The Damagers

by Donald Hamilton

  Caselius said, “So. The important lady bureaucrat and the dangerous government executioner!”

  I said, “Like father, like son. All mouth.”

  His hand twitched; he would have slapped my face if he could have reached it. However, the head of the big bunk was a long way from the foot where he stood, the floor space and headroom alongside were limited, and the overhead shelf across the stern helped to make slapping access difficult. He decided to forgo the pleasure, temporarily.

  He shook his head and said, “It was unwise of you to remind me of the fine man you murdered so many years ago, Mr. Helm, although it’s not likely I would forget your ancient crime, having just disposed of one of your more recent victims. But I will deal with you presently. In the meantime… Mrs. Bell?”

  “Yes?”

  “Mrs. Fancher would like to know what new information you obtained that led you to leave Washington so suddenly in order to take charge of this operation in the field.”

  Teresa said, “I don’t know what you mean… Well, I learned that Helm, here, had taken the Kronquist girl aboard against my orders. I couldn’t let him jeopardize the whole mission by depending on a crew I knew to be unreliable. Things weren’t going well in Washington, anyway, so I arranged for Gulf Streamer to provide support; then I drove to Annapolis, kicked Kronquist off the boat, and took her place. Nothing mysterious about it.”

  Dorothy Fancher said to Caselius. “This is a waste of time. Whatever she learned, or thought she had learned, it was obviously wrong or she would not be here. Probably she was only bluffing, trying to panic us by acting as if she had the information; and as you may recall, we were a bit disturbed until she betrayed so clearly that she had not read the figures written in my husband’s log.” She grimaced. “The old fool! What did he think to accomplish by writing down that loran position, even if he had managed to read it before he collapsed? And where did he hide the book? Not that it matters now.”

  Caselius said, “As you say, it does not matter now. And it would be better if you allowed me to conduct the interrogation my own way, dear lady. It is always advisable to allow the subject to first trap himself, or herself, in irrelevant lies before proceeding… But very well. I will get to the point. Mrs. Bell, we are interested in anything you can tell us about the Richard ceremony scheduled for this weekend.”

  “Richard?” Mrs. Bell sounded puzzled. “Ceremony? I don’t know what you mean!”

  Dorothy put her hand on Caselius’ arm. “We already have all the necessary information, Rollie, dear.”

  Caselius was watching Teresa. “I would like to hear it confirmed… Well, Mrs. Bell?”

  “I really don’t know who you mean. Or what you mean.”

  Caselius studied her bleakly for several seconds before he spoke again. “Mrs. Bell, I was well trained in dealing with stubborn people, and I have considerable experience in interrogation. We will be back shortly. Think about it. You can save yourself considerable pain by cooperating.” He looked at me. “There is nothing for you to think about, Helm; you cannot change what is in store for you.”

  He turned and ushered Dorothy Fancher out of the cabin. Despite the unbecoming brown clothes, she made an interesting picture going up the steps. Although I still felt no desire for her, I could enjoy watching an exit—a very female exit—well performed. The door closed.

  After a moment, Teresa, lying beside me, made a sound of disapproval. “Tied hand and foot with death staring him in the face, the hero operative who’s been assigned to help me can think of nothing better to do than antagonize the opposition unnecessarily and ogle a female rump—a somewhat oversize rump at that!”

  I said, “I wasn’t so much interested in the rump dimensions as in the rump action. And needling friend Caselius is not unnecessary; the more I annoy him, the longer he’ll want to play with me before he kills me. Who’s Richard?”

  Teresa’s response was irritable. “I haven’t the slightest idea. I never heard of him before.”

  I said, “Goddamn it, Terry, this is no time to play your damned Washington security games! Who the hell is Richard and what kind of a ceremony is he putting on or participating in or whatever?”

  “Matt, I don’t know, I swear it! And I asked you not to call me Terry.”

  She sounded convincing, but in that crazy city on the Potomac they learn how to make even the wildest lies sound convincing. But if she did know, she obviously wasn’t about to tell me.

  I said, “Well, I certainly don’t know any fucking Richards that could possibly…”

  “What is it?” Teresa asked when I stopped, frowning.

  I said, “Something’s trying to come through, the name rings some kind of a feeble bell way back in… No, I can’t get hold of it.” I grimaced. “So your man Barstow was actually working for Caselius. That’s some manpower pool you’ve been tapping! We’ll skip that first homicidal agent of yours I met, since she wasn’t really your agent; but then there was the true Ziggy Kronquist who was a very nice girl who’d have made some accountant or insurance salesman a wonderful wife, but who had no business whatever being in this racket, dammit. And the careless dame who let herself be brained with a windlass handle, and the lovesick swain who let himself be shoved overboard. And now there’s this oversexed Barstow clown, who turns out to’ve been, probably, a sleeper working for the Soviets while we still had Soviets. Or maybe he’s simply for sale to the highest bidder. I wouldn’t say you’ve put together a really major-league team, Mrs. B, unless there are some hot players in the lineup that I haven’t met.”

  She said, “There aren’t. I think I told you. When this mission came up, so clearly suited for me with my top efficiency rating and my special language qualifications, they didn’t dare pass me over and risk being accused of discriminating against women and minorities. So they gave it to me—and also gave me the sweepings of the stables to work with, even including one male operative whose sexual proclivities had already proved embarrassing elsewhere, and whose security clearance was being reviewed for cause. But what they forgot was that traitors can be very useful, properly employed. I put Barstow on that sportfisherman precisely because his loyalty was questionable. And when he came charging up and said that I was wanted back in Washington ASAP, ha ha, I went on the boat with him like an unsuspecting female idiot who really expected to be delivered to the nearest airport. I let myself be overpowered and tied up and dragged around like a sack of potatoes—and the man I was counting on to rescue me, and deal with the opposition, was letting little girls feed him knockout drops instead of tending to business!”

  I was getting a bit tired of that nonsense. I said, “For Christ’s sake, Teresa! I’m here, aren’t I? Where would I be if I’d thrown that loaded drink in the girl’s face?”

  The woman beside me was silent for several seconds. “Do you expect me to believe that you knew…?”

  I said, “You used yourself for bait; do you think you’re the only one who ever had that idea? I didn’t know it was a Mickey Finn, no; I just hoped it was. The kid was under orders to deliver me to Caselius. He had her thoroughly intimidated. I’d taken her gun away, but I was sure he’d provided her with an alternative, and I much preferred being knocked out by a Mickey to being clobbered with a sap, or that damned windlass handle—she might not know her own strength—so I sure as hell wasn’t going to analyze any drinks she handed me, or be slow slugging them down. I was fairly sure that Caselius wouldn’t have her feed me anything lethal. Those retribution kids all have to keep you alive long enough to tell you just how painfully they’re going to avenge dear old dad, before they do it. Now everything is rosy, and Caselius is very happy about the way he put one over on me, and there’s a dead girl to prove how terribly surprised I was by those knockout drops and how strongly I resented them. So he’s not likely to suspect that I’m exactly where I’ve been trying to get ever since I left Washington, right next to him.”

  “A helpless prisoner!” Teresa said.

  I laughe
d. “Lady, I spent two months working on this boat. And I wasn’t just polishing the damn teak…”

  I stopped as Lorelei III rocked again, minutely, to signal the arrival—or rearrival—of our visitors.

  The woman beside me spoke without expression. “Well, here they come again. Wish me luck, my friend.”

  I said, “I recommend screaming very loudly. Don’t be brave and spit in his eye, that’ll just stimulate his Torquemada impulses. Since you have no information to give him, give him some nice agonized howls and moans and whimpers instead. Maybe he’ll get so tired of listening to your racket that he’ll decide that you really don’t know anything and to hell with you.”

  Teresa Bell said, “I thank you for the advice.”

  I said, “Sure. And you’ll do as you damn well please. Incidentally, where’s Lori Fancher?”

  “The little girl is probably having a bad time right now on the other boat, having been left to the tender loving care—with emphasis on the loving, I’m afraid— of William Barstow, Esquire. But I must say that her problems do not concern me greatly at the moment…”

  Then they were entering the cabin, Dorothy Fancher in the lead as before. She was holding in her hand a blue object I recognized: it was the big butane lighter I kept at the stove, one of the refillable jobs designed for use with charcoal grills, that can be adjusted to produce anything from a small candle flame to a real blowtorch spout of fire.

  So the sexy Arab lady was going to do the honors, and it was going to be a toasting session rather than a slicing session. I didn’t look at Teresa Bell, lying beside me. I remembered that she’d scorned Ziggy Kronquist for breaking under heavy interrogation. I wondered if she was also remembering that, now that her turn had come.

  25

  On instructions from his sexy associate, Caselius pulled off one of Teresa’s boat shoes—the left one, if it matters—and white cotton socks. Dorothy made a dramatic production of snapping the trigger of the butane lighter and adjusting the flame to its maximum length, about three inches.

  Then Caselius turned up the left leg of Teresa’s jeans very neatly and got a good grip on the ankle. Dorothy leaned forward eagerly, the flame shot out, and there was the familiar smell of overcooked meat…

  I’d been there myself, of course. I had the scars to prove it. With that stink in my nostrils I found myself remembering very clearly a titled Swedish gentleman— actually a distant relative of mine; I said they weren’t all nice people—who’d supervised the use of a knife-sharpening steel heated in the flame of a gas stove. There had also been a rather handsome lady in Brazil who’d been very good at keeping a cigarette burning brightly in spite of repeated contacts with human flesh, my human flesh. And far back in my checkered past, I recalled, back home in southwestern U.S.A., I’d encountered a couple of folks with original ideas about employing a soldering iron…

  “What day is the ceremony, Saturday or Sunday?”

  “Who is scheduled to attend?”

  “What time of day will the presentation be made?”

  The questions were punctuated by the trigger clicks and the leaping tongue of flame and the stink of burning. The interrogation continued:

  “What time will the guest of honor arrive?”

  “Will the ceremony take place on Sunday?”

  “Will the ceremony take place on Saturday?”

  “What time of day…?”

  Caselius said quietly, “That is enough.” When Dorothy snapped the lighter on again, he seized her arm and spoke more sharply. “I said, enough!”

  Dorothy Fancher’s long black hair had loosened, untidy about her perspiring face. She looked like an angry witch interrupted at her satanic witch work, as of course she was.

  “Let me go!” she protested, “I’m going to make the stubborn bitch give me at least one civil answer if I have to burn her to a cinder!”

  There was no sound from the woman lying beside me, and no movement. There had been none throughout. Far from taking my advice about screaming loudly, she’d maintained total silence: no squeals, gasps, grunts, whines, or whimpers, and certainly no words. Caselius had long since released his grip on her leg since it wasn’t required. She hadn’t struggled, she hadn’t even flinched, she’d just lain there, soundless and unmoving.

  It was unreal. It’d thought at first she must have suffered an immediate blackout of some kind, maybe even a heart attack brought on by the pain; but her eyes had remained open and alive, and her breathing was steady. I must admit that I felt a small pang of professional envy. As I’ve already said, I’ve been there, but although I can generally refrain from shrieking if it’s indicated, I’ve been known to twitch and thrash around and put considerable strain on the restraints provided, and maybe even moan rather loudly when it hurts enough; such total control put this woman out of my class.

  “She is not going to answer,” Caselius said. “She will die without speaking. It is a recognized phenomenon; it was discussed in training. There are not many such, but their silence cannot be broken in this manner. With drugs, perhaps, but we do not have the drugs.” He shrugged. “It does not matter. We have the information we needed: she does not know. I have been watching her; I have watched many being questioned. She is playing a game with us. She has nothing to tell us; she really does not know what we are talking about; her organization has apparently not been informed, so it is nothing to worry about. We are wasting time. Put that torch away.”

  Dorothy Fancher said hotly, “You forget yourself, Mister Caselius! Don’t think you’re suddenly in charge here just because we… Basically, you’re just a hired hand, so don’t try to give me orders!”

  “A thousand pardons, Mrs. Fancher!”

  Caselius’s accented voice was stiff and formal. He released Dorothy’s arm, turned sharply, mounted the steps leading to the deckhouse, and was gone. A slight movement of the boat indicated that he’d stepped off it onto the larger vessel alongside.

  “Come back here!” Dorothy Fancher shouted after him; and then in a different tone, “Rollie, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean… Allah, these men and their sensitive feelings!”

  She looked down at the butane lighter, and at Teresa. She threw the lighter angrily onto the bed and started away; then she checked herself and came back and retrieved the implement and hurried out. A small rocking motion let us know that she, too, had left Lorelei III. I felt the woman lying beside me let her breath go out very slowly and carefully.

  She whispered, “In case you were wondering, Matt, that was… that was just no fun at all!”

  “I know.”

  After another pause, her voice came again: “Well, I suppose you do. I suppose it’s a normal occupational hazard. And it’s a good career move, isn’t it? Every bureaucrat should have a little field experience on record, don’t you think? But I don’t quite know how I’ll describe this in a resume.”

  I knew she was talking to take her mind off the pain. I said, “I owe you an apology.”

  “Apology?”

  “I was told that you were kind of rough on the Kronquist girl after she’d folded under interrogation. At the time I assumed you were just another pantywaist LMD operator telling us field personnel how brave we should be. My humble apologies.”

  “Accepted,” she whispered. “LMD?”

  “Large mahogany desk.”

  She gave a small, strained laugh, and was silent for a little. From her carefully controlled breathing I knew that she was still fighting the throbbing agony of her foot.

  After a moment, she said, “It’s too bad that female didn’t leave the lighter on the bed. We might have been able to use it to free ourselves.”

  “Don’t sweat it,” I said. “I told you, I did a lot of work on this boat. Can you stand up if you get the chance?”

  “She only burned it; she didn’t chop it off. I can walk on it. Just get rid of these ropes. I’ll be all right.”

  I said, “Well, I don’t want to make a move until we have a little time to oursel
ves… Here they come again.”

  Caselius entered first, this time. Dorothy remained on the steps, behind and slightly above him. She’d put her heavy black hair back into some kind of order and mopped her sweaty face. She licked her lips, watching, as Caselius took a revolver from his waistband—my little five-shot Smith and Wesson .38.

  Caselius said, “I was planning to make you pay a somewhat higher price for the murder of my father, Mr. Helm, but the courage of your companion has brought you a quick death. I could undoubtedly demonstrate that you are not so brave, but that would tarnish the matchless performance of Mrs. Bell. It will be enough for me to know that I have done my duty by my parent and you are no longer walking the earth. Good-bye, Mr. Helm.”

  He raised the short-barreled pistol and cocked the hammer. Well, I’d been here before, also; but it’s never a good place to be. I watched his eyes, bracing myself to roll aside at the final instant. There was hardly anywhere to roll, and not much to do when I got there, but what the hell, I might as well die moving as lying still…

  “No!”

  Dorothy pushed Caselius’s arm upward; for a moment I thought the revolver was going to fire and blow a hole in the ship’s aft deck, above us. Then Caselius freed himself and let the hammer down. His impulse was clearly the same as that of any marksman—I won’t venture to speak for the markswomen—interrupted while concentrating on a shot: to slap the interfering idiot across the room. However, he managed to control himself and spoke quite mildly.

  “Pushing the arm of a man holding a cocked pistol is not very intelligent,” he said.

  She said harshly, “It’s too easy!”

  Caselius said, “Dead is dead, dear lady.”

  Her voice was fierce. “This is the man, you told me, who shot down your father in cold blood! He is also the man who brutalized the body of my dying lover Hassim, mangling him horribly with a big shotgun in the last moments of his life. And the woman is of our race, but she has chosen to side with the imperialistic American tyrants; she is a traitor to our people everywhere. Such individuals do not deserve quick and merciful deaths.”