The Death Dealers (19 page)

“They’ll get worse before they get better,” I told him.

“By the way, just before you arrived one of our men said they found that stolen cab. It was left on lower Broadway, wiped nice and clean and not a witness around who saw anyone who was in it. They must have had another car waiting and switched into it. Right now they’re conducting a house-to-house search, but I doubt if anything will come of it.” He laid a hand on my shoulder. “See you later, old chap.”

When he was gone I said, “Let’s have it,” and reached for her hand. Her fingers were cold as they tightened around mine.

“I was waiting for Vey Locca when she came in. Apparently she didn’t know what had happened and was cool enough to make the best of it. I heard about it while she was upstairs and so did Sarim Shey. All of us were warned to keep quiet and Sarim was told the same thing. He put up quite a protest until one of your tougher men bluntly told him that if he—” she frowned, looking for the right words—“shot his mouth off he’d get tossed in the can.” Rondine smiled at the thought and said, “He didn’t have much choice and so far everything is all right. However, there are a couple of reporters who smelled something and went upstairs where they weren’t admitted to Teish’s suite. I think they suspect something.”

“They’ll keep the lid on if they’re told to. You get near Vey at all?”

“Only once.” She opened her bag and slid the compact over to me. “There were a few moments when Vey and Sarim Shey had a conversation that was in their own language and although they were both smiling outwardly I knew there was more to it than that. She was fuming about something.”

“How do you know?”

Rondine squeezed my fingers. “Female intuition,” she smiled. “Or perhaps no woman is that good an actress.”

I took her by the arm. “Let’s get out of here. I have a man downstairs who can unscramble their talk if it’s on the tape.”

She picked up her bag and we walked to the doors unhurriedly, Rondine stopping occasionally to speak a few words to people she knew. We got out in the lobby, picked our way through the milling crowd, went into the alcove that housed the offices and back toward the kitchen area. I found Lennie and Harry having a smoke near the locker room and waved them over, unlocked the door and let everybody get inside.

As briefly as I could I gave the details to Lennie while I was hooking the speaker up so he could get a report in to Newark Control for me. Right now we needed as many hands as we could get if Teish was to be found and Virgil Adams would have to get the word out immediately.

I looked at Harry. “Ready?”

He pulled out a chair and sat with his ear close to the gadget. I switched it on, picking up a babble of voices that were indistinguishable.

Rondine said, “I turned it on as I was walking toward them.” Another voice in English came in then, and Rondine answered. “That’s John Curtain from our embassy. He was my excuse for getting close to Vey and Sarim. I held my handbag so we wouldn’t block out their conversation.”

Harry looked up, alert. “I hear them now. Please ...”

Impatiently we sat there while the spool unwound, watching Harry while he alternately frowned and nodded, a dark look of displeasure clouding his eyes. Although the voices were gibberish to me, he was getting the full import of them. A good five minutes passed before their conversation ended and Rondine said, “Vey left him at that point and Sarim was engaged by several gentlemen from Washington.”

“What went on, Harry?”

“At first she told him what had happened. Sarim Shey immediately blamed it on the Americans. With all the precautions that had been taken, only they could have arranged for his disappearance. It wasn’t at all likely someone else could have done it. He seemed certain that Teish would never be seen again alive.”

“How did Vey take it?”

“Very angry, sir. She said that was what Sarim would like. He admitted that it would put him in an excellent position and he was going to take advantage of it. One thing he was going to do was see that she, Vey Locca, would have nothing to do in the affairs of state. In fact, he would personally see that she would never be admitted to Selachin again. In Teish’s absence he would take over his powers and notify his capital that he was installing himself as temporary regent. Of course, with the money and powers he could wield, the position would soon become permanent. There were enough people in Selachin under his control who would see to that.

“Vey Locca used rather strong language, I’m afraid. She accused him of having a hand in the affair and Sarim did not seem disposed to deny it. In fact, she threatened his life, but Sarim laughed it off and told her that she would do better looking for protection for herself than attempting a murder. You were mentioned too, sir, rather disparagingly by Sarim.”

“How?”

“To the effect that AmPet Corporation had better watch out for the competition now. That one does not like you, sir.”

“Anything else?”

“Merely invectives, heated words. Those two are enemies. Sarim Shey does not intend to share his political advantage with any woman.”

I put the recorder and speaker back in their kits and stuck them in my trench coat pocket that was lying there and turned to Lennie. “Get to Virgil with all of this, then take Rondine back to her apartment and stay there. Turos nailed his primary target but he won’t leave without making a try for me. If I can, I’ll make it easy for him to draw him out. He’ll be lying low until the heat’s off, but you never can tell.”

“You think he’s killed Teish?”

“Not yet,” I told him. “It’s easier to transport a live person than lug a dead body around. If they can make Teish think this was a plan rigged by us and let his oil fields go to the Soviets they might keep him alive. If they don’t they’ll knock him off in a hurry. They can work it either way and make it stick.”

“Sarim Shey won’t like that.”

“He isn’t dealing the cards, buddy. This bit’s been master-minded in Moscow and Malcolm Turos is calling the turn on this end. The Reds aren’t going to give a damn about him unless they decide to knock off Teish and let him in as a figurehead.”

Rondine’s hand touched my arm gently. Her eyes were worried although her voice didn’t reflect it. “And what do you plan to do, Tiger?”

“Stay with Sarim Shey. He’s in this deeper than it appears. It’s beginning to make sense now when you figure out who gains by winning. I’m not playing Sarim down a bit. If he thinks he’ll be edged out he’ll make a move of his own. I want you out of the action completely. We have people covering your house and Lennie will be at hand. Turos knocked off one girl already to break even with me, but that won’t satisfy him.”

“I’ll be careful. Please ... you be too.”

“At least I’m not on the outside looking in. What slight official capacity Randolph handed me takes the fuzz off my neck.” ,

We split up there and I waited until the others had left before I went too. I dropped the keys to the locker room back in the office, took the elevator back to the fifth floor and got out. Charlie Corbinet and Hal Randolph were standing there watching me and when Randolph saw my coat said, “Going somewhere, Mann?”

“Back to the hotel. You know where I am.”

“First you’d better come with us. We have some people anxious to talk to you.”

I didn’t want to lose the time, but I couldn’t object without taking the chance of Randolph putting a stop on me. I took the bad with the good when I wanted a legal right to carry a rod in the state. I shrugged, followed their direction and went down the main corridor, then right to one of the smaller conference rooms where a pair of the young agency men lounged, relaxed but alert.

There were six of them there, two from I.A.T.S. that I knew by sight, a pair from the senate committee that had Martin Grady under investigation and two others I didn’t recognize. One of the folders on the table had my name on it and was an inch thick. Another was Martin Grady’s.

I waved to the group, was introduced without any handshaking and sat down. If they thought they had me worried they had the wrong guy. I had seen too many bluffs pulled and pulled too many myself to be bulldozed by closed dossiers and faces whose home was the courtroom. I let them know it when I said, “What can I do for you?”

The committee member drew his brows together and pulled the folder toward him. “We have a file on you, Mr. Mann. In fact ...”

“So I see,” I said easily, “but what can I do for you? This isn’t a hearing and I don’t see any subpoena with my name on it, so get to the point.”

It rattled them, all right. I caught the exchange of glances, the harrumps of displeasure before he said, “Very well. From what we know about you I’ll assume you are in possession of the facts that have transpired.”

“Completely.” I sat back and watched him, never letting my eyes shift off his.

“There have been certain AmPet Corporation stock transfers made recently and ...”

“All very legal,” I interrupted him.

“The value of these stocks was in excess of twenty million.”

“Nice round sum,” I said.

“Perhaps you’ll be good enough to tell us where you got the money to purchase such a block of stock.”

“Perhaps I won’t be. Drop dead. What’s next?”

“Now listen ...”

Very easily I repeated, “Drop dead, or are you dumb as well as deaf?”

His face started to mottle and one of the I.A.T.S. men had to repress a grin. Charlie Corbinet was impassive, but his eyes were laughing at the guy’s discomfort. I had him where the hair was short and he knew it.

Slowly, he let the anger fade, then looked up again. “Our government was about to enter into an agreement with that of Selachin. Teish El Abin stipulated AmPet as the organization he wanted to negotiate with and you in particular.”

“Pretty nice of him, I’d say,” I laughed.

“Don’t be facetious, Mr. Mann. This is a delicate situation that can cause a shift in the balance of power in the Middle East. We know of your record and background. We certainly aren’t going to allow any incompetent person to destroy our advantage here.”

“I don’t blame you,” I told him.

“You know nothing of the oil recovery processes necessary to make development of those fields possible.”

“Try me and see.”

He nodded across the table to the thin gray-headed man who had never taken his eyes off me. “We intend to. Mr. Mac-Kinley here is with Dursto-Allied, a consultant in these matters. His company has been working along lines similar to AmPet, but admittedly is behind them. You may take an arrogant attitude at this time, Mr. Mann, but since you are at present bound by military orders we are in a position to curtail your activities completely. I want to see you get out of this one.”

“You mean, if I don’t measure up I’m being restricted?”

“Exactly. Very restricted. It will be very unpleasant ... at least as unpleasant as we can make it.”

“So go ahead and try me,” I said.

He did. He took a full thirty minutes in objective discussion, digging, probing, feeling me out, trying hard to find the level of my knowledge. The others sat there bent forward, listening intently, but the subject was too technical and over their heads. I tried to stay ahead of his questions, my mind racing to recall the information I had pulled out of the report Casey Ballanca had prepared for me.

I did a damn good job. Halfway through the man was beginning to look worried, the doodles he was scratching on a pad becoming more complex each minute. When he tried for some points of research Casey had mentioned I merely grinned and shook my head. AmPet Corporation wasn’t giving any secrets away to Dursto-Allied and he knew it. I stayed ahead of him every inch of the way and when he finished he stuck the pencil back in his pocket, his face drawn tight, and looked across the table.

“Well?”

The guy shrugged. “I’m afraid somebody has made a mistake. Mr. Mann seems well acquainted with the technical end. Even more so than I am.” Then he looked at me shrewdly and added, “Though I wonder.”

I stood up. “Is that all?”

Hell, there wasn’t anything anybody could do except nod. I grinned at them again, collected my coat and hat and went outside with Charlie Corbinet. In the hall, away from the others, Charlie shook his head in amazement. “You can sure pull rabbits out of the hat, Tiger. How the hell do you do it?”

“I had a good teacher,” I said, remembering back to the seminars he held in the old barracks building we had assigned to us.

“Sure, but I wonder who’s doing the teaching now.”

I left him at the elevator, checked my watch and went into the ballroom. There was still a crowd there hanging on to the last minute. I circled the place, looking at every face on the dance floor and at the tables, but the one I wanted wasn’t there.

Sarim Shey was gone.

I knew I wouldn’t get anything out of the agency men they had spotted around the hotel. They wouldn’t give you the right time without a direct order from a superior, but I saw one face I knew and walked over to where Carl Jenner from the
Journal
was talking to Seaton Coleman. Every once in a while he’d jot down a note as Coleman rambled on, his deep voice heavy with authority, but sugared down for the press.

I motioned to Jenner that I wanted to see him and he cut Coleman off in the middle of a sentence, thanked him, and edged away to join me.

“Lousy party,” he said. “What’re you doing here, Tiger?”

“Nosy, I guess.”

“You got any idea what’s going on? Something stinks at this affair and I can’t put my finger on it.”

“You’ll be getting a news flash with the rest when they’re ready to give it to you.”

His eyes lit up. “I though there was a hook in it. Care to give me a lead?”

“I’d like to, but I can’t, but if I were you I’d stay on the street and follow any ambulances that are around. Incidentally, where’s Sarim Shey?”