The Betrayers mh-10

by Donald Hamilton

  Near us under the big tree, a dark, beautiful, but rather buxom young lady in a long, heavy, red brocade gown was doing a slow hula to the accompaniment of a ukulele, a steel guitar, a string bass, and an electrified instrument that looked like an autoharp on legs. I was rather startled to see that, below the regal gown, the lovely dancer's feet were bare. Beyond the band, far out at sea, a large ship was steaming slowly toward Honolulu harbor in the pinkish glow of the setting sun.

  I said, "Look, there's a ship out there. Would that be the famous Lurline people have been telling me about?"

  Jill didn't turn her head. "No, the Lurline arrives on Saturdays, in the morning and it's quite an occasion. You'll have to see it. All the boats and catamarans go out to meet her. It's a real nautical traffic jam, usually, with water skiers showing off and boys diving for coins and everybody yelling aloha. Real corny but kind of fun." She glanced over her shoulder. "There's supposed to be a transport ship due with troops for the Far East. Some of them stop off here. That must be it." She smiled at me. "And you weren't really looking at any ship, Mr. Helm."

  I grinned. "Hula me no hulas. I've seen a girl wiggle her hips before." A waitress was hovering over us, wanting our orders. I said to Jill, "You name it, Miss Darn-icy. What goes with rum?"

  "More rum, of course," she said, and looked up at the waitress. "Two Mai Tais, please… I think you'll like this drink, Mr. Helm."

  "If it's got alcohol in it, I generally do," I said, and went on casually, "What the hell are those birds? They look like doves, but they act like sparrows."

  Jill glanced at the birds picking up crumbs under the tables. "They are doves," she said. "We have two kinds, big ones and little ones. But you really should watch this dance, Mr. Helm. It's the real hula, not the grass-skirt shimmy all tourists seem to expect when they come to the Islands. Look at her hands. Aren't they graceful?"

  "Hands? What hands?" I said. "Oh, you mean the hands. Oh, sure. Very graceful."

  Jill laughed at my clowning, and I laughed with her, and we were off birds as quickly as we'd got on them. What it amounted to was that I'd given her an opening for the seabird-landbird password and she'd let it go by. This meant either that she wasn't the inside agent Mac had spoken of, or that she wasn't ready to reveal herself yet. Well, I hadn't really expected it to be that easy.

  I asked, "Do you live here on Oahu, Miss Darnley?"

  "I'd hardly be staying at a hotel if I did," she said. "Oahu isn't so big that you can't get home at night, wherever you are. No, I live in Hio. That's on the island of Hawaii, what we call the Big Island, the one with the volcano. Well, they're all volcanic, of course, but our volcano really works, from time to lime." She smiled. "And my name is Jill, Mr. Helm."

  "Jill Darnley," I said. "Very nice. I'm Matt. How long are you staying in Honolulu, Jill?"

  "Oh, a week or so. It depends. Did you say you knew something about skiing, Mr. Helm?… I mean, Matt."

  "I didn't say, but I do. A little. Why?"

  "Well, if you can ski, you'd probably have very little trouble with a surfboard. I mean, it's all a question of balance. And if you're getting up early again tomorrow, well, I could promote another board and show you.

  It's really a fantastic sport. Out of this world. There's nothing quite like it. I mean, of course, if you want to."

  I said, "Sure, but I hope you're not hinting that you want to be rid of me until tomorrow morning."

  She said very quickly that of course she wasn't, then the Mai Tais arrived. The recommended drink turned out to consist of heroic quantities of rum in a large glass into which had been inserted some ice, a stick of fresh pineapple, and so help me, an orchid. Jill told me that Mai Tais were originally concocted with a wicked local brew called okolehao, distilled from the fermented root of the Ii plant, the same useful plant that provided the leaves for the famous grass skirts. However, oke, as it was called, was such violent stuff that it had been replaced by rum for tourist consumption, said Jill.

  She was really a very informative girl. By the time we'd finished our Mai Tais at the hotel and a couple more rounds with dinner at Duke Kahanamoku's night club and had sat through the floor show there-with all the MC's local references explained to me by my blonde companion-I was practically a native Hawaiian myself. It was well after eleven when we got back to the Halekulani. We stopped in the lobby and looked at each other. There was an awkward little pause.

  I cleared my throat and said, "How about a nightcap? I haven't any oke, but I've got a Mainland drink you may find tasty. We distill it from grain and call it bourbon."

  She laughed. "Are you making fun of me, Matt? Have I been talking too much like a tour guide?" I didn't say anything. She stopped smiling and looked down and blushed a little, which showed promise. A kid who can blush on demand will go a long way in our trade, if she survives. "Well," she said. "Well, all right. Just a quick one."

  We didn't say anything going up the stairs, but she slipped a hand under my arm, ostensibly for support. Maybe she really needed it. We'd both absorbed respectable amounts of rum during the course of the evening.

  We stopped at my door, and she leaned against me sleepily while I unlocked it. Normally I'd have taken a precaution or two, entering the place again after having been out of it so long, but precautions weren't really feasible with the girl practically crawling into my pocket. They would have been wasted, anyway. No booby traps blew as we went inside; no hidden assassins leaped out at us.

  I paused to lock the door. Jill detached herself from me and went on through the lanai into the bedroom part of the suite. When I turned to look at her, she was standing there, waiting, doing once more for me the lazy, provocative business of pushing back her long hair with both hands.

  "I… I don't really want another drink, Matt," she said, letting her hands fall as she watched me approach.

  "I didn't think you did," I said, stopping in front of her. "But a man's got to say something, doesn't he?"

  "I suppose so." She smiled slowly. "Now help me out of this ridiculous garment.. Or maybe you'd better kiss me first."

  "Sure."

  I kissed her. She came breathlessly alive in my arms; it was an interesting performance, as a display of technique. I mean, she was putting on a pretty good show for an inexperienced kid, and suddenly I was disgusted with both of us and our phony passion.

  She was too busy playing Jezebel to notice. She sighed and freed herself quickly, turned away, and pulled her lei off over her head and tossed it onto a nearby chair. The lose muu-muu dress dropped to the floor. She got rid of brassiere, panties, and sandals in what seemed like a single graceful motion, and swung back to face me expectantly.

  I took a step backward. "Very good, Jill," I said. "Oh, very good indeed. Tell the Monk I said you did that extremely well." Her face turned pale. I said harshly, "Now you can get dressed again before you catch cold. I'm a big boy and I don't talk in my sleep. Seduction is for kids, honey, and I'm surprised the Monk would have you try it on an old hand like me. He must be slipping."

  There was a little silence. I had to hand it to her, she didn't try any indignant, useless protests. She didn't try to persuade me she didn't know anybody called Monk and I was making a terrible mistake. She didn't say anything at all.

  She just licked her lips and bent down to pick up her clothes and turned away from me again to put them back on. She took time to do it right, getting all the hooks and snaps and zippers fastened properly. Then she walked straight to the door and stopped, and looked back over her shoulder, speaking at last:.

  "That was… just a bit cruel, wasn't it, Matt? You didn't have to do it like that."

  I stared at her for a moment, as if not quite believing what I'd heard. Then I walked quickly across the room and took her by the arm and swung her against the wall, holding her there.

  "Cruel, baby?" I said savagely, leaning close to her. "Who are you to talk about cruel? Do you know where I was a month ago? I was in Europe, working with a girl. She was s
unburned and nice-looking, like you. She was blonde, like you. She had blue eyes, like you. She wore a white bikini, just like you. And if you think the resemblances are coincidental, you're out of your cotton-picking mind. You were selected for this crummy job, Jill, because Agent Eric is supposed to have a weakness for tanned blondes; because the girl I'm talking about died over there and somebody had the cute notion I'd be just about ready for a replacement. Don't talk cruel to me, sweetheart. Just get the hell out of here."

  She didn't move at once. She whispered, "I.. I'm sorry, Matt. I didn't know."

  "Sure you didn't. And while you're thinking about how cruel I am, just remember that I could have laid you before I laughed. Now beat it."

  I unlocked the door and opened it for her, and locked it again behind her, and listened to her footsteps receding down the hall outside until they were no longer audible. Then I drew a long breath, wondering if I'd just perpetrated a tactical mistake or a stroke of genius.

  On the one hand, Monk might wonder how I'd spotted his girl so quickly, but she'd betrayed herself in lots of ways and it had been a pretty obvious plant anyway, so obvious that it would have looked more suspicious if I'd played along with it. That's what a clever man who was interested in getting something on the Monk would have done. I was trying to establish that I didn't give a damn about Monk and his people as long as they left me alone.

  I was a little ashamed of the sob story I'd used on the girl. It was quite true, of course. That was why I was ashamed of it. It's never nice to have to play games with your own emotions. But there's no excuse for making enemies unnecessarily. Whether or not Jill was the contact I was looking for, she seemed to be a young agent with a reasonable amount of brains and guts, and I didn't want her hating me. It might just possibly make a difference later, when the chips were down.

  I'd had to reject her pretty roughly to make it look good-and sound good for any mikes that might have been planted in the room-and there's only one excuse a woman will accept for such a deadly insult: that it was done by a man with a broken heart. I decided that I'd been pretty smart, after all, and that I should be pretty proud of myself. I should feel real good about my diabolical cleverness: Helm the human calculating machine, unaffected by sex or sentiment. The bad taste in my mouth was undoubtedly caused only by too much rum.

  While I was telling myself this, the telephone rang. I went over and picked it up. The voice at the other end was feminine, but it wasn't Jill Darnley's voice. I couldn't place it at once.

  "Mr. Helm?"

  "This is Helm," I said.

  "This… this is Isobel McLain." The voice sounded oddly slurred and uncertain. "Room sixteen-dash-two. That's on the ground floor of cottage sixteen, over by the paddle-tennis court. Would you… would you come at once? The door will be unlocked; just walk in. Please hurry."

  I started to speak, perhaps to ask a silly question, but the connection had already been broken at the other end.

  Chapter Six

  I CHECKED THE loads in the snub-nosed, five-shot .38 caliber revolver I'd been issued in Washington, and I checked the spare cartridges in their tricky little quickfeed case. Being designed for police use, it holds six rounds: most cop guns shoot six times. I've never felt the need for that much firepower, but then I'm not a cop. I took my knife from my pocket and made certain it would open smoothly if needed. It looks like an ordinary jackknife, just a little larger than average, but it has some special features. For instance, the long blade locks into place when opened so it won't fold over and cut off your fingers if you happen to hit bone as you go in. I made sure I had my new belt on-it has some special features, too-and I got the little drug kit we often carry and slipped that into a concealed pocket.

  I guess this seems like a lot of preparation, but I tend to be a trifle suspicious of breathless midnight telephone invitations from mysterious ladies in distress.

  Turning to leave, I stopped, looking at the orchid lei Jill had been wearing, still lying on the chair where she'd dropped it. I picked it up, wondering how to get it back to her, but decided that the conscientious gesture would be out of character for the surly, brooding bastard I was supposed to be-besides, the damn island was lousy with orchids. She wouldn't have any trouble finding more if she wanted them. I made a face at the pretty necklace of flowers, dropped it into the wastebasket, turned out the lights, and left the room.

  Just down the hail was an outside staircase leading to the ground. I took this, with my hand in my coat pocket and my gun in my hand. Once I was covered by the garden shadows below, I took the hand and the gun out of my pocket.

  It was a fine place for dirty work at night. There was an occasional light but it didn't reach very far through the lush foliage. The path was a tunnel through giant ferns and overhanging palms, not to mention such exotics as bird-of-paradise trees, the flowers of which actually do look like brilliant birds. Not that I could identify them in the dark, or would have taken the time if I could, but I'd kind of checked them out that morning, returning from the beach. I'd also located the paddle-tennis layout, where a kind of bastard court game could be played with what looked like overgrown Ping-pong paddles. You never know when a little local geography is going to come in handy.

  There was nobody on the court when I reached it. The deserted spectator tables sprouted beach umbrellas that looked like giant mushrooms in the dark. There were no lights in the adjacent building, but a lamp on a post let me read the number on the nearest door: 16-2. As I moved that way, my foot nudged something on the walk that skidded away with a rattling, fragile little sound. I found the object and picked it up: a pair of glamorized sunglasses that looked familiar. They were unbroken. Remembering the shaky voice on the phone, I wondered if the owner could say the same.

  The door was the usual flimsy fresh-air affair with ventilating slats instead of solid panels. It opened silently when I turned the knob, and let me into a shadowy porch or lanai, similar to the one in my own suite. The walls were striped with the light filtering through the louvered doors and window shutters. Beyond, presumably, was the bedroom. It was quite dark in there.

  I'd already stuck my neck out coming this far; I might as well stick it out all the way. If I'd really wanted to avoid a trap, I'd have stayed in my room. You can learn a lot about people from the kind of traps they set, if you live through the experience. I stepped into the darkness and stumbled over something soft on the floor. A light came on.

  "Welcome, Mr. Helm," said Isobel McLain's voice. "Thank you for responding so promptly to my call."

  I wheeled to face her. She was sitting in one of the large beds jutting out from the left-hand wall, and she was unarmed and more or less undressed; that is, she was wearing nothing but an insubstantial nightgown of the pale cafй-au-lait color that makes a woman's skin look very white by contrast. She had nice shoulders, I noticed. This was the glamorous part of the display.

  The unglamorous part was that she was holding a small hotel towel to the side of her head. There was fresh blood on the towel and on her hand. Her hair was matted on that side. Her face was shiny and drawn with pain.

  "No, Mr. Helm," she said tartly, as if I had spoken. "I did not fall down drunk and bump my head. Look at my room!"

  I looked at her room. It had been pretty well torn apart. Dresser drawers and closed doors gaped open, and feminine stuff was all over the place. At my feet, in a crumpled heap, was the black dress she'd worn at the cocktail party. This was what I'd stumbled on in the dark. It seemed to have picked up some dust and blood since I'd last seen it. Her purse lay beside it. Farther on in the direction of the bathroom lay her discarded underwear, shoes, and stockings.

  I couldn't help thinking that women were having a lot of trouble staying in their clothes in Honolulu tonight, judging by one man's experience. Well, this was a good climate for it-not staying in your clothes, I mean. The risk of pneumonia was negligible.

  I turned back to the bed and Isobel McLain, and held up the sunglasses I'd found. "You dropp
ed these outside. They seem to be okay." I laid them on a table nearby. "What happened here, Mrs. McLain?"

  "There were two men," she said. "One must have been waiting out there in the bushes, watching for me. He must have hit me as I approached the door, while I was busy rummaging in my purse for my key. I say 'must have' because I don't really know what happened. Suddenly I was down on hands and knees and my head was full of pain and there was something wet running down my neck. Foolishly enough, all I could think of was that I was wrecking my nylons on the concrete walk-I could feel them going-and that I must look very ridiculous and undignified. Is that a normal reaction, Mr. Helm?"

  I shrugged. "It's been a long time since I wore a pair of nylons, ma'am. Or worried about my dignity."

  She laughed softly, and winced. "Don't be funny. It hurts my head. Well, after a moment or two I sort of felt the man standing over me, and I was terrified that he'd hit me again, so I pretended to collapse into total unconsciousness. He dragged me in here, and I heard him telling the other man to finish up in a hurry and never mind putting anything back. After a little, the other man said it was no use, the bitch was too smart, there was nothing here to connect her with Helm, even though she'd been seen to make contact with him at the party, earlier. That's what he said, that we'd made contact. Did we make contact, Mr. Helm?"

  "I wasn't aware of it," I said. "Not in an official sense of the word. But I guess it could have looked like a contact to somebody watching."

  She said, "One day you'll have to explain to me all about contacts, when I don't have such a headache. Anyway, the two men left. When I was sure they weren't coming back, I struggled out of my clothes and into a pretty nightie and called you." She managed a smile. "After all, one can't entertain a gentleman in a dirty dress and laddered stockings, can one?"

  I grinned. "Maybe not, but one seems to be able to think pretty fast, even with a bad crack on the head. Why me? Why not the police?"