The Removers (6 page)

I didn’t say anything. I’ve been kidded before, by real good actors. I took the knife out and opened it, muffling the click against my body. Anybody could have got our code names, any time. Unlike the recognition signals, they were never changed. My humanitarian instincts had atrophied long ago. I wasn’t diving blindly into any bushes to give first aid to a disembodied, suffering, unidentified voice.

Nobody spoke and nothing happened. I’d stood there fiddling with the lock long enough. I turned the key and went inside fast. As the untouched door had indicated, nobody was waiting for me there. Having made sure of that, I turned on the light, folded the knife and put it away, and got the .38 revolver out of my boot and checked it over. It’s a sawed-off, stripped-down, aluminum-framed little monster with too little weight to soak up the recoil of the big cartridges, particularly in rapid fire, but at the moment I was happy to have it. I noted the time on my watch: seven minutes past eight. Fifteen minutes ought to do it, I figured: long enough to let them know I wasn’t going to fall for the gag, if it was a gag, long enough for them to pull out and think it over, but not long enough for them to set up any fancy alternatives. And if my fellow-operative, the young guy Mac didn’t think was going to work out for us, Paul, was really out there, hurt... well, since he hadn’t been able to come up with the proper signals, he’d just have to sweat it out as long as it took me to do this right.

We’re not a little band of brothers, if you know what I mean. It’s a point of pride with us that nobody’s ever blown a mission because he hung around sentimentally to care for a wounded pal. The standing orders are very strict on this point. Not that I had a mission yet, but it seemed likely I’d have one soon, one way or another, and I intended to stay alive to execute it.

I’d been given a bunch of good-will stuff when I checked into the place. Now I took it over to the bed and lay down to read it with the gun handy. There was a list of other motels in this particular chain, which seemed to cover most of the states west of the Mississippi. There was a list of eating places in town, and a sketchy map of the town, and a small instruction book designed to make the various forms of gambling more comprehensible and attractive to the untutored tourist.

There was also a courtesy copy of a daily paper. I made myself read it without checking my watch too often. The international situation was going to hell in a basket, as usual. The local politics were as mysterious as they always are in a place where you know nothing and nobody. A house had been broken into. A guy had been robbed on the street. A technician at a nearby government laboratory—I remembered all those installations I’d passed in the dark—had died after suffering massive radioactive contamination when something went hang that wasn’t supposed to.

A woman and a child had been killed in a head-on collision with a big truck. The truck-driver had survived with minor injuries. They usually do, which is one reason why I’m still driving my high and tough and massive old vehicle instead of getting something low and glamorous...

I got up and looked at the door. There had been no sound for fifteen minutes. Well, if they wanted me, and were willing to make enough noise, they’d get me, now or an hour from now. I walked out with the gun in my hand. It was warmer outside than in the air-conditioned motel room. Nothing happened. I got into the truck and drove away. Nobody followed.

When I’d confirmed this, I stopped at a pay telephone booth and called Washington collect, calling the emergency number. The girl who came on at once wanted to give me Mac, but I said she could keep him.

“Has Paul reported recently? Is he overdue?” I asked.

“He has no fixed schedule. His last report was the day before yesterday.”

“I may need a doctor who’ll keep his mouth shut,” I said. “Have we got one locally?”

“Just a minute.” I heard papers rustle, two thousand and some miles away. “Dr. Ditsinger. We’ve never used him, but other agencies have, and found him satisfactory. Do you want him alerted?”

“Please.”

She told me the address. “Give us a few minutes to get in touch with him.”

“It’s not definite,” I said. “Check back with him in the morning. If he’s had no business, tell him to forget it. If he’s got a customer, tell the man upstairs that age will take the reins from the faltering hands of youth. As if he didn’t know it.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t get that, sir. Please repeat.”

“Skip it, doll. Just report that if young Paul should be out of commission, which seems to be a possibility, I’ll take over. But in that case I want somebody else to get out here fast and stand by. No contact unless I call, however. I’ve got enough people crawling through the shrubbery already; the management might squawk. Oh, one question.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Has Paul made definite identification of his subject?”

The papers rustled again. “Yes, sir. In his last report. Quote: ‘Subject Martell definitely established to be man calling himself Fenn currently employed by Salvatore Frederici, alias Sally Fredericks or Big Sal Fredericks, reputed to be head of narcotics trade locally, as well as—’”

“Narcotics, eh?” I interrupted. “The stuff seems to keep cropping up. Rizzi was also in that racket. I wonder what Martell. Never mind. If Paul had made identification, why didn’t he take action? What are we saving this guy for, somebody’s birthday or the anniversary of the Russian Revolution?”

“I have the agent’s instructions here.” More papers rustled. “No action to be taken until subject’s mission is fully understood.”

You could see that Mac might be curious about why a top agent like Martell would play at being a cheap hood for seven years, but his curiosity could get expensive in human lives. Maybe it already had.

I said, “All right. Say I’ll call back when I have something to report.”

“Yes, sir.”

She had a nice voice, but it wasn’t any time to be thinking about nice voices or the girls who went with them. I hung up and drove back to the motel. I could have saved myself the trouble of arranging for a doctor. He was lying in the bushes, all right, but there was nothing any doctor could do for him. He’d been beaten to death, or as close to it as made no difference in the long run. Even in the dark, it wasn’t a very pleasant sight. It never is.

I squatted beside the body for a little while. As far as I could make out, he’d been a blond boy in his twenties, and he could have been one of those I’d trained with the previous year. They hadn’t been assigned code names yet, when I left. I thought I recognized him, but somebody had done a very thorough job, and it was hard to be sure. Well, it didn’t make much difference now.

I waited until the premises were clear of people for a moment, carried him out of there, and loaded him into the truck. I took him to Dr. Ditsinger, anyway. I acted surprised and terribly shocked when I was informed that my friend was dead. Controlling myself with a manly effort, I told Ditsinger to call Washington for further instructions, and got the hell out of there with my grief.

Driving back, I slowed as I crossed the bridge over the Truckee River. There wasn’t much doubt about how Paul had reached the motel: his clothes had been soaking wet. They must have tossed him into the river somewhere upstream. How he’d managed to make it from there, in his condition—crawling, wading, swimming where the water was deep enough—only God or a dying man could tell you.

Why he’d done it was another interesting question. It was possible, of course, that he’d been bringing me information of tremendous importance. It was just as possible that he’d just been looking for somebody to hold his hand.

I shivered slightly, and drove on, and turned into the motel area, and parked where I had before. I went inside and poured myself a drink from the plastic flask I carry in my suitcase. I kept hearing a voice saying,
For God’s sake... I’m hurt...
Well, that was all right. I’d heard voices before. I could live with one more. But I drank the whiskey anyway. Then I got out of my clothes and went into the bathroom to take a shower. Just as I was about to turn on the water, the doorbell rang.

I sighed. I went to the closet and got my dressing gown. I dropped the gun into the pocket, after belting the garment about me. Then I went to the door and yanked it open. So maybe they’d traced Paul here somehow and now it was my turn. I was tired of being careful. I’d been careful enough for one night. To hell with them. I’d get at least one before they burned me down, I would.

The traumatic shock of seeing the door fly open before his eyes sent the Afghan hound into a tizzy; he lunged away and almost yanked the Fredericks girl over backwards. He was really a specimen.

“Oh, Sheik!” she said impatiently, and to me: “Just a minute while I tie him.”

I was having a little trouble getting used to the idea that I didn’t have to sell my life dearly, at least not yet.

“What he needs,” I said sourly, “is a mooring mast, like a dirigible.”

“Mister,” she said, “I can make cracks like that, but don’t you go criticizing other people’s dogs. Hell, you can’t even keep a wife.” She straightened up to look at me. “Well, aren’t you going to ask me in?”

“Do I have to?”

She made a face at me, and stepped inside. I followed her, and pulled the door closed behind us. She was no longer wearing the green beach costume, if that was what it was. Now she was done up in a simple white dress that could have cost ten bucks or a hundred, probably the latter, and white kid pumps with high, slim heels. Her hair was smooth and shining about her head, every pin doing its assigned duty. She even had little white gloves on, very formal for Reno.

I can itemize the assets of a girl in pants without becoming emotionally involved in any way. I have to see her in a dress before I can add up the column and become personally involved in the total. This was a good dress for the purpose, straight, smart, and sleeveless, with a square neck. The material was some textured cotton stuff—piqué is the word that comes back from my rare forays into fashion photography. She wasn’t wearing any jewelry. There weren’t any distractions tonight in the way of fancy style, color, or decoration. You could concentrate on the girl, and any man would.

I said, “Okay, so you’re beautiful. Now can I go take my shower?”

She said, “You’re a liar. I’m not beautiful and I never will be. I’m just sexy as hell.”

I said, “You’re drunk as hell, too.”

She shook her head. She was pulling off her gloves, making herself at home. She said, “No, I’m not drunk. I just had one when I got home—you did, too, by the looks of that flask—and then I started thinking about that damn hamburger and it made me kind of sick. And then I started thinking about going out to eat alone, and that made me kind of sick, too. So here I am. Make yourself respectable. You’re taking me to dinner.”

I studied her for a moment. If she was acting, she was very, very good.

I said, “You forgot a word, didn’t you?”

She frowned briefly. “What do you mean?”

“It begins,” I said, “with a ‘P’.”

She looked at me. Something happened in those odd, green eyes. She licked her lips. “Please?” Then she said breathlessly, “Please! I’m going nuts in that damn big house with nothing but a damn dog to talk to. I’ll pay for—”

“Cut,” I said. “End of take, as they say in Hollywood. Sit down and smoke something somewhere, if you can find it. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

I got a pair of slacks and a jacket out of the closet, a shirt from my suitcase, gathered up the necessary accessories, and went into the bathroom.

“Help yourself, if you want a drink,” I called, hanging up my dressing gown. “You’ll have to get ice from the machine outside.”

Her voice came from directly behind me. “My God, what happened to you?”

I was just pulling on my shorts. I managed to control the outraged-modesty reaction to the point where I merely finished what I was doing and turned to look at her. She was standing in the opening, one hand on the bathroom door, which she had pushed back silently.

“Happened?” I asked. “What do you mean?” She gestured towards various marks on the still exposed portions of my anatomy. I said, “Oh, those. I was blown up in a jeep during the war and had to have various hunks of old iron taken out of me.”

“Old iron?” she said. “Old lead, you mean! I know bullet-scars when I see them. Duke Logan has a couple that show when he takes off his shirt.”

“Good for old Duke.”

“Who are you, Helm?” she whispered. “What are you doing here? What do you want?”

I went up to her, and put my hand out, and pushed her back a step. “I want you to get the hell out of here so I can get dressed,” I said, and then I knew I had made a serious mistake.

It had been a long day. I was in a susceptible mood, I guess, after that incident with Beth in the mountains. I was wound up with various emotions and tensions that needed an outlet. I shouldn’t have got that close to the kid. I shouldn’t have touched her.

Everything had changed suddenly, the way it does. We both knew it. She stood quite still in the doorway, looking up at me.

“Are you sure that’s what you want?” she murmured, and now her green eyes were laughing at me as I stood there in my shorts with, no doubt, naked desire in my eyes.

I said, “Honey, if you don’t look out, you’re going to get that nice dress all mussed.”

“It doesn’t muss very easily,” she said calmly. “That’s why I wore it here. But if it worries you, take it off.”

She was smiling as she turned slowly around to let me unzip and undress her, if I dared. It was a kid’s game and I was damned if I was going to play it with her. I just picked her up and carried her over to the nearest bed and dumped her upon it so hard that she bounced. She looked up at me indignantly from beneath the bright hair that had suddenly tumbled into her face.

I said, “If you were just playing, say so. I’m too old to play games with sex.”

She licked her lips childishly. Then she smiled. “Nobody’s that old,” she murmured.

She was right, of course.

It was a big dining room high up in some Reno hotel, but you couldn’t really tell by looking. You only knew it because you’d used an elevator to get there.