The Ambushers (11 page)

“It used to be Schwarzkopf. Ernest Schwarzkopf. And his wife’s name, in those days, was Gerda Landwehr.”

“You’ve done your homework well,” I said. “But then, an impostor would, wouldn’t she?”

She drew herself up. “I was no impostor, Mr. Evans. Let me show you my—”

“I’m not interested in your credentials. I’m sure you have them or you wouldn’t be trying to wave them under my nose. And I’m not about to travel to Argentina to check up on them. And if I put in a call, I’ll have to ask you for the number, won’t I? And I’m sure you’ll have arranged to have the right person answer. Why didn’t you present these pretty papers at the house over there?”

“When I telephoned, I was told to stay away,” she said. “There was trouble, I was told. The courier had been followed on his previous trip. He’d had to run for the border. He had been caught, and had killed himself. It was not yet known how much of the local apparatus had been compromised. Everybody was sitting very tightly. I was a complication; I was not wanted; I was told to go away and not make things worse.”

“And instead you bought this house and started playing the Horst Wessel with the window open.”

“I asked to be put in touch with someone in authority. My request was refused.” She faced me defiantly. “Your local troubles are not mine, Mr. Evans. I have my mission. I have come a long way to carry it out. I was supposed to get cooperation here. I intend to get it, one way or another.”

She was quite a girl. I said, “You could get something else, honey. Like a fist or a bullet.” She did not react. I asked, “Just what’s supposed to be your purpose in making this long and difficult journey?”

“That can be told to only one man,” she said. “The man I am to meet in Mexico.”

“His name?”

“You know his name.”

“I know it,” I said. “Let’s hear if you do.”

“In Germany he was known as Heinrich von Sachs.” She looked up at me coldly. “Perhaps, in return, you had better tell me the name he uses in Mexico before we talk any more. So I have some way of knowing I’m talking to the right man.”

I said, “You’re in no position to make demands or set conditions, honey. But the name is Kurt Quintana.” I saw her relax slightly, reassured. I went on, still playing it by ear, “And I don’t believe Señor Quintana is interested in dealing with a bunch of South American hoodlums, male or female. And if he were, we’d have been notified that you were coming through here.”

“You were notified,” she said quickly, and I knew I’d made a mistake. “The message was sent and acknowledged.”

“From here? We received no such message.” I was bluffing hard now.

“No, the acknowledgement came from Mexico City.” It was a break. I was still safe. She grimaced. “I am not responsible for the inefficient communications between your various cells, Mr. Evans. And I am neither a hoodlum nor am I a South American. There are a great many of us, of German extraction, down there; many of us who have memories in common.”

I said scornfully, “Memories! Hell, you were learning the multiplication table when
Der Fuehrer
marched his troops into Poland. You were probably just learning about men when he...” I put a little catch into my voice... “when he died in the Bunker in Berlin. What memories can you have?”

“I was old enough to see both victory and defeat,” she said. “I remember. The tradition lives, Mr. Evans. The new generation is ready. There are two continents here for the taking. I do not believe General von Sachs will scorn our help. After all, for his great purpose, he was not above dealing with Fidelista communists in Costa Verde.” Maybe I showed surprise that she’d have that information; maybe she just thought I did. Anyway, she went on with a confident little smile: “You see? I am no impostor. I know a great deal.”

“Perhaps too much,” I said harshly.

“Always the threats,” she murmured. She took a step forward and placed her hands flat against the front of my shirt, and smiled up at me. “Would you hurt me, Mr. Evans? Would you beat me? Would you kill me?”

She was very good. And the man in the bedroom was pretty good, too, but not quite good enough. I’d heard him come in and take up his post. I was a hunter of sorts before I went into this line of work, and I’d waited in a good many stands, listening for the rustle in the nearby brush, the rap of a hoof or antler against a log or branch, that would tell me game was near. The only trouble was, I was pretty sure this game was stalking me.

Well, it didn’t seem likely they’d go to all this trouble just to kill me; and you have to take a few risks now and then, if you want information. I looked down at Catherine Smith like a man getting certain ideas, and I reached out with finger and thumb and plucked at a little black bow of ribbon at her throat. The negligee fell open in front. I used both hands to slip it off her shoulders. She let her arms fall, and it dropped to the rug about her feet, leaving her clad only in an interesting black dual-purpose garment designed to give support both to the breasts above and the stockings below.

I suppose my grandmother would have spoiled everything by calling it a corset, being a prosaic old lady; Madison Avenue has undoubtedly invented a much more glamorous and seductive name for it. I’d never encountered one in actual use before, perhaps because my tastes normally run to lean girls who don’t require so much support. It made a novel and stimulating picture. There was an old-fashioned air about it that was kind of sweet, if you know what I mean, reminiscent of Lillian Russell and Lily Langtry. I could have given it more attention if I had not heard the door opening behind me.

I couldn’t help wondering if it was going to be a blackjack job or if he knew his stuff well enough to hit the right pressure point barehanded. It was distracting, but I managed to take the intriguingly half-naked Miss Smith into my arms in the crudely passionate way of the aroused male. Her lips responded to my kiss, her hands gripped me fiercely—and moved down suddenly to pin my arms to my sides. She was a strong girl. Then the needle went into my neck.

Whatever they were using in the hypo worked fast enough that I never knew when I hit the floor.

I was in a car for a while. It was hard to tell how long. I kept leaving, so to speak, and coming back. The car stopped. I was carried a very short distance. Then everything was peaceful and I slept for a while and woke up tied to a wooden chair in front of a pair of blinding headlights belonging to a station wagon, the shape of which looked vaguely familiar.

It was a garage long enough to take the big car and still leave some space in front. Perhaps the architect was expecting Detroit to make them even bigger in the future; or perhaps the man of the house was supposed to use the extra space for a workbench for his do-it-yourself projects. The garage was still in the process of construction. Raw ends of wiring stuck out of junction boxes here and there. Bags of cement and plaster were stored in one corner, along with other odds and ends of building materials.

I tested my bonds as a matter of routine. I didn’t expect to find any slack in the cords or any weakness in the chair, and I didn’t. It had been a smooth, pro job from the start. These were people who knew what they were doing. The problem was finding out just what the hell that was.

“He is awake.”

It was Catherine Smith’s husky voice. Her shape came between me and the headlights. After a little I could make out that she’d got out of her sexy pinup costume and into a loose flowered blouse and tight white shorts, still not a picture of demure innocence.

“How do you feel, Mr. Evans?” she asked.

“Frustrated,” I said. “Things were just getting interesting, as I recall. What happens now?”

“You talk,” she said.

“About what?”

“You tell us where to find Heinrich von Sachs, or if you prefer, Kurt Quintana.”

I suppose I should have expected it. After all, I was supposed to be a mysterious Nazi character with influence and authority, if she really believed that. The question was, what did it make her?

I said, “Go to hell, honey.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I am not bluffing, Mr. Evans.”

Well, that was what I had to prove, or disprove. If she really wasn’t bluffing, if she really didn’t know where Heinrich was, and really thought I did, then I was wasting my time on her. But there were things about her story I didn’t buy, the Argentina part for one. It sounded like one of those cover stories that are carefully designed to sound plausible and be hard to check. Besides, I’m pretty good at spotting accents, particularly Spanish accents. I’ve lived with them in New Mexico, off and on, since I was a boy. She should have had some trace of one if she’d spent a lot of time in Spanish-speaking Argentina, and she didn’t. I couldn’t identify the faint accent that flavored her English, but it wasn’t
Español.

“Go to hell,” I repeated bravely. “Whatever your needle expert’s cooking up back in the corner, have him trot it out. He’ll find it’s a lot easier to stick a man from behind than to make him talk.”

She hesitated. Then she held out her hand toward the man outside the lights, the man I hadn’t yet seen who was presumably named Herman Smith, or at least went by that name, her alleged father. She snapped her fingers impatiently when nothing was handed to her at once. So she was going to do the work herself. I suppose this made her a dreadful person, in conventional terms; but it had been a long time since I’d dealt in conventional terms. It increased my respect for her. I mean, I don’t go for these delicate types, male or female, who want the cattle branded but can’t bear to touch the iron themselves.

The man came into the glare of the lights holding a cheap new soldering iron. The cord ran off into the darkness somewhere. The tool had obviously never been used before; you could smell the store finish burning off it.

The man was considerably older than I. He had grizzled black hair and a face like an eroded farm. There was a big blade of a nose, a thin, almost lipless mouth, and a bony chin. His eyes, when he looked at me, were shiny and expressionless, but I didn’t gather he felt a great deal of sympathy for my predicament. He was wearing dark wash pants and a white shirt with the collar open and the sleeves rolled up. I caught the hint of a gun under the armpit. He’d have to get past at least two buttons to reach it there, but in summer, in the coatless southwest, there aren’t too many places a man can pack a concealed firearm.

He gave the hot soldering iron to Catherine, and came over to unfasten my sport shirt and pull it down as far as my tied hands and the back of the chair would let him, preparing the patient for the operation. He stepped back into the darkness. Catherine came forward.

“Von Sachs,” she said quietly. “Where does he have his headquarters, Mr. Evans? We know it’s south of the border in Mexico, but where?”

“Try scopolamine, honey,” I said. “That mail-order gadget won’t get you anywhere.”

“Von Sachs,” she repeated. “Where is Heinrich von Sachs?”

“You’re taking a chance that close, honey,” I said. “I used to be the champion spitter of Santa Fe County, New Mexico. I’ll put it right in your eye... Ahhh!”

After that, it got a little rough. I mean, it was worse than hitting your thumb with a heavy hammer or dropping a brick on your toe because it didn’t stop. It was about like having a clumsy, persistent dentist working on you without Novocain. People have stood that and I stood this, but I don’t pretend I was heroic about it. I grunted and sweated as it went on; I even considered screaming occasionally but decided against it. Things were tough enough without adding a gag to my discomforts.

“Von Sachs! Where is Heinrich von Sachs?”

After a while I passed out. I couldn’t have been unconscious long, because when I opened my eyes she’d only stepped back a pace, waiting for me to revive. I noticed she wasn’t as pretty as she had been. Sweat had turned her face shiny and streaked her make-up. Her big, fancy hairdo was starting to fall apart. She made no attempt to repair the damage. Perhaps she wasn’t even aware of it. More likely she just let her wild-woman appearance alone because she knew she looked more scary that way. When she saw my eyes open, she lifted the iron and stepped forward again.

“Katerina.”

It was the voice of the man behind me. Catherine glanced his way irritably.

“What is it, Max?”

So his name was Max, not Herman Smith. I’d learned something, after all. It hardly seemed worth the effort.

“It is no good,” Max said. “In a week, maybe. In a month, yes. One can break any man in a month. But the construction crew will be here in the morning.”

“I will burn his eyes out if he does not talk!” she said violently. “I will...”

She described the other ingenious things she would do to me. She was talking for effect, of course, to intimidate me, but there was no doubt in my mind now that her basic emotion was genuine. She wasn’t bluffing, certainly. She really wanted to know where von Sachs could be found. She really thought I could tell her. She obviously didn’t have the information we wanted, since she was searching for it herself.

It seemed that I’d come a long, painful way for a negative answer. I’d eliminated a possibility, that was all. As far as the job was concerned, I was back where I’d started. That wasn’t strictly correct, either. I’d started from a comfortable motel room. I wasn’t quite back there yet. I tried to think of the right card to play next. Now I had to convince these pleasant sadists, not only that I didn’t have what they wanted, but that I’d do them no harm if they let me go. I wished that my head were clearer and that I didn’t feel quite so much like being sick to my stomach.

Catherine had finished her catalog of horrors. She was back on her where-is-von-Sachs? kick. As she stepped forward, raising the soldering iron to continue the treatment, the small side door of the garage slammed open and Sheila stepped in, holding a little .38 revolver that, to my prejudiced eyes, looked prettier than any rose.

In a TV show, that would have been it. In real life, unfortunately, there’s a little more to a daring rescue than just pointing a gun at the villain and telling him to behave—particularly when there are two villains and they know their villainy.