“It’s a 3.8 Jaguar sedan,” he said. “The parking lights burn when the headlights are on, European fashion: two small lights below and slightly outside two large ones. They will be coming fast, so they want you to keep your car’s interior light on for easier identification.”
“That’ll cut my vision down,” I said. “They’ll have to do the spotting.”
“They are prepared to,” he said. “The description of the weapon corresponds with a knife recently issued to you. I gather you didn’t fall on it yourself.”
I said, “Hell, I haven’t cut myself on one of my own knives since I was a kid. It’s Alan, sir. He came for me with a club. I gather he calls it love.”
There was a little pause. “Couldn’t you have handled him with less damage, Eric?”
I could see my face in the glass of the booth. It looked lean and hard and ugly—that is to say, it looked pretty much as usual. “I told you, he was trying to scramble my brains.”
“Even so, it seems a little drastic.” Mac hesitated briefly. “You seem to have had a busy evening, Eric. I’ve had a call from Chicago. They, in turn, have had a call from the county authorities near Annapolis, Maryland. About a certain Mr. Peters, alias Petroni. The word murder was mentioned. Perhaps you’d care to explain.”
I said, “The patient died on the operating table, sir.”
“So I gathered, after making cautious inquiries. You were arrested, I understand?”
“Yes, sir, but they turned me loose.”
“Well, that’s something.” His voice was dry. “What’s Alan’s condition?”
“Pretty good, I’d say. No signs of excessive internal hemorrhage. With surgery and antibiotics, he ought to make it.”
“Yes. Nevertheless, he will be incapacitated for weeks, maybe months. And Jean is dead. What happened there? Did your hand slip?”
“I don’t think so, sir. She just gave a little gasp and folded up. By the time I’d caught her and eased her to the floor, she was dead.”
“There was no heart condition. Dr. Perry checked her thoroughly. Jean was physically sound.”
“And psychologically?”
“What do you mean?”
“She was scared,” I said. “She didn’t like what she had to face, either at my hands or the opposition’s. She’d had it, sir. She was sick of looking in the mirror and seeing a drunken slob. She could hardly face the thought of looking in the mirror and seeing a beatup drunken slob. As for the rest of the job—well, I have a hunch she was simply trying not to think of it at all.”
“Dr. Klein examined her, too, and passed her.”
“Who’s Klein, our new psychiatrist? They come and they go, don’t they? Well, I have no degree in any branch of medicine, but I know a scared and fed-up female when I see one, sir.”
Mac said coldly, “Jean was a good agent and an excellent actress. She was supposed to act frightened and shaky. What are you trying to say, Eric? That it wasn’t your fault that she died? That she simply died of fright?”
I gripped the telephone hard. It was no time to get mad. It never is. “No, sir,” I said. “It was my job and my responsibility, sure. I simply don’t believe I killed her by hitting her too hard. I don’t think my hand slipped. I’d like an investigation.”
“It will certainly be investigated, as soon as we can confer with the local authorities without the risk of publicity. I’m told an autopsy will be performed. I’ll try to get a copy of the findings. But in the meantime we have Jean dead and Alan seriously injured, at your hands. That is two agents put out of commission in one night, Eric. The enemy seldom does better.”
“No, sir,” I said. “Maybe I should have gone to Texas.”
The minute I said it, meaning only to say something suitably humble and rueful, I knew it was a mistake. I knew it by the quality of the silence that followed.
“I see,” Mac said slowly, at last. “I see. That is how you feel, Eric? That was Dr. Klein’s theory. When an agent makes a serious error, as you know, we review his record immediately. I called up Klein at once, when Chicago called me.”
I said, “I grant the error. I’ve got to; Jean’s dead. But there’s nothing wrong with my record, sir.”
“No, except the sheer quantity of it. Since you came back to us, after your wife left you a few years ago, you’ve had no real time off at all. Fatigue, was Klein’s immediate diagnosis.”
“The hell with Klein,” I said. “We fought the whole damn war without a headshrinker in attendance. And the hell with fatigue, too. I haven’t asked for any leave, have I? Not until this time—”
“Precisely,” Mac said. “Fatigue and subconscious resentment, Klein said. And, probably, what he referred to as a mild superman complex. I don’t like the term, Eric, but I have seen it happen before in men whose occupation allows them to kill and get away with it. After a while, their judgment becomes impaired, since human life has ceased to have much value for them.”
I laughed shortly. “Sir, if you’re suggesting that I went out and murdered a woman, a fellow agent, simply because I was mad at you for interfering with my love-life—”
“I said the resentment was subconscious, Eric.”
“Sure,” I said. “Thanks. I love being a subconscious murderer, sir. Let’s just skip the analysis, if you don’t mind. Right now, I’d better get Alan on the road; but first I’d like to know if Dr. Norman Michaelis, our missing genius, has a sister or daughter—Miss Michaelis was the form of address used. Age twenty plus, height five feet minus, say ninety pounds after a heavy meal, silver-blonde hair, blue eyes.”
Mac hesitated. “There is a daughter. Theodora. But, Eric—”
“Theodora,” I said. “That’s a lot of name for a little bit of girl. What’s the family picture? Is there a wife and mother?”
“The wife and mother died in childbirth. Eric—”
“The daughter is here, sir,” I said. “In fact, she got me out of jail by lying her pretty little head off. I have a date to find out why, as soon as I get Alan off my hands. I’ll report by phone as soon as—”
“You will,” Mac said, “report to me in person, at once.”
I frowned at the phone. “But, sir—”
His voice was curt. “Any leads you have will be followed up, you may be sure.”
I said slowly, “The invitation was issued to me, as Jim Petroni, alias Jimmy the Lash. The lady has just told the police a great big fib, remember? She’s not likely to open her door and her mouth to any old government gumshoe, sir.”
“We’ll have to risk that. I want you to come in immediately, Eric.”
“What’s the matter, sir?” I asked. “Are you afraid I’ll go completely berserk and give the outfit a bad reputation?”
Saying it, I expected any answer except the little embarrassed silence that followed, that said more plainly than words that that was exactly what he was afraid of. I’d murdered Jean with my subconscious resentment; I’d stuck a hole in Alan. I’d flipped. I was a menace on the loose.
“Let us say,” he said carefully, “that Dr. Klein’s advice is that you be recalled for examination and possible treatment—probably only rest. It is quite possible that you’ll be on your way to Texas tomorrow or the next day. How would you like that?”
“Thanks,” I said, “for the lollipop, sir.”
“I want you to turn Alan over to Dr. Perry and follow them in. That’s an order.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
8
I spotted their Jag well ahead of time and flashed an answer to their signal, but they were coming right along, and it took them a while to fire the retro-rockets and get the flaps down and find a place to cross the median to the west-bound lane. In the meantime, I’d pulled the little sedan out to the shoulder to wait for them.
“We were going to be married after she finished this job,” Alan said suddenly. It was his first conversational effort in a long time. “Jean’s professional pride wouldn’t let her quit in the middle of it
, but afterwards we were going to get out of this dirty business and be normal human beings for a change. We’d never had a real home, either of us. We were going to make one together.”
“Sure,” I said. “She’d have been the mother you’d always wanted, and you’d have been the baby she’d yearned for all her life.”
His head came around sharply. “You callous beast! Just because she was a little older—”
“Cut it out, Alan,” I said.
“I loved her,” he said.
“Cut it out,” I said. “Go away. Die. Or just shut up.” He started to speak again, but I cut in, “The one thing you could have done for her, you didn’t do. You let a stranger do it. Then you got mad because it turned out wrong and went for him with a club. And now, by God, you start talking about love!” I grimaced. “Do me a favor. Hemorrhage.”
He was staring at me. “You think—you think I should have done that? To her?”
“Somebody was going to have to do the stinking job if she was to carry out her assignment. Why not you? What makes you so damn special?” I looked at him. “If I loved a woman enough to talk about it, if something like that simply had to be done, if she really wanted it done, I’d damn well do it myself and see it was done right by somebody she knew and trusted. At least I wouldn’t sit across the way wringing my hands while it was happening, and then take it out on the guy who got stuck with the lousy operation I was too damn delicate to perform. Now stay here and brood, while I discuss your survival problems with the medical profession.”
The Jaguar had pulled up behind us. I liked the sound of it, even idling. They don’t put the full-race mill into the sedan, but it’s no truck engine, either. Dr. Perry got out of the bucket seat beside the driver and came to meet me as I went back there. The driver, a big man, got out and went around to get something out of the trunk, presently disappearing into the darkness. I thought this a little peculiar, but maybe I was not supposed to notice. The car had a buggy-whip antenna for radio-telephone communication. I thought it was probably Mac’s personal vehicle.
“How’s the patient?” Dr. Perry asked.
“Alive,” I said. “Bitter.”
“With some justification, I would say.”
“I know,” I said. “I’ve already been told I should have treated him more gently. Wait till it’s your head he’s swinging a stick at from behind.”
“I wasn’t referring to that,” Perry said. “The female agent who died at your hands—I understand there was some emotional involvement.”
I looked at him for a moment. The headlights bounced enough light our way that I could see him clearly: a clean-cut young professional man with horn-rimmed glasses, neatly dressed, in good physical condition. I wondered what quirk of psychology or fortune had brought him to us—the Foreign Legion of the undercover services—but it isn’t something one asks. Maybe he was just getting himself a wide range of medical experience before settling down to a profitable society practice.
I asked, “Why did Jean die, Dr. Perry?”
He blinked. Obviously, he thought it was a strange question for me to ask. After all, I was the guy who’d killed her, wasn’t I?
“Why, I don’t know,” he said. “I wasn’t there, how could I say? I rather assumed—” He stopped, embarrassed.
“That my hand slipped? It seems to be a common assumption in these parts,” I said. “And a convenient one, for some people.”
“If you’re implying there was something wrong with Jean—”
I said, “Obviously, there was something wrong. With Jean, or you, or me, or somebody else. She’s dead. Maybe you should have examined my hands before clearing me for the job, Doctor. You might have prevented the slip, if there was a slip.”
His voice was stiff. “Maybe I should have.”
“Maybe,” I said, “you should examine them now.”
He didn’t get it at once. He said impatiently, “Really, I’d better see to my patient—”
“Look at them,” I said gently. “The right one is of special interest, Doctor.” There was a little silence, as he saw what I was driving at. I said, “Note the weapon. It uses the .38 Special cartridge firing a one-hundred-and-fifty-grain bullet with a muzzle velocity of eleven hundred and fifty feet per second and a muzzle energy of three hundred and sixty-five foot pounds. Now note what happens when I exert pressure on the trigger—”
“Eric.” His voice was professionally calm and soothing. “Eric, put the gun away. There’s no need for hostility. I am certainly not trying to duck my share of the responsibility for your unfortunate mishap. Careful!”
“Don’t panic, Doc,” I said. “It’s a double-action revolver. Not much happens immediately as the trigger moves back, except that the cylinder rotates, bringing a new cartridge into line and the hammer rises, so. This being a pocket pistol, the hammer has no conventional spur, just a little grooved cocking piece that won’t hang up in the clothing. Now I catch it with my thumb before the hammer can drop, so.”
He couldn’t help a sharp intake of breath as the hammer fell a fraction of an inch before being arrested by my thumb.
“Eric—”
I said, “Let us review the situation, Doctor. There is now a loaded cartridge lined up with the firing pin and, of course, with the gun barrel. The trigger is back as far as it will go, rendering all safety devices inoperative. The hammer is fully cocked, held only by my thumb. The muzzle is aimed at your abdomen. The range is about three feet. I ask for your prognosis, Doctor. What will happen when your driver, sneaking up behind me, clouts me alongside the head with a blackjack or gives me a karate chop to the neck—and the hammer slips out from under my nerveless thumb? I think the matter deserves our most careful consideration, don’t you?”
There was a space of complete silence. The big man behind me, belatedly aware of the situation, had stopped moving. Dr. Perry licked his lips, watching the gun with fascination.
I said, “There is a time element involved, of course. It’s quite a strain, holding a gun like this. When my thumb gets tired, and maybe a little slippery with sweat—Don’t forget, I’m the guy whose hand keeps slipping and killing people.”
“Eric,” he said. “Eric, don’t be hasty. I can understand the resentment you feel towards me, but I swear the instructions I gave you seemed perfectly safe, well within the bounds of what the subject could tolerate—”
I laughed. “Doctor, you flatter yourself. I’m not mad at you, although I do think you might at least wait for the autopsy results before talking as if it were all my fault. After all, you had a hand in it, too. But the hell with that. I’m not pointing a gun at you for personal reasons.”
“Then what—”
I said, “You got a call from Washington while you were driving here, didn’t you? You were told that my attitude seemed to be somewhat uncertain, and that it might be a good idea to make absolutely sure that I came in as ordered. Am I correct?”
He hesitated. Then he nodded reluctantly.
“All right,” I said. “Well, here’s a message to take back. Tell the man upstairs that limited measures have failed and the full mad-dog treatment may be indicated. Tell him that I recommend a silenced rifle with a telescopic sight. A shotgun could do the job, but it would be pretty damn noisy and messy. A good man with a pistol might deliver, but he’d be taking chances. I may have a superman complex, Doctor, but I’m not laboring under the delusion that I’m bullet-proof.”
“Eric, you’re talking wildly—”
“Shut up,” I said, “and listen carefully. The one thing I want you to impress on him is that he must not make the mistake of trying to take me alive a second time. You’re getting away with it tonight. No one else will. Do you understand? I may not be the best man he’s got, but I’m pretty damn good; plenty good enough to handle anybody he sends after me with orders not to kill. Tell him not to waste trained men by ordering out to get me handicapped by silly instructions like that. They simply won’t come back. Is that clear?”
Perry licked his lips again, watching the cocked revolver in my hand. “It’s clear.”
“I’ve been a member of this organization a long time, off and on,” I said. “I know how it works. I know that if he really wants me, he can get me—dead. I’ll even make it easy for him. I’m sticking to my cover as Lash Petroni, hoodlum. If I’m mowed down one dark night, it’ll just go down in the records as another syndicate kill. If that’s what he wants, tell him to go ahead. I won’t even duck. I’ve got other things to do besides watching the bushes for hidden guns.”
Perry asked quickly, “Other things? What other things do you have to do, Eric?”
“Never mind,” I said. “He’ll know. Just tell him the choice. He can have me killed. That’s all he can do without risking a massacre that’ll hit front pages clear across the country. I won’t stand still for the dog-catcher with the net. I won’t stand still for interference of any kind. If I bump into one of the boys, I’ll go for him without asking questions. A savage battle to the death between agents of a super-secret government organization wouldn’t look very nice in the headlines, would it? The publicity would put him out of business, and he knows it. And it’s just what I’ll give him if he tries any more of this horsing around. Tell him to send out the elimination squads or forget it. I’ll be in touch when I have something to report.”
“Eric,” Perry said, “Eric, I want you to consider carefully the consequences of—”
“Never mind the consequences,” I said. “He’ll know what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. If he wants it done, tell him, leave me alone. If he doesn’t, shoot me. That’s his choice. And now you can tell your driver to get your patient the hell out of my car, but don’t you move until I give the word—”
It was a tricky business, but not as bad as it might have been. He was just an expert on medical matters; I didn’t have to worry about him. Pretty boy Alan wouldn’t have worried me under any circumstances, certainly not with his mind on his tummy. The driver was my only real concern. He was probably an old pro, but I gave him no chance to prove it. While he was helping the walking wounded from one car to the other, I stepped into the little Ford and took off.
Murderers' Row Page 5