The By-Pass Control (5 page)

Over all lay the powder smudges the police had spread and the evidence of their search. Methodical and thorough. The kill hadn’t taken place here so there wasn’t much to look for. Routine, with everything they found held in check until it matched something else.

Some of his work Hamilton had done at home and one corner of the living room was taken up with a mahogany desk and a small filing cabinet, but the files held nothing more than carbons already filed with his employers, receipted bills and notes on planned activities.

Out of curiosity I fingered through the top drawer looking for the folder on Belt-Aire Electronics. It was there, all right. Just the folder. I pulled it out of the alphabetical sequence and looked at it. Not too long ago it had been well filled. The gauge lines at the bottom of it had been creased on the last one to accommodate a good half inch of papers. I stuck it back where it came from and pushed the drawer shut. Either Doug Hamilton had kept his present employer’s information more confidential than the others or someone else was interested in what went on in Belt-Aire Electronics.

On the way out I stopped at the desk where the super was thumbing through some papers, waited until two women passed by us and said, “Did anyone make arrangements to forward his mail?”

“No ... no one mentioned it.”

“Anything come in for him yet?”

“Not today.”

“Hold whatever shows up. You’ll be notified what to do with it.”

“Sure thing,” he said, then added, “Think I should button up the apartment?”

I gave a small shrug. “There will be a court action in a few days and you’ll be notified. Meanwhile you might as well keep the place locked. I don’t know who would be interested in seeing the place anyway.”

“Well, I could rent . . .”

“Take it easy. He paid in advance, didn’t he?”

The guy looked a little sheepish, passed it off and went back to his papers.

I went outside and waved down a cab and gave him the address of Belt-Aire Electronics.

The factory was a new one, erected on reclaimed land between La Guardia and Kennedy Airport, completely surrounded by heavy wire fencing and patrolled by armed guards. There was a good reason for all the security checks. Inside, this single Martin Grady firm was engaged in a top priority project of a missile guidance system that could pick a flea out of the stratosphere, and when the system was completed it would put us hands-down ahead of any potential enemy.

I had to wait twelve minutes at the gate before I was cleared through to the main office where the plant manager introduced himself as Henry Stanton and gave me a nervous wave toward a leather chair facing his desk.

“Mr. Grady seems to have the utmost confidence in you, Mr. Mann,” he told me.

I nodded while he offered me a smoke and held a lighter out to me.

“We don’t often get visitors. That is, those not in an official capacity.”

“Oh?”

“You understand our operation here?”

“Completely,” I said.

“Yes.” He licked his lips, then walked behind the desk and sat down with a resigned sigh. “Now, what can I do for you?”

“How much did you hear about Doug Hamilton?”

“I was notified immediately that he had died. Nothing more. Mr. Grady said that there would be an investigation including one by his own, ah ... people. I was to cooperate fully.”

“Has anyone else been here?”

“You are the first. Now ...”

“Hamilton filed reports on the personnel employed here. Where are they?”

“Locked in our vaults. However, another copy of each report was submitted to the proper authorities in Washington. Those people engaged in any portion of the project considered secret have been given a separate security clearance by the proper agency while those in lesser categories were investigated by us and approved by Washington.”

“I’d like to see the files.”

“They’re quite extensive.”

“Only the ones Hamilton processed.”

“Well, that’s comparatively simple then.” Stanton flipped a button on the desk intercom and said, “Miss Hays, will you come in please.”

His secretary was one out of the old school, in her mid-fifties, starched and stiff with gray hair wound in a bun on the top of her head. She didn’t even glance my way until Stanton acknowledged me with a nod. “Miss Hays, this is Mr. Mann, a representative of Martin Grady’s. Will you show him to Miss Hunt’s office and instruct her to let him go through our personnel files.”

“Certainly, sir. This way, Mr. Mann.”

“Will there be anything else?” Stanton asked me.

“I’ll let you know if there is. Meanwhile you’d better get me cleared to get around this place on my own. Do you know Hal Randolph of I.A.T.S.?”

His eyebrows went up a little at that. “Quite well.”

“He can expedite matters if there’s any trouble,” I said. “Let’s go, Miss Hays.”

I followed her into the outer office where we picked up another security guard who trailed us from five feet back, down a good hundred yards of softly lit, air-conditioned corridor to a door marked CAMILLE HUNT, PERSONNEL. My guide touched a button on the wall and when the buzzer sounded, pushed the door open and led me in while the guard waited outside.

Miss Hays’ instructions went to the secretary at the desk, passed through the desk phone to someone behind a door marked
Private
and I was told to wait. Miss Hays’ curt nod told me she didn’t like me a bit, but she was at my command. She swept out like a dowager queen, her nose sniffing the delicately perfumed air of the office with obvious distaste.

I didn’t have long to wait. The desk phone rang, the chubby little secretary in the thick-framed glasses listened briefly, then crooked a finger my way. “You may go in now,” she said.

Camille Hunt was a strategist. She was the personnel director and was there to see what people were made of before they were hired. It wasn’t just an office she had; it was a camouflaged command post and she was the acting C.O. Come in smiling and you’d stop; come in grim and you’d smile. Somehow you could drop your guard and any stories you had ready would bobble out and if they were off-beat she’d have you.

The walls were a dark green, decorated with large color plates of every plane our Air Force had ever operated, interspersed with violent, surrealistic oils and an oversized recumbent nude done with such detail it seemed to dominate the entire room, Air Force and all. The desk was placed in front of curtained false windows and was so skillfully lit and shadowed by a pair of lamps that you couldn’t quite tell if anyone was sitting there behind them or not.

She wasn’t. She was sitting far to the left scrutinizing me carefully, ready to catch any reaction, but making the mistake of letting enough light bounce off the sheen of her nylons so that I saw her without letting her know it. I could have told her I had seen the act pulled before and could play it as well as she could, but that would have spoiled the fun. Instead, I walked up to the nude, looked over all its good points without turning around and said, “Remarkable likeness. A little on the fat side though.”

Then I went around, sat in her chair behind the desk, swung both lamps around to catch her squarely in their beams and felt my grin stop before it started.

Camille Hunt
was
the nude in the picture. And she wasn’t on the fat side either. That part was just uncalled-for license on the part of the artist.

She sat there with one leg crossed over the other, the idle motion of one foot the only part of her that seemed alive for the moment. Her chin rested in the fingers of one arm propped on the chair, the scarlet of her nails matching that of her mouth. Eyes black as midnight only reflected the denser black of her hair that seemed to flow and meld with a dress of the same space-night color. But even in that colorless void there was no mistaking the exquisite shape of her body or the beauty of her face.

Yes, she could make quite an interrogator. If you fell into her trap.

“Hello, spider,” I said.

“Hello, fly,” she smiled.

“This one got away.”

“I expected it to. Mr. Grady had already briefed me on you.

I’m glad you didn’t disappoint me.”

“Never let it be said.”

“Do you mind turning the lights off?”

“I like to look at you.”

“You’ll get more out of the picture.”

“Vicarious pleasures don’t interest me that much. Walk over here.”

Watching her move was like seeing a ballet. Every movement was fluid, purely feminine, as deliberately provocative as a woman could make it. The game was over, but she was still insisting on playing it.

I followed her with the lights, then bent the goosenecks down so we could both see each other in the reflected rays and when she let her eyes meet mine she stopped with a sudden filling motion of her chest. “So you’re the great one.”

“How much did Martin Grady tell you?”

“Now I rather think he was warning me.” Very casually she pulled out a straight-backed chair and sat down beside the desk.

“Would you ever hire me?”

“What for... stud services?”

“Hell,” I grinned at her, “Grady never mentioned that department.”

“But I can see it,” she teased. “It’s my job, reading people. I’m expert at it. You’d probably perform very well.”

“I come with the best references.”

“No doubt, but that isn’t getting to why you
are
here. Do you mind?”

I leaned back in the chair, hooking a drawer out with a toe to prop my feet on. “Doug Hamilton submitted reports on personnel he checked out. Did they clear through you?”

“Yes, all of them. He investigated their backgrounds, former employers, associates, credit arrangements—the usual thing where top security wasn’t involved. I had the final say as to their ability or personality requirements.”

“What about top security?”

“All handled directly by Washington through Mr. Grady. I only handle the lower echelon of employees, but even then it is necessary to look for people absolutely qualified. I don’t think there is any need to brief you on the nature of the project here.”

“There isn’t. Can I see his files?”

“If I may have my phone,” she smiled again. I pushed the instrument to the edge of the desk and watched the graceful sweep of her body as she leaned forward to pick it up. “Linda,” she said, “please bring in all the A-20’s from the vault.”

“Who else ever got to see those files, Camille?”

She cocked her head, her grin impish. “No one....”

“Tiger. It’s my name. My old man gave it to me.”

“... Tiger. Another copy went to Washington and if there was no protest and I was satisfied, the person was eligible for employment here. It was simply background material. Any advancement was predicated upon results shown us and not upon previous achievement... or lack of it. There were specific clearance requirements for everyone from janitorial to shop positions and they all followed the same form.”

The secretary came in then, laid down a single folder on the desk and left. I picked it up, hefted it and scanned the contents. It was thicker than the one in Hamilton’s private file, but probably because his copies were on onionskin while these had been submitted on printed bonded forms. Each one was numbered and there were eighty-four persons involved.

“How long a period of time does this represent?” I asked her.

“Three years. Those are only reports from Hamilton himself.”

“Not much of a turnover, is there?”

“Very little. Mr. Grady pays top salaries in every department with greater benefits than anyone else. It’s his policy.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“The Hamilton reports came in during the time of expansion. If you note the dates you’ll see that we reached peak employment about four months ago and have been static since, having fulfilled our needs. However, we never know what our complete capabilities really are. Further expansion may be necessary.”

I was going through the file, looking at names and places, scanning the reports without seeing anything that looked familiar. “Hamilton ever come up with any negative endorsements?”

“Generally about one out of three. Copies were sent on to Washington in the event those persons tried for positions that required security. Most of it was information of criminal records or subversive activities or associations.”

“How many have been fired?”

“None. Several were transferred to other projects at Mr. Grady’s request and subsequently replaced, but our system has been very efficient in enabling us to choose dependable employees.”

I looked up at her and gave her a crooked smile. “No doubt. How about rejects after they were cleared by Hamilton?”

“A few, but all were unsatisfactory because of not being technically qualified. Are you thinking they might have held some sort of ... animosity for Mr. Hamilton?”

I laid the folder down and leaned back in the chair. “In that case they would have taken it out on you, wouldn’t they? Hamilton cleared them... you didn’t.”

“True,” she nodded, “but unlikely. You see, the ones I’m referring to were machine-shop technicians who realized they didn’t have the necessary skills and more or less disqualified themselves. They were all readily employable by other firms who demanded less than we.”

I nodded, then, “I’ll take these along and get some stats made, okay?”

“Certainly. Just take care of them.”

“You have an alphabetical list of all employees?”

“Naturally.”

“Can I see it?”

“Top drawer on your right. Directly above your feet. You’ll have to put them down to open it.” Her lips were parted and I could see the white even edges of her teeth. This time it was her eyes that were laughing at me.

I opened the drawer, flipped through the “A” file looking for Louis Agrounsky and found nothing even close.