Assignment Carlotta Cortez

by Edward S. Aarons

Durell felt the tough obstinacy and suspicion in the man, and while it was to be expected and he was familiar with it among Cajun people too, he felt there was more to it than natural hostility toward strangers. There was the woman’s fear, for instance. It could be her unsophisticated terror of newcomers, or it could be something quite different. Once again his eye was caught by the evidence of someone here who had tried to ease the barren grimness of the cabin—someone addicted to the mail-order catalog and with a little ready cash to order a few things now and then. A woman, he was sure. A young girl.

  He remembered Isaac’s remark that he had sent someone named Pleasure for the local doctor.

  “Has your daughter come back yet?” he asked very quietly.

  Isaac shifted uncomfortably. “No. It’s a long ways.”

  “How old is Pleasure, by the way?”

  “Old enough. Should’ve been married long ago.”

  “Does she work out?”

  “Once in a time. Five and ten in Spencersville.”

  The woman said suddenly, the words spurting briefly, “She’s a bad one. Pleasure is!”

  “Shut up, Ma.”

  “Can’t help it. She is. You ought to tell the truth, Isaac!”

  “Not to them. Not to him.”

  Durell said easily, “If you haven’t told everything you know to Mr. Fritsch, perhaps it would be better if you spoke to me. What have you left out about the plane crash?”

  “Nothing,” Isaac said sullenly.

  “Then what does Pleasure know about it?”

  The man’s mouth thinned and he turned away, holding his wounded arm awkwardly. The woman looked at Durell with slate-gray eyes that suddenly filled with tears.

  Durell said, “I won’t leave until I talk to Pleasure. You might as well make up your minds to that.”

  “You let her be,” Isaac snapped.

  “Nobody wants to bring trouble to you, Mr. Kendall. But we’ve got to find out what happened to make that plane crash. We must know what you saw, and we’ve got to have a better description of the men who unloaded the plane—better than the one you gave us.” Durell paused, then asked suddenly, “Was Pleasure there, too?”

  “No,” said Isaac.

  “Yes,” the wife said.

  “Did she see you get shot?” Durell asked.

  “She saw him,” the woman said, again spitting out the words as if she had something distasteful in her mouth. “Him?”

  “Ma, I told you to shut up!” Isaac yelled.

  “Whom did she see?” Durell insisted.

  “That airplane man. The one who promised to marry her long ago,” the woman snapped.

  “Major Duncan?”

  “He was no major then.”

  “But his name is Duncan?”

  “Yes,” the woman said.

  Durell felt a familiar excitement press along his nerves. He said quietly, “That was a long time ago, during the war.”

  “No, it weren’t. She was big enough then, but she’s a full woman now,” the wife said. “Plenty old enough for a man. He’s been back.”

  “When was the last time?”

  Isaac had resigned himself to his wife’s loose tongue. He turned away, as if to dissociate himself from what she was saying.

  “He was here last week. And the week before that, too.”

  “To see Pleasure?”

  “He seen her,” the woman said glumly.

  “I’ve got to see her, too,” Durell said. “Where is she?” As if in answer to his demand, he heard a faint scraping from somewhere behind him. Turning, he saw a second batten door with antique, hand-wrought iron hinges, in the back wall of the cabin. Metal made a faint,

  rusty squealing noise. The thin woman breathed gustily. Isaac reached for his rifle.

  “Put that down,” Durell said. “I only want to talk to her.”

  “She’s shamed,” Isaac said. “Leave her be.”

  Durell strode to the door. Through the window, he saw that Fritsch’s two men were still inside the car, smoking and listening to the short-wave radio that had spread a network of roadblocks throughout the mountain area. He yanked open the door. He saw a barelegged girl running lightly across the snow toward the small barn beyond.

  “Pleasure!”

  She paid no attention to his call. She yanked open the bam door and darted inside, her dark hair flying. Durell walked after her. He did not want to attract the attention of Fritsch’s men by running, and they would interfere in this if they joined him. They hadn’t even seen the girl, since the cabin cut off their line of vision.

  Durell stepped into the frosty shadows of the bam after her. There were two cattle stalls, but they were both empty. A ponderous, sway-backed plow horse stood in a third stall. In the center of the floor was an ancient Ford touring car, without wheels, covered with dust, straw and cobwebs. He paused and listened.

  “Pleasure, I won’t hurt you,” he called softly. “I’m a friend of Johnny’s.”

  There was no answer. A horse stamped and whinnied. Beyond the stalls there was a hayloft, with a few bales of hay near the edge of the platform. A handmade ladder led up there. Dark strains of melting snow were visible on several of the unpainted rungs.

  Durell started up the ladder. He heard a faint movement overhead, thinly labored breathing, a gasping intake of breath. He was not quite prepared for the feral ferocity of the girl’s attack.

  He saw her standing above him as he hauled his head and shoulders above the edge of the hayloft. The tines of a pitchfork gleamed wickedly in the dim light here. He caught just a glimpse of her as she stood, spread-legged on the straw-strewn floor, her thin cotton dress swirled about her thighs, a sleazy jacket over her shoulders. Her eyes shone like those of a trapped animal. Then she brought the pitchfork high over her head.

  “Go back, stranger,” she whispered.

  “Pleasure, listen to me.”

  “Leave me be!”

  “Put that down, Pleasure. I’m a friend of Johnny Duncans—"

  Then I’ll kill you, stranger!”

  Her teeth glistened, small and very white, between lips skinned back in a taut, unnatural grin. Her long black hair fell in wet strands over one side of her face.

  “Pleasure—”

  She drove the pitchfork down at him with swift, violent force. Durell was ready. He made as if to drop back down the ladder, then swung to one side, caught a grip on the edge of the loft, and heaved his big body hard to the right, catching the loft planking with his right foot; he heaved, threw one hand far across the loft floor, and rolled over in a swift surge toward the girl’s legs. The pitchfork came down, thunking into the pine planks. The shiny tines shuddered there for an instant. A dark curse came from her as she straggled to loosen it for a second blow. Durell did not give her another chance. He kept rolling swiftly across the scattered hay toward her. His shoulder hit her legs and she stopped tugging at the pitchfork and kicked at his head. He caught her leg, yanked hard, and she came tumbling down on top of him.

  She writhed, kicked, and bit at him in a frenzy of wild fear. She was surprisingly strong. Yet in the confused moment of her attack, Durell was aware of the supple, rounded womanliness of her body.

  “Let—me—go!”

  “Stop it, then.”

  "I'll kill you! I’ll—”

  He heaved up and threw her partly free of him. Her dress slid, her thighs gleamed pale and white in the dim light of the hayloft. She scrambled to her knees, her dark hair in a wild screen across her face, her breathing quick and angry. Durell straightened with care.

  “Relax, Pleasure.”

  “Who—who are you?”

  “I told you. I’m a friend of Johnny Duncan’s.”

  “You’re lyin’!”

  “No, I’m not. Why should I lie?”

  'You’re a federal, ain’t you?”

  “Yes, in a way.”

  “I hate you all!” she snapped.

  “Why, Pleasure?”

  His quiet voice sh
ook her and she shrank farther from him. There was a long smear of dust across her cheek, and she wore too much lipstick, much like a child who has stolen her mother’s cosmetics. He could smell the animal scent of her.

  “I want to be your friend, Pleasure,” he said soothingly.

  “Go ’way.”

  He stood up. He was tall enough so he had to bend his head under the low, rough-hewn rafters above the loft. He moved toward her and she made a small, inarticulate sound and moved back. Her eyes went this way and that, and he knew she was looking for another weapon.

  “None of that, Pleasure.”

  “I’m—I’m scared.” She began to cry.

  “No, you’re not. Get up, now.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to know about Johnny Duncan.”

  “I don’t know anything about him.”

  “Stop crying,” he said. “Use your handkerchief and wipe your nose.”

  “Don’t have one,” she said sullenly. She looked down at herself. She looked up at him. Like a child, too wise suddenly, too much of a woman. “Do you like me, stranger?”

  “No,” he said bluntly.

  It didn’t bother her. “Johnny likes me,” she said.

  “Tell me something,” he said. “How far away have you ever been from home?”

  Now her mouth went sullen again. It could have been a beautiful mouth—the lower lip full, rich. “Only to Spencersville.”

  "Would you like to go to New York with me? You’d like it.”

  She looked at him, stunned. “New York?”

  “To find Johnny.”

  “No. I don’t want to see him. I ain’t goin’ nowhere with you, mister.”

  Durell was patient. He told himself that she had to be treated like some wild, untamed puppy, suspicious of humans, instinctively ready to bite and claw if she were touched or handled wrongly. He smiled down at her. She had stopped crying. He could see she was turning over in her mind her concept of New York, full of wonder, looking at it this way and that with her thoughts.

  “Tell me about Johnny Duncan,” he said quietly. “We haven’t much time to talk like this, Pleasure. The others will come back here soon. Believe me, I’m Johnny’s friend. I want to help him. And I think you need help, too. You know he’s done' something very wrong. You saw him last night, didn’t you, when the plane crashed?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Did you know he was coming?”

  “Yes.”

  “When was the last time you saw him, before last night?”

  “Last week. And the week before that. He came to tell me about it.” She cocked her head to one side, as if listening for something. Durell heard only the stirring of the horse in the stall below. Pleasure pushed her black hair from her face with a strangely appealing, innocent gesture. “Johnny told me he wanted me to signal him when he came over Piney Knob last night. Just to say hello, like. I was to get there with a flashlight and let him know.” She smiled tentatively. “He’s real romantic.”

  “Sure,” Durell said. “Did you know he was going to crash?”

  Her eyes clouded. “Well, I wasn’t sure. I reckon I didn’t understand what he tried to tell me about it. I was so surprised, mister—” She paused and shuddered. “It was scary. I thought he was killed. Then them

  other men in the truck came up the hill and they shot at Pa—”

  “Just where was he when he was shot?”

  “He snuck up after me. Always suspicious, always watchin’ me.” Her voice lifted in defiance. “He followed me when I went to Piney Knob, I reckon. He’d just caught up to me, almost, when I found Johnny.”

  “That’s when your pa was shot in the arm?”

  “Yes.”

  “Pleasure,” Durell said quietly. “Pleasure, listen to me. Are you sure they were shooting at your pa?”

  “Well, he got hit, didn’t he?”

  “They could have been trying to get you, Pleasure. You say your pa was behind you. They could have shot at you, not your pa.”

  The thought obviously had never entered her mind. Her mouth fell open and she stared at Durell with sudden hatred.

  “That’s a lie. You’re tryin’ to mix me up.”

  “Think about it, Pleasure,” he urged.

  “Johnny wouldn’t ever—”

  “Are you really sure?”

  She opened her mouth, closed it, and looked up at his tall figure. “You’re just trying to confuse me, stranger.”

  “My name is Sam. Sam Durell.”

  “I don’t care what your name is. You come here with them other men and you just try to mix me up so I’ll tell something. Johnny would never shoot at me.”

  “Was he the one who had the gun?”

  She didn’t reply.

  “He was, wasn’t he?”

  “I don’t know. It was too dark to see. I think they all had guns.”

  “You know it was Johnny Duncan,” he insisted. “And you know he shot at you to keep you away from the wreck. And he nicked your pa instead. That’s the way it was. Johnny tried to make love to you every time he came by, didn’t he? He knew you from years back, and he returned lately and ran into you in Spencersville, didn’t he? Isn’t that how it was? You’re grown up now, and he looked at you differently. He told you he was in love with you; he told you a lot of things—”

  "I never—"

  “Perhaps you didn’t, Pleasure,” he said gently. “But he told you he needed help last night, didn’t he? You had to signal him from the ground when he came over Piney Knob, so he’d know where to crash-land the plane.”

  “You’re too smart, mister. You could die of it.”

  “I’ve been told that before,” Durell said.

  “I thought you were a friend of Johnny’s. How come you try to make him out so bad?”

  “If Johnny Duncan did something wrong, I want to know the truth about it, and help straighten it out. Don’t you want to help him, too?”

  “I hate him!” she said bitterly.

  “No, you don’t. You think you’re in love with him.”

  “Oh, what do you know about it?” she flared. Durell waited, watching her, listening to the sound of another car approaching outside. That would be Wittington and Fritsch, returning from the wreck. There wasn’t much time left.

  “Pleasure, tell me the truth. Did you know about the men who were going to steal the cargo out of Johnny’s plane?”

  “I just knew he was going to meet some men there.” “Is that the honest truth?”

  “Honest,” she whispered.

  “Did you get a good look at any of the men?”

  “Sure, I saw them real good.”

  “Would you recognize them again if I took you to see them?”

  “Someplace far away from here?”

  “Yes.”

  She was thoughtful. “I hate it here.”

  “I know you do.”

  “Pa wouldn’t let me—”

  “I’ll talk to him. I’m sure it will be all right.”

  She looked at him differently now. The antagonism was still there but there was a change in her, a softening, a childlike excitement that contrasted oddly with the powerful sexual possessions she posed before him and scarcely knew how to use.

  “How many men were with Johnny, and what did they look like?” Durell asked.

  “Three, all together, mister—Sam.” She grinned and rubbed the tears from her face with her knuckles. Her hands were grimy. “It was dark, like, there was no moon. I couldn’t see ’em too good at first. One was tall and thin as a slat, another was just medium, an older man with white hair. The third was young, but he worked hardest. And he talked a lot. I could hear from where I was hiding. A lot of fool talk, it was.”

  “Could you actually hear what they were saying?”

  “After Pa got shot and went back down the hill, I snuck closer and listened. That’s when I saw them good.”

  “What were they saying?”

  “I couldn�
�t tell. It sounded like some foreign talk.” “Pleasure, are you sure of that?”

  “Sure, I’m sure. I think it was Spanish.”

  “How would you know if it was Spanish?”

  She laughed. “Johnny used to speak it to me. He taught me a little, once, but I’m dumb, I guess, I forgot it all. But that’s what it sounded like to me. Johnny was talking it with them, too.”

  Chapter Five

  WITTINGTON and Fritsch had returned, Durell told the girl to wait in the bam for a few minutes, and then he went into the cold mountain air to meet them. Fritsch was talking to the men in the radio car. Wittington looked worried. He looked up as Durell approached and made a flat, negative gesture with his big hands.

  “Twenty-two eggs. Every one of them gone.”

  “Any word on the truck the hijackers used?” Durell asked.

  “Certainly. It’s been found. It was in a used-car lot in the outskirts of Nashville. Next door to a parking lot. The local police are questioning the attendant now.

  It seems that he noticed the transfer of something or other to three cars that were in his lot, but he doesn’t remember the cars or what the men looked like or which way they headed when they pulled out.”

  “That means the cargo has been split up three ways,” Durell said. He hadn’t expected much more to be accomplished. The dragnet around the area was too porous at this moment to hope for a catch.

  Wittington moved about with nervous energy, stamping his feet, and glared at Durell from under his shaggy brows. “We must get those eggs back immediately, Sam. No matter what. No matter who gets squeezed.”

  “I know,” Durell nodded. “But we won’t retrieve them today, or even tomorrow.”

  “But we must! We can’t have tactical A-bombs loose in the country, in the hands of God knows who—criminals, political plotters, spies—”

  “You can and you do. They’re loose, all right.” Wittington looked at him narrowly. “You have something on your mind. What have you learned that Fritsch missed?”

  “Duncan was in it,” Durell admitted flatly. “He’s got a girl here—the old man’s daughter. Apparently, from what she said, Duncan was briefed on this Air Force exercise some time ago.”

  “Right.”

  “So he had plenty of opportunity to make arrangements for sabotaging the plane and getting the eggs out of it.”