The Long Vendetta

by Clifton Adams

  Garnett shifted his empty gaze to my face. “Then, a week later, it happened again. This time in Dallas. Your friend Charlie Roach got it just the way Koesler had, hit-and-run, stolen car... only, this time, the cops got a description of the driver. It matched with an out-of-town hood they'd been keeping an eye on. Marvin Storch, free-lance killer and hit-and-Tun specialist. Is this beginning to Ting a bell, Mr. Coyle?”

  I felt of my forehead and it was sweaty. I cleared my throat and said, “They found a note on Charlie's body? Like Koesler's?”

  “And like yours, Mr. Coyle. Word for word. Well, Roach was just a punk and nobody was going to miss him much, but cops all over the country want to nail something on Marvin Storch. So they began to dig. The Dallas police soon turned up the Cleveland case. They uncovered the fact that both Koesler and Roach had been in your tank crew, Mr. Coyle, and that is the only thing in common the two men had. It began to look like somebody was out to kill every man that had been in that tank. Now, with two down, and Deegan dead in Germany, there's only you left.” He smiled benignly. “What's the matter, Mr. Coyle? You don't look so good.”

  “I don't feel so good. I've had people try to kill me, but they were soldiers and there was a war. Murder —that's something different.”

  Suddenly Garnett was all cop. “I'm glad you appreciate the spot you're in. You're alive through sheer luck. I didn't know about the Koesler-Roach killings until you were in the hospital. Now it's going to be tougher for Storch to kill you, but that doesn't mean he won't try again. Marvin Storch is a careful worker. If word got out that Storch botched a job, he'd have to look for another line of work. And Marvin wouldn't like that.”

  “You think he'll try again to kill me?”

  “If our boy is Marvin Storch—and I'd bet a year's pay on it—I know he will. But not with a car the next time. A rifle, maybe. A long, fine rifle with a scope sight and an oversized silencer. Or maybe a bomb rigged to your car's ignition. Maybe even poison, but that's not likely. Mr. Storch is not the poisoning type.”

  I started to speak, but the lieutenant anticipated my question. “I know,” he said. “If I'm so sure it's Storch, why don't I throw a dragnet over this town and haul him in? We're working on it, Mr. Coyle. Every man on the force is putting pressure on his best sources of information, and if Storch is really in Plains City, we'll get him, eventually. But he's a professional. He knows people who can make him invisible. It will take time.”

  “Fine,” I said with a touch of bitterness. “I sit around and wait for a professional assassin to kill me while the police waste time questioning stool pigeons.”

  The lieutenant gazed at me through slitted lids. “You know a better way, Mr. Coyle?” Then he shrugged. “But we're missing the most important point. Storch is just a paid killer, a hired hand trying to do a job. The real danger is the person who hired him. You must know him, Mr. Coyle. At least you must have a hunch. Who is he?”

  Suddenly I felt weak and there was a queasiness in my stomach. “I don't know who, Lieutenant. But I think I know why. The note tells us. It must be the husband of the woman we killed near Ubach. The father of the little girl. I don't know how he did it, but somehow he got the names of every man who was in that tank. There were a lot of Germans doing white-collar work for the Army after the war. Anyone who really wanted to know could have found out. Our regimental history, with details of every mission, was set up and printed in Berlin while our outfit was still there.”

  Garnett blinked. “An account of the woman and child was in the regimental history?”

  “No, only the crew knew about that. But the hill the house was on was one of our company objectives. It was normal procedure for a recon tank to scout such a situation, and ours was the only recon tank in operation that day. Anyone, especially a soldier who knew about such procedure, could have got the names of that recon crew from the regimental roster.”

  Garnett scratched a match on the bottom of his chair and held the sputtering flame to his pipe. “It's possible, I guess, but doesn't it strike you as a pretty bizarre explanation?”

  “No more bizarre than having a hired assassin out to kill me. Besides, it's the only explanation there is.”

  Garnett tilted his pipe and puffed placidly. “So you figure the party behind the assassin is a nut of some kind, maybe the husband of that woman?”

  I nodded.

  “Say you're right,” the lieutenant wondered out loud. “Say he's really the husband and he's crazy with the notion to kill every man who was in your tank that day. Still, it would take a lot of doing on his part. First, he'd have to get the names of the crewmen without arousing suspicion. That would be far from easy. Next he would have to get a permit to enter the United States; then he'd have to locate three men who are scattered in three different parts of the country. Finally, after all that was taken care of, he would have to come up with enough money to live on and to pay off a very expensive killer. Wouldn't you say that was a lot of doing, even for a man with an obsession?”

  “Not too much, considering he's had more than fifteen years to work on it.”

  The lieutenant gazed into the smoky spaces of that vast, barnlike room and nodded his head. Two big, quiet men moved through the maze to Garnett's desk.

  One was Frank Lavy and the other was Mike Carson. Both were compact and had a quick look about them in spite of their mild manners and combined weight of over four hundred pounds. Lavy wore steel-rimmed glasses and Carson had pinkish hair and eyebrows—otherwise, they could have passed for twins. They were detective sergeants and looked like they knew their business. Garnett told them about their new assignment. They were supposed to keep me alive.

  CHAPTER THREE

  It was a French place called Robert's, one of those muted, pastel restaurants where the cut crystal in the chandeliers looks like diamonds and the prices on the menu could make you think they actually are. It was too frilly for my pocketbook, but this night was to be something special. Jeanie and I were celebrating my release from the hospital.

  The celebration never got off the ground. The claret was sweet, the steaks were dry, and the check came to more than I could ask for an eight-cylinder valve job. Mike Carson, the redheaded detective, loafed over a cup of coffee a few tables away and mentally shook down every customer who came through the door.

  I lit a cigarette for Jeanie and tried to keep it light. “Now we know. This must be the way the other half lives.”

  She laughed, but it wasn't really laughter. I could see her darting quick glances at Carson's face, holding her breath until each new arrival got a silent okay from the detective. “Relax,” I begged. “All those nerves, you'll get an ulcer.”

  She seemed surprised. “I didn't know it showed.”

  “Like a tilted pinball machine. Look, the cops know their business. They've got me guarded like the gold at Fort Knox.”

  “That's comforting. But how much fun does a gold bar have?”

  I had to admit that I was already getting tired of having Carson or his partner watch every move I made. So I paid up and we got out of the place. Carson was loafing on the sidewalk, absently stripping the cellophane from a slender panatella. I said, “Have you spotted anything that looks like trouble?”

  “Not a thing, Mr. Coyle.”

  “How about knocking it off for the rest of the night? I'm taking my girl home.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Coyle, it's my job.”

  Jeanie's hand tightened on my arm and I could see the anxiety in her eyes.

  I sighed. “All right,” I said to Carson. “Forget I mentioned it.”

  It was getting to be a nervous night. Jeanie kept turning to look behind us as I headed the M.G. away from the restaurant. “Buck, I think someone's following us.”

  “It's Carson,” I said. “It's his job, remember?”

  She smiled weakly. “I'm playing it pretty heavy, I guess. I'm sorry.” Then she frowned. “Buck, didn't you ever have the feeling that someone was watching every move you made?” />
  “Sure, but it doesn't bother me when I know it's a police detective.”

  “That's not what I mean. I've had the feeling all day.”

  I braked the M.G. almost to a stop and stared at her. “You think somebody's been followingyou?”

  “... I don't know. I couldn't see anyone, but...”

  I cut in with a touch of impatience: “Woman's intuition?”

  She smiled that no-smile again and sighed. “I guess it's silly.”

  “Sure it is. But just to play it safe I'll talk to Garnett and have someone keep an eye on you.”

  She started to protest, then changed her mind and looked straight ahead. That worried me. When a girl with Jeanie Kelly's strong sense of independence meekly accepted police protection, it meant that she was worried by something more dangerous than female intuition.

  Jeanie lived in an old-fashioned gingerbread building in the downtown “Junior Executive” section of Plains City. The night was crisp, with a taste of autumn in the air—my favorite kind of night, ordinarily. But not tonight. Jeanie held her puzzling silence as I parked the M.G. and walked her up the short walk to the Palmer front entrance. A dark, unmarked sedan pulled up at the curb behind the M.G., and a ripple of fear crossed Jeanie's face.

  “Relax,” I coaxed. “It's Carson.”

  I touched her hand when she handed me the key to the building. Her fingers were icy. I started to tell her that she was throwing all her worrying away, that nothing could possibly happen with a police detective sitting a bare twenty yards away watching every move we made. But at that instant a round, ugly hole appeared magically in the Palmer's heavy glass-paneled door.

  For a small part of a second I stared at that hole and my insides froze. In a slow-motion sort of way, the heavy glass shattered, the fragments glittering like ice crystals as the whole thing caved inward. It all happened in an instant, but I remember thinking,He must be using a silencer. There was just the hole, and the shattered glass—I didn't hear the rifle until later.

  Jeanie stared, her eyes wide, screaming without making a sound. I acted on pure instinct. I knocked Jeanie away from the porch light over the Palmer entrance when another slug slammed into the oak paneling right through the spot where she had been standing. This time, I heard the rifle, the flat spitting sound crowding hard behind the bullet's impact. But it was just a sound, lost in the night, and then Jeanie and I went reeling off the cement porch and crashed into a lilac bush.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Carson tearing out of the sedan. He yelled something in our direction and went pounding across the street, a big .45 automatic in his hand. Jeanie and I began picking ourselves up. The Palmer Apartments stirred restlessly. It seemed that I could still hear the echo of that partially silenced rifle.

  I stared at Jeanie. She seemed less frightened now than she had before the shooting. “It's him, isn't it, Buck? The man who wants to kill you?”

  “I hope it is. Carson must have seen where the shots came from, the way he lit out of here. Are you all right?”

  She nodded, smiling weakly.

  feel like calling the cops?”

  “You

  She nodded again.

  “Ask for Garnett. Tell him to fill the street with badges. Carson's breathing on the assassin's neck.”

  I got up first, kicked the shattered door open, reached inside and snapped out the light. “It's all right,” I said. “He couldn't see to shoot now, even if he was still in the mood.” I got Jeanie started toward her apartment while nervous faces began to appear up and down the red-carpeted corridor. She hesitated for just a moment.

  “Buck, let the police handle this.”

  “Sure. Just ask for Garnett.”

  I stared at the shattered glass and at the splintered hole in the oak paneling. Those two slugs hadn't been meant for me at all.They had been meant for Jeanie. The first slug had missed me an easy two feet and had missed Jeanie a scant two inches. The second bullet had gone right through the spot where Jeanie had been standing. Shooting like that didn't happen by accident—the assassin had been out to kill her.

  No more than a few seconds had passed since the first shot. In the back of my mind, I heard the neighborhood rise up in alarm. Two explosions jarred the uneasy quiet. That was Carson, I thought. Unlimbering his .45. There was the heavy sound of someone running in the street. And people started yelling.

  I stood there staring at the door, thinking of what might have been if dumb luck hadn't robbed the killer of his intended victim. Suddenly, I was a man on fire. I wanted to kill that rifleman with my bare hands. I started running with no particular plan in mind, toward what seemed to be the core of noise and confusion.

  Carson was kneeling behind a Ford sedan gazing angrily over the barrel of his .45. He seemed to be watching a red-brick apartment building across the street and two doors down from the Palmer. He wheeled, snarling, when I came up behind him. “Get down, you fool!”

  I dropped to one knee behind the Ford. “Is that where he is? That apartment house?”

  “It's where the shots came from. I hope somebody thought to call for help.”

  “Garnett ought to be on the way. Say the killeris in that building; how do you figure to keep him there till help arrives?”

  “That's a good question,” the detective growled. “He could be spilling out the back way while I'm here watching the front.”

  I was already on my feet.

  “Where do you think you're going?” Carson snapped.

  “To watch the back. If I see anything, I'll yell.”

  I started to turn away and he grabbed my leg. “All right, Coyle, if you're bound to be a hero. If he comes out, try to see in what direction he goes. No more than that.”

  The apartment building was sandwiched between two fortress-like duplexes, and behind them was a wide blacktop alleyway and a string of carports. It was pretty light back there, with a street lamp at the end of the alley and nightlights in the carports. The alley was empty of life. Nothing stirred, nothing breathed. I darted across the blacktop and took a position behind the carports.

  The muted scream of sirens climbed the still air over the city. Garnett was on his way. And Carson, if nothing had gone wrong, must be in the building by this time. There wasn't a sound anywhere, except for the sirens.

  Then, from somewhere inside the apartment building, that big .45 of Carson's exploded with muffled violence. The heavy automatic sounded again, and sandwiched in between the two crashes, I heard the venomous spitting of the assassin's silenced rifle.

  Then no sound at all came from the building.

  Only one thing I could be sure of: someone was dead. There is a certain finality to the silence following the violence of gunfire. Carson or the assassin— one of them was dead. But this was only a fact in the back of my mind, dry and without emotion. I could think only that the assassin had almost killed Jeanie. By rights, he was mine. I wanted him.

  Suddenly the back door to the apartment building flew open and a blunt, squat figure of a man burst into the incandescent glare of the alley. In that small part of a second I noted that his mouth was large and lax, his eyes were small and slightly slanted, his nose was a round, flat button between his eyes and upper lip, the nose of a third-rate pug who never got over being a sucker for a left jab. I noted that his close-cropped hair made his head look almost square, and that he wore a loud jungle-pattern sports shirt and neat fawn slacks and two-tone brogues. And the rifle with the drilled muzzle and the bulky muffling contraption near the end of the barrel, and the fine scope sight and the steel with its special non-reflecting finish.

  Then it occurred to me that Carson wasn't coming out of the building, because Carson was dead. I looked into those small, steely eyes—and I went after him.

  Why he didn't kill me, I can't guess. Maybe he was out of ammunition. Maybe that fancy silencing mechanism had jammed on him, or maybe he'd simply bagged his limit for that day. He didn't seem surprised, or amused, or anything. He just st
ood like a post until I was almost on top of him. And then he clubbed me, using the rifle butt in the effortless, matter-of-fact way that a judo expert uses leverage.

  I went down.

  Unconsciousness closed in like a sea of ink. But this was my day to be stubborn. This was my day to charge armed assassins with my bare hands. I was on my knees and elbows, my face two inches away from the blacktop surface of the alley. Keeping my face off that tar-smelling slab was the toughest thing I ever did. But I did it. I was down, stunned like a slaughterhouse steer, but not all the way out.

  “All right,” I told myself grimly, “up on your feet, Coyle.”

  About that time, a hamlike hand grabbed the back of my coat and jerked me to my feet, and suddenly I was looking directly into those queer, steely eyes.

  Now the sirens were almost on top of us, but the assassin showed no alarm.

  “Buster,” he said flatly, “you're a caution, and that's a fact, but we ain't got time to jaw about it now. We got us a little trip to take.”

  “A trip where?” I croaked.

  “That depends on you, Buster, and how well I like your company.”

  I twisted abruptly, tearing my coat out of his grip. Then, with all the rage and strength that was in me, I hit him squarely on the chin. It was a solid blow. The shock went up my arm and left my fist numb. The assassin didn't even rub his chin.

  He said coldly, “Buster, I just ain't got the time to play with you.” He cuffed me once in an offhanded sort of way—a short, stiff-armed swing, like a Kodiak bear cuffing a vaguely bothersome hound. Then he caught me before I fell and hustled me to the carports and onto the front seat of a new Buick sedan. He handed me some keys and said, “You drive, Buster.”