The Shadowers mh-7

by Donald Hamilton

  "Let's postpone the diagnosis, ma'am," I said. "The treatment, too. I'm doing fine. I don't need medical attention. All I need is a hypodermic syringe. Just one little hypo, folks, and we can all go home."

  "I don't understand," said Dottie Darden plaintively. "I don't understand-"

  "You will," I said. "We might as well start with you. Take your clothes off."

  It went over big. Olivia gasped and looked at me incredulously. Braithwaite stared at me with shocked indignation. The little blonde nurse thought I was pretty terrible, too.

  "What?" she demanded.

  "You heard me," I said. "And don't tell me I should pass you up because you're just an innocent bystander. You may be innocent, in one way if not another, but you're certainly no bystander. You worked for Dr. Mooney, you may or may not have slept with him-"

  "I most certainly did not! Anybody who says so is a dirty liar! And if you think I'm going to undress in front of all these people-"

  Olivia gave a sharp little laugh. "Don't be a hypocrite, dear. You know you'll just love undressing in front of us; you just wish we were all men!"

  I said, "That'll be enough out of you, Doc." I looked back to the blonde girl. "Come on, Dottie. Don't make me get rough."

  "Sir," Braithwaite said. "Sir, I don't think-"

  "That's fine," I said nastily. "Let's keep it that way. Dottie?"

  She hesitated; then she gave a defiant little youthful toss of the head that reminded me painfully of Antoinette Vail alive-another kid who'd got mixed up in things bigger than she was. Dottie threw an accusing glance at Braithwaite, apparently blaming him for this humiliation rather than me. She unbuttoned her uniform rapidly down the front, slipped out of it like a coat, and passed it over. A pink nylon slip came off over her head and followed the uniform into my hand. There was nothing significant in either garment. What remained wasn't worth taking off, except perhaps the sturdy white nurse's shoes.

  She started to unfasten her brassiere, more deliberately now, even provocatively. She was beginning to enjoy herself, I saw, in a wicked, perverse, abandoned way; she was getting a charge out of standing there almost naked with everybody watching her or trying not to watch. The brassiere wasn't very substantial, and it obviously contained nothing but Dottie. I cleared my throat.

  "That won't be necessary," I said. "Just take off your shoes and shake them out upside down… That's fine. I apologize, Miss Darden. When we get out of here, you can slap my face. Mr. Braithwaite, you're next."

  He was quite red, and he was having a hard time keeping his eyes off the well-developed little girl beside him. Very calm and self-possessed, even smiling a little, she started putting her clothes back on as casually as if she were in her own apartment. You'd have thought no man was within miles of her as she dressed; certainly no young man with whom she'd been keeping company, to use the old-fashioned expression, earlier in the evening.

  "Mr. Braithwaite," I repeated.

  He started, "What, sir?"

  "You, sir," I said.

  Dottie giggled. "It's your turn, Jackie. Take them off, Lover-boy. Give us girls a thrill."

  He glared at her, and at me. "Sir you can't think I… You can't suspect me.

  I said, "Sonny, you're temporary help. You haven't been trained. To the best of my knowledge, you haven't even been properly cleared yet. They just picked you off the street to help out in a minor way. Why did you want to leave a soft Navy berth to work for us, anyway? Sure, I suspect you. Somebody in this room slipped a hypo into Dr. Mooney. Why not you?"

  I made a gesture with the gun. He undressed very quickly. He was a good-looking young fellow, lean and sunburned. Dottie stared at him boldly and whistled admiringly to torment him. I wondered if he still thought her a nice kid. Well, her morals weren't my concern, and on the whole I found her attitude more convincing than if she'd put on a show of blushing embarrassment. After all, she was a trained nurse, and Queen Victoria was dead.

  There was no hypodermic in Braithwaite's clothes. I threw them back to him and drew a long breath. We'd had a million laughs, and we'd seen a couple of fine young bodies, and we'd stalled long enough. I turned.

  "Well, Doc," I said. "That puts it up to you."

  Olivia faced me stiffly. She'd lost most of her unaccustomed lipstick during the course of the evening. She looked plain and rather dowdy, like the woman I'd met on the carrier a few days ago. She was back where she'd started. It was almost as if nothing had ever happened between us-almost but not quite.

  There was the memory of that in her eyes. There was also the fact that, like me, she was somewhat older than the other two. I was asking her to discard her adult dignity, along with her clothes, in front of a couple of relative youngsters, one of whom she had reason to hate.

  "I haven't got it, Paul," she said stiffly. "You're being absurd. Why should I kill Harold?"

  Dottie laughed. "I can think of a reason!"

  "Shut up," I said, and to Olivia: "Maybe Mooney wasn't killed to silence him. Maybe you just saw a chance for revenge and took it. You're a doctor, you know how to handle a needle, and maybe you can even tell the stuff that's deadly from the stuff that isn't, by smell or taste or something. Maybe the killing has nothing to do with what I'm after, but I've got to know who did it."

  "Well, I didn't!" she breathed. "You've got to believe me-".

  I said, "And maybe all this personal stuff between you and Mooney is sheer camouflage and there are things I don't know about. You hinted at something like that once, something very mysterious. Anyway, the hell with motives, for the time being. You told me definitely that Kroch was dead, Doc. That means you must have given him some kind of an examination. You were also called over to look at Mooney, says Miss Darden. From Kroch to Mooney, the way the needle went. Where is it?"

  "I tell you," she said, "I haven't got it."

  "I'm sorry. You're going to have to prove it just like the others did."

  She said quietly, "I am not going to undress for you, Paul. You will have to… to strip me by force."

  "I can do that, too," I said. "But why make it so tough if you've got nothing to hide? You're a doctor. Before that you were a medical student. What's so secret about the human body? I want that hypo, Doc. Or I want to know you haven't got it. Will it help if I say please?"

  She shook her head minutely. She faced me, very straight, waiting. There was an odd kind of panic in her eyes, however; and I remembered that although I'd been allowed to make love to her, I'd never been allowed to see her naked: she'd kept a slip on or asked for a moment to change into a sexy nightie. Maybe she did have a thing about it, doctor or no. Maybe that was all it was. Or maybe she had something else to hide. There was only one way to find out.

  I took a limping step forward. Olivia awaited me unmoving, but when I reached out to grasp the neck of her dress with both hands-one holding the gun-she drew a sharp breath and caught my wrists.

  "No!" she gasped. "Paul, no! Please. I haven't got it. I swear. You can't-" she hesitated, and looked me in the eye, and said deliberately: "You can't do this to me, Paul!"

  I returned the look. Hell, anybody can look. I said harshly, "You have to make this just as tough as you can, don't you?"

  "Yes," she said fiercely, "yes, and when you've shamed me without finding what you're looking for, I hope you remember the rest of your life that I told you, swore to you, that it wasn't there!"

  "I'll remember," I said. I shook her off and reached for her dress collar again. I saw defeat come into her face.

  "Wait!" she gasped. "Wait, I'll do it." She hesitated. "Just let me… Just one thing first, Paul. A favor."

  "Granted," I said. "With reservations. What is it?" She put out a hand. I stepped back quickly. "Hold it! What do you want?"

  "Just the comb," she said.

  "Comb?"

  "The comb in your breast pocket. Just a cheap little pocket comb. You can examine it carefully before you give it to me. I wouldn't want you to take any chances!" Her voice was bit
ter.

  I regarded her for a moment, wondering what was in her mind. Then I shrugged, took the comb from my pocket, and gave it to her.

  "Now what?"

  "Now," Olivia said, and turned abruptly to look at Dottie Darden, "now I want permission to comb her hair."

  There was a dead silence. Dottie raised her hands protectively toward the elaborate golden beehive-a little wispy now-that crowned her head, that any stupid policewoman would have made her take down as part of a thorough search. It wasn't the brightest evening of my life.

  Olivia took a step forward with the comb, and Dottie broke for the door. I did have sense enough to stick my foot out and trip her. My wounded leg gave way, and I came down heavily beside her. I saw what she was doing, and grabbed for her to keep her from getting her hand to her mouth. It took a bit of brutal wrestling to get the death pill away from her.

  Then I struggled to my feet and looked at the deadly little capsule in my hand and at the shapely little girl in hospital white, disheveled and dusty now, with her fancy hairdo disintegrating into sagging tufts and loops above a face that suddenly looked much older and not nearly as pretty as it had before.

  Above one ear, like an exotic jewel, a bit of metal and glass gleamed among the tumbled blonde strands. She reached up, felt for it, found it, snatched it out, and hurled it at me. Her aim was poor. I heard it shatter against the concrete wall behind me.

  "I'll never tell you anything!" she panted. "You can't make me talk!"

  They always say that.

  XXI

  His NAME was Emil Taussig, but in St. Louis, Mo., he called himself William Kahn. He was an old man with white hair and kindly brown eyes. At least the people in the neighborhood were quoted later as saying they thought his eyes had looked kindly. I never got close enough, myself, to form an independent judgment. I was seventy-five yards behind him, across the street, and he was starting up the steps to his apartment house, when he fell down and died.

  There was a doctor handy to make the examination and call it a coronary, carefully ignoring the tiny bullet hole at the base of the skull. Karl Kroch wasn't the only one who could use a.22, and the caliber does have certain advantages. You can use an efficient silencer with it, for one thing. Silencers don't work too well with the heavier calibers.

  After that a lot of things happened all over the country, as the shadowers that had been identified by other agencies were picked up in a nationwide net which had been prepared and held in readiness pending Taussig's demise. Many that had not been identified escaped, no doubt; and a few struck back. It didn't go quite as smoothly and bloodlessly as Washington had hoped, even with the top man dead, but when did it ever? There were also, I was told, a few international adjustments made at this time which may or may not have been connected with the affair.

  That part of it didn't really concern me. Anyway, I was in the hospital with a badly infected leg. Another characteristic of the.22 is the fact that the greasy little bullet carries a lot of dirt into a wound; and maybe I hadn't stayed as quiet as I should.

  A gentleman from Washington visited me while I was still fiat on my back and told me I was a hero and had probably saved the world or some small part of it. They've got a department for the purpose, I think. They call it internal public relations, or something. I wanted to tell the guy to go to Florida and make his speech to a lady with a degree in astrophysics, but it wouldn't have been diplomatic. Neither did I succumb to the temptation to ask him just what the hell made him think any part of the world was saved. It was spring when I visited Pensacola again, on instructions from Mac.

  "The lady wants you to sign some papers," he'd said, in Washington. "I told her you'd stop by when you could."

  "Sure."

  "Incidentally, you may run into young Braithwaite down there. He didn't work out for us. He's back with his ship." Mac threw me a glance across the desk. "You gave him a rather rugged introduction to the work, Eric. There was no need for him to witness the interrogation of the girl, for instance."

  "He'd had a part in catching her," I said. "I thought he might as well get used to seeing a job through."

  "After watching the I-team at work on Miss Darden- she died afterward, you know-Lieutenant Braithwaite apparently decided he didn't want any part of the glamorous life of an undercover agent." Mac was looking at me in a speculative way. "Perhaps that was what you had in mind, Eric?"

  "Perhaps," I said. "Is my, er, wife still living at the same address?"

  She was, Mac said, but when I wanted to call the house from the Pensacola Airport, I couldn't find the name Mariassy in the phone book. Then I realized what I was doing wrong and turned to another section and there it was: Corcoran, Paul, 137 Spruce, 332-1093. It gave me a funny feeling to see the name again. I hadn't used it since the previous autumn.

  I called the number and got a maid who said Miz Corcoran was out but if I was Mr. Corcoran I was supposed to pick her up at the lab-Building 1000 at the Naval Air Station. She was expecting me.

  A taxi took me through the gate and across the big base, past a drill field where some kind of a military ceremony was in progress. There was a reviewing stand that seemed to contain a lot of naval rank. Solid masses of lesser officers stood on the side lines. The colors were just coming onto the field, followed by a long column of naval aviation cadets or midshipmen or whatever the Navy calls them.

  My driver managed to find a street that wasn't blocked and got me down to the waterfront, from where I could look out across the harbor at Santa Rosa Island, but I couldn't see anything that looked like a deserted fortification out there. I probably wouldn't recognize it in daylight, anyway. I could still hear the brassy sound of the Navy band as I went to the front door of the building. That was as far as I got, not having the particular clearance required to penetrate farther into the sacred mysteries of science.

  "Mr. Corcoran?" said the elderly guard. "Yes, sir. Please have a seat. I'll call Dr. Corcoran. She's expecting you."

  Then she was coming down the stairs. At least the approaching woman looked in a general way like the woman I remembered from last fall, but her hair was styled in a different and softer way, and the lipstick was obviously firmly established now, smoothly and expertly applied. She was wearing a brown sweater and a tailored brown skirt that made her look tall and slim. Only the legs hadn't changed. They were still very fine, nicely displayed by nylons and high heels.

  I got to my feet, not knowing exactly what to expect. She came across the lobby and put her arms around my neck and kissed me hard, which surprised me in more ways than. one. We hadn't parted exactly friends.

  I heard her voice in my ear. "Play up, damn you! The guard's a terrible old blabbermouth. Don't just stand there!" Presently she stepped back and said a little breathlessly, "I've missed you, darling."

  "I tried to get back sooner, but they've been keeping me busy. You're looking great, Olivia."

  "Am I?" She did something embarrassed and feminine with her hair. I remembered that she'd always been a great girl for fussing with her hair after a kiss. "Did you have a nice trip?" she asked.

  "Moderate. It was a little rough over the mountains, but not too bad."

  "I'm sorry I couldn't meet you at the airport but something came up. The car's right outside." She took my arm and led me out into the sunlight. "Thanks, Paul," she said in a different tone. "Some of them in there have been acting as if they didn't really believe I had a husband. The guard will put them straight, the old gossip." She laughed apologetically. "After all, I do have a career and a reputation to maintain, now that I'm no longer a desperate undercover agent."

  "Sure."

  "Do you want to look around? I can't show you our work, of course, but they've got some interesting equipment here that isn't too highly classified, like the human centrifuge and the rotating room in which they study problems of equilibrium… Well, it was just a suggestion. Paul?"

  "Yes?"

  "I wanted to apologize afterward, but you were gone."


  "Apologize? What for?"

  "For making it harder for you. That night. There was a reason why I just couldn't undress in front of everybody. I didn't mean all the nasty things I said." She hesitated and glanced at me with a hint of mischief in her eyes. "Would you really have stripped me naked?"

  "Sure," I said.

  She laughed softly. "I'm glad. I don't like people who talk tough and act mushy. I don't like people who mix sentiment with business or science. At least you're a consistent monster. I am glad to see you again, Paul. I mean, really."

  "I like you, too, Doc," I said. "Shall we go sign those papers?" I mean, it was nice talking over old times, but somebody had to bring the meeting to order.

  She stopped smiling. "Yes," she said. "Yes, of course."

  She still had the same little black Renault; she hadn't even managed to put many miles on it, I noticed. I remembered to fasten my seatbelt without being told. She drove, but after a couple of blocks we were turned back by a base policeman: the ceremony was still going on. The next street wasn't any better. We were at the side of the field but they wouldn't let us drive along it. I heard commands being snapped out. The cadets, or whatever they were, were about to pass in review.

  "Come on," I said. "Leave it here and let's look. I'm a sucker for parades."

  She looked unenthusiastic, but I pulled her out of the car and dragged her over to the field and found a spot where we could get up close. They were coming along the edge of the field toward us, four abreast, in perfect step, with the colors out front. I remembered to take off my hat. The military spectators were saluting.

  Olivia nudged me, and I looked where she was looking, and there was Lt. (jg) Braithwaite among the others near the reviewing stand, in uniform, holding his salute smartly as the flag passed. He looked happy and untroubled. He was back where he belonged.

  The cadets marched by, looking sternly ahead, and the band followed, belting out "The Stars and Stripes Forever." It was all very corny and obsolete, of course. There had been a time when they would march right up to the guns like that, with the drums going, but we don't fight that way any more. Perhaps it's just as well. Maybe we're better off just leaving the drums out of it.