Touchfeather

by Jimmy Sangster

  ‘Where are you?’ asked Walter.

  ‘I’m in the bar across the road,’ I said. ‘And they’re already starting to gang up on me.’ I was referring to the half a dozen predatory-looking men who had sparkled into life as soon as I had walked into the bar; none of them could wait for me to finish in the phone booth.

  ‘Oh, Katy, Katy!’ said Walter, uselessly. ‘What price that Irish bog now?’

  ‘It would be a help if you’d stop being facetious and get someone over here double quick,’ I said icily.

  ‘I thought you enjoyed your work.’

  ‘What work?’ I asked. ‘I can’t check into the YMCA, and I can’t stay here, and I’ve got no money, and I’ve got no clothes, and there are some men outside who look intent on rape, and I’m miserable because I’m cold and I don’t like Chicago, and I think you’re an absolute pig.’ I’d practically talked myself into tears by then, and at that moment Hank Almedo came out of his hotel across the road.

  ‘Christ, he’s just come out! Bye!’ I hung up before he could say a word. I ran out into the street and hailed a cab going in the opposite direction to the one Hank was climbing into.

  ’Follow that cab,’ I said, trying not to sound like something from a B movie.

  ‘What cab, lady?’ said the driver reasonably.

  ‘That one over there. Oh, he’s getting away.’ But I’d obviously touched some sympathetic chord in my cab driver.

  ‘Oh no, he ain’t,’ he said, and swung his cab into a U-turn that nearly finished everything there and then. There was a squeal of brakes and a screech of rubber as the drivers behind us, barely avoided collisions and a moment later we were tucked in behind Almedo’s cab.

  ‘What’s the creep done to you, lady?’ my cab driver said, companionably. ‘Given you the bum’s rush?’

  I admitted that he was my husband and had just run out on me and the kids. The cabby glanced at me in the driving mirror.

  ‘He wants his marbles counted,’ he said. ‘You sure you want after him? A good-looking broad like you is probably better off without the creep.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ I said. ‘But I want to know where he’s going.’

  ‘Want to get the dirt on him, eh? What are you, anyway—a GI bride?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re English, aren’t you? I’d know that accent anywhere. I saw Blow Up four times. Dirty picture.’

  ‘I haven’t got any money,’ I said, deciding that I’d better throw myself on his mercy.

  ‘That figures,’ he said equably. ‘None of the English have. But don’t worry about it. You can send it to me when you start getting your alimony.’ All this time he had been driving practically in the trunk of Almedo’s cab, and I started to worry a little.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be a good idea to drop back a little?’ I said. ‘He might see us.’

  ’Whatever you say, lady,’ said my cabby, and promptly allowed four cars to get between us and Hank Almedo. And we lost him, of course; we were bound to. My cabby just wasn’t cut out for the cloak-and-dagger bit. We cruised around for half an hour trying to find him again, until I told the cabby to drive me to the best hotel in town. There, I took him into the lobby with me and told him to wait. I phoned Walter and told him what had happened.

  ‘Not to worry too much, Katy,’ he said. ‘We’ll pick him up again when he returns to his hotel.’

  ‘You pick him up,’ I said. ‘I quit.’

  He chuckled and asked me where I was phoning from. I told him and he asked me to wait in the main lobby for twenty minutes. I rejoined my cab-driver friend, who wasn’t at all abashed at the tuxedos and tiaras. We talked of this and that for twenty minutes until an elegant young man in a Brooks Brothers suit came into the lobby and headed towards us.

  ‘Miss Touchfeather?’ When I had established this to his satisfaction, he handed me an envelope, tipped his narrow brimmed hat and walked out. I opened the envelope and extracted ten fifty-dollar bills and a typewritten note. One of the bills I gave to my cab driver, who told me that I was a doll, even if I was English. Then I read the note.

  Return New York first available transport. Report for further instructions.

  The note wasn’t signed. I tore it into tiny pieces and dropped them in one of the large ashtrays that dotted the lobby. I said goodbye and thank you to the cab driver. Then I went to the reception desk and asked for the best room in the place. They looked at me a bit askance when they realised that I had no luggage, but I flashed around my newfound wealth, ordering toothbrushes and six-course dinners and the like, and they finally gave me a room. ‘First available transport’ indeed. I’d get to New York when I was good and ready, and it certainly wasn’t going to be tonight. I sent my uniform to be pressed and I washed out my smalls. Then, wrapped in the huge towelling robe provided by the hotel, I sat down and ate the meal I had ordered. I ate the lot, starting with the caviare, and moving right through to the Souffle Grand Marnier to finish up with. Then, feeling a little sick, but quite content, I went to bed.

  Walter was quite excited when I saw him the following afternoon. But he wasn’t the only one; Robbie looked as close to tears as I had ever seen her. A lovers’ tiff, I decided, and asked her about it. But she wasn’t telling, and she ushered me in to see Walter before I could ask too many questions.

  ‘What’s the matter with Robbie?’ I asked as soon as she left us alone. ‘Have you been a bastard to her?’

  He started to say something, then changed his mind and became all official. ‘You’re to report back to London right away.’

  I said a rude word and for once he didn’t come back with a smart remark. There was something wrong in this office, and I didn’t think any longer that it was as simple as a lovers’ quarrel. Anyway, I was too choked with Mr. Blaser’s peremptory instructions to dig into the matter.

  ‘I’m supposed to be non-operational. What does the silly old fart want?’

  ‘You’d better go and find out,’ said Walter flatly.

  And that was all that I could get out of him or Robbie.

  TWELVE

  My apartment smelled like a disused tomb. I had forgotten to leave a window open and the central heating seems to gang up on me when I’m away, turning rotten any food I leave lying around. My instructions from Walter had been explicit. I was to report to Mr. Blaser the moment I set foot in London. But it was I who had taken the night flight; hadn’t slept; and was feeling tired, dirty and irritable, and I wasn’t reporting to anyone until I had a chance to repair some of the damage. I took a hot bath, soaking for an hour; then I made myself up leisurely, dressed in something suitable for the occasion and drifted around to Pandam Street at eleven o’clock.

  ‘Where have you been, Miss Touchfeather?’

  ‘In America, sir.’

  ‘I’m referring to the fact that you arrived at London Airport at eight a.m. It is now eleven.’

  ‘I didn’t realise there was any urgency,’ I said.

  ‘Mm!’ he grunted, ominously. ‘I’ve heard you had quite a time of it, including stranding yourself in Chicago without any money.’ Wait until he saw the expense sheet that would eventually be passed through from Walter. Let’s see him argue that through Exchange Control.

  ‘I managed, sir,’ I said.

  ‘From what I hear, all you managed to do was to lose the man you were supposed to be following.’ There didn’t seem to be much of an answer to this, so I didn’t bother trying to invent one.

  ’Still,’ he said, after a moment. ‘One good thing has come out of it. Your seeing the Almedo man may go a long way towards re-establishing a lead.’

  ‘A lead to what, sir?’ I asked politely.

  ‘The Partman affair, of course,’ he snapped.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir; I thought that was no longer any concern of ours.’

  ‘Who said so?’ He was quite irate.

  ‘You did. You said that once Professor Partman’s unit went to America, they would cease to be in our province.�
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  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘I did say that, didn’t I? Well, something has cropped up since then, and I have revised my thinking.’ He would tell me if he wanted to, so I didn’t press it. He continued after a moment. ‘It has been established that detailed plans of Professor Partman’s latest project are already in the hands of... of a foreign power.’

  ‘You knew there was a leakage of information from Cumming-on-Hardy,’ I said.

  ‘True. But we are sure that security has been one hundred percent effective since the death of Professor Partman.’

  ‘What you’re saying is that the information was known to the other side before Bill... Professor Partman was killed.’ He nodded.

  ‘That’s stupid,’ I said, forgetting myself for a moment. ‘In that case, there would have been no need to kill him.’

  ‘I didn’t say how long before, Miss Touchfeather. We think it was in the course of giving this information that Professor Partman was killed, either by accident, or because they had no further reason for wanting him alive.’

  ‘So you’re now saying he did talk under torture,’ I said, feeling a little sick.

  ‘That is exactly what I am saying.’

  ‘Then why did they bother with me in Rome, if they already had what they wanted?’

  ’I don’t know,’ he said, evenly. ‘That is what we have got to find out.’

  It seems that Mr. Blaser’s theory was all based on the timing of events. An agent who had proved thoroughly trustworthy in the past had contacted Mr. Blaser and informed him that the Russians had already started work on a missile-control unit that would obviate the efficacity of the anti-missile device that Bill had come up with. Suddenly the Americans weren’t two years ahead of the Russians; they were running neck and neck, and the President of the United States was about to ask for an appropriation of another umpteen million dollars to develop an anti-anti-Russian-anti-USA-anti-missile device to...and about here I got lost. The point was, though, that the Russians had started work at such a time as to put it after the man had been fished out of the sea near Bombay, and before the time that I reported back to London, badly singed, from Rome. The only possible supposition was that Bill had given way under pressure. But if this was the case, why had Hank and Jack bothered about me in Rome?

  ‘How are we going to find out?’ I asked. After all, I was more than just casually involved, and I firmly believed that I had a right to know.

  ‘If Mr. Almedo fails to give us a lead on his own, then we shall have to have him picked up and ask him to point the way.’

  ‘He struck me as being a man who would need quite a little persuasion.’

  ‘We shall do our best to accommodate him,’ said Mr. Blaser. He really had a very nasty streak in his makeup, and the only strange thing was that I was still capable of mild surprise when he exhibited it.

  ‘What has he been doing?’ I asked.

  ’Since you lost him?’

  ‘Since I lost him.’

  ‘Apparently he disappeared for three hours, and then returned to his hotel. About the time you must have been flying to New York, he was on his way back to Los Angeles. He is at present staying in a motel just outside Los Angeles and, from all accounts, he shows no signs of going anywhere in the immediate future.’

  ‘Did anyone meet with a sudden fatal accident while Almedo was on his own in Chicago?’ I asked.

  ‘As a matter of fact, yes,’ he said, as though he were reluctant to give anything away.

  ‘Anyone I know?’

  He looked a little embarrassed suddenly. I’m not going to like this, I thought. I repeated the question to show him that I wasn’t just making small talk.

  ‘Anyone I know, Mr. Blaser?’

  He cleared his throat. ‘I’m afraid so, Miss Touchfeather. I understand that the deceased was a good friend of yours. That is one of the reasons why I had you called back to London. I thought it better to give you the news myself. Walter Martin offered to be the one to tell you, but I wanted to have you where I could keep an eye on you, in case you took it into your head to do anything foolish. Apart from that I—’

  I interrupted him, probably the only time I ever had. ‘If you don’t tell me, Mr. Blaser, I shall scream out loud.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Well, we don’t want that, do we? I’m sorry to have to tell you that Mrs. Mary Youngman was shot to death outside her Chicago home, the night before last.’

  Perhaps I should have told Mr. Blaser about the conversation I had had with Mary right away, but at first I could see no possible connection between what she had told me and what had eventually happened. The actual shooting had been classic prohibition period. Mary and Skip had come out of their house, heading for the car. They were dining out and both were in evening dress. The chauffeur was holding open the rear door of the car and, as Skip stepped aside to allow Mary to get in, there had been three shots, without even the suggestion of an interval between them. Mary had been wearing an off-the-shoulder gown and she must have presented a beautiful target, the whiteness of her flesh framed against the dark material of her dress. The shots had landed within three inches of one another, just below her left breast.

  It was shooting of the highest order, and nobody had the faintest idea from which direction they came. The chauffeur had called the police on the car telephone while Mary bled her life away in Skip’s arms. Whether or not she said anything to him during those last few seconds, nobody knew; neither did they know whether there had in fact been any last few seconds, or whether Mary had been killed instantaneously. Skip, it seemed, wasn’t talking. The police had moved quickly, but not as quickly as the men Walter had alerted. What should have been a front-page story in two-inch type was squashed quickly and effectively. And while the Chicago police turned over the underworld, looking for the killer, Walter’s men kept their mouths shut about Almedo and allowed him to leave for Los Angeles the following morning. In flight transit, Walter had had Almedo’s bags searched and the murder weapon was found, clipped to a false bottom in his suitcase. The gun was left where it was, and as far as Almedo was concerned, he had performed a very efficient job, with no comebacks or repercussions.

  ‘You saw something of Mrs. Youngman while you were in Los Angeles?’ asked Mr. Blaser. It was the following day. He had allowed me to go home after breaking the news to me. Next morning, having decided that I had mourned long enough, he’d had Miss Moody summon me back.

  ‘We went out one evening and we had lunch together the following day. The day she left for Chicago.’

  Mr. Blaser cleared his throat, a sure sign that he was going to say something unpleasant.

  ‘I think it is stretching coincidence a little too far,’ he said.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘You have a connection with this Almedo man. You also have a connection with Mrs. Youngman. The two things must be related somewhere.’

  ‘No, sir,’ I said emphatically. He was as good as suggesting that it was because of me that Mary had been killed.

  ‘Put your personal feelings aside for a moment, Miss Touchfeather. Consider the facts.’ I considered them and was forced to admit that the old bastard was right.

  ‘Let us examine what we have,’ he said, ‘and see where it takes us. The Almedo man was working for someone when he was involved in the Professor Partman affair; he was working for the same party when he abducted you in Rome. It is reasonable to assume he was still working for the same party when he shot to death Mrs. Youngman.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said.

  ‘So we must ascertain the identity of his employer.’

  ‘Roger Gerastan,’ I said, not knowing why I said it. Mr. Blaser didn’t know why either, but to give him credit, he didn’t throw up his hands in horror, or even look surprised.

  ‘Why do you say that, Miss Touchfeather?’

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea, sir. But he’s the only person I can think of who was even remotely connected with Professor Partman and Mary Youngman.’
r />   ‘How connected?’

  ’He was Professor Partman’s employer, and he also held blackmailing information on Mary Youngman.’

  ‘What information?’ I told him and he clicked his tongue a couple of times. ‘Very nasty,’ he said. I agreed that it was. ‘Why didn’t you mention it before?’

  ‘Nobody asked me. And anyway, it was a personal confidence between Mrs. Youngman and me.’

  Mr. Blaser strongly disapproved of his people sharing confidences with anyone except himself, but he allowed it to pass.

  ‘I still fail to see where the tie-up lies,’ he said.

  ‘So do I,’ I replied. ‘But I’ll find out.’

  He mounted his high horse quickly. ‘You’ll do exactly as I tell you, Miss Touchfeather. Nothing more, nothing less.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said.

  There was a pause after that, and I started to fidget. When Mr. Blaser wandered off into the realms of speculation, there was no telling how long he would leave you alone. He returned about three minutes later.

  ‘Let us assume for one moment that you are right, Miss Touchfeather, and that Roger Gerastan is somehow linked with the whole business. How would you go about proving it?’

  ‘Since when have we had to prove anything, sir?’ It was a reasonable question. Proof was for the law courts, and the law courts very rarely saw any of the people we came up against. Mr. Blaser comprised his own judge, counsel and jury. Once he was satisfied as to a person’s guilt, he called in his own hatchet men, faceless individuals I’d been fortunate enough never to have met, and they did the rest.