The Poisoners (13 page)

“A man can’t help wondering,” I said. “The lady is driving the car. This is customarily done from beneath the steering wheel, usually located on the left side of the vehicle here in the U.S. of A. She decides to unload, and the
right
side of her costume and anatomy takes the brunt of the landing. A man experienced in drawing large deductions from small clues, like me, can’t help but wonder why.”

Beverly grinned. “You’re so cute when you’re suspicious, darling. I
thought
you were looking at me awfully hard down there. Well, believe it or not, I went out the right-hand door simply because I didn’t want to risk being caught between the car and the bank—we were drifting over to the left pretty fast—or that damn stone retaining wall, either. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said. “I just have to go into my pro act now and then, to keep in practice.”

“I mean,” the girl beside me said grimly, “I tried to go out the right-hand door, but it wouldn’t open. That damn little lock button was down, for Christ’s sake, and if you start by pulling at the door handle the crazy button won’t come up until you let go, and of course in my panic I got them in the wrong order. While I was fighting it, we bounced off the wall, and then I finally got it open and kicked myself out—and what the hell ever happened to nice sensible door locks that unlock when you pull the inside handle. We used to have them, didn’t we?”

“They aren’t safe. Some guy in Washington said so.”

“Well, I’d like to put that guy in Washington into one of these super-locked death-traps heading straight for a two-hundred-foot drop and see how safe he feels!” She shook her head angrily. “Anyway, when I stopped bouncing and flopping and sliding around, I was still alive. I’d lost a lot of skin, and my clothes were in shreds, and everything was kind of vague and hazy, but my arms and legs seemed to work all right although I hurt like hell in a dozen places. I knew there was something I had to do, somebody I had to get away from…”

“Where was Willy with the jeep?”

“I could see his headlights coming around the point. I knew I had to get out of there before he found me and finished me off, and I just slid and rolled and crawled and scrambled down through the rocks and brush, and staggered to the shore and threw myself off the edge, hoping the water was deep enough so I wouldn’t knock out my brains. I guess I had some vague idea of swimming to those rocks way offshore that I could barely see—it was just starting to get light—but when I got into the water I knew I didn’t have the strength to make it, cold as it was. Besides, he’d see me swimming long before I got out there, and either shoot me from the shore or come after me. I spotted that hollow at the foot of the cliff and paddled back and crawled into it. It felt like hours, clinging there, with those damn waves splashing over me every few seconds. When I saw a stone hit the water from above, and knew somebody was up there—”

“How did you know it wasn’t Willy?”

“I didn’t,” she said. “But it had been a long time. He should have given up and gone away; and I knew I couldn’t last much longer. I had to take a chance. I knew I’d never make it out of there without help, so I yelled with all the strength I had left. And you came.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I came.”

I touched the brake warily, so as not to arouse to anger the short-tempered hydraulic gremlins lurking in the power-assist machinery. I brought the sedan to a halt on the shoulder of the highway, and switched off the engine, and looked at her.

“What would you have done if I hadn’t come?” I asked.

“What’s the matter, why are we stopping?” Beverly glanced at me, puzzled. “What do you mean, Matt? I… I’d have died there, I suppose.”

“Maybe, but I kind of doubt it,” I said. “But what if you’d had somebody else to deal with? Say that tall young lady agent, my associate—but of course Willy ran her off the road north of San Diego to get her out of the way. But what about the Mexican police? Willy couldn’t very well run interference for you there. What kind of an act would you have put on if they’d got there before me?”

Beverly was frowning in a bewildered way. “Matt, I don’t understand! What—” Casually, her hands grasped the purse in her lap as she turned to face me.

“No, sweetheart,” I said, and I showed her my left hand aiming the snub-nosed .38 across my body. “No, leave that purse strictly alone, please.”

“Matt,
darling
—” Her voice expressed only surprise and hurt. Her fingers opened obediently and released the purse. Her eyes were big and bewildered. She was a very pretty thing and a good actress. It was a pity she hadn’t made it in Hollywood, but perhaps she hadn’t really tried. Perhaps she’d had other business in California that seemed more important. Maybe it even paid pretty well, although none of us get rich in this business—at least we’re not supposed to. “I don’t know what you’re driving at!” she said with a nice little touch of anger.

“Sure you do,” I said. “It was the blood, you know.”

“What?”

“The blood,” I said. “I mean, in case you’re wondering what finally tipped me off, slow and stupid as I am. All that crusted gore on your arm and leg, very painful-looking and convincing. Except that a girl who jumps into the ocean immediately after she’s been hurt, and then hangs onto a rock with the waves washing over her constantly—every few seconds, I believe you said—well, her blood just isn’t going to stick to her long enough to coagulate like that, is it?”

Beverly licked her lips. “Matt, you’re crazy! I don’t know what you’re thinking, but—”

I said, “I’m thinking I’ve seen this show before, somewhere. Like back at that motel where you did your maiden-in-distress act for me the first time, with kind of the same costume and makeup, although not nearly so elaborate, just a few smudges and tears, and some convincingly disheveled hair.”

“Darling, you can’t really believe—”

“This time, of course, you knew you had to make it look very good to convince me. So you set it up right, you and Willy; but it was a damn cold ocean on a damn cold morning and you didn’t know how long it would be before I, or somebody, came along to find you, down there under the cliff. You might have frozen to death by that time, waiting down in that hollow, constantly soaked to the skin. Besides, from down there, you couldn’t see who was coming. So you hid in the rocks up above, I figure, where you could watch the highway, with your clothes dramatically ripped and your skin convincingly lacerated—”

“Matt, really!” she protested. “You can’t believe I did
that
to myself!”

“With some help from Willy,” I said. “Sure I believe it, and it was a swell job, and it must have hurt like hell. You’re a pro, baby. I’ll give you a testimonial any time you want it. Then you sent Willy on his way and waited. It must have been kind of chilly with the wind blowing through those spectacular rags you’d prepared for my benefit, but at least you weren’t being continually soaked with ice water.”

Beverly said firmly, “You’re being utterly ridiculous!”

“When you saw me stop my car,” I said, ignoring her, “and start down the slope towards you,
then
you slipped into the water and got into position to be rescued, not realizing that by that time the blood and stuff had caked too hard to wash away.” I drew a long breath. “I let you talk just now to see if you had an explanation, but you didn’t. Of course, you’d have had a hard time, anyway, explaining the gun in your purse…” I made a warning gesture with the .38. “Easy there, doll. This may not be a .44 Magnum, but it makes a nasty hole at short range.”

Beverly moistened her lips once more. “Matt,” she said, “Matt, I—”

I said, “I saw you get it out of the wreck when you pretended to be so concerned about your keys. I was watching you pretty closely by that time. It seemed to be quite a firearm. Do you mind if I have a look at it?”

She didn’t speak. I reached over cautiously and took the carved leather purse. It was heavy now, heavier by several pounds than when I’d handed it to her down by the shore. I opened the flap and looked at the big Colt .45 automatic resting among all the feminine accessories, like a bull in a boudoir.

I frowned at the weapon for a moment, remembering a small girl with a dirty face, very shocked, telling me that, Heavens, she didn’t know anything about guns! Now the same little girl had a .45 in her purse, a purse that was big enough to pack even larger artillery, say the Magnum variety. It had a husky shoulder-strap to bear the weight. That way, even a small female person could lug around a heavy revolver without bulging in any unusual places…

I heard Beverly laugh oddly, and looked at her. “You men!” she said after a long moment. Her voice had changed. It was no longer helpless and innocent, but sharp and scornful. “It’s really quite infuriating, dearie, the way you hulking males all take it for granted that nobody else can fire your big pistols and revolvers. But it certainly makes a fine cover for a girl who can stand a little recoil.” She smiled at me crookedly. “Actually, the kick never bothered me much. It was the noise I had some trouble getting used to.”

She was a little ahead of me. I’d figured it out only far enough to know that she wasn’t the poor little victim of circumstances she’d wanted me to think her. She wasn’t just another pretty Hollywood hopeful gone astray in tinseltown. I hadn’t yet had time to do much work on the problem of who she might be, if she wasn’t Mary Sokolnicek or Beverly Blaine. I’d been sneaking up on the answer, after seeing the big pistol, but the idea she presented still came as something of a shock.

I whistled softly. “Don’t tell me! It’s old Santa Claus himself. I mean, herself.”

She frowned. “Santa Claus? What does that mean? Oh, of course: St. Nicholas. Is that what you call me?”

“If that’s who you are,” I said, watching her. “If you’re the mysterious Nicholas we’ve been looking for all this time.”

“Why should you doubt it, darling?”

“Why should you admit it?”

“Why not? You have caught me. You have orders to kill me, do you not?”

“That’s what the head man said. If you’re really Nicholas.”

“My actual code name,” she said calmly, “is Nicole. We just changed it to Nicholas for one assignment, where it was important that I be taken for a man. We never expected that I’d be able to keep up the masquerade indefinitely, but somehow nobody ever caught on to the fact that Nicholas was a woman, not until Willy got careless and led that redheaded ingenue of yours, the one with the Irish name, straight to me. She knew enough, from her previous involvement in our affairs, to make the connection. I had to kill her before she revealed who Nicholas really was. There wasn’t anything else to do.”

“No,” I said. “No, I can see that. It was necessary.”

“Yes,” she said softly, “necessary. So many things are necessary in this business, aren’t they, Matthew Helm?”

She was still a little ahead of me. I should have known what came next, after the confession, but she got her hand to her mouth before I could stop her. Perhaps I didn’t try as hard as I might have. After all, while Mac had said that retribution wasn’t our business, he’d also said that there was no reason for the person responsible for Annette’s death to survive.

She didn’t.

Mexico boasts some very picturesque cities and towns, but Ensenada isn’t one of them. Although it’s within easy driving distance of the border, it lacks much of the stimulating, honky-tonk atmosphere of the true border towns. On the other hand, unlike some spectacular examples farther south and east, Ensenada displays nothing very interesting in the way of history or architecture. At least, if there were any ancient ruins or towering cathedrals around, they were well hidden from the main thoroughfare I used.

The impression I got was of a crowded, bright, busy, dusty community, peopled by dark-faced citizens who had their own affairs to think about and, for the most part, weren’t tremendously interested in visitors from the north. Even the setting wasn’t remarkable, since here the coastal hills had drawn back a bit from the sea, leaving the town sitting on a fairly flat piece of shore facing a large bay—the
bahia
for which, presumably, my hotel was named.

I had no trouble finding it. As Charlie Devlin had indicated, it was right on the main drag. When I pulled up in front, a boy came out to help with the luggage, but he didn’t seem very disturbed to find I didn’t have any. Apparently the situation had arisen before, and he was used to mad
Americanos
who’d suddenly decided to dash down to Ensenada for a day or two with nothing but what was in their pockets.

At the desk, a pretty, black-haired señorita whose English was intelligible but far from perfect assigned me to a room and passed the key to the boy. He pointed out the bar and restaurant, and then led me down a long corridor and exhibited my quarters with a thoroughness, and a proprietary air of pride, that earned him a buck, although he’d had nothing to carry. A reputation for generosity isn’t a bad thing to establish in a strange foreign town; and actually it was a pretty good room, and everything worked.

Having made sure of this—Mexican plumbing tends to be temperamental—I went back out to the car and drove it around to the parking area behind the building. Before locking up, I carefully turned down both sun visors for Charlie Devlin’s benefit: our prearranged let’s-make-contact signal. In my room once more, I pulled off my shoes and lay down on the bed to wait.

It had not been my intention to do any heavy thinking. There seemed to be no constructive cerebration left to be done. To all appearances my job was finished. I should have been happy. All that remained was to buy my idealistic colleague a drink when she arrived, thank her for her help, wish her luck with her job, and wrap up the whole assignment with a report to Washington, where they’d complete the dossier on Nicholas and consign it to the permanently inactive file…

The trouble was, for one thing, I don’t really like to see people die, and there aren’t so many pretty, spunky little girls around that we can afford to lose one, no matter what her politics. Of course, personal likes and dislikes don’t figure largely in this business, or shouldn’t. More, to the point was the fact that it had been too easy.