"Not now."
She turned white. "I see. Last night you said you wanted me, but today you don't. Shall I go back to Washington, Sam? Perhaps I've been a worse fool than I thought."
"Dee, I love you. If you don't know that now, you'll never know it. But..."
"Don't say anything more." Abruptly she picked up her purse and then paused. Her eyes were dark and miserable. "If I say anything else, I know everything will be finished between us. I feel small and ugly and humiliated. I know your work comes first, and if you say there isn't time just now for me, then I know it's the truth, too. But I can't help being selfish. I want you. Now. I'm sorry." She kissed him lightly. "I'll be waiting here for you whenever you come back."
He stood quietly watching her proud, lovely walk as she left the coffee shop. Her name leaped to his tongue, but he checked it and did not call after her or follow her. He wanted to go after her and beg her forgiveness, to let her know, somehow more convincingly than he had done, that be did want her and needed her.
But he let her go.
Chapter Nine
He was followed from the hotel.
He was not able to identify the tail, but he knew the man was there. There was a bar at the corner and he turned into it and ordered bourbon and stood at the bar so he could watch the street Nobody passed along the sidewalk that he recognized. His thoughts swung from Deirdre to Stella and then to the job at hand, in a confusion that was rare to him. He had known all the rules, had listened to all the advice, had ingested all the catchwords that warn an agent against involvement with the subjects of his investigation. He had the example of Harry Blossom before him, and Frank Greenwald beyond that Yet he was involved. He had come here to help in a problem that needed a humane approach, needed sympathy and understanding, and perhaps he had gone too far. His thoughts about Deirdre were chaotic. He felt torn between Deirdre and Stella, not understanding himself, wanting them both, knowing that the chances were good he might never have either. What he felt for Stella was a thing entirely apart from Deirdre. And the problem of ending the blackmail and terror of people like Stella was, again, something else apart from either woman.
He had another bourbon, felt nothing from it, considered two men who had drifted into the bar, and went out again.
He was followed.
It was done carefully, expertly, almost invisibly. He was accustomed to surveillance, to overt contact and the shadow type of operation. He had been, at various times, both the subject and the shadower, the hunter and the hunted. He knew the difference between expert and amateur work. This was expert, and when he doubled back to trap the shadow behind him, it vanished in the lemony daylight of November noon. He took evasive action then, marking in his mind the big shape of the man he had noted, the long arms, the forward thrust of a giant's head glimpsed from the tail of his eye, and after twenty minutes, when he was reasonably sure he was alone, he retrieved his car and drove down Fifth Avenue to Greenwich Village.
The New American Society was housed in a red-brick building that had obviously been refurbished, painted, and redecorated. It was one of a row of similar houses converted to apartments in a small, narrow street that led toward the West Side docks on the North River. The street was like an island out of the last century, miraculously untouched by the endless change of New York. It was quiet and empty under the gray November sky, isolated from the rushing traffic around it.
There was only a small sign on the door to indicate the building's use. The door was not locked. Durell went in and found himself in a small, tidy foyer with welcoming signs printed in a dozen East European languages framed on the blue walls. There was a smell of foreign cooking in the hallway, a small reception desk like that of a miniature hotel lobby, done in padded red leather and brass nails, but nobody was behind the desk. To the right off the hallway was a sitting room furnished in more red leather, with two heavy sofas that would have gone for premiums at an antique gallery. But nobody was in the sitting room, either.
The rattle of china drew him farther along the softly lighted corridor and he looked into a tiny but efficient dining room with a pass-through window in the rear, through which he glimpsed the stainless-steel equipment of a community kitchen. Two elderly men and a white-haired woman who looked dressed for the Gay Nineties were seated in the dining room, each at a small individual table. One of the men looked up from a German-language newspaper and nodded, wiped enormous white Hindenburg mustaches, and murmured, "Guten Tag." Durell answered briefly in German and backed out.
From the main corridor a flight of carpeted steps led upward, and he was about to ascend when a girl appeared at the top and floated down. She did not seem to walk, but actually to float. Her wide yellow skirt swirled and her tiny feet in high-heeled shoes scarcely seemed to touch the carpeted treads. She came down toward him with the jingling sound of tiny silver bells. There were bracelets on her wrists, little tinkling bells for earrings, and, Durell suspected, more jingling silver elsewhere. Her dark red hair was piled high on her head in a complicated pattern of waves and curls, and she had a bust measurement, above a waist he could have encircled with his hands, of a woman twice her size. She was in her early twenties, he guessed, and at first glance she was the sort of doll that elderly men loved to dandle on their knees while they had their ears nibbled.
She spoke with a lisp, which did not surprise Durell at all.
"Welcome to the New American Society. You're a stranger here, aren't you? My, and you're a handsome one, too! Do you speak English?"
Her hand was hot and intimate in his and she stood very close to him, still on the lowest step of the stairway, and she still had to look up at him. At closer inspection, she still seemed to be in her early twenties, but there were little signs that indicated she was slightly shopworn.
"Well, my, how you stare!" she said. "Don't you speak English?"
"If you're the official greeter," Durell said, "I'm surprised the average membership age isn't much lower. Especially the male membership."
"Well! Himself does talk!" she said. She laughed, but not with her eyes. Durell had looked at and appraised feminine figures often, but he had never had the reverse experience before. He felt as if she had stripped off his clothes, examined him, and decided she liked what she had discovered and was determined to take it. Her tongue peeped briefly between tiny white teeth. "And himself speaks with a Southern accent, just like little old me!"
"And just who are you?" Durell asked.
"My, so direct. You're an American. Gosh, what a relief! I get so tired of listening to all the jabber in those gosh-awful tongues, and I'm sure they're all scandalizing me." She shook hands again, squeezing Durell's fingers tightly. "I'm Gerda Smith."
"Smith?"
"It was Schmidt once. Horrible. Really, I should have changed it ages ago. And yes, I'm the official greeter. Actually, I'm Mr. Damion's secretary, but these poor old souls who come here from just everywhere simply act like lost sheep, and John — I mean, Mr. Damion — he feels they should be made to feel right at home,"
"I'll bet you do a nice job of it, too," Durell said.
Her eyes narrowed instantly. "Is that a crack, friend?"
"None intended."
"Who are you, anyway?"
"Jones," Durell said. 'To see Mr. Damion."
"Selling anything? If you are, we don't need it, don't want it, and already have it."
"Not a salesman," Durell said.
She decided to be coy again. "I'll bet you're not a little old salesman, at that. I'll just bet you're another cop. But you don't look exactly like a cop, either." She cocked her head to one side and decided to frown prettily. It added a couple of years to her age. Then she took a deep breath, and standing as she was on the step above Durell, she made him feel he ought to back down a bit before he was accused of indecent advances. He stood still. Her figure was real, all her own. "Are you a cop?" she asked. "Maybe one of those G-men, I'll bet."
"No," Durell said.
"Is your name really Jones
?"
He nodded. "To see Mr. Damion. He's the president of this organization, isn't he?"
Her plucked eyebrows were still puckered. "Are you a newspaperman?"
"No, Gerda. May I call you Gerda? I feel as if we may become friends. Is Damion in?"
"Yes, but the police have been asking and asking about that awful thing that happened to poor Mr. Greenwald, and he was such a nice man and so generous in his gifts to our little club. Really, Mr. Damion has had a trying night. And morning, too. I really feel sorry for Mr. Greenwald, don't you? I'm sure you read about it in the papers. A man like him, so settled, if you know what I mean, and just losing his head completely over that Marni bitch."
"Bitch?"
"Yes, and I don't apologize for my language! After all, she's not doing any of these poor people one bit of good, testifying the way she did yesterday, and what kind of gratitude is that, I ask you, when she was doing so well right here in this country that took her in when she didn't have a penny, and saying she wanted to go back and everything. So I say she's a bitch. And if I ever see her again I'll call that to her frozen old face, because she's the one to blame, really, for poor Mr. Greenwald getting killed and..."
"Hold it," Durell said. "Please."
She put her tiny hands on her tiny waist, still standing on the step above him. "Now don't tell me that chilly creature's got you all wrapped up for the deep freeze, too! Really, I..."
"Take it easy, Gerda. I'm just here to see Mr. Damion, remember? I'm not a cop, not a salesman, not a reporter. I'm a friend of Frank Greenwald's, though, and I need some information. Greenwald was pretty close to your Mr. Damion, wasn't he?"
"Well, lately, yes," she admitted dubiously. She pouted. "All right, then. His office is upstairs, second floor. Our rooms for overnight guests are just over them." Turning, she went up two steps, silver bells and bracelets jingling away, and then she stopped so suddenly that Durell bumped into her and he expected to hear her giggle and tell him not to get fresh. Instead, her brown eyes slid sidewise and she said in a voice that had no inflection at all: "If your real name is Durell, I'd suggest you be mighty careful."
It was a bombshell, and Durell paused and did not reply for a split second, which was too long, and he knew it was too late to cover his surprise.
"How do you know my name?"
"I'm sharp as tacks." Her eyes were bright and amused and not at all stupid. "The reason I mention it is there was a man here from the FBI, and his name is Blossom, and he was here practically at the crack of dawn, waking up Mr. Damion — Mr. Damion sleeps here, you know — and he asked if you had been around, and if you had, what did you want and where could he find you? And while he didn't exactly say you were a criminal, or anything like that, anybody could see he was no friend of yours, Mr. Durell, not with that tape over his nose and the nasty way he spoke about you."
"Did he tell you I was a friend of Frank Greenwald's?"
"He didn't say who or what you are, but he described you and made a real big point about telling me to telephone him the minute you set foot in here, if you ever did."
"And will you call him?" Durell asked.
She giggled. "My word, no. I just don't like that man."
"And you like me?"
She giggled again. "Himself is direct, sure enough, isn't he?" she asked herself aloud. "If himself is real nice and behaves good and takes Gerda to lunch, maybe Gerda might like himself, too."
"Not lunch," Durell said. "Make it dinner."
"It's a date. Seven-thirty," she said promptly. And then, as if she had just thought of it: "In case you're wondering about it, why I'm here at the crack of dawn, too, I mean, why, it's simple. I sleep here, too. And not with Mr. Damion."
"Good," Durell said. "May I see him now?"
"Sure enough."
She floated up the stairs without any sudden pauses this time, and Durell followed in the wake of silvery bells and a touch too much of perfume. There was a billiard room in the front of the second floor, then a card room occupied by two bearded old men playing chess, then several blank doors and a door to the rear that simply said: "John Damion." Gerda opened the door for him and stood aside, but not quite far enough, so that Durell had to brush past her in order to enter. Gerda winked and showed him the tip of her tongue between her white teeth and whispered, "Seven-thirty, honey," and led him into a tiny reception room and then through a room with a round conference table and more red leather chairs and then into a small office at the very end of the suite.
"Mr. Damion? This is Mr. Jones," Gerda said, and backed out.
John Damion had been standing at the window, staring at nothing more interesting that the blank brick wall of the house beyond. He was a tall, slender man with a ruddy face, a shock of thick white hair the color of yesterday's snow, and a neatly clipped white military mustache. His thick black brows and black eyes were in sharp contrast to his hair. He could have passed for a Wall Street broker, a retired Army colonel, the executive vice-president of a big corporation — anything but the good shepherd of a flock of lost and frightened sheep.
His eyes were worried and he tried to erase the frown in an effort to be pleasant and cordial. "Jones? I don't believe we've met, but if I can be of service to you ... I assume you have an inquiry about one of our refugees, perhaps employment..."
Durell waved a hand. "I'm sorry to impose upon your time. The name is Durell." He waited for the man's surprise to pass, noted Damion's quick, thrusting glance at the telephone, and said: "All I want is a few minutes of your time. In a way, Frank Greenwald referred me to you, last night Before you call Mr. Blossom, would you talk to me?"
"I can't see why not," Damion said slowly. He sat down behind his desk, spread his big workingman's hands flat, and stared at them for a moment, as if conscious that the rest of his neatly groomed appearance did not fit with those strong, gnarled hands. "I've answered a great many questions this morning about Frank, and I don't suppose a few more will do any harm. But I should warn you that Mr. Blossom specifically advised me against helping you in any way, Mr. Durell."
"Did he tell you why he holds that attitude?"
"No, he did not. His whole manner when he mentioned you was rather odd, I thought. I am an honest, law-abiding citizen, Mr. Durell, and I have a rather big job to do here, perhaps too big for me these days, but I don't want to do anything contrary to the public interest or to any law-enforcement agency that approaches me for co-operation. Still, I must say that Mr. Blossom's attitude was not calculated to win my friendship. I did not care for the way he spoke about Stella Marni or the rest of my troubled people here, and he would give me no guarantee that they would be safe if I were completely frank with him."
"So you weren't."
"I did not lie to him."
"But you didn't tell him the whole truth?" Durell asked.
Damion shook his head and shifted restlessly. "Perhaps if you could explain to me what your exact status is in this matter..."
"I'm a friend of Stella Marni. And Frank Greenwald."
Damion lifted his heavy black brows and shot him a curiously hard glance. "In spite of Stella's testimony yesterday?"
"I know that she is being forced to do what she does."
"She told you that?"
"Last night. And this morning."
"For God's sake, if you know where she's hiding..."
"I won't tell you," Durell interrupted. "I think I can convince her that she's knuckled under long enough. I think I can persuade her to make a fight of it, even at the risk of her father's safety. If I can get her to do that, the whole complexion of this thing will change. She's frightened now, she's accustomed to terror, to bowing her head to what she thinks is inevitable force. I want the chance to show her that things are different here, that somewhere along the line all of us have to make a stand."
Damion sank back in his chair. "Thank God. It's about time." He pushed thick fingers through his snowy hair, and they were shaking slightly. His eyes were keen and probin
g as he surveyed Durell's tall, competent figure. "I don't know who you really are, Mr. Durell, but Stella Marni does need help, a lot of it. I don't care what the papers say about her. She just happens to be one of the unlucky ones around here who are being forced to make a public example of themselves, for propaganda purposes. It was a setup for them, for those bastards who are making life miserable and worthless for these poor folks. Stella is beautiful, intelligent, and damned photogenic. A perfect propaganda vehicle for what they want her to say. So they took old Albert and gave her her orders: Do what we tell you, say what we tell you to say, or Albert gets buried. If he's not dead already. That wouldn't surprise me one little damned bit, either."
"Frank thought he knew where Albert Marni is being kept a prisoner," Durell said flatly.
"Yes."
"Do you have the same knowledge?"
Damion leaned heavily forward against his desk. "Just who are you, Mr. Durell? What is your interest in this? Is it personal, because of Stella? Or is it official?"
"A little of both."
"Official, then. How?"
Durell looked hard at the white-haired man. Damion's concern for the people under his care rang as true as fine steel. There was honesty in him, a deep concern, and a real desire to help. There were times when you had to take a man on surface evidence and trust him, Durell knew, and this meant trusting him with vital information and perhaps your very life. He had instinctively warmed toward this man, and he had not often been far wrong in his estimates of other men. It was a risk, but it was time for a calculated risk.
He said briefly: "I'm an agent for the Central Intelligence Agency branch of the State Department, Mr. Damion. We're interested in this matter unofficially. I am not here with any overt authority. Our jurisdiction conflicts with that of the Attorney General's office, and we have no intention of interfering with their work or of hampering their investigation of this matter in any way. Nevertheless, I'm looking into it We want to satisfy ourselves about the murder — possibly two murders — last night. One of the victims, Frank's brother, worked for us. He might die. We don't like to let somebody else pick up our marbles."
Assignment — Stella Marni Page 9