Silent Partner

by Leigh Brackett

  His tone said hurry, and Tony hurried. The driver had already gone in. Zacharian pushed Tony at him. "Get him into the office.” He shut the back door and locked it and shot the heavy bolt.

  George led Tony toward the office.

  Tony balked and turned to Zacharian. "What is this, anyway? What makes you think—"

  "Just playing a hunch, Tony.” There was something unfamiliar about Zacharian. "If I’m wrong, you’ll have a dull hour, and that’s all.”

  "Listen, damn it, you’ve got to tell me—”

  Zacharian said very softly, "Tony, will you please go into my office?” Light from the barred back window fell across him, and Tony saw what was different about him. The glossy Beverly Hills rug merchant was still there on the surface, three-hundred-dollar mohair suit and all, but his eyes were a tiger’s eyes, yellow and smoky, and he moved like a tiger on the tips of his paws, and he was smiling a very odd smile.

  Tony went obediently into the office, unaware that his mouth was hanging open. George went with him, and Zacharian followed. The shop was closed, empty and quiet. It was Saturday afternoon.

  Zacharian looked at his watch. “In fifteen minutes two men are coming here. I want you to watch. If you recognize them, George will let me know. But you must be very, very sure. Do you understand?"

  “I understand what you’re saying, all right, but—”

  “Stick to that, and don't worry about anything else.” Zacharian went over to a mirror on the wall and did something, and suddenly the mirror was a window overlooking the shop. "Watch from here, and do as George tells you, no matter what happens. Oh—and keep your mouth shut.”

  He turned to go, and Tony caught his arm. “Wait a minute, Jake. What the hell! He looked at George, in his driver’s suntans. “What kind of—"

  Zacharian shook his hand away. "Sweat it through, boy. If there's anything to explain, I’ll do it later.” He nodded to George, switched off the lights, and went out, closing the door.

  Tony said plaintively to George, a dim khaki shape in the gloom, “What's going on here?”

  George put a hand on his shoulder and pointed him at the mirror. “Watch,” he said.

  There wasn’t much to see. Zacharian was engaged in moving a rug, which he took from a shelf and unfolded and then draped over a rod close to the other side of the two-way mirror. Tony could see his face very clearly, even the darker shading of the beard line. The carpet glowed under the lights like a fabric of crushed rubies. At the front of the shop the windows showed the street, the traffic choking and halting along Beverly Drive, the Saturday crowd walking up and down.

  Zacharian finished with the carpet and sat down at a table against the wall. It had a lamp on it, and a telephone, and some order books. He began to make notes on a pad, from time to time consulting one of the books.

  Tony shifted nervously from one foot to the other. “This is silly. Why—”

  George's hand found his shoulder again and tightened on it. “Look!”

  Two men had appeared beyond a front window. And Tony’s heart jolted to a stop.

  Then it rattled on again, leaving him weak in the knees and grateful. For a moment he had thought— He watched the men come to the door and peer through the glass, try the latch, knock. It was like watching a silent film. Zacharian heard the knock and rose, and Tony felt George doing something beside him, taking something out of his pocket. He could just see what it was, and he said, “For Christ's sake—”

  George's hand clamped down, and he whispered savagely, “Shut up. If you recognize them, don't speak. Just step back away from the mirror. Quietly.”

  The gun in his hand gleamed very faintly. Sweat had broken out on Tony, hot pin flecks that chilled swiftly on his skin.

  Zacharian opened the door, and the men came in smiling and shook his hand. They both were brown-haired, and the haircuts were not extreme. One wore a conservative sport jacket and slacks, cut slim but not tight. The other wore a tan corduroy suit and a yellow waistcoat. There was a moment or two of conventional conversation, during which Zacharian reclosed the front door and locked it. Then he gestured to the rug, and they all moved toward it. And again Tony's heart jolted him.

  He was gripped by a terrible indecision. There was something about the way they moved, the long, slender legs, the ballet dancer's precision. “I don't know," he whispered. “I can't see their faces well enough.”

  George shook him to silence, and he leaned forward, squinting. He could hear their voices now, but only as a murmur with no words. Zacharian spread out the folds of the carpet, and they came up and took it in their hands, well-manicured hands that gloated over the lovely ruby softness. Now Tony could see their faces clearly, very clearly, and one of them looked up squarely into the mirror as though he were looking straight into Tony's eyes.

  Tony recoiled convulsively, his breath whimpering in his throat. George caught him before he collided with the desk. Then he reached down and pressed a button somewhere under the edge. Outside in the shop the phone began to ring.

  Zacharian excused himself and went to answer it. George again put his free hand on Tony, holding him steady. Tony stared fascinated at the two men, his eyes round and bulging—a rabbit staring at a brace of weasels. They continued to examine the carpet and talk, but there was a subtle change now in their bearing. He was not clever enough to identify it. They did not again look directly at the mirror. The one with the large nose and the prominent lips smiled brightly and said something that looked like, “We simply must have it!” and the pretty one nodded. Zacharian talked into the dead phone, facing them, watching with his tiger eyes half closed.

  He finished the one-sided conversation and put the phone down. The two men turned and moved back toward him. Tony could feel the nervous quiver of George's hand on his shoulder, the small movement as he shifted his weight. Tony’s heart pounded, swelling the veins in his neck, blurring his vision.

  And nothing happened.

  The large-nosed one wrote out a check. Zacharian took it and gave a receipt. They shook hands all around, and he let them out and locked the door after them, and they walked away into the innocent Saturday crowd and were gone.

  Tony collapsed into a chair. George remained where he was, watching as Zacharian went around methodically turning off lights and engaging the alarm systems. In a few minutes he came into the office. He turned the lights on and stood in front of Tony.

  “Are you absolutely sure?”

  “Jesus,” said Tony, trembling. “Do you think I could ever be mistaken about them?”

  Zacharian let out a long, harsh breath. "Inshallah!” he said. He looked at George, excited, and George put his gun away.

  “No hit,” he said.

  “Just a check for thirty-five hundred. What do you think? Were they on the level?”

  George grunted. “I think they picked up a slight smell of trap. One of them took a hard look at the mirror, and after that they seemed to shift gears. Hey, what are you doing?”

  Tony had jumped up and grabbed the telephone. George pulled him away. Tony said, "I'm going to call the police. They—”

  “No,” said Zacharian. “Not the police.” Thoughtfully, he put the check away in a desk drawer. “Too bad. We won't have them in such a neat box again. If. I dislike not knowing.”

  “Not knowing what?” demanded Tony. “And why not the police?”

  “In reverse order, because they couldn't do any good, and not knowing whether somebody's out to kill me.”

  “Kill you?” said Tony. His face was blank with astonishment. “Why would they want to kill you?”

  Zacharian grinned. “I am in a dirty profession, son. I sell rugs only as a cover for my degradation. I am a secret agent or, if you want to get nasty about it, a spy. And spies get killed now and again, particularly if they've been a little bit good at their job. It makes the other side very annoyed. Shut your mouth, Tony; you look like a fish.”

  He picked up the phone and dialed a number. “Mr. Corb
ett? Zacharian here. That red Baluchi did come in. I can deliver it now if you wish.” He listened briefly. “Right away. Good." He hung up and turned to Tony. “All right,” he said. “Come on.”

  "Oh, no," said Tony. “Not on your life. I don't want to get—"

  They stood on each side of him, firmly, and Zacharian said, “It's too late for that, Tony. You already are. Involved.”

  8

  Tony had no idea where he was. They had brought him in the back of the van, riding blind again. When they let him out, he was in an underground garage that might have been anywhere. The self-service elevator that took them up was just an elevator, and the corridor on the seventh floor along which they walked was only a corridor with some doors, all closed and unmarked. There were sounds behind them as of people being busy, typewriters going, phones ringing, voices, the clatter of some kind of a card-sorting machine, all faint and faraway as though the soundproofing were pretty good. They stopped and knocked at one of the doors.

  The legend on the panel was a simple one. PRIVATE. It didn’t say what firm it was private for. A lock buzzer sounded, and they went in, to a small office with a lot of filing cabinets and no window. There was a door at each side, and one of them was open, and a man was standing in it. He said, "Come in," and they followed him into another office, larger, impersonal, furnished with a desk, a couch, some chairs. There was a window here, but the Venetian blinds were closed and the curtains drawn. Tony knew that he was somewhere in the Los Angeles-Hollywood-Beverly Hills area, and that was all he knew. He was not in a good mood.

  "Look," he said, “I'd like to know what's going on, if somebody wouldn't mind telling me. My old buddy here wakes me out of a sound sleep, and all of a sudden I'm in the third act of I Spy. Who the—"

  Zacharian said, “Mr. Wales, Mr. Corbett."

  Corbett nodded. “Sit down, Mr. Wales." He was middle-aged, with a stiff gray crew cut and hard gray eyes. His shoulders filled his coat to the straining point, and the sinews of his neck stood out over his collar. He looked like an ex-captain of Marines, and he looked tired, as if he should have quit whatever he was doing a long time ago. Only he was not the type to quit on anything. Tony hated him on sight. The hard eyes had begun digging into him, sorting him out, the moment he walked in the door, and it made all his guard hairs bristle. People only looked at you that way when they meant to make trouble. He did not sit down.

  “Who are you, anyway? FBI? CIA?"

  “CIA," said Corbett, “but we don't advertise it. We're shy. We like a quiet little hole where Fulbright can't find us." He showed Tony a card. “Satisfied?"

  George had closed the door and was leaning against it. Tony looked at him and then at Zacharian, who stretched himself out in a chair, as relaxed as a cat that is resting for the next spring.

  “You too?"

  Zacharian nodded

  “I'll be damned," said Tony, and sat down.

  Corbett said, “We don’t like to do things this way, Mr. Wales. Unfortunately, we don't always have a choice." He turned to Zacharian. “He did identify those two as the same men who attacked him in Soho?"

  Zacharian said, “Yes."

  And Tony said bitterly, “I thought I was talking to a friend."

  “Believe it or not, you were. I wanted the information, you wanted a shoulder to cry on, so it worked out for both of us. But I’d have given you the shoulder anyway."

  For some odd reason Tony believed him. It helped, a little.

  Corbett spoke again. “Mr. Wales, this is vitally important. At the time you were beaten up you were not at your clearest mentally. Now you say you recognize the men in Zacharian's shop as the same men, although the descriptions don't match at all. Are you positive you couldn't be mistaken?"

  “Listen,” said Tony heatedly, “when somebody kicks your balls off, you remember him, no matter what color his hair is.”

  Corbett did not quite smile. “I’ll accept that as a fair statement,” he said, and leaned back. “All right, Jake.”

  Zacharian shifted around to face Tony. “Those two came into my shop last Saturday morning. They introduced themselves as Byron and Cornellis, interior decorators, St. George Street, Hanover Square, here from London on a buying trip, staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel. I checked this all out when I verified their bank references, and they couldn’t be more legitimate. They were after one-of-a-kind items, antiques. I had a particularly nice blue Bokhara, and they bought that on the spot. Then they looked at the Shiraz, the one you saw today. The Bokhara was for a client, a job they were doing, but the Shiraz they wanted for themselves. They weren't sure the budget would run to it since they still had a lot of buying to do, so they asked me if I’d hold it for them until the next Saturday, today, and they’d let me know. Of course, I said I would. They were nice, affable chaps, a little light on their feet, but you expect that. I didn't connect them with your Soho friends. The descriptions didn’t match, and the accents were strictly Mayfair.

  “I saw them around once or twice during the week. They were doing the shops all right. But I began to get a funny feeling, as though there were something I ought to know about them. Nothing would surface, and that bothered me. I don’t like things I can’t place; they’re dangerous. At half-past eleven this morning Byron rang me up. He’s the girlish one; Cornellis is the one with the nose. Byron said they wanted the rug; but they couldn’t possibly get there before one o’clock, and they knew I close at noon. Would I do them a great favor and wait, because they were flying back to London tomorrow and wouldn’t have another chance? For thirty-five hundred dollars I will do anybody a favor, and said so, and Byron giggled. And all of a sudden it clicked. Forget the obvious things—the hairdos and the clothing. Remember the features, the giggle, the way they moved. You have an accurate eye, Tony, when you bother to use it. I was pretty sure. And if they were setting me up for the kill, they had done a beautiful job of it. I called Corbett, and we decided it was imperative to have definite identification. That’s when I sent for you."

  Byron and Cornellis. Tony shivered. Nightmares ought not to have names; it makes them too real. “You wouldn’t let me call the cops. I don’t understand. You know them. Why don’t you have them arrested?"

  “For beating you? These lads are the darlings of the jet set. They've done some of the most divine flats in the West End. Who’s going to believe they were the Cockney mods who beat you up in a Soho dive? These are professionals. You don't bag them that easily."

  “Do they just get away with it then?"

  “For a while," said Corbett. “Not forever. I'm sure your bruises were painful, but they are among the least of the sins these two have committed, if my guess is right.”

  In desperation Tony said, “But who are they?"

  'We can’t be certain yet, so let's just say we know they're dangerous. At least to you.” He looked thoughtfully at Zacharian, who shrugged.

  “They didn't try for a hit. George thinks they sensed something wrong. I had to maneuver them right up to the twoway so Tony could get a good look at them, and they may have caught that. On the other hand, they are interior decorators, and I do sell carpets. It might be sheer coincidence.”

  “Let's not trust it," said Corbett. He spoke into an intercom, giving instructions on Byron and Cornellis. “Twenty-four-hour surveillance, check the airport to see what, if any, London flight they’re on tomorrow, and made damned sure whether they actually make it. And call Gardiner in. Tell him he’s to cover Zacharian until further notice. Yes, I know, but that's not paying off anyway." He glanced at Zacharian. “At his apartment. Okay.” He closed the switch and sat back. “Just in case they pass the ball to another team for a sneak play. Mr. Wales, I hope you understand the danger of discussing any of this with anyone, including your bedmates. Word does get around, and if the wrong people found out that you fingered Byron and Cornellis for us, you could be in very bad trouble.”

  The sweat broke out on Tony's skin again, hot and prickling. “God damn you,
Jake," he said. “I'll never answer the phone again.”

  Zacharian said evenly, “You're a fool, Tony. A stupid ostrich with your head under the pillow and your ass in the air. Which is a very good place to get it broken.”

  He stood up, and Tony stared at him, as shocked as though Zacharian had struck him. The hard, even voice went on.

  “I can understand your going through the world with blinders on, drinking and fornicating and stuffing your face, having nothing else but fun. Probably we all would if we could. What I cannot understand is how you can live with the possibility that you may have got your best friend murdered just because you couldn't be bothered to know what you were doing.”

  Tony’s face got red. “We're back to that, are we?” He got up and shouted at Zacharian. “Karim did not kill Harvey Martin! I told you that. Ellen Lofting went all the way to Iran about it, remember? And she found out she was wrong.”

  “Did she?” said Zacharian. “I wonder. She's disappeared, Tony. Right off the face of the earth.”

  9

  Tony sat down again. “Oh, Christ,” he said. “Isn't there any end to this?”

  “We hope so,” Corbett said. “We hope you may have done what we haven't been able to do—put a crack in the facade.”

  “What facade? What are you talking about?” And oh, Jesus, is she dead, too? With those long legs and that brown hair and the way she could look at you . . . What had happened to the world?

  Corbett said, “You forced a third partner into the firm of Hassani-Wales. Just spare the protests for a moment while I give you some background.”

  His attitude brooked no argument, and Tony said dismally, "All right, look, I’m quiet.”

  "Good. And pay attention, because this is important to you. For some time now, items from America, Britain, and the Continent have been turning up where they have no business to be. Items like grenades and plastic explosives, communications devices, the latest in portable weaponry and small arms, turning up in the hands of terrorist groups operating against the governments of Middle Eastern nations friendly to, and sometimes allied with, the country of origin. It got beyond the point of possible theft or sale on the black market, and it began to appear that these elite groups were being funded and supplied from the West. In other words, we were cutting our own throats and the throats of our friends and allies and paying for the privilege.” Corbett shook his head. "I wish I knew what genius in Moscow thought that one up. I'd like to have him on my side.”