MacAdoo chuckled. "Edmund will come back."
Doan said, "The FBI delegated me to find out the location of an ore deposit from a man named Dust-Mouth Haggerty."
"Then why didn't you do it?" Harriet demanded.
"There wasn't any such deposit."
"How long have you known that?" MacAdoo asked.
"Oh, for some time. I'm not as dumb as Edmund."
MacAdoo nodded. "He is very stupid. I don't know what they must be thinking of in Germany. Even Americans aren't complete fools-- not all of them."
"Tell me more!" Harriet commanded.
Doan said, "Dust-Mouth claimed to know where some strategically valuable ore was. He didn't. There wasn't any. The FBI were pretty sure of that, but not completely. They used Dust-Mouth and me for bait, and they pulled in quite a haul."
"You shouldn't have taken the job," said MacAdoo.
"Don't I know it? I didn't want to. Every time I work for the government, I get put in jail. I'll bet if I got out of this, they'd slap me away for something."
"You don't have to worry--about jail," said MacAdoo.
"I wonder where Edmund is?"
"He'll come. He's probably burying your dog."
"Well, why did Dust-Mouth say he knew where some ore was if he didn't?" Harriet said angrily.
"He made a business out of it. He got free room and board because people thought they could make a million out of him. He was a very dumb guy. He was playing with fire all the time and didn't have sense enough to know it. He had taken plenty of suckers on phony claims in his day, and he didn't realize that in wartime the suckers might not just laugh it off. He didn't even know what kind of ore he was supposed to have. He had a collection of samples, and he just agreed they contained whatever you said. If you didn't say, he made something up."
"Past tense?" MacAdoo inquired.
Doan nodded. "Edmund."
"Oh," said MacAdoo.
"The FBI thought he might be playing a little deeper game than he was. So did I."
"What were you going to do with him out here?" MacAdoo asked.
"Toast his tootsies over a match flame until he told me who killed Tonto Charlie and Free-Look Jones and Susan Sally."
"Well, who did?" Harriet asked.
"Edmund," said Doan. "Just old Edmund. The fellow we're waiting for. I wonder if he's reading a burial service over Carstairs? Dust-Mouth heard in Heliotrope that I was a Jap agent. The FBI did that. They even furnished my address. Dust-Mouth was getting short of customers, so he figured he might take a little dough off of me. He sent Tonto Charlie to see me. Tonto ran into Edmund. Edmund bit. That was bad luck for Tonto, because Edmund doesn't have much of a sense of humor. Tonto brought him out here and showed him what was supposed to be some kind of valuable ore." Doan looked at MacAdoo. "Is that when Edmund got in touch with you?"
MacAdoo nodded. "Yes. He wanted samples assayed. I had it done for him. The samples showed no traces of any ore worth a dime to anybody for anything."
"Bing," said Doan. "Good-by, Tonto Charlie. He was hiding out at the Orna in Edmund's apartment at the time, waiting for the assayer's report. Tonto actually thought Dust-Mouth did have something. Edmund got mad and stabbed him, and then he had a body."
"As I said, he is very stupid," MacAdoo agreed.
"Comes the FBI looking for Doan," said Doan. "Edmund gets a little nervous about his body. I mean, Tonto's. The FBI park a car in front of the door where Edmund can see it and go away. Edmund finds gas ration books made out in my name in the car. A light dawns. He sends the garage attendant or janitor or whoever away on an errand, drives the car into the basement garage, gets Tonto Charlie's body and sticks it in the luggage compartment, and drives the car back to the front of the apartment and parks it. Now Doan has a body."
"Oh!" said Harriet.
"I thought it belonged to you," Doan told her. "I thought your pal, here, stuck it in the car when I stopped for you in the desert. That's why I wanted to keep you sort of under my eye for the time being."
"Oh!" said Harriet.
"I'm cold," said Blue. "Sure wish I was back on my reservation."
"Don't these horrible things you've been hearing make you want to join the Army and fight, fight, fight?" Harriet demanded. "No," said Blue glumly. "You're a coward!"
"I sure am," said Blue. "I guess you hate me now, huh?"
"Well..." said Harriet. "No. I--I don't."
"Oh," said Blue, sighing.
"And then there was Free-Look Jones," said Doan. "He was the sort of gent who would lay his hand to anything. He had been sniffing around behind Dust-Mouth and his make-believe ore. Edmund snared him, too, and signed him up. That's why he jumped me. He wanted me to get into a riot and get my car searched. He missed, and when Tonto Charlie mysteriously turned up with Free-Look's knife in his throat, he got too hot. Edmund put him away. How did Edmund get to Heliotrope?"
"With Susan Sally and me," MacAdoo said.
"I thought so. That's what she wanted to tell me, wasn't it?"
"Yes. Edmund talked too much in front of her. I may have done a little of that myself, at one time or another."
"Edmund killed her. Very neatly, too. She didn't know he had done it until she was dead--"
"Very neatly," MacAdoo agreed. "They teach you those things at the Ordensburgen."
"He took her up in the elevator," Doan said. "He tripped her when she got out, didn't he?"
"Yes," said MacAdoo.
"And when she fell he fell on top of her, hard."
"Yes," said MacAdoo.
"He knocked the breath out of her and stabbed her in that instant. He knew just how and where. Then he picked her up and brushed her off and apologized. She was dying right then, but she didn't know it. It takes a little while, with that kind of a stab wound, for the pain to catch up with you."
"Yes," MacAdoo said woodenly.
"She thought she was just breathless and bruised a bit. Edmund steered her toward my apartment and then ran downstairs and started figuring on his radio diagram. That was very clever. He was so obviously right on the spot that he figured I wouldn't believe it. Aside from that, he's a swell actor, and he's just stupid enough to take all kinds of screwy risks without counting up the odds against him. He knew what I was going to do before I did it most of the time. He listened in on all my telephone conversations and spied on me in every other way he could find. He was in the luggage compartment again when I went to see Dust-Mouth first last night. At that time he still thought Dust-Mouth might have something. He prevented Dust-Mouth from telling me what it was. And then he tried to point the finger at you."
"Me?" said Blue.
"Yeah. He knew you were a phony, but not what kind of a one."
"Do you know?" said Blue. "Sure. Since you shaved."
"What?" Harriet snapped.
"Haven't you spotted him yet? Blue is just his nickname. His real name is Roger Laws. Blue Laws, they call him."
"Whu-whu-whu-what?"
"How are the eyes now?" Doan asked Blue.
"Okay. I'll be able to ditch these glasses soon."
Harriet screamed.
Blue glanced at her with distaste. "What now?"
"You're the ace! The fighter pilot! Tuh-twenty-five enemy planes!"
"Twenty-seven," Doan corrected.
"You're a huh-hero!" Harriet wailed. "You were sh-shot down in flames!"
"Three times," Blue agreed sourly. "And don't talk to me about German planes and pilots. I don't fall five miles for fun. Anybody that knocks me down has to be better than I am, and I'm damned good."
"Oh--my--yes!"
"Shut up."
"Oh! You're won-wonderful!"
"Oh, nuts," said Blue.
"Why the dumbbell act?" Doan inquired.
Blue jerked his thumb at Harriet. "After this performance, you can ask?"
Harriet reached out her hand and touched his sleeve reverently with her fingertips.
"Get away," said Blue. Harriet stared at
him, shiny-eyed.
"Oh, my God!" Blue snarled. "Will you stop that? Listen. I like to fly. I like to shoot planes down. It's very interesting work. It pays well. I even get a pension when I retire."
"You mean--if," said Doan. "Ooooh," said Harriet.
"Get away from me! Damn you, I acted as dumb as I could to get rid of you, but no matter how I tried I couldn't act one tenth as dumb as you can without trying!"
"Yes, Blue," said Harriet, entranced.
"You've got no more brains than a rabbit."
"No, Blue."
"You make me sick."
"Yes, Blue. I love you."
"Oh, shut up."
"Now I can die happily--with you."
"Dying is no fun," Blue said. "I've already tried it a couple times."
MacAdoo was looking more worried now. "I wish I'd known. I wish I had."
"What eats him?" Blue asked Doan.
"Goering," said Doan.
"Come again."
"You shoot down Goering's men. MacAdoo loves you like a brother for that."
MacAdoo nodded. "I only wish I'd known. I'd have thought of something else. Now it's too late."
"Maybe not," said Doan.
MacAdoo said, "I'll shoot if you move your hands again."
"Edmund, dear Edmund," said Doan, "please come home to me now."
"Where is Edmund?" Blue inquired slowly.
"Ah," said Doan knowingly.
Watching Doan, MacAdoo took a drink out of his flask and put it down again carefully on the floor beside him.
"Of course," Doan said judicially, "MacAdoo wouldn't have to wait for Edmund. He could just shoot us."
"Could he?" said Blue.
There was a little film of sweat on MacAdoo's forehead. "Sit still," he said.
"I'm not moving a muscle," said Doan. "Neither is Blue. Are you?"
"Nope," said Blue. "I wonder if Edmund got lost."
"Sure," said Doan. "That's it. He's wandering around in the desert, with nothing to drink but a flash flood."
"Too bad," said Blue, "but then MacAdoo was going to kill him anyway. Why?"
"He killed Susan Sally," said Doan. "He shouldn't have done that. She was worth five and a quarter a week to MacAdoo."
"Shut up," said MacAdoo thinly.
"Why, sure," said Doan.
The rain clattered nerve-rackingly on the tin above them and gurgled and choked under the eaves.
MacAdoo sighed a little and got up from the nail keg. He began to move toward the door, side-stepping carefully. He reached it and felt for the latch with his left hand, keeping the revolver leveled in his right.
The latch clicked, and MacAdoo pulled the door open and turned his head quickly. He didn't have time to do anything else voluntarily. Carstairs must have been about ten feet away, waiting, and he had started to run as soon as the door moved. His chest hit MacAdoo shoulder high with the force of a battering ram, and his jaws snapped across MacAdoo's face with an ugly, sliding squeak of teeth on bone.
MacAdoo went clear the length of the shack and hit the back wall hard enough to bulge it. He slammed down full length on the floor with both hands clapped over his face and the blood running red and thick through his fingers. He began to shriek in a high, bubbling voice, writhing around in blind circles on the floor, arching his body up in the middle.
Doan was on his feet instantly. He caught Carstairs by the collar and hauled, exerting all his strength.
"Back! Back!"
Carstairs allowed himself to go back one reluctant step.
Doan nodded to Blue and then pointed at MacAdoo. "Hold him down."
Blue got up and then knelt with one knee on MacAdoo's chest. MacAdoo kept right on shrieking. Doan measured carefully and then kicked. His toe caught MacAdoo in the temple. MacAdoo's head jarred sideways, and then his body loosened and went limp. He stopped shrieking.
"He was right," Doan said thoughtfully. "Come to think of it, I don't believe he will look the same tomorrow."
"Oh, oh, oh, oh," Harriet moaned.
"Shut up," said Blue. "Did you want him yelling like that all the way back to town?"
Harriet made little gulping sounds.
Blue sat down beside her and put his arm around her shoulders. He pulled her head against his chest.
"Okay. It wasn't nice to see. Don't look any more."
"I was scu-scared."
"Hell, so was I."
"I love you."
"Sure," said Blue.
There was a silence.
"Go ahead and say it," Doan ordered. "She deserves it."
"I love you, too," said Blue reluctantly.
"Oh, Blue. Oh."
"Let's take a look at you," Doan said to Carstairs. "Oh-oh. Too dumb to duck, huh?"
There was a deep red groove through the muscles of Carstairs' shoulder, and blood had run down from it and formed in ugly clots on his chest and leg.
"What happened to Edmund?" Blue asked.
"They probably taught him about tracking in the spy school," Doan said absently. "But I guess they forgot to tell him that when you're tracking something like Carstairs, you should watch behind as well as in front. Carstairs just circled and jumped on his back when he went by. I'm afraid dear old Edmund is deader than a doornail."
"How can you be sure of that?"
"It makes Carstairs mad to be shot. Offhand I can't think of anyone who ever did it that lived to talk about it, and Edmund wouldn't be the exception. Hold still."
Doan picked up MacAdoo's flask and straddled Carstairs, one leg on either side of him.
"This'll hurt, maybe."
He poured from the flask carefully. Carstairs grunted and arched his back violently. Doan sat down hard on the floor, carefully holding the flask right side up.
"Okay," he said. He sniffed once and then grinned. "Ahem. Have you been drinking, my friend?"
Very slowly Carstairs turned his head toward his shoulder and sniffed. Just as slowly he turned his head back to look at Doan.
"Aw, now," said Doan. "I was only clowning."
Carstairs turned around and started for the door. Doan scrooched along hurriedly, bump-bottom fashion, and grabbed him by the tail.
"Wait! Can't you take a joke?"
Carstairs sat down with his back to him.
Doan scrooched around in front of him. "Now, look. I had to put something on that groove, or it'd have gotten infected. Would you like to go to a dog hospital and associate with a lot of curs with only ordinary pedigrees?"
Carstairs turned his head aside.
"Look, Carstairs," Doan said. "Look."
He tilted the flask and swallowed in big gulps. He choked and then held the flask over his head and sprinkled liquor over himself like a shower.
"See? Now if you just stay close to me everyone will think I'm drunk and they're smelling me. Get it? I'm drunk. Whoopee. Wheee."
Carstairs looked at him for a long time in a thoughtful, dispassionate way. Doan beamed back. Carstairs fetched a sigh from the bottom of his heart and then lay down and closed his eyes in soul-weary resignation.
THE END
Something for the Sweeper
Jones limped slowly along, his rubbers making an irregular squeak-squish sound on the wet cement of the sidewalk. He was not a large man and, walking as he was now, humped forward in an unconscious effort to favor his feet, he looked small and insignificant. He wore an old trench-coat with grease stains running jaggedly down the front. The sun was bright on the slick-black wetness of the asphalt paving, and he had his hat-brim pulled low over his tired eyes.
The houses on this street were gaunt, ugly and brown, and as alike as the teeth in a saw. They all had a wide flight of worn stairs leading up to the front door with another flight beside it leading down into the basement. They had all been built by one man, those houses, and he evidently was a person who believed in getting a good, plain plan and then sticking to it.
Jones was watching house numbers out of the corners of his eyes
. He was coming pretty close now, and he began to walk even slower. His mouth twisted up at one side every time he came down on his right foot.
The Essential Works of Norbert Davis Page 51