Assignment — Stella Marni (7 page)

Durell dragged silently at his cigarette.

"Still," McFee went on, "this isn't officially our baby. You went at it the wrong way, Sam. even though I was going to send you up here to look into it, in any case. We've got the word from State. It may be a matter for the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, but these political refugees aren't merely a domestic problem. Every man or woman who returns to his homeland is a propaganda victory for the other side. State is alarmed about the growing numbers of those turning away from us. Something has to be done about it. Of course, all this is off the record."

Durell nodded.

"We know it isn't simply love of homeland that makes these people return. Up until recently, it's been the usual business of anonymous letters asking them to come home and mentioning relatives and friends in such a way that there is left no doubt that refusal means death and torture for those still behind the Iron Curtain. So they go home. But it's never been on such a wholesale scale as it is lately."

Durell was impatient to check at his hotel for Stella Marni. "Blossom said something about a ring operating right here in New York."

"Yes," McFee said thinly. "I've seen his reports. He did excellent work until he went haywire over the Marni woman. There's an organized ring operating in town that uses underworld, gangster methods beyond anything we ever ran into before. Blossom knows a lot more about it than he's put into his reports, I suspect. This ring is made up of Americans, Sam. They do it for money, I'm ashamed to say. They use these unfortunate people as merchandise in order to make a dishonest buck. I hate it and I hate them and I want them smashed."

"You ordered me off the case," Durell said.

"Officially, yes. But Art Greenwald is badly hurt. I like to take care of my own, and you feel the same way. I don't have to question that. I'd like some satisfaction for what happened to Art, the same as you."

Durell stopped walking and flicked his cigarette into the street. His face was hard. "Let's not have any double talk between us, General. What do you want me to do?"

"Officially, you are being reprimanded and sent back to work in your office in K Section. The thing is forgotten and done with as far as we are concerned. Sidonie Osbourne will cover for you in Washington. So will I, up to a point You're being reprimanded for insubordination and failure to obey discipline." McFee sighed. He looked small and gray and tired. "It never ends, does it? This world we live in..." He paused. "How far did you get with Stella Marni? Was she at that studio?"

"Yes," Durell said. "And I made a beginning."

"Know where she is now?"

"Yes."

"Going to see her soon?"

"As soon as you walk in the other direction, General."

"Then I won't delay you. I'll send Tony Isotti up to help, if you want him. He's just back from Budapest. Do you want him?"

Durell nodded. "All right."

"Up here, you're on your own, Sam. There will be a hell of a flap if it gets out that you have State's private blessing on this thing. We've known about Blossom's attitude for some time. Sour apple, as you would say. It happens. But if anything goes wrong for you, it's your throat. Any objections?" No."

The small gray man whistled for a cab, and one promptly appeared for him. It never failed. "Good luck then. Sam. Don't communicate with me. I don't want to know anything about this mess until it's cleaned up. If you get into trouble, it's your neck."

"Will you see Rosalie Greenwald for me?" Durell asked.

"Of course. Good-by, Sam."

McFee got into the waiting cab. Durell lit another cigarette and watched the taxi vanish around the corner, beading toward Queens and La Guardia Airport. The street was empty, but he turned his head sharply and considered the shadows behind him. He felt very much alone. It was not an unusual feeling, but he never liked it, and it had never happened quite like this before. The empty street felt alien and dangerous.

He walked two blocks before he found another cab. He was not followed. No one was behind him. As he rode uptown, he gave the driver some devious directions and then checked behind him again. Still nothing. Yet he had the feeling that there were eyes upon him.

He had told Stella Marni to wait in his room and that he would be along within an hour. But more than four hours had passed, and uneasiness possessed him. Perhaps he had been too trusting. Perhaps the girl had tricked him and made as big a fool of him as she had of Harry Blossom.

He rode up in the elevator to his floor and waited impatiently for the operator to take the car down, and then examined the hushed, dim hallway. There was nothing to see. Nobody was in sight.

He rapped twice on his door and spoke his name.

There was no answer.

"Stella?"

He tried the door. It wasn't locked. Even before he pushed it open and walked in to snap on the light, he knew what to expect.

Stella Marni was not there.

He stood in the center of his hotel room, frowning. He had come up from Washington with only a small suitcase, and he had left the leather bag on the luggage rack. It was now on the bed, thrown open, his few belongings scattered with a reckless and contemptuous hand. Nothing else in the impersonally furnished room had been disturbed. He started to light a cigarette, then paused, aware of a dim trace of Stella Marni's perfume. So she
had
been here. It was hot in the room, and the steam radiator hissed, and he was perspiring.

His position was precarious if Stella Marni had crossed him. He had staked too much on her trust in him, and on the information he had hoped to glean from her.

He picked up the phone and called the room clerk and asked if there had been any messages left for him. There were none. The clerk had not seen Stella Marni. But then the clerk's voice changed. There had been a visitor for Mr. Durell, from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A Mr. Blossom, who had gone up to wait in Durell's room.

"What time was that?" Durell asked.

"Just twenty minutes ago, sir. Isn't he there now?"

Durell hung up.

Stella had been here; he was more conscious than ever of her perfume. And Harry Blossom had hurried straight here from the conference, while he had talked with General McFee. Was Blossom looking for him? Or for Stella? Blossom couldn't have known for certain that Stella was hiding here, but it might have been a lucky, vindictive guess. Blossom would enjoy pinning a charge like hiding a material witness to a murder — or a murder suspect — on him.

Stella and Blossom had been here in this room. And both were gone. Where? Durell drew his thumbnail across his narrow black mustache. He felt caught between two fires. He had taken a long chance in trusting that the girl would keep her promise to him. and he had lost that chance. But it might not have been Stella Marni's fault. Blossom could have ordered her away with him.

He looked at his bag on the bed and his scattered clothes, and annoyance worked in him. pushing him back to the telephone again. He called the number of the FBI district office downtown and when he was connected he asked for Blossom. Special Agent Blossom had not checked in. He asked for Tom Markey next, and a moment later the slow, sober voice of the bald and middle-aged man replied.

"That you. Sara?"

"Yes." Durell's eyes were dark, without expression, as if he were sitting at a round green poker table in a game not between friends. "I've been trying to reach Blossom. I think I've got something for him and I'd like to see him. Top priority, Tom."

"Don't steam me. Sam. I saw how you two rubbed each other. Am I stupid? I know you too well to think you've had a change of heart. So what's the pitch?"

"No pitch. I just want to see him."

"To swap more insults? Listen, Cajun, you stay away from Blossom. He can be dangerous. He's as good in his own way as you are in yours. I don't want to see you two tangling with each other. Why don't you go back to Washington with McFee?"

Durell smiled into the phone with the corners of his mouth. His eyes were still without expression. "Level with me, Tom. What's the matter with Blossom? I know his record as well as he knows mine. It's a damned fine one. But he gets a queer light in him when he talks about Stella Marni."

"Ah. hell. Forget it."

"Is he gone on her?"

"I guess so," Markey admitted reluctantly. There's nothing at all wrong with Harry Blossom, nothing. He's got a thing on with this girl, is all. I jerked him about it, at first, but with him it isn't a laughing matter. He's got a wire loose about her, but hell straighten out. Especially if you don't needle him too much about her and don't tangle with him right now."

"I have to see him," Durell persisted. "Where can I reach him?" Markey said, "You're supposed to go back to D.C., Sam."

"Later. After I've talked with Blossom."

"You sound sore about something."'

"I am. He tore my room apart here at the Carlton."

"Jesus, no." Markey was shocked. "Sure it was Harry?"

"He left his name with the desk clerk, and he didn't do that by accident. He wanted me to know it was he who searched my bag. Why?"

"He doesn't like you."

"Because I pushed him a little?"

"I told you, he wants Stella Marni all for himself. So you pushed him and he's sore at you. You don't want to see him right now, Sam."

"Where does he live?"

"Sam, look..."

"I can find out easily enough," Durell said. "It might take me all of ten minutes. I thought it might be simpler to ask a friend. Good night. Tom."

"Now, wait, Sam."

"Where does Blossom live?"

Durell heard Markey's deep, resigned sigh. "Out to hell and gone in Brooklyn. But it's not the Brooklyn you're thinking of. This is down by the shore. He's got a house there — used to be his mother's — and he's always lived there, as far as I know. Hard by the marshes. I've been out there a few times — good boating and fishing. If you know where and how. Conley Road, Number Seven-eighty-six. But I tell you it's no good, Sam. He won't talk to you. He won't give you the time of day. This one is his baby and he's wrapping it up himself."

"How come you fellows put up with a prima donna?" Durell asked.

"Harry is all right. Hell be fine, once he gets this girl off his brain. Forget it. Sam. as a favor to me."

"Thanks." Durell said. "Say hello to Bunky for me."

He hung up.

He knew that Markey was right. Forget it, steer clear of Blossom, stick to the other leads. Frank Greenwald had mentioned something called the New American Society. Look into it. And the coercion ring — two women, four men, Frank had said. Start digging under the rocks and stones. Check on that Krame fellow who has the studio. Trace back Frank's moves. Find old Albert Marni.

He wanted to get to Stella.

He told himself that maybe this thing wasnt for him, and he could call McFee right now and get off it and then call Deirdre and have her wait up for him in her house on the Chesapeake and he could be there in three hours for coffee and sit with her by a fire in the fireplace when the sun came up this morning over the bay, with all the solitude and intimacy of her place just for the two of them.

He thought of Stella, remembered the crazy, hot look in Blossom's eyes when her name was mentioned, and something chilled in him and he felt fear for her, because Blossom hadn't taken her back to the district office for questioning. He had taken her someplace else. A private place. And Stella would have had to go along, like it or not, until it was too late when she discovered what Blossom might have had in mind...

Durell quit his hotel room abruptly. There was an urgency in him now. He was sure Stella Marni had some answers for him. And he wanted to know whether she had tricked him deliberately, or if Blossom had forced her away. He believed it to be the latter, since Stella had actually gone to his hotel room; she wouldn't have gone there if she hadn't planned to keep her promise to talk to him in exchange for her escape from the studio and the murder investigation. That time had been one of tremendous stress for her, and he wanted to see her against another background, one of quiet safety. She was an enigma, with her cool, intelligent eyes and the poise of a frightened goddess ready for flight. He wanted to see her again to satisfy himself personally about her, almost as much as for any other reason he could think of.

It took twenty minutes for the desk clerk to rent a car for him and have it delivered. Durell bought a large street map, studied it while he waited, discovered the shortest route to Conley Road, and drove there as fast as traffic permitted.

At two o'clock in the morning, the road was a dim ribbon snaking out of the monotony of lower Brooklyn toward the shore. The streets were dark, cold, and wet. When the houses thinned out and the shimmering water appeared here and there like tentative pseudopods thrusting into the solidity of land, Durell drove the rented Chevy slower, checking house numbers. There was a stretch of three vacant blocks where no houses were in evidence; then two or three appeared; then none again. He thought he had gone too far when he saw the house ahead and knew at once that this was his objective.

It was big and old, high and arrogant, stained gray by wind and weather, but well kept. The road came to a dead end just beyond it. There was a small channel behind the house, a dim tongue of water that reached back into a vast area of grassy marsh and finally merged with the winter sea. The air was cold and raw, smelling of salt. There were no lights in the house as he drove by and parked at the barrier at the end of the road.

Durell turned up his coat collar as he walked back. There was a combination garage and boathouse behind the Victorian house, and he trudged across the lawn toward it, shivering in the raw November wind that swept in from the sea. He saw now that there was at least one lighted window in the house, where a slit of yellow glimmered from under a drawn blind on the north side. The boathouse door was open, yawning darkly. Blossom's car was there, between a skiff mounted on sawhorses and a small cabin cruiser up on a wheeled trailer. The car radiator was still warm. Turning, Durell walked back to the front porch of the house, found an old-fashioned iron bellpull in the door and yanked on it.