The Corpse Without a Country (17 page)

She came to her feet in one quick movement. Her pixielike features were twisted with pain and shock and desperation. I could tell by the way she looked at me that for the first time she was seeing me as a formidable antagonist instead of a bumbler. For the first time she wanted to kill me.

I could hear her voice saying, “I guess when they’re desperate, they’ll do anything to protect their good names.”

She hadn’t been talking about Reese or Arne when she said that; she’d been talking about herself and what she had to do.

She had to kill Tom Harbin. But now she had to kill me first. With the guards and the boss in the room, she didn’t have a chance, but she was past realizing that. She had started killing and now she couldn’t stop. She had to keep on killing to nurse the tiny hope that she might yet win out.

And she damn near got me. When I stepped forward to take her, she grabbed my wrist and tried to roll me down and over her. I could feel the leverage taking effect, and I remembered Mike Fenny’s broken neck and Emily’s broken neck, and I remembered Emily flying through the air and smashing a table flat.

I stopped trying to fight Jodi and let myself go. When she tried to flip me, I shifted position and she had my weight and no leverage to move it with.

Her arm snapped.

I let loose. She was tough right to the end. She spun away from me and went feet first through the open window. I could hear her crashing through bushes.

Someone yelled, “Stop there, you!”

There was a shot, then two more. A man’s voice said, “Jesus, a woman.”

In a way I was glad. It was better for her like this. And it was better for Arne.

• • •

Arne said, “Yah, I was buying off Mike Fenney. He came to me with a story about finding Reese up to something. He offered to investigate for me. It was a kind of blackmail, maybe, but I was willing to pay in case what he found out was bad for the company.”

“He told you about Jodi being mixed up in the deal?” I asked.

“I found that out for myself,” Arne said. “That’s when I agreed to help the fine blonde lady here.”

The fine blonde lady was sitting with a cup of coffee in her hand and a hangover expression on her beautiful face. We were all around Tom’s bed, including a trio of very interested government men. One of them was holding the money belt Arne had taken from the stowaway. That belt held one hundred thousand dollars in American bills. I kept looking at it respectfully: I wished I could touch it—just once.

Tom Harbin gave me his old, mocking grin. “You were pretty slow.”

I said, “If I’d known that the report you phoned in for Emily to swipe told how you’d found the remaining Zwahili notes hidden at Jodi’s place on Corning Island, I might have been a little faster.”

There were government men after those notes right now. Once I learned what Tom’s message had contained, the whole pattern of Jodi’s actions fell into place. Her killing started with Tom. She found him snooping and hit him with a gun barrel; then, when Reese arrived at Corning Island, she got him to help her put Tom in his boat and head it out the bay. She thought the boat would crash on Boundary Island and Tom would drown. Only the boat ran out of gas and he revived enough to swim into Boundary bay.

After Tom, killing Mike Fenney was fairly easy; and to her, it was necessary. Fenney had found out the whole deal and was asking for blackmail.

Maslin asked me, “Just when did you dope it out, Durham?”

I said, “When I learned who Ilona really was. Then I realized that Jodi had played me for a sucker. She hung around me to find out just what the opposition was doing. She even gave me a few clues, but they led to Reese. I think she had the idea that I’d pin everything on him and that somehow she could get him killed. Then she’d be in the clear and have all the loot for herself.”

Maslin said, “She played you for a sucker, all right. When she figured you were getting hot, she maneuvered you into that second trip to the Pad. According to what we got out of Willie, Jodi called before you got there and arranged to have you carted away.”

I said, “One reason I didn’t suspect her is that I thought she had plenty of money from her art work.”

Ilona came up from her hangover long enough to say, “But that is not true. Remember that she told everyone her success was in England. And it is six thousand miles from here. The truth is that she failed in England, and to make money she mixed herself up with certain men. It is they who gave her the idea of the robbery. And when Reese Fuller arrived to work for the Zwahili government, she made use of him.”

I said, “So you came here because you had a direct lead on her?”

“That is right.”

I looked at Maslin. “And you knew all the time that Ilona and Ghatt were here making an investigation.”

“But I didn’t know who they were investigating,” he said. “They were too cagey a pair to give out with anything until they had some real evidence.”

Arne said softly, tiredly, “So greedy, that kid. Even when she was a little girl, she was greedy. You remember, Durham?”

I said, “I remember.” And that ended the conversation.

Later, after Reese and his playmates—especially Ridley—talked, and after the government men finished their part of the investigation, we learned the rest of the story. We got the names of the men who had come and gone, taking their shares of the Zwahili notes. We heard how Mr. Ghatt got to work on long distance lines to various countries. And for all that he didn’t talk much, he said enough to have every man picked up before he could dump the notes on the free money markets.

And we learned that Reese was just a pawn in Jodi’s game. The idea and the execution had been hers and her friends’ in London. With that way she had with men, Jodi’d wrapped Reese up tight with her body. By the time he woke up to what was happening, he was too far in. And like her, he could only think of killing his way out.

And like her, he hadn’t quite made the grade.

• • •

When I left for Puget City, Ilona went along—to help me shop for new clothes, she said. And she did, too. We spent a whole day at the job, staggering back to my apartment, loaded with packages.

I went into the bedroom to change. Ilona headed for the liquor cabinet. I was showered and shaved and in my shorts when she came into the bedroom with a drink for me. She set the drink down on the dresser and then parked herself on the bed as if she had a half interest in the place.

I watched her down her drink. The beautiful, foolish smile she had worn on Arne’s launch was back on her face.

I said, “You aren’t a lush, by any chance?”

She said with tipsy dignity. “I am relaxing. After every case, I relax completely.”

“I’m ready for a little relaxation myself,” I assured her.

“I did not come here to defend myself, either my character or my honor,” she informed me. “I came to discuss business. I wish to know if I might work for your company. I am experienced and I very much like this part of your United States. It is so pretty, all green and with water like Denmark and …”

I said, “All our work is marine insurance.”

“I am very good with marines.” She stopped and thought that one over. “With marine things,” she amended. “Boats … and marine insurance men … and—”

I said, “I’ll ask the boss. We should have an international expert on the staff.”

She stood up and, since the business part of the discussion was concluded, her whole demeanor changed. She swayed up to me with a terrific smile on her face and a more terrific gleam in her eyes.

“Is this the time and place to wrestle, Peter?”

I said, “Yes,” and kissed her. I kissed her again. Somewhere along the line she had forgotten how to wrestle—at least defensively.

• • •

I said, “We should eat something. It’s after midnight.”

“I am a very clever cook. Only now and then do I burn things.”

I said, “Speaking of burning, did you know that the last stowaway didn’t get a chance to set a fire? On the
Pride
, I mean?”

She bit my ear. “I heard. But why do we talk of fires on boats? At a time like this….”

But I was in a mood to talk about boats and fires. I said, “It seems to me that those three fires weren’t just foolish, they were also dangerous to Jodi and Reese.”

“No,” Ilona argued, “because if anyone had seen the stowaways as they jumped overboard, the boat would have stopped to rescue them. Jodi and Reese could not risk this. Ridley told me that the first fire was accidental. Jodi then conceived the idea of the others.”

Mention of Ridley reminded me of Emily and her problem. I said, “I’d like to be in on the argument when those government boys try to decide which country has jurisdiction over Emily.”

“There is no problem,” Ilona said loftily. “I have solved it.”

It was my turn to bite her ear. Later, I said, “You’re a clever woman, but not that clever. You can’t change the border.”

“Ah, but when you and Arne and the others returned to the cruiser, I walked onto the Rock. For just a little moment. And I thought then that her body might be on the line. I gave her a push into Canada. A small push,” she assured me.

I said, “For God’s sake, why into Canada?”

She said seriously, “I have read so much that the United States has many murders. Is it not fair that Canada have one now and then also?”

She was even cleverer than I thought. I kissed her. She kissed me back and proved just how very clever she could be.