Murderers' Row (6 page)

“Why,” he said, surprised, “why, you killed her!” He turned to look at me. “Didn't you?”

“Well,” I said, “she died.”

“She wasn't supposed to die! You killed her!”

I started to speak again, and stopped. There was no point in arguing about it. What he thought didn't really matter any more, anyway. He was hospital-bound and out of it. There were other people whose opinions were of more importance to me, one person in particular. I hoped he'd be more open-minded on the subject, but I wasn't really counting on it.

I found an all-night filling station with a phone booth. I parked the Falcon by the booth, since there was no reason to be coy.

“Don't move,” I said to Alan, “don't talk, and don't think—there's no really good evidence that you know how. If you have to die, do it quietly.”

He gave me a look full of hate, sitting there holding himself. That was all right. He was mad enough to stay alive if he could manage, which was the way I wanted to keep him. I glanced at my watch as I got out of the car, and saw that he'd already made it for seventeen minutes. Wounded there, they go pretty fast if they go at all. Apparently none of the major abdominal blood vessels had been damaged, which gave him a good chance of surviving, properly cared for.

I closed the door of the booth behind me. The light came on, making me feel like an illuminated target at the end of a long, dark rifle range. I couldn't help wondering how many other dangerous characters I'd casually overlooked, with hatred in their hearts for one M. Helm. Well, they'd just have to line up and await their turns.

I put my coin into the slot, got the operator, and told her the number. A minute or so later I had Mac on the wire. There's a rumor to the effect that he does sleep, but nobody's ever caught him at it, to my knowledge.

“Eric here,” I said. “Is Dr. Perry just our beating-up specialist, or does he know about belly wounds, too?”

He didn't ask any foolish questions. He just gave me the answer. “Dr. Perry is a capable all-around surgeon.”

I said, “Well, you'd better load him into a fast car with a good driver. Send them east out of Washington on U.S. 50. Tell Perry it's a puncture wound a few inches below the navel. The weapon was approximately half an inch wide by six inches long, clean and sharp. It went in most of the way. I have some other things to report, but as soon as I hang up here, I'll head for the big highway and come west towards Washington at the legal speed—considering the state of my passenger, I don't want to attract attention by driving faster. Give them a description of my car and tell them to flash their lights twice when they see me in the other lane. Okay. I'll wait while you get them going, sir.”

“Very well.”

I stood at the silent phone, looking out through the glass of the booth. The filling station wasn't doing much business at this hour. In the little Ford, Alan sat motionless, staring straight ahead. Presently Mac came back on the line.

“It's a 3.8 Jaguar sedan,” he said. “The parking lights burn when the headlights are on, European fashion: two small lights below and slightly outside two large ones. They will be coming fast, so they want you to keep your car's interior light on for easier identification.”

“That'll cut my vision down,” I said. “They'll have to do the spotting.”

“They are prepared to,” he said. “The description of the weapon corresponds with a knife recently issued to you. I gather you didn't fall on it yourself.”

I said, “Hell, I haven't cut myself on one of my own knives since I was a kid. It's Alan, sir. He came for me with a club. I gather he calls it love.”

There was a little pause. “Couldn't you have handled him with less damage, Eric?”

I could see my face in the glass of the booth. It looked lean and hard and ugly—that is to say, it looked pretty much as usual. “I told you, he was trying to scramble my brains.”

“Even so, it seems a little drastic.” Mac hesitated briefly. “You seem to have had a busy evening, Eric. I've had a call from Chicago. They, in turn, have had a call from the county authorities near Annapolis, Maryland. About a certain Mr. Peters, alias Petroni. The word murder was mentioned. Perhaps you'd care to explain.”

I said, “The patient died on the operating table, sir.”

“So I gathered, after making cautious inquiries. You were arrested, I understand?”

“Yes, sir, but they turned me loose.”

“Well, that's something.” His voice was dry. “What's Alan's condition?”

“Pretty good, I'd say. No signs of excessive internal hemorrhage. With surgery and antibiotics, he ought to make it.”

“Yes. Nevertheless, he will be incapacitated for weeks, maybe months. And Jean is dead. What happened there? Did your hand slip?”

“I don't think so, sir. She just gave a little gasp and folded up. By the time I'd caught her and eased her to the floor, she was dead.”

“There was no heart condition. Dr. Perry checked her thoroughly. Jean was physically sound.”

“And psychologically?”

“What do you mean?”

“She was scared,” I said. “She didn't like what she had to face, either at my hands or the opposition's. She'd had it, sir. She was sick of looking in the mirror and seeing a drunken slob. She could hardly face the thought of looking in the mirror and seeing a beatup drunken slob. As for the rest of the job—well, I have a hunch she was simply trying not to think of it at all.”

“Dr. Klein examined her, too, and passed her.”

“Who's Klein, our new psychiatrist? They come and they go, don't they? Well, I have no degree in any branch of medicine, but I know a scared and fed-up female when I see one, sir.”

Mac said coldly, “Jean was a good agent and an excellent actress. She was supposed to act frightened and shaky. What are you trying to say, Eric? That it wasn't your fault that she died? That she simply died of fright?”

I gripped the telephone hard. It was no time to get mad. It never is. “No, sir,” I said. “It was my job and my responsibility, sure. I simply don't believe I killed her by hitting her too hard. I don't think my hand slipped. I'd like an investigation.”

“It will certainly be investigated, as soon as we can confer with the local authorities without the risk of publicity. I'm told an autopsy will be performed. I'll try to get a copy of the findings. But in the meantime we have Jean dead and Alan seriously injured, at your hands. That is two agents put out of commission in one night, Eric. The enemy seldom does better.”

“No, sir,” I said. “Maybe I should have gone to Texas.”

The minute I said it, meaning only to say something suitably humble and rueful, I knew it was a mistake. I knew it by the quality of the silence that followed.

“I see,” Mac said slowly, at last. “I see. That is how you feel, Eric? That was Dr. Klein's theory. When an agent makes a serious error, as you know, we review his record immediately. I called up Klein at once, when Chicago called me.”

I said, “I grant the error. I've got to; Jean's dead. But there's nothing wrong with my record, sir.”

“No, except the sheer quantity of it. Since you came back to us, after your wife left you a few years ago, you've had no real time off at all. Fatigue, was Klein's immediate diagnosis.”

“The hell with Klein,” I said. “We fought the whole damn war without a headshrinker in attendance. And the hell with fatigue, too. I haven't asked for any leave, have I? Not until this time—”

“Precisely,” Mac said. “Fatigue and subconscious resentment, Klein said. And, probably, what he referred to as a mild superman complex. I don't like the term, Eric, but I have seen it happen before in men whose occupation allows them to kill and get away with it. After a while, their judgment becomes impaired, since human life has ceased to have much value for them.”

I laughed shortly. “Sir, if you're suggesting that I went out and murdered a woman, a fellow agent, simply because I was mad at you for interfering with my love-life—”

“I said the resentment was subconscious, Eric.”

“Sure,” I said. “Thanks. I love being a subconscious murderer, sir. Let's just skip the analysis, if you don't mind. Right now, I'd better get Alan on the road; but first I'd like to know if Dr. Norman Michaelis, our missing genius, has a sister or daughter—Miss Michaelis was the form of address used. Age twenty plus, height five feet minus, say ninety pounds after a heavy meal, silver-blonde hair, blue eyes.”

Mac hesitated. “There is a daughter. Theodora. But, Eric—”

“Theodora,” I said. “That's a lot of name for a little bit of girl. What's the family picture? Is there a wife and mother?”

“The wife and mother died in childbirth. Eric—”

“The daughter is here, sir,” I said. “In fact, she got me out of jail by lying her pretty little head off. I have a date to find out why, as soon as I get Alan off my hands. I'll report by phone as soon as—”

“You will,” Mac said, “report to me in person, at once.”

I frowned at the phone. “But, sir—”

His voice was curt. “Any leads you have will be followed up, you may be sure.”

I said slowly, “The invitation was issued to me, as Jim Petroni, alias Jimmy the Lash. The lady has just told the police a great big fib, remember? She's not likely to open her door and her mouth to any old government gumshoe, sir.”

“We'll have to risk that. I want you to come in immediately, Eric.”

“What's the matter, sir?” I asked. “Are you afraid I'll go completely berserk and give the outfit a bad reputation?”

Saying it, I expected any answer except the little embarrassed silence that followed, that said more plainly than words that that was exactly what he was afraid of. I'd murdered Jean with my subconscious resentment; I'd stuck a hole in Alan. I'd flipped. I was a menace on the loose.

“Let us say,” he said carefully, “that Dr. Klein's advice is that you be recalled for examination and possible treatment—probably only rest. It is quite possible that you'll be on your way to Texas tomorrow or the next day. How would you like that?”

“Thanks,” I said, “for the lollipop, sir.”

“I want you to turn Alan over to Dr. Perry and follow them in. That's an order.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

I spotted their Jag well ahead of time and flashed an answer to their signal, but they were coming right along, and it took them a while to fire the retro-rockets and get the flaps down and find a place to cross the median to the west-bound lane. In the meantime, I'd pulled the little sedan out to the shoulder to wait for them.

“We were going to be married after she finished this job,” Alan said suddenly. It was his first conversational effort in a long time. “Jean's professional pride wouldn't let her quit in the middle of it, but afterwards we were going to get out of this dirty business and be normal human beings for a change. We'd never had a real home, either of us. We were going to make one together.”

“Sure,” I said. “She'd have been the mother you'd always wanted, and you'd have been the baby she'd yearned for all her life.”

His head came around sharply. “You callous beast! Just because she was a little older—”

“Cut it out, Alan,” I said.

“I loved her,” he said.

“Cut it out,” I said. “Go away. Die. Or just shut up.” He started to speak again, but I cut in, “The one thing you could have done for her, you didn't do. You let a stranger do it. Then you got mad because it turned out wrong and went for him with a club. And now, by God, you start talking about love!” I grimaced. “Do me a favor. Hemorrhage.”

He was staring at me. “You think—you think I should have done that? To her?”

“Somebody was going to have to do the stinking job if she was to carry out her assignment. Why not you? What makes you so damn special?” I looked at him. “If I loved a woman enough to talk about it, if something like that simply had to be done, if she really wanted it done, I'd damn well do it myself and see it was done right by somebody she knew and trusted. At least I wouldn't sit across the way wringing my hands while it was happening, and then take it out on the guy who got stuck with the lousy operation I was too damn delicate to perform. Now stay here and brood, while I discuss your survival problems with the medical profession.”

The Jaguar had pulled up behind us. I liked the sound of it, even idling. They don't put the full-race mill into the sedan, but it's no truck engine, either. Dr. Perry got out of the bucket seat beside the driver and came to meet me as I went back there. The driver, a big man, got out and went around to get something out of the trunk, presently disappearing into the darkness. I thought this a little peculiar, but maybe I was not supposed to notice. The car had a buggy-whip antenna for radio-telephone communication. I thought it was probably Mac's personal vehicle.

“How's the patient?” Dr. Perry asked.

“Alive,” I said. “Bitter.”

“With some justification, I would say.”

“I know,” I said. “I've already been told I should have treated him more gently. Wait till it's your head he's swinging a stick at from behind.”

“I wasn't referring to that,” Perry said. “The female agent who died at your hands—I understand there was some emotional involvement.”

I looked at him for a moment. The headlights bounced enough light our way that I could see him clearly: a clean-cut young professional man with horn-rimmed glasses, neatly dressed, in good physical condition. I wondered what quirk of psychology or fortune had brought him to us—the Foreign Legion of the undercover services—but it isn't something one asks. Maybe he was just getting himself a wide range of medical experience before settling down to a profitable society practice.