The Spy in a Box

by Ralph Dennis

  The airport. According to the article, Will Hall had been at the air base on other Company business when he recognized the Team. No names were given. Only that it was a killer squad from the Company. There was no mention of the United Mining, Ltd. markings on the plane that took the squad away.

  Hall finished the article and replaced it in the file. He was sweating in the chill of the room. He had, he thought, with the help of whoever had written the piece, made himself a lot of dangerous enemies.

  “Here,” Ben said. He placed a folder in front of Hall. “I think this is what you want.”

  Hall checked it. A fast flip through and he assured himself that it was the correspondance, originals of letters that he was supposed to have written and carbons of letters from Blackman.

  “Lock it up,” Hall said. “I’ll take these with me.”

  The driver waited for them down the street. Hall carried the folder under his parka. When they were in the back seat, the driver pulled away from the curb.

  “Five bills?” Hall opened the parka and placed the folder on the seat beside him.

  “Three,” Ben said. “It was too easy. Throw in half a bill for the driver.”

  Hall took a wad of bills torn his pocket and selected three hundreds and a fifty. At a stoplight, after Jacobi had the money, he reached forward and pressed the fifty into the driver’s hand.

  “Both of you forget about this one,” Hall said.

  “Forget what? That I had a couple of drinks with an old friend?” Jacobi patted the driver on the back. “And to make it a good lie, let’s have those drinks. Vinnie’s.”

  The driver nodded.

  Vinnie’s had murals on facing walls. Happy Italian peasants stomped grapes as big as golf balls. There was a strong smell of thick sauces and roasted peppers. Swarthy men sat at the bar and looked straight ahead.

  As soon as they entered, Ben gestured at a table for four in an alcove. The owner, bowing over him like he was minor royalty, led the way. Hall followed.

  Hall didn’t eat. He drank a couple of glasses of the house red wine while Jacobi had a double order of baked stuffed clams and followed that with a huge serving of hay and straw, spinach and white noodles mixed together and covered with a thick sauce of cheeses, cream and butter.

  The driver didn’t sit with them. He stood at the front end of the bar, a drink in his hand, and watched the front door.

  “I wasn’t joking,” Hall said. “Tonight, this went like rolling out of bed. That easy. But it didn’t happen. You know nothing about it. People might get killed.”

  “Might?”

  “Already have,” Hall said.

  “Who got killed?”

  “I think he was Company.”

  “Ah,” Jacobi said,” now you’ve spoiled my appetite.”

  “At least, now you’re listening.”

  Ben pushed the platter away. Half of the hay and straw had been eaten. “It’s fattening anyway,” he said.

  Ezra Harker, Hall’s uncle on his mother’s side of the family, had leased the apartment that overlooked Riverside Drive on a yearly basis since the mid 1960’s. It had been a hideaway for Ezra during the last stormy affair before old age banked his fires. A bittersweet love, the way Hall heard it. The girl had been a secretary, twenty odd years younger than Ezra. It was only a matter of time before it ended, before the girl found a man her own age and married him. She was, it seems, a girl who did not believe in dead end relationships.

  Ezra continued to lease the apartment after the girl was gone. Even now, when he spent most of his time in Winston-Salem, the apartment was cleaned and the shelves and the freezer stocked from time to time.

  Years before, when Will Hall was at Yale, Ezra offered him the use of the apartment when he was in New York and it was an offer that continued during his time with the Company. The apartment was his except for any of those in frequent times when business brought Ezra Harker to New York.

  The liquor cabinet was well stocked and the wine pantry, temperature controlled, always held a good selection of French and German wines. Recently, his uncle had discovered the Amador County Zinfandels from California.

  Hall selected a bottle of the Amador County and found a wedge of Black Diamond cheddar. He sat in the living room, sipped the wine, nibbled at the cheese, and read the thin file of correspondance.

  No envelopes. That hardly mattered. It was unlikely the letters had been mailed from anywhere but Blowing Rock. Not after the care with which the box was being put together.

  Where the article had been professionally typed the letters to Enos Blackman had been written on an old typewriter. The spacing was uneven, the “f” looked chipped at the base, and the “b” was slightly twisted, bent forward.

  He remembered an old Underwood upright that his father kept at the house in Blowing Rock. It was probably still there, stored away in the attic. He didn’t remember if there were chipped or twisted letters but he would bet that a good police or F.B.I. laboratory would come up with a match between that old typewriter and the letters.

  The letters. Not much there. One, from the contents, accompanied the manuscript. The writer agreed to a lesser cash payment from The Truth Seeker. The text revealed that the writer had wanted fifteen hundred dollars and had settled, after some foot dragging, for a thousand dollars.

  A second letter complained that the payment had not been received and wondered whether Blackman was trying to welch on the deal.

  Another letter, dated a week later, contained an apology. The check had been received and deposited.

  The final letter had accompanied a photo that Blackman had requested. The photo that Hall had seen in Blackman’s office and recognized as being covertly taken in The Intimate Bookshop in Chapel Hill. Attached to the letter was the barebone biographical sketch. It was accurate enough to have been prepared from the files at the Company.

  Born: Sept. 12,1952

  High School: Reynolds High, Winston-Salem, N.C. Graduated 1970

  College: Yale 1970-74. Degree in history.

  Recruited by Company insider. Began training in summer of 1974. Army basic and paratrooper training. Advanced training at the Farm in Virginia completed in 1976. Six months courier duty London.

  Posted to Brazil 1976. Posted to Chile 1978. Posted to Costa Verde 1979. Served there until early December of 1980. Recalled after the murder of Paul Marcos. Resignation December of 1980.

  He was boxed in tighter than a coffin.

  Hall awoke when the house buzzer from the lobby sounded. He was still on the sofa, the letters and the file folder spread in front of him. From the light that came through the balcony window, he could see that it was almost morning.

  The night doorman said, “A gentleman down here wants to see you. He says his name is Ben.”

  Careful, Hall told himself. “Let me speak to him.”

  “It’s important,” Jacobi said.

  The doorman had the phone again. “Sir?”

  “Send him up.”

  While Hall waited, he cleared away the cheese and the dregs of the bottle of Amador County Zinfandel. Then he pulled aside the curtain at the balcony and looked down at the river. Early joggers ran along the river in the confused light that was half natural and half carbon lamp.

  Hall opened the door and let Jacobi in at the first knock.

  “You got a drink? Scotch.”

  While Ben removed his topcoat, Hall found a bottle of Glenlivet and poured a strong one. “Early for you, isn’t it?”

  Jacobi gulped down half the drink. If he noticed the quality of the scotch, he didn’t comment on it.

  “What’s wrong, Ben?”

  “That favor I did for you. It might have been a mistake.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Somebody’s asking questions.”

  “Asking questions of you?”

  Ben shook his head. “A smalltime mouth I know owes me some favors. He paid off one an hour ago. He told me some very powerful people were asking if a B
and E man had been approached in the last day or two by an out-of-towner.”

  “There’s no tie to you?”

  “And there won’t be.” Ben tossed back the rest of the scotch “Everybody knows better than to point a finger at me.” Jacobi picked up his topcoat. “You going to be in town for a time?”

  “Two or three days,” Hall said.

  “Give me a call and we’ll have lunch at some out of the way place.”

  Hall shook his head. “Better not, Ben.”

  “Well,” Ben said as he got into his topcoat and buttoned it, “keep in touch.”

  An hour later, packed again, Hall left the key with the night doorman. He waved down a cruising cab half a block away from the apartment. He decided not to touch the BMW. It was known. Better to leave it stored, out of sight. At the same time, he thought it was safer to avoid planes and trains. Too easy to watch and both were the expected method of transportation.

  He directed the cab to the Port Authority and within the hour he caught a bus that took him to Washington.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Hall waited in the motel coffee shop, at a table near the front window. That way he could watch the parking lot outside. A half-eaten chopped sirloin lunch was in front of him. When he saw Bilbo’s Continental pull into the parking lot, he dropped his heavy paper napkin on the plate and moved it to the side. Bilbo sat there, frosting the car windows for five minutes before he got out and stood with a gloved hand on the hood of the car. Hall watched the street beyond. As far as he could tell, Bilbo hadn’t been followed.

  Bilbo entered the coffee shop and sat down at the table. “The spareribs for twelve are in the trunk of the car.”

  “We pull that another time somebody might get interested. If anybody’s listening.”

  When the waitress passed, Hall ordered a coffee for Bilbo and a refill for himself.

  Bilbo moved his gloves aside and made room for the cup and saucer. “Franklin came by the day you left. He wheezed and sneezed all over me.”

  “What did he want?”

  Bilbo sipped his coffee. “What you’d expect. I think the Company sent him around.”

  Hall smiled. “To give you his cold?”

  “To ask some question they wanted asked. Ones that I hadn’t answered in any way that pleased them when they dropped by to clean up the mess you made.”

  One place or the other, that was where Franklin had to be. During the bus trip from New York, Hall had time to think about him. Two or three matters. One. After the talk with Hall in the lot behind Bilbo’s Bar and Grill, Franklin was in a position to guess that Hall might stay overnight in the guest room upstairs. And that night the boy ninja showed up with his toy sword. Two. Franklin knew that Hall was going to try a breaking and entering at The Truth Seeker with expert help. Then the questions are asked about a tourist looking for B and E assistance.

  On the other hand …

  All those were half answers. Not facts. If the Company wanted him, and Franklin told them where he was, they could walk into the Madison Hill and pick him like a ripe cherry. No need for the boy ninja unless they were being fancy. The New York trip rated about fifty percent as well. No reason to go through a time-consuming street rumor search when they could stake out The Truth Seeker office and wait for Hall to appear.

  More than likely, there hadn’t been a betrayal. Or Franklin had made it a partial, half of what he knew so that Hall still had running room. A way of making a few brownie points and, at the same time, hoping that Hall would turn the corners with the proper amount of caution.

  If Franklin wasn’t informing, then Rivers was running the chase. A chess master, that Rivers. One step behind Hall the whole time and gaining ground. He wasn’t the kind to buy the call Hall made to Southern Bell. He didn’t take the feint, the misdirection. Any change in the pattern meant that the chase was starting.

  “What did you tell Franklin?”

  “Nothing. How could I tell him what I didn’t know?”

  “How about the housecleaning crew?” Hall added a spoon of sugar and stirred the coffee.

  “The one in charge had some questions. The same with him. I said you’d left but I didn’t know where you’d gone or if you were coming back.” Bilbo sipped his coffee and warmed his hands on the side of the cup. “He tried one ploy on me. He did his best to convince me that the boy upstairs wasn’t one of theirs. The way he acted, he was doing you and me a favor by cleaning up after you.”

  “He have a name?”

  “If he did,” Bilbo said, “he didn’t offer it to me.”

  “Describe him.”

  “Sandy red hair, six-one, right shoulder lower than the other. I’d say mid-forties.”

  Hall nodded. “Joe Hargett.”

  The last Hall had heard about Hargett, he was in Hong Kong “reading” the Chinese refugees. The low shoulder was from a parachute jump in a training mission in Georgia. A sudden gust of wind slapped him against a pine tree and smashed the shoulder.

  So now Hargett was back and doing housecleaning. It looked, for a field man like Hargett, to be a demotion. A nudge toward the Exit door.

  Hall finished his coffee. Bilbo was waiting. Hall paid both checks and they walked outside. Bilbo put on his gloves and worried the fingers into place.

  “I’m chasing my tail,” Hall said.

  “You trust Franklin?”

  Hall hesitated longer than he would have two or three days before. “I used to.”

  “More or less than you do the others?”

  “More, I guess.”

  Bilbo opened the Continental’s door. “Call if you need me.”

  “Your uncle’s sick,” Hall said.

  “That’ll do it.” Bilbo laughed. “It’s a good change from having to deliver spareribs.”

  Hall watched Bilbo drive away. When the Continental was out of sight, Hall returned to the coffee shop and got the suitcase and the suit bag from behind the cashier’s counter. He stood on the sidewalk out front and waved until a taxi swerved to the curb next to him.

  He avoided the big car rental companies. As soon as the Company knew that he’d parked the black BMW and was still moving around, their next move would be a check of the outfits like Hertz. Rent-a-Wreck would be fairly far down on their list.

  At Rent-A-Wreck, Hall got a three-year-old Toyota that handled like it had had at least one bad accident hidden away in its past. It was dark green and just anonymous enough on any street so that Hall felt comfortable with it.

  He drove across town and found a small motel where he registered as William Keith. He undressed and napped in the dark room until the sky was black and thick outside.

  It was a modest row of renovated townhouses. The neighborhood had been changing for years. These were apartments now but it was only a matter of time before the condominium craze touched the owners or the owners sold and the new buyers came in with that in mind. Not that it would matter with Franklin. He owned a place in Martha’s Vineyard and another house, a farm that went back to slave times, in Virginia. If the townhouse converted to condominium, if Franklin wanted to remain, it was as simple as moving a bit of money around.

  Perhaps that was why Hall wasn’t that sorry about the way Franklin had screwed up in Ottawa. A man with his background, his assets, didn’t have to struggle to remain with the Company. For Franklin, it was a plaything, a toy, a way of trying out power.

  Hall had visited the Franklin townhouse a few times, a few years back. The outside was a modest affectation. Inside, behind the simple exterior, there was enough fine furniture to stock one of the better antique show rooms in London. In fact, a large part of the furnishing had been flown back to the States in a government plane. That was when Franklin and his wife, Helen, had been posted back from London, where Franklin had been attending the Royal College of Defense, the British version of a war college. His cover had been that of a minor official with the State Department. The British tagged him for what he was in half a day.

  Hall
stood on the landing and looked at the heavy brass door knocker, in the shape of a lion’s head. Again, as he had other times, he marveled that someone hadn’t ripped it off and sold it as scrap.

  Hall lifted the lion’s head and knocked twice. He stood straight, directly in front of the door. The light went on and he looked directly at the white glass peephole. There was hardly a hesitation. A lock rattled and the door opened. Franklin stood there.

  “Jesus,” Franklin said, “I don’t know if you should have come here.”

  “I didn’t know about using the phone.”

  “Who is it?” Helen’s voice came from a distance.

  “It’s alright, dear.” Franklin leaned toward Hall. “Where are you staying? I can meet you in an hour.”

  “The Potomac Motel,” Hall said. He added an address.

  “Room number?” Franklin looked over his shoulder.

  “Meet me in the coffee shop.”

  “One hour,” Franklin said. The door closed and the light went out. Hall returned to the dark green Toyota he’d parked a block away.

  Test time.

  The Potomac wasn’t his motel at all. The Potomac was where he’d met Bilbo earlier in the day.

  Test time.

  There was an all-night laundromat almost directly across the street from the Potomac Motel. Hall got there fifteen minutes after he left Franklin’s townhouse. He parked on a side street and reached in the backseat for the wad of dirty socks and underwear. He entered the laundromat and dumped the clothing into a washer. He bought a small box of washing powders from a vending machine. He fed coins to the washer until it started. Then he stood at the front, to the side of the plate glass window. He watched the entrance of the Potomac Motel. Half-an-hour passed. Nothing happened across the road. He put his laundry in a dryer and returned to the window.