“Cleared me of what?” I asked. “Of saving her lousy little life? I can see how that ought to be illegal, but I didn’t know it was.”
“Mr. Helm, please!” It was the white man, the younger one. He turned to the girl. “Go on, Miss Rockwell. Don’t leave town or change hotels without letting us know, please.” When the little girl had fled, he turned back to me: “What Detective Inspector Crawford means is that there are always questions to be answered when a man is killed, even when he seems to have been something of a professional gunman…”
I let my eyes widen in a startled way. “My God! A professional? What the hell have I got myself into, anyway?”
He hesitated. “Well, we’re getting some very interesting information on the late Mr. Menshek. It’s big and international, Mr. Helm. For some reason, certain people seem almost as anxious to get rid of that little girl who just left as they were to dispose of Leon Trotsky. At least, they employed some very high-priced talent for the job. Mr. Menshek’s records seems to be long, gory, and spectacular. I have to tell you this, in case there should be repercussions.”
I grimaced. “Thanks a whole lot! What you’re trying to say is that I just managed to bash in the head of a high-class Commie hitman, or liquidator, or exterminator, or whatever the movie jargon is, and somebody may be real mad, is that it?”
He said carefully, “Well, it’s not really very likely, sir, but I thought you should be aware of the possibility.”
“It makes me feel warm all over,” I said sourly. “Or cold. And what about you and your friends with your eavesdropping gadgets, are you all mad, too?”
“Oh, no,” he said. “No, indeed, Mr. Helm. We are very happy. As far as we’re concerned, well, you’ve done us a service—we don’t like to have homicidal operations like that conducted under our noses, isn’t that right, Inspector? If a few more brave citizens like you were to rise up and dispose of a few more nasty types like Menshek, the world would be a better place for all of us. We just had to make certain that your actions were those of a genuinely disinterested and public-spirited bystander…”
It always works. I didn’t take all his protestations at face value—even with my head cracked, I can spot irony when I hear it—but at least he’d indicated that we were all going to play nice, until further notice. You can generally get by with just about anything, even homicide, as long as you’re not too proud to make yourself look bad by confessing to a slightly discreditable action, like peeing in a public park.
After a while, they all went away, and I slept. Suddenly it was morning. My head was clear enough for me to take in the standard nurse-and-doctor routine. They run it just about the same with a predominantly black cast as with a predominantly white one. I got some breakfast that didn’t have much taste, or maybe it was my mouth that didn’t have much taste. Then the door opened, kind of sneakily, and the little blonde girl whose life I’d saved slipped through the crack. She was wearing a short, crisp, white dress, and her long hair had been brushed to within an inch of its blonde life. Obviously, she wanted to make a good impression on somebody this morning, presumably me.
“Mr. Helm—”
“Beat it,” I said.
“But—”
I reached for the dingus that rang the bell and pushed the button. The service was good. Almost instantly a black nurse or aide or something—I didn’t have all the Bahamian hospital ranks sorted out—came in to see what I wanted.
I said, “Get the little stoolpigeon out of here, will you, Miss. Please. She’s interfering with the patient’s recovery.”
Lacey Rockwell departed with a reproachful look on her face. She was just as cute as the Easter Bunny, and I didn’t want to lose her permanently, but I didn’t really think there was much risk of that. I waited, watched the ceiling, and presently Fred came in, kind of diffidently. “Sorry to bother you, sir, but they said it was all right.”
I said, “Oh, you’re the driver who… Of course, you’ve got some money coming. I think my wallet’s in the table drawer. If you’d get it out…” As he came closer, I said softly, “Careful, the place is bugged.”
He shook his head. “No longer. They took it out last night, Mr. Helm. They’re satisfied.”
“Maybe,” I said. “That white man with Detective Inspector Crawford knows more than he was saying aloud. Have we got anything on him?”
“Not much yet,” Fred said. “He’s not local. Somebody from London, is the word we have. A specialist, but specialist in what? He goes by the name of Pendleton, Ramsay Pendleton. The fact that he seems to be getting full cooperation is significant. With our politics the way they are right now, British officials aren’t generally welcomed with open arms.” Fred hesitated. “That was a brave thing you did, Mr. Helm, tackling the Mink barehanded.”
I looked at him with surprise and, perhaps, a little dismay. Only an amateur worries about courage; and I don’t like amateur help. I said, “The guy had only one shot in his gun. He weighed a hundred and thirty pounds. I go over two hundred when I don’t watch myself. I should be ashamed of myself, picking on a little fellow like that and letting him put a crease in my skull to boot.” After a moment, I went on: “Could he possibly have made contact with anybody between the time you spotted him at the airport, and the time you turned him over to me at the hotel?”
“If I’d seen a contact made, Mr. Helm, I’d certainly have let you know.”
Fred’s voice was cool. I’d hurt his feelings. He wasn’t supposed to have feelings, none of us are, but I’d hurt them anyway. I’d forgotten that the British have a thing about being forever brave; and that these island people, although they were in the process of discarding the colonial yoke, had nevertheless been exposed to that stiff-upper-lip tradition since childhood. Furthermore, I’d questioned his professional competence.
I said, “Relax, amigo. You know as well as I do that there are signals nobody can spot who doesn’t know exactly what he’s looking for. This thing was set up in advance, well in advance, or we’d never have had a chance to learn about it in time to make the intercept. Okay. But the Mink would have wanted to know, upon arriving, that nothing had gone haywire while he was in transit. It seems probable that somebody, at the airport, the hotel, or points in between, gave him the final green light. Maybe just a bystander blowing his nose on a dirty handkerchief, in which case we’re out of luck. But the most likely candidate is somebody he’d normally have dealings with as an innocent tourist, planted somewhere along the route he’d be expected to take. The driver of the taxi he used, for instance…”
“I drove him in my cab,” Fred said stiffly.
I grinned. “One possibility eliminated, then. What about the rest? Who handed him his luggage at the airport, checked him in at the hotel, took his bag up to his room, waited on him in the restaurant… Hell, maybe that slow, slow service was a signal of sorts, although it seems to be fairly standard operating procedure in that place. If you don’t mind checking them all out, I’d appreciate it.” He nodded, relaxing a little, and I said: “Swell, now what have you got on the girl?”
“Lacey Matilda Rockwell, twenty-four, from Winter Harbor, Maine. Unmarried. Degree from the University of Maine. Studied oceanography at Woods Hole, wherever that may be. The little lady is an expert diver, sailor, surfer… anything on the water or under it, she can do it, is the information we have.”
I seemed to have an affinity for salty maidens brought up on sheets and halliards. Well, they came in handy sometimes. Maybe I could find a use for this one.
“What’s she doing around here, oceanographing?” I asked.
“No sir,” Fred said. “She’s looking for somebody, a Harlan Enos Rockwell, twenty-two, her younger brother. Apparently an embryo singlehander, following in the footsteps of the late Sir Francis Chichester. Had a twenty-four-foot cruising sloop, the Star Trek—named after a TV program, I believe. He’d bought the Fiberglas hull and finished it himself, beefing it up for ocean work. Went missing at sea late this sum
mer after heading out the Northeast Providence Channel bound for the Virgin Islands… Did you say something, Mr. Helm?”
“No,” I said. After all, that was another phase of the operation—the Haseltine phase; the Treacherous-Triangle phase—and one that didn’t concern Fred or his cohorts, or did it?
8
Mac said, “I have been subjected to a certain amount of criticism, Eric. Some people here in Washington are disturbed. They point out that you were instructed to obtain some information before making the touch. They feel that your action was, shall we say, a little precipitate?”
It didn’t bother me, really. I mean, you don’t call Washington expecting solicitous inquiries about your health—not even right after being released from the hospital—or congratulations on the success of a difficult mission. Not unless you’re a naïve damned fool you don’t.
I grimaced at the dark-faced pedestrians moving past the phone booth as if they were in no great hurry to get where they were going. There were some light-faced ones as well. I made a face at those, too, so as not to seem guilty of prejudice. Nevertheless, despite the standard Washington static, I was feeling pretty good. My headache was almost gone, and Nassau didn’t seem like such a bad place, after all. The people looked cheerful and friendly, and the sun was shining. Maybe I’d just been in a bad mood when I arrived, looking for things to criticize. There’s nothing like surviving a little brush with death to make the world look attractive just about anywhere.
“Yes, sir, precipitate,” I said. “But I’m working on the information angle now.”
“How? Minsk was buried yesterday.”
I said, “We probably know everything the Mink ever knew about this deal: the identity and location of his target in Nassau. That was all he needed to know to carry out his assignment, so that was all the information he’d care to burden himself with. Question, sir.”
“Yes, Eric?”
“How did we learn of his impending visit to this island paradise?”
“The intelligence people picked it up through one of their informants overseas, I believe. Why?”
“I don’t like it,” I said. “There’s a funny smell here, somewhere.”
“What do you mean?”
I said, “Goddamn it, sir, it was too damned easy!”
“The medical report I have says you came within a fraction of an inch of getting killed.”
“I had orders not to muddy the international waters, remember? Also, I felt obliged to save a lady’s life. Without those handicaps, I could have picked him off like a pigeon on a telephone wire. Pavel Minsk, for God’s sake! Walking into ambush like that, like a kid on his first assignment! Take my word for it, sir, it stinks!”
There was a little pause; then Mac said: “Old professionals do get careless and overconfident after years of success, Eric. Sometimes they even get the feeling they’re bulletproof, and charge stupidly into the muzzles of loaded firearms, barehanded.”
I grimaced at the instrument on the wall of the booth, and said, “Yes, sir.”
“However, you may have a point,” he went on, without a change of tone. “I will make inquiries, but I can promise nothing. Our fellow agencies are seldom receptive to suggestions that they may have been inefficient, not to say gullible. Particularly when they were promised information from us that has not, so far, been forthcoming; information, the most likely source of which has just received a simple but Christian funeral.”
I said, “We don’t need the Mink any more. We stopped needing him the instant I saw where his gun was pointing.”
“You may be right. But in his absence we do need Miss Lacey Matilda Rockwell.”
I was glad to hear him say it, confirming my own belated realization that it had actually been very clever of me to keep the girl alive, although I hadn’t been aware of it at the time. Investigating a living subject that can talk is generally easier than investigating a dead one that can’t. There were a good many things we needed to know, now—or somebody did—about the unlikely little female specimen the Mink had come such a long way to kill.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“According to the reports I have, you seem to be doing everything in your power to rebuff and antagonize the young lady. I presume you have a reason.”
I wondered if Fred was sending in critical comments about my handling of the situation because I’d hurt his feelings at the hospital. Well, there’s always a certain amount of friction between the people on the spot and the visiting experts they’re obliged to serve—there’s often the feeling, locally, that they should have been allowed to handle the job without the intervention of imported talent. Nevertheless, I kind of wished the guy had taken it up with me, if he had a criticism, instead of passing it on to Washington.
“Yes, sir,” I said. “It’s a matter of psychology, sir.”
“Indeed?”
I said, “I had to figure out a way to keep her on ice, so to speak. If I’d just taken that police business in my stride, she could have gone off with a clear conscience, and I might have had considerable trouble finding her again, not to mention establishing a useful relationship with her. Now it should be fairly easy. She’s got to come to me. As long as I persist in misunderstanding her so cruelly and treating her so rudely, she’s got to hang around and try to straighten me out. She’s got to convince me, somehow, that she’s really a swell and sensitive person who really appreciates my saving her life; and that she only set me up for the Nassau cops and their electronics for my own good.” I was watching a slim black girl in red boots, brown hose, and red hotpants. She was gone before I could complete my appraisal upward. Nevertheless, I decided that Nassau was really quite a picturesque place in spite of the hotel’s plastic-wrapped marmalade. I went on: “Hell, I had to give myself a little time, sir. I had to stall until my head stopped pounding and I was out of bed and could figure out what to do next—assuming that you did want me to proceed with the assignment.”
“Your assumption was correct. We took this job under certain conditions; we’re more or less obliged to fulfill those conditions. How are you feeling now, Eric?”
It was nice of him to ask, after all. I said, “I’m fine, sir. The medical profession assures me no brains were spilled or scrambled. All that remains visible is a slightly oversized bandaid.” At least I was a lot healthier than Pavel Minsk, I reflected, and continued: “Did you know that Miss Rockwell is in the Islands looking for a brother missing at sea out in the so-called Bermuda Triangle? No wreckage, no lifebelts, no bodies washed ashore—well, body, singular. Harlan Enos Rockwell was doing it all alone. In a twenty-four-foot sailboat. Not a hell of a lot of boat for ocean cruising, but smaller ones have made it. Apparently he didn’t. At least he headed out of here several weeks ago and hasn’t been seen or heard from since. It’s getting to be a fairly familiar story, isn’t it, sir?”
“Yes, I thought so when I heard about it,” Mac said. “It certainly seems to indicate that the Minsk affair is related, somehow, to Mr. Haseltine’s problem. But just what could the girl have learned, searching for her missing brother, that’s dangerous enough to Moscow that one of their best men had to be sent to silence her?” He paused, and went on: “Our big trouble is, I’m afraid, that even the young lady herself probably doesn’t know the answer to that question.”
I said, “There are, however, two questions she should be able to answer. The first is why, having lost a brother out east in the Atlantic, she came to Nassau and hired an airplane to take her on a search in just about the opposite direction, having the pilot fly her off to the west as far as Florida in some areas.”
Mac said, “Yes, I noticed that.”
“The other question is: who put her up a tree for the Mink to shoot at? There’s no doubt in my mind that she’d arranged to meet somebody in that garden; although she presumably didn’t know the guy would have a gun. The police didn’t see her waiting there, but I did. If they had, they’d undoubtedly have leaned on her harder. If we can lear
n how the arrangement was made, maybe we’ll have a lead that’ll take us somewhere.”
Mac said, “I suppose that’s as good a place for you to start as any. Let me know what you turn up…”
“Question, sir.”
“Yes?”
“What have we got on Phipps?”
“Haseltine should have given you all the significant information.”
“Sure. A wealthy contractor type with a movie-star wife, a beautiful daughter, and a yen for boats.”
“You’re not satisfied, Eric?”
“Haha,” I said. “Don’t crack such funny jokes, sir. This is serious business.”
“What do you find unsatisfactory?”
I said, “You told me recently that you were instructed to shift manpower to the Bahamas. The British also have at least one agent of some kind floating around; and he’s cheerfully accepted by the local authorities in spite of the fact that the Islands are busy casting off the brutal bonds of British tyranny. All this because of a missing kid in a Fiberglas tub, and a missing West Coast yachtsman with curly gray hair?” I paused. Mac said nothing. I said, “Either this Phipps gent is somebody very important in disguise, or Harlan Rockwell is, or there’s somebody or something else involved nobody’s bothered to mention… You spoke, sir?”
He hadn’t, but he’d made some kind of a sound, a thousand miles away. Now he said, “This is confidential, Eric. Ten days ago, a sizable diesel yacht proceeding towards the Bahamas from Puerto Rico failed to make radio contact according to her prearranged schedule. She has not been heard from since: the Wayfarer, owned by Sir James Marcus, who was on board. Sir James is the proprietor of several English newspapers. He is considered the sixth or seventh wealthiest man in the British Isles. As I say, this is highly classified information, that I am not supposed to divulge. If the news should get out, there would be serious financial repercussions. Officially, Sir James is merely cruising for his health, incommunicado by his own wishes.”
The Intimidators Page 6