Murderers' Row
Page 17
The schooner went clear over on her side as the mainsail slammed across; then she hit the shoals and the masts came down.
23
I flew over the spot in a Navy plane the following afternoon. The schooner was still lying there, half awash. I could have told them it wasn’t going anywhere. You get that much boat crosswise in a narrow channel in shallow water, and where’s it going to go? It can’t even sink very far. It wasn’t as if we’d hit a coral reef with a hundred fathoms on either side.
I’d tried to tell them that the night before, but communications had been poor in the storm, and they’d insisted on rescuing us, which was why I was taped up like a mummy, having broken two ribs in the process. At that, I was lucky not to have lost a leg in somebody’s propellers while being hauled to safety, as they laughingly called it, at the end of a rope. It had been a hell of a wet and heroic business. If they’d just waited until the wind dropped the following morning, they could have taken us off dryshod in a birchbark canoe.
We flew on down the Bay and out to sea. Now that the weather was clearing, we were looking for a freighter. We found three of them, all claiming perfectly legitimate business in the area. Two of them were probably telling the truth. Maybe all three of them were. We radioed Washington and were told to forget it and come home; they’d handle it some other way. After dinner, I went to see Louis in the hospital. He looked like an Egyptian mummy.
“Have they found her yet?” he whispered.
“No,” I said. “No, there’s been no sign of her.”
“They won’t find her,” he whispered—and they never did. If she drowned, she never came up. I don’t think she drowned. Some people don’t drown easy.
Leaving there, I saw Teddy and young Orcutt sitting in the lobby, holding hands. He was the hero of the occasion, of course. It was he who, looking for Teddy, had come to the Rosten place and found everybody missing. He’d sighted the schooner heading down the Bay and, on a hunch, had run down to the dock, wound up the power cruiser Osprey, and taken off after us. He’d trailed us back in the mist all day, closing in after dark. When he saw us heading into the prohibited area, he’d got on the cruiser’s marine radio and called for official help. He was also the boy who’d swum a rope over to us after we’d piled up, and helped Teddy across to the rescue vessel.
The kid looked very cute and demure in a pink cotton dress carefully arranged to display some pretty petticoat ruffles as she sat. They were grateful for everything I’d done, she said. Her eyes were uneasy. Obviously she wasn’t quite sure about me, one way or another. It was like waking from a nightmare, and the details were a little blurred, but she certainly didn’t want to be reminded of anything she’d promised or implied under strain, like demonstrating her gratitude in a practical way. Orcutt said he was very grateful, too.
Mac was behind his desk when I came into the office. He looked up, waved me to a chair, and said, “Haakonsen, Ivar. Half-Danish, half-Russian. Not strictly in our line of work, but versatile. We first came across him in fifty-four. A second-stringer, but moving up.”
“I couldn’t recall his name,” I said. “I knew it wasn’t Loeffler.”
“The other one went by the name of Mike Hamisky. Ex-boxer, considered a little punchy. We’ve turned up nothing derogatory so far. We’re still checking.”
“Sure,” I said.
“As for Louis Rosten, we’ll do what we can, in view of what you report.”
“Sure.”
“I am instructed to commend you for a very satisfactory job. The other solution would have been acceptable, but this one, since it worked, makes everybody much happier.”
“Sure,” I said. “Naturally I had that in mind all along, sir. You know I just love to make people happy.”
“I know,” he said. “That is your most endearing trait, I think, Eric. Aside from your great respect for discipline and instant obedience to orders, I mean.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
He looked at me for a moment across the big desk. He said gently, “You lucked out, didn’t you?”
I said, “Yes. It was a mess from start to finish, but I lucked out at the end.”
“It happens like that,” he said. “But it’s not something an agent can count on.”
“No, sir,” I said. “That’s why I’m submitting my resignation, sir.”
He didn’t move. After a moment, he said, rather impatiently, “Don’t be melodramatic. When I want your resignation, I’ll ask for it, never fear.” I didn’t say anything. After a moment, he reached into the top desk drawer and pulled out an official-looking folder. He glanced at it, and slid it across the desk to me. “Read that before you do anything hasty.”
I looked at the folder. The neatly typed label read: ELLINGTON, MRS. LAURA H. Autopsy Report Cop. 3. I couldn’t remember any Mrs. Ellington. Then I remembered that Jean had used that name.
“Go on,” Mac said. “Read it.”
I said, “It will be three pages of medical jargon. You tell me what it says.”
“It says you didn’t kill her.”
I looked at him. “If I didn’t, who did?”
“She did.”
“Come again.”
“She drank herself to death.”
I grimaced. “That’s ridiculous, sir. You don’t die of cirrhosis in the time she’d been at it, and it doesn’t hit you like that, anyway. Who’s kidding whom?”
“I didn’t say anything about cirrhosis. Did Jean down a stiff drink—six or eight ounces of straight whisky, say—a few minutes before she died? The autopsy says she did.”
I said, “Sure, but—”
“It killed her,” he said. “Don’t look so surprised. It happens all the time, young people showing off how much they can drink right out of the bottle, and falling over dead. That much alcohol in one dose can be pure poison under certain circumstances. The heart just stops.”
“I see,” I said slowly. “I see.”
“According to your own report, you made several mistakes during the past few days. But that is one you did not make. Your hand did not slip. Under the circumstances, do you wish to reconsider the resignation you haven’t turned in yet?”
I hesitated. I’d come in with my mind made up, I thought; and there was really no reason why this should change things in any way, but somehow it did.
Mac’s voice came to me gently, “Perhaps you’d like to take the month that is coming to you and think it over. On medical recommendations, I could make that a little longer.”
“A month should do it,” I said.
As I said it, I tried to remember what I’d been going to do with a month’s leave. I’d had something in mind, a long time ago. Well, it would come back to me as soon as I got some sleep. If it didn’t, it couldn’t be very important.
“Oh, Eric,” he said, as I rose and turned towards the door. I looked back. “Try the Presidential Hotel, Room 212. The lady didn’t leave her name, but she had our number, so she must have worked for us once. The girl who took the call said the accent was from Texas.”
I stood there for a moment. Then I said, “Thank you, sir,” and moved quickly towards the door.
“Eric.”
“Yes, sir?”
“I still don’t approve,” he said, but he didn’t say it very severely.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Donald Hamilton was the creator of secret agent Matt Helm, star of 27 novels that have sold more than 20 million copies worldwide.
Born in Sweden, he emigrated to the United States and studied at the University of Chicago. During the Second World War he served in the United States Naval Reserve, and in 1941 he married Kathleen Stick, with whom he had four children.
The first Matt Helm book, Death of a Citizen, was published in 1960 to great acclaim, and four of the subsequent novels were made into motion pictures starring Dean Martin in the title role. A new Matt Helm movie is currently in pre-production at Steven Spielberg’s Dreamworks studio. Hamilton was also the author of
several outstanding stand-alone thrillers and westerns, including two novels adapted for the big screen as The Big Country and The Violent Men.
Donald Hamilton died in 2006.
COMING SOON FROM TITAN BOOKS
The Matt Helm Series
BY DONALD HAMILTON
The long-awaited return of the United States’ toughest special agent.
Death of a Citizen
The Wrecking Crew
The Removers
The Silencers
The Ambushers (October 2013)
The Shadowers (December 2013)
The Ravagers (February 2014)
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COMING SOON FROM TITAN BOOKS
PRAISE FOR DONALD HAMILTON
“Donald Hamilton has brought to the spy novel the authentic hard realism of Dashiell Hammett; and his stories are as compelling, and probably as close to the sordid truth of espionage, as any now being told.”
Anthony Boucher, The New York Times
“This series by Donald Hamilton is the top-ranking American secret agent fare, with its intelligent protagonist and an author who consistently writes in high style. Good writing, slick plotting and stimulating characters, all tartly flavored with wit.”
Book Week
“Matt Helm is as credible a man of violence as has ever figured in the fiction of intrigue.”
The New York Sunday Times
“Fast, tightly written, brutal, and very good...”
Milwaukee Journal
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Helen MacInnes
A series of slick espionage thrillers from the New York Times bestselling “Queen of Spy Writers.”
Pray for a Brave Heart
Above Suspicion
Assignment in Brittany
North From Rome
Decision at Delphi
The Venetian Affair
The Salzburg Connection
Message from Málaga
While We Still Live
The Double Image
Neither Five Nor Three
Horizon
Snare of the Hunter
Agent in Place
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PRAISE FOR HELEN MACINNES
“The queen of spy writers.” Sunday Express
“Definitely in the top class.” Daily Mail
“The hallmarks of a MacInnes novel of suspense are as individual and as clearly stamped as a Hitchcock thriller.” The New York Times
“She can hang her cloak and dagger right up there with Eric Ambler and Graham Greene.” Newsweek
“More class than most adventure writers accumulate in a lifetime.” Chicago Daily News
“A sophisticated thriller. The story builds up to an exciting climax.” Times Literary Supplement
“An atmosphere that is ready to explode with tension... a wonderfully readable book.” The New Yorker
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The Floating Lady Murder
The Houdini Specter
In turn-of-the-century New York, the Great Houdini’s confidence in his own abilities is matched only by the indifference of the paying public. Now the young performer has the opportunity to make a name for himself by attempting the most amazing feats of his fledgling career—solving what seem to be impenetrable crimes. With the reluctant help of his brother Dash, Houdini must unravel murders, debunk frauds and escape from danger that is no illusion...
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PRAISE FOR DANIEL STASHOWER
“A romp that cleverly combines history and legend, taking a few liberties with each. Mr. Stashower has done his homework... This is charming... it might have amused Conan Doyle.” The New York Times
“In his first mystery, Stashower paired Harry Houdini and Sherlock Holmes to marvelous effect.” Chicago Tribune
“Stashower’s clever adaptation of the Conan Doyle conventions—Holmes’s uncanny powers of observation and of disguise, the scenes and customs of Victorian life—makes it fun to read. Descriptions and explanations of some of Houdini’s astonishing magic routines add an extra dimension to this pleasant adventure.” Publishers Weekly
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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s timeless creation returns in a series of handsomely designed detective stories.
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes encapsulates the most varied and thrilling cases of the world’s greatest detective.
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by Daniel Stashower
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by Manly Wade Wellman & Wade Wellman
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Hammer and Velda go on vacation to a small beach town on Long Island after wrapping up the Williams case (I, the Jury). Walking romantically along the boardwalk, they witness a brutal beating at the hands of some vicious local cops—Hammer wades in to defend the victim.
When a woman turns up naked—and dead— astride the statue of a horse in the small-town city park, how she wound up this unlikely Lady Godiva is just one of the mysteries Hammer feels compelled to solve...
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Hammer accompanies a conservative politician to Moscow on a fact-finding mission. While there, he is arrested by the KGB on a bogus charge, and imprisoned; but he quickly escapes, creating an international incident by getting into a firefight with Russian agents.
On his stateside return, the government is none too happy with Mr. Hammer. Russia is insisting upon his return to stand charges, and various government agencies are following him. A question dogs our hero: why him? Why does Russia want him back, and why (as evidence increasingly indicates) was he singled out to accompany the senator to Russia in the first place?
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A killer Chambers had put away many years ago is suddenly freed on new, apparently indisputable evidence, and Hammer wonders if, somehow, this seemingly placid, very odd old man might be engineering cop killings that all seem to be either accidental or by natural causes.
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Nikki Heat faces her toughest case yet.
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