But what?”
“Why just the leg? Why monkey with a guy like that, he’s supposed to be a real—”
“Never mind the questions. Sing out when you’ve got him.”
“I’m turning. I’ve got him.”
Martell pivoted sharply, bringing his gun to bear on us. He sidestepped, so that he was no longer in line with the door.
“Joey. Is he still playing dead?”
“He hasn’t moved.”
“All right. Now go out there and tell him this. Tell him I’ve got a bead on the dame again, and if I hear one single wrong sound behind me, I’ll pull the trigger. Then kick the gun away, frisk him, and drag him in here. Put him on the cot. Okay. Get going.”
Joey vanished. We could hear his voice outside. After a little, he came into sight again, backwards, dragging Logan by the shoulders. He dragged him across the room and heaved him up on the cot. One of the Duke
’s legs hung at an odd angle, and his khaki pants-leg was stained with blood above the knee. Joey picked up the dangling leg and arranged it beside the other, with the fussy delicacy of an undertaker preparing a corpse.
Martell said, “Okay, Joey. Now go look in the trunk of his car. Bring in whatever you find there, like a spare tire full of something besides air.”
We waited. Logan’s heavy breathing was the loudest sound in the room. He hadn’t opened his eyes, but I didn’t think, any more than Martell, that he was unconscious, although being dragged around with a broken thighbone couldn’t have been any fun. At that, he was lucky. Apparently none of the large blood vessels had been damaged, or there would have been a lot more blood and he wouldn’t have been breathing much by this time. They go fast when the femoral artery is cut.
There was a sudden, scrambling sound outside, and Joey came running in. “Fenn! Fenn, it isn’t there!”
“What isn’t there?”
“The damn trunk’s empty, except for a gallon of lousy Mex rum. There’s no sign of the lousy spare tire!”
23
Logan’s labored breathing didn’t change rhythm. He was out cold with shock, to look at him: he hadn’t heard a thing. Martell stared at Joey, and turned towards the cot. He walked closer and stood looking down at the wounded man. Slowly, his thick lips formed a grin.
“They told me you were tricky,” he murmured. “Cute, real cute.” He glanced at Joey again. “Now you see why we had to keep him alive? He came driving up here a little too innocent-looking for a man of his experience. I figured he must have left himself something to bargain with. Stand still, Duchess!”
Beth said breathlessly, “But I’ve got to. He’ll bleed to death if you don’t let me help him!”
Martell studied her for a moment. Then he nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, sure.”
He reached into his pocket and brought out my little knife. He glanced at Joey to make sure the other man had everything under control. Joey nodded. Martell put his gun away, and opened the Solingen knife, and used the sharp blade to slit the Duke’s trouser leg, baring the bullet-hole, from which blood was still welling thickly. He stepped back and tried to close the knife, but as I’ve said, it locks open. He glanced down irritably, looking for a catch. I opened my mouth to tell him how to do it—you press on the back of the small blade to let the large one close—but before I could speak, he’d snapped the knife in two and thrown the pieces aside.
The Removers Page 14