The Shadowers (6 page)

It was time for a careful review of the possibilities and their meanings. If our man had really followed me tonight instead of sticking with Olivia, this meant that my red-herring stunt hadn’t worked. He’d seen enough of our clumsy meeting to want to investigate me further. And if he’d stuck with Toni instead of tailing me back to the hotel, this meant... I didn’t know what it meant.

It was time to think hard and move slowly; it was time for great caution and thorough planning to retrieve, if possible, what could turn out to be a fatal mistake very early in the operation.

It was no time to consider small girls with black hair and unplucked eyebrows. As far as the job was concerned— as far as my duty was concerned—Antoinette Vail had either served a purpose or failed to serve it. Either way, what happened to her now was quite irrelevant.

Still, I told myself, I might learn something by going back, and the man with the craggy face couldn’t be two places at once. If he had business with Antoinette, whatever it might be, he was, for the moment, no threat to Olivia. I could indulge my sentiment or curiosity or sense of responsibility a little. I could at least find out what had happened back there, if anything.

The cabbie I got had trouble with one-way streets, and it seemed a long time before I was again standing on the sidewalk in front of the three-story building. There was a light behind the drawn blinds of one of the dormer windows high above. Well, she’d told me she painted. She could have had a midnight burst of artistic inspiration, but it would have been more reassuring if the window had been dark, as if she’d gone right to sleep, tired after an exciting evening.

I went up the stairs fast without taking any of the precautions in the manual except to keep my hand on the little knife in my pants pocket. When I reached the third-floor landing I saw that the door was ajar, and I knew I’d come too late. I drew a long breath, pushed the door aside and stepped into the brightly lit room.

It was a big place under the slanting eaves. At least the floor space was sizable; the ceiling space was less so. A skylight and the window presumably gave illumination by day. Now the light came from a couple of dangling bulbs without shades. There was an easel, but it had been knocked over. There were paints, and some pots of brushes, one of which had been spilled on the floor. There were stacks of canvases on stretchers, several of which had got knocked around. There was a table, stove, refrigerator, and sink; and there were several wooden chairs, some overturned, that looked as if they’d been picked up secondhand like the rest of the furniture.

A cot stood in the corner. It apparently had been shielded from the room by a painted screen, but this had been flung aside. On the cot, face down, lay a small, motionless, terribly disheveled figure, wearing only some torn, shiny pink stuff bunched about the hips and one laddered stocking. The other stocking, the pink satin pumps, and some scraps of undergarments were distributed about the floor with the painting debris. Her long white gloves were laid out neatly on the little, undisturbed table by the door, as if she’d just removed them, starting to undress, when somebody had knocked and she’d turned to answer...

I closed the door behind me and crossed the room. I had no real hope. I didn’t speak because I didn’t expect her to hear. I put my hand on her shoulder and was more startled than a man of my experience ought to be when she stirred at the touch and sat up abruptly, tossing the tangled black hair out of her eyes.

“You,” she whispered.
“You!”

“Me,” I said, withdrawing my hand.

“You came back,” she whispered. “Well, I hope you’re satisfied! He did a good job, didn’t he? You must be very pleased! You’ve proved something, haven’t you? I don’t know what, but something. Oh, God, and I thought you were nice.
Nice!”

After a little, indifferently, she pulled up a handful of the wrecked satin dress to cover her breasts, but not before I’d seen the ugly bruises. She had an incipient black eye and a cut lip. There was blood on her chin from the cut. But she was alive, I told myself. At least she was alive.

She licked her lips, touching the cut gingerly with her tongue. Her eyes, under the thick black brows, hated me.

“You creep!” she breathed. “You disgusting
creep,
with your knife and your kiss and your smooth, smooth line... Oh, you were good, you were great, Mr. Corcoran. You had the little girl feeling all romantic and warm inside. Hell, there were tears in her eyes as she watched you go away down the stairs. And then the other man came, the one for whom you’d really been putting on the show all the time. Isn’t that right? You didn’t really give a damn about me; you were just using me. All the time it was an act for his benefit, wasn’t it? In case you don’t know, his name is Kroch, Karl Kroch. He told me to call you and tell you. Well, you’re here, so I’m telling you. Now get out of here!”

“Kroch,” I said. “Why did he want you to tell me?”

“How should I know why?” she demanded. “You’re the clever one. You figure it out.”

“Are you all right?” I asked.

Her eyes widened scornfully. “Why, I’m fine,” she said savagely. “I’m great, Mr. Corcoran, don’t I look it? I’m marvelous. I’ve just been slapped all over my studio. I’ve been tossed on my bed and had most of my clothes ripped off by a gorilla who didn’t really care any more about my body than if I’d been a store-window dummy. He just... just violated me because it was the lousiest thing he could think of to do to me short of killing me. He said this would let you know he meant business and couldn’t be stopped. He said when the time came he’d act and to hell with you. He said if you had any objections he wouldn’t be hard to find. He said this would tell you the kind of man you had to deal with.”

“Karl Kroch,” I said.

“That’s the name,” she said. “A real crazy goon. And he can come back any time and go through the same routine all over again, and I’ll just be happy because he isn’t you! Why... why I really
liked
you. And you set me up for
that!”
She drew a harsh breath. “Now, if you’ve had your eyeful, get out of here! P-please get out of here!” Her voice faltered on the last sentence.

I asked, “Do you want a doctor?”

She shook her head. “No. He’d just ask a lot of dumb questions. I... I’m all right. I told you before I wasn’t a sheltered virgin. I’ve had it rough before. Maybe not this rough, but rough. I’m all right. Just go away, will you?” She was silent for a moment. “Paul.”

“Yes?”

“You might at least have warned me! You might have let me know what you were getting me into. You might have told me the kind of people... He had a face like Mount Rushmore before they carved presidents on it. It never changed. He didn’t get any bang out of mussing me up or even... even taking me. It was like he was a machine just programmed to... Is that the way you are, Paul? Inside? Behind that humorously satanic look that makes a girl feel she’s found somebody, well, dangerous but nice. Just another machine with a different face? One machine labeled Kroch. One machine labeled Corcoran. Playing some kind of lousy, mysterious game. And a naïve little softhearted sentimental kook named Vail, caught in the middle!”

I said, “If there’s anything I can do—”

“I told you. You can get out of here!”

“Sure.” After a moment, I started to turn away.

“You don’t have to worry,” she said behind me. “It’s still a deal. It’s a lousy, rotten deal but I agreed to it and I’ll stick to it. I won’t call the police and interfere with your crummy business, whatever it is. I won’t talk.” Her voice was hard. “But on second thought, there
is
something you can do. You can pay for the damage. My wardrobe is kind of limited. I’ve got plenty of jeans with paint on them, but I don’t have so many dresses I can afford to have them torn up.”

I took out my wallet and went back to her and put some bills on the bed beside her, all I had with me except the small stuff. She picked them up and counted them and looked up quickly.

“And just what do you think you’re paying for, Mr. Corcoran, an easy conscience?” she demanded scornfully. “You’ve been around, you know perfectly well this cheesy little satin number didn’t cost any two hundred dollars. It was thirty-nine fifty on sale last year. Ten bucks will cover the rest. The bruises will heal, and I don’t put a price on my self-respect or whatever you want to call
that
. Here!”

She held out three of the four fifties I’d given her. There was nothing to do but take them. I looked down on her small, hurt, hating face for a moment. I tried to reassure myself with the thought that the fate of nations and the lives of important people were at stake, and that what happened to one little girl wasn’t really important, but I didn’t try to sell the idea to her, perhaps because I wasn’t sure I bought it myself.

I turned and walked to the door. A faint sound made me look back. She was again lying face down on the bed. Maybe she was crying. I couldn’t be sure. The one thing I could be sure of was that I wasn’t the man to console her. I paused by the door to slip the three fifties under her gloves before I went out. After all, by the looks of the place, she’d had a lot of stuff ruined in here besides a dress.

Maybe I was trying to buy an easy conscience, as she’d charged. At a hundred and fifty bucks it would have been a bargain if it had worked, but it didn’t.

But it was no time for sentimental luxuries like consciences. They’re not supposed to be part of our equipment, anyway. I got back to my hotel room as quickly as possible and called Washington by way of Denver, Colorado, since that’s where I was supposed to be from and communications had been set up accordingly. I was put through to Mac right away.

“Emergency, sir,” I said. “How fast can you make contact with our lady genius? I’d rather not call her directly if I can help it, at this point in the proceedings.”

“It shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes,” Mac said. “What is the message?”

“Tell her to make sure her door is locked. There’s a wild man loose. I have some other instructions I want you to forward, but they can wait while you get the electrons moving.”

“Very well. Hold on.”

Waiting, I happened to glance across the room. It was a mistake. The mirror above the dresser caught my eye. The guy who looked back at me wasn’t a nice guy. There wasn’t anything humorously satanic about him, either. He just looked plain mean.

“They are setting it up.” Mac’s voice was back in the phone, crisp and business-like. “You’d better bring me up to date while we wait.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “We goofed the contact earlier in the evening. The Mariassy is no Lady Barrymore, to say the least. She gave the show away, or something did, although I broke up the performance when I saw we weren’t putting it over. Now, if she’s followed orders, she’s in her room waiting to hear from me, according to the emergency routine we set up. The further instructions I want you to pass along are that she’s to go down to the bar in exactly half an hour—that’ll give me time to look around a bit and get into position to cover her. She’s to enter the lounge looking moody and disconsolate as if her New Orleans vacation wasn’t panning out too well. I’ll come in shortly. I’ll walk up and offer to buy her a drink by way of apologizing for my past rudeness. Presently more liquor will flow. She will absorb her share, at first, with dignified restraint and reluctance, later more willingly to the point of vanishing inhibitions. Seduction will follow. At least it will seem, to follow, to anyone watching. How’s that call coming? I’d like to be sure she has sense enough to keep her door shut like she was told.”

“They’ll ring when they’re ready.” Mac was silent for a moment. I sensed his disapproval. “Isn’t this a little obvious, Eric? Besides not being quite in line with the agreement we made with the lady and her department? We promised to preserve her reputation, remember?”

“Also her life,” I said. “Things have happened, sir, and I’d like to be in a position to keep a better eye on her. Assure her that her virtue will remain intact and that her reputation will be restored by the matrimony route very shortly. We just haven’t got time to make the preliminary sparring look as refined and proper as we’d planned, and it may not matter anyway. Please switch on the recorder.”

I heard a click. He said, “Recording. Go ahead, Eric.”

“Male, forty-five give or take five. Those rocky faces are hard to judge,” I said. “Say a hair under six feet. Say two-twenty give or take five. A lot of shoulder. Some paunch. Pretty much a skinhead. What hair there is, is kind of grizzled. I never got close enough to make the eye color. Nose big, bony, has been broken. Ears protruding, a regular jughead. The name he gives out is Karl, Karl Kroch. They shouldn’t have any trouble running him down. Everything about him says pro. End of description.”

“Hold on again... All right, he’s being checked.”

“What about Mariassy?”

“They’re having a little trouble with the circuits.”

“Well, I’ll give them another couple of minutes, and then I’d better warn her direct and to hell with our cover. This Kroch has worked over one female tonight; I don’t want to give him a crack at another.”

“Tell me what’s happened,” Mac said, and I told him. When I was finished, he was silent for a moment. I could visualize him frowning. He said at last, “That isn’t good. Obviously your cover is thoroughly blown already, at least as far as this Kroch is concerned, and he would seem to be the audience you were playing for. What about the Vail girl? Could she be implicated?”

“It’s hard to see how, sir,” I said. “She could hardly be a plant. I picked her at random out of a whole bar full of people.”

“Well, she’s obviously involved now. And even if she’s completely innocent, she can make trouble for us if she decides to go to the authorities. It’s always embarrassing having to clear up these things through official channels, and any publicity right now would be a serious handicap to the whole operation.”

I said, “She won’t go near the police.”

“So she told you. But women have been known to change their minds, waking up in the morning bruised and disfigured, wondering how they can explain their humiliating appearance to friends and neighbors.”