The Ravagers

by Donald Hamilton

  I forced myself to give the Mercedes plenty of time to get clear, while I bought the magazine I’d been examining, finished my drink, and asked the lady at the desk where she wanted me to dispose of the bottle. She graciously consented to take care of it for me. I went out of the office and walked slowly back to the door I had passed twice before. I don’t suppose I really expected an answer to my knock. There had been a certain stiffness in Hans Ruyter’s bearing, a desperately strained naturalness, that had said quite clearly that here was a man who expected hell to break loose behind him, and hoped to get far away before it did.

  There was no response to my knock and no sound of movement inside the room. I drew a long breath and glanced around casually. Everything was quiet. I reached in my pocket for my wallet and got out the piece of plastic I’d used once before here in Canada, the one masquerading as a credit card. As I shielded the lock with my body, I carefully avoided remembering the last time I’d opened a door in this illegal manner, and what I’d found on the other side. At least I tried.

  The lock was easy. The door swung back. I took extra precautions, going in. The fact that one man had left didn’t guarantee that the place was safe; and I wasn’t carrying my revolver today. It was hidden away in the VW where nobody was likely to find it without dismantling the car. With the highways full of convict-hunting policemen— we’d hit two roadblocks on the way—wearing an undeclared firearm in what was, after all, a foreign country, had been too much of a risk. However, I did have a rather special little knife, and I had it ready as I entered, fast. Nothing happened. I got the door closed and went once more through the routine of checking closet and bathroom. Then I shut the knife and put it away and went over to the bed where she lay.

  I won’t say I’d been expecting it, but after seeing Ruyter I wasn’t really surprised. So there was no excuse for the sick, shocked feeling I experienced, looking down at her. Actually, it was very peaceful. No acid had been used here. There was a small-caliber automatic pistol in her hand, the little .25 that will hardly shoot through a heavy overcoat, and there was a dark spot on her temple, that was all. There were some powderburns—there always are, with a contact wound—and there was a little blood, but nothing like the mess you get with the larger calibers.

  She was wearing a dress tonight, perhaps put on for my benefit: a gay summery print that made her small tomboy face look very pale. A pair of high-heeled white pumps stood neatly on the rug beside the bed. Her eyes were closed. Except for the pallor, and the gun and the wound, she could simply have slipped off her shoes and lain down to take a nap. He’d set the scene carefully. A portable typewriter, presumably hers, stood open on the long, glass-topped gizmo along one wall, that served as combination dresser and writing table. The machine had a piece of paper in it, displaying one line of writing: I’M SORRY I MUST HAVE BEEN CRAZY GOODBYE.

  Beside the typewriter stood an empty chemical reagent bottle with a glass stopper. The label had been defaced by the potent liquid that had run down it in streaks, but I could still read the words: Acid Sulfuric, conc., USP. Beside the bottle lay a small hypodermic syringe containing a residue of drug that, I had no doubt, would check out the same as the stuff that had killed Greg.

  I didn’t believe it for a minute, of course, but the picture was clear enough for the stupidest policeman: unable to live with her guilt, Elaine had set out all the evidence, typed her farewell note, and shot herself. Well, she was the logical fall guy for Greg’s murder, if you had to have a fall guy. I’d suspected her myself.

  I went back to the bed. The shock was wearing off. I suppose I should have been feeling grief in its place. Well, when the job was over, I could get drunk and cry in my beer, or whiskey, or gin. Right now I had other things to do, and I took from my pocket the stained white kid glove I’d found in Greg’s room and tried it on the right hand. It was much too large, it slipped on and off loosely, which was just as well, since the operation wasn’t one I found particularly enjoyable. I looked at the damaged glove, frowning, trying to reconstruct the murder in which it had figured, and the murder in which it had not, and the stages by which one had led to the other.

  A plausible sequence of events wasn’t hard to imagine, if you dismissed the notion of a frameup and took the glove to be exactly what it seemed: a betraying clue dropped at the scene by the real murderess, call her Genevieve Drilling for convenience. Afterwards, realizing that she’d left it, Genevieve could have made contact somehow with her accomplice, Ruyter, and explained the spot she was in. He could have agreed to clean up after her, by giving the police a solution of the case so simple and tidy that they’d be glad to overlook the minor discrepancy of a glove that didn’t quite fit. In any case, whatever his reasons, he’d obviously come here to tie up the loose ends of one murder by committing another.

  Of course, neither Genevieve nor her Hans knew that the police didn’t have the missing glove: I had it. Perhaps Elaine would not have died if they’d known that. And perhaps she would not have died if she had not been expecting me and therefore, perhaps, despite my warning, had not been quite as careful about opening the door as she should have been. I grimaced and shoved the glove back into my pocket. You can take the guilt of the whole world on your shoulders any time you want to try, and many people do, but I didn’t have time for the sackcloth-and-ashes routine just then.

  As I started for the door, the telephone rang. I hesitated, but it seemed useful to know who was calling, so I took out my handkerchief and used it to pick up the instrument on the third ring. A young male voice I’d heard before in some wet woods in the dark, said:

  “Elaine? We just got word from Denver on this Clevenger character you’re seeing tonight. He seems to be okay, a real, honest-to-God private eye... Elaine? Who’s there?”

  The decision wasn’t hard to make. I could hang up and leave Larry Fenton and Marcus Johnston guessing, but Elaine had obviously told them she was expecting me—which answered one of Mac’s questions. All three of them had apparently been working together. Under the circumstances, the remaining two would be bound to come around to question me when they learned what had happened to Elaine. It was better to give an impression of boyish frankness.

  I said, “This is the Clevenger character. If you’re the Larry character, you’d better get over here. Bring a shovel, you’ve got something to bury. If you want me afterwards, I’ll be out at the campground. If you don’t know where, it’s time you found out.”

  “Listen, you stay right where you—”

  I put the phone down. I looked at the bed, but there wasn’t anybody there to talk to. I mean, sentimentally telling a dead girl goodbye, or dramatically promising to avenge her, is just a way of talking to yourself, and they lock people up for that. Besides, I reflected grimly, I wasn’t being paid to wield the sword of retribution. On the contrary, I was under strict orders to help the murderers escape free and clear.

  9

  The last pink glow of sunset was just fading from the sky when I came out of there. I reached my car without incident, drove away, and stopped at a filling station after a dozen blocks. While the attendant was putting gas into the Volks, I went into the restroom, locked the door, took out the stained white glove and my knife, and cut my private murder clue into small pieces, which I then flushed down the john a few at a time, not wanting to risk clogging the plumbing.

  On the assumption that the incriminating glove did belong to Genevieve Drilling—and who else would Hans Ruyter be covering for?—I couldn’t take the risk of keeping it around any longer. I could think of no useful purpose it could serve me, either as Dave Clevenger or as Matt Helm, and I couldn’t afford to let it serve anybody else, certainly not anybody with a legalistic mind. The last place for Genevieve to be, if I was to carry out my instructions, was in jail. She was my baby, all murderous, acid-throwing five feet seven of her; and Hans Ruyter, the competent girl-killer, was my baby, too. It was my duty, I reminded myself grimly, to see that nobody hurt a hair of their scheming, vic
ious, good-looking heads.

  At the very least, I told myself as I made the water run for the last time, the glove could have involved me in unnecessary complications, should there be somebody waiting when I got back to camp. I stalled long enough on the way to make reasonably sure there would be.

  They weren’t in sight, of course. I’d got a fairly secluded site toward the rear of the camp, shielded by trees and bushes, and they were playing it cute. I didn’t spot Johnston in the dark, but that Larry character would never go hunting with me. He was one of the jerks who can’t sit still, in a duck blind or anywhere else. I had him located in the brush before I was even out of the car.

  I left the lights on to illuminate the tent until I could get the gasoline lantern going. They waited until I had it burning brightly. They waited until I’d set it safely on the nearby picnic table and switched off the car lights. Then Johnston came out from behind a tree and pointed a gun at me. I raised my hands politely. Larry came out of his hiding place, if you want to call it that, and walked up to me, and hit me.

  It wasn’t much of a punch, but I let it knock me down, figuring that was the easiest way to end the fight before it started. A smart private op named Clevenger wouldn’t mix it with a couple of armed men he knew to be government agents; and I’ve never seen much point in hitting a man with a fist, anyway. All it gets you is some bruised knuckles and a resentful enemy who is probably not damaged enough to prevent him from getting back at you later. There’s hardly ever any sense in hitting a man with anything that doesn’t make him dead—that is, if you’ve got to hit him at all. But nobody’d told Larry Fenton that. Having knocked me down, he stepped forward and kicked me.

  “You killed her!” he panted. “Damn you, you killed her!”

  The kick was probably more than tough Mr. Clevenger should stand for. I looked at Johnston, staying well back with his gun. A good, experienced man, Mac had said, but at first glance he looked unimpressive: a plump little figure with gold-rimmed glasses. He had thinning brown hair combed straight back from a soft white face. You’d never give him a second look in a crowd. He looked as if he sold shoes or insurance for a living, and went home nights to watch TV with a plump little wife and a couple of plump little children.

  At second glance, I noted the cold, alert blue eyes behind the glasses, and the steady hand holding the gun. I was relieved. This man wouldn’t do anything hasty, nor would he let his erratic and amateurish partner go too far astray. It was safe to put on a show for him. He wouldn’t get nervous and shoot a hole in me by mistake. I spoke to him without looking at Larry, standing over me threateningly.

  “Pull it off me,” I said. “If it kicks me again, I’ll cut its little foot off, so help me.”

  “Take it easy, Clevenger,” Johnston said. “Take it very easy.”

  I said, “To hell with you,” and reached defiantly into my pants pocket. He didn’t shoot. I took out my knife and opened it deliberately. Larry started to reach for me, but Johnston waved him back. I said, “I’ll cut it off at the ankle, so help me. Just one more kick and he’ll be known as Footless Larry. And you, Chubby, stop waving that fool gun around, hear? You fire it off in the middle of a public campground like this and you’ll be making explanations to every cop in Canada.”

  Johnston regarded me unwaveringly. “You talk pretty big for a lousy private cop.”

  I said, “You act pretty big for a lousy spy, or counterspy, operating in a foreign country, probably without permission.”

  “How do you know what we are? And how did you learn that my partner’s name is Larry?”

  I said, “Hell, you told me the name yourself. Last night in the bushes outside the Drilling trailer, in the rain. He got lost in the dark and you called to him by name, remember?”

  The plump little man looked disconcerted. “You were there?”

  “I was there,” I said. “Unlike some people, I’m real good in the woods, if I do say so myself.”

  “And how did you learn so much about our business?”

  “When I came on the job, I was told the government had an interest in the case. And last night, when the girl was trying to pump me for information in Regina, she told me she worked for Uncle Sam. And when I picked up the phone in her motel room tonight right here in Brandon, your friend here started making a report to her, on me. I figure that puts you all in the same line of work with the same employer. In the detective business we call it deduction.” I looked at him hard. “And now I’m getting up, Chubby. Go ahead and fire that thing, if you think Washington will come back you up. I’m sure they’d love an international protest about U.S. undercover creeps shooting up people north of the border.”

  “Who’s going to protest? You, with murder on your hands?”

  I didn’t answer immediately. I got to my feet. Larry started to close in again, but again a signal from the older man stopped him. I closed the knife and dropped it into my pocket, looking at Marcus Johnston.

  “What’s this about a murder?”

  “My partner has made it pretty plain. We think you killed Elaine.”

  I said, “Ah, cut it out. Don’t give me that old routine. You come at me frothing at the mouth, throwing it at me hard and sudden, hoping you’ll catch me off balance and make me spill something. Well, this hombre doesn’t spill that easy. So now let’s talk sense. The kid killed herself, and we all know it, and we all know why. Was it her gun?” Their silence said yes. I said, “Okay, then, the only question is, are you going to leave it that way or do you have some notion of framing me for it?”

  “Why would we do that?” Johnston asked.

  I said, “Income tax men, Treasury agents, G-men, guys like you, who knows why you do anything? You might want to whitewash her for the good of the service, as they say. Maybe it’s bad publicity to have your people committing murder and suicide for personal reasons. Or you might just want to get me out of your hair.”

  “It’s not a bad idea,” he said. “I’ll give it some thought.”

  I said, “It’s a lousy idea. You leave the thing lay and you’re finished with it. It started in Regina and it ends here in Brandon.”

  Larry was staring at his partner in an indignant, incredulous way. “Why are you listening to him, Marcus? He killed her. Elaine would never have killed herself, and she wouldn’t have killed anybody else the way that was done. She’d never have used acid like that.”

  I looked at Johnston, and shook my head. “Where’d you find this one, pal? You mean he really believes this crap he’s been spouting? I thought he was just putting on an act.”

  Larry said violently, “You killed her. You were there, we know you were.”

  “Sure. I killed her. And then I picked up the phone and told you all about it. Smart me.”

  “Maybe that’s the way you were playing it smart.” The younger man turned back to his partner. “Who else had the opportunity? We know Mrs. Drilling never went near the motel. I was watching her every minute she was in town.”

  I said quickly, “But she did go into town?”

  “Well, yes, she did drive in to gas up the truck while the girl fixed dinner, but—”

  I said, “That’s a lot of work, uncoupling the pickup from the trailer, for some gas she could have got along the road in the morning. But you had your eyes on her every minute?” I studied his face. A hint of uneasiness gave me the cue, and I said, “Gas stations have restrooms as a rule. She didn’t go in?” The betraying flicker of his eyelids told me I’d scored a hit, and I went on harshly, “She didn’t stay in there kind of a long time, maybe? She had no chance to slip away? No, that’s right, you said you were watching her every minute. Through the restroom keyhole, maybe?”

  I’d been wondering how Genevieve, under constant surveillance, had managed to talk to Ruyter unseen when she needed help, but I had my answer. They’d presumably arranged to meet at a certain time at a certain filling station where the restrooms were side by side around the corner of the building. He could have be
en waiting in either section with the door locked, until she signaled by knocking a certain way. Or they could have talked through the wall. But I wasn’t about to let these men know what I’d been trying to find out. Ruyter was my secret, my fairhaired boy, to be protected and cherished.

  I regarded Larry grimly. He was silent, flushing. He was really pretty young for this business, I saw. The bald head fooled you. It was a kind of patchy baldness, and he’d shaved off the remaining hair with some idea of looking like Yul Brynner, maybe, or just making a virtue of necessity. He was pale and thin, and the hairlessness made his head look skull-like and old, but he really wasn’t very far into his twenties.

  I decided that he must have been sick or badly wounded recently. This was probably his first job since leaving the hospital. I suppose I should have made allowances. Maybe he was a good man who’d been sent into the field again too soon after a terrible experience of some kind, but I couldn’t really believe he’d ever been a ball of fire. I judged him as a green trainee who’d got himself clobbered the first or second time out, and who was going to get clobbered again if he wasn’t very lucky. I might even have to do the job myself.

  “Well,” I said dryly, “she’s stacked, I’ll say that for Madame Drilling. It must have been interesting to watch.”

  Larry hesitated. “Well, I didn’t really watch—” He stopped and turned to Johnston quickly. “She couldn’t have slipped out, I swear it, Marcus! And the filling station was on the other side of town from Elaine’s motel. She couldn’t possibly have got there and back... He stopped.

  I said, “If she couldn’t have got away from you, what difference does it make how far she had to go? The fact is, she could have backdoored you, and you obviously know it, or you wouldn’t be talking so fast to cover up.”

  Johnston said, “Are you trying to fit Mrs. Drilling for the job, Clevenger? I thought you were the man who said it was suicide.”