The Spy Who Spoke Porpoise

by Philip Wylie

  “Why? I mean—it’s a charming house. At least, I thought it was till I got a peek at that snake. You keep revolting pets. Or is there just the one?”

  His eyes were speculative. “Questions?”

  “Sorry. You could turn me over to the police and I could probably convince them to put me in touch with the CIA.”

  “That’s just the trouble. I have nothing whatever to do with the CIA and if they found you came to them from me, which they would, then—”

  “I see. Then Solentor would learn, sooner or later, and suspect, as he did when he came here, that you were, after all, making an American effort for some outfit Solentor never heard of—maybe related to Project Neptune. Are you?”

  Grove stared. “Not very smart.”

  She shook her head ruefully and Grove found he was wishing she wouldn’t move that way: it made her hair shimmer and that led to an unwanted response. The disingenuousness of her question tended to strengthen his acceptance of her story. She had asked it spontaneously and for the manifest reason that she wanted to understand his status better … the better to judge her own. He thought of having her tell exactly what the others knew about American intelligence—and decided it wouldn’t add greatly to what Solentor had made rather clear: the Reds had people who reported doings of the CIA and of the Security Council—which was more than enough to know. She could probably talk for hours and fake every word, too.

  “Suppose,” she said, “I was your runaway daughter, now. Any help?”

  He shook his head. “I never had one. And the only possible man who could see you as a daughter would be your actual father.”

  He took her empty glass and refilled it.

  “My real father—hardly thought of his daughter, at all. That was where the trouble started, I guess.”

  He abruptly asked a question, harshly—and was aware as he did that it was a personal and revealing act. “Were you ever Borrie’s mistress?”

  “Thank God, no!”

  Grove was red-faced. “Sorry.”

  She understood. “We never mentioned his name if we could avoid it. The Lever, sometimes. By our superiors mostly—to keep fear churning in us. He was called The Head. I only saw him a few times—when they were deciding what to do with me.” The inference she had drawn from his question at last had told her—without his intention—that he had appreciated her as a woman. As human.

  Midnight had struck some time ago. The day ahead was going to be long and difficult. He would need sleep and he would have to be up in time to stall Oopani. The girl—Esther Wilson—was conceivably telling the truth, at least in the main. She was, however, possibly doing a very clever job, one set up against the chance that Solentor might somehow abandon his operation to her. It seemed very unlikely, though. The Lever had planned his execution, after he’d blown the whistle and after Grove had watched this woman die, slowly—before his turn came. The Lever used women-traps, exploiting empathy, chivalry, every human quality. But Grove could not see how this woman, in her state, would serve any end now.

  The situation was ironic, whatever its real basis. Solentor would be furious over the girl left behind. But Grove was on a spot, too, owing to the same circumstance.

  He sank in the red chair, almost oblivious of Esther Wilson. A plan formed. He wished, however, that he had found the answer he now needed earlier. “Esther,” he finally said, “I’m going to ask you to come along with me.”

  She followed him to the floor below and watched as he cut a pair of handcuffs apart and, using the blowtorch, welded the halves to the ends of a long, heavy chain. He chilled the welds and next told her to go back upstairs ahead of him, still. He directed her to a guest room.

  Its windows overlooked the grounds at one end of the house and fifteen feet down; its bath was adjacent to his own. The chain, she realized, was long enough to reach from the bed to the bath. She spoke hopefully. “You could keep me in your room, after all. Another pet—but nice.”

  “Come on!” Grove said with irritation. He attached the cuffs to an ankle and a metal bedpost.

  She was permissive and then more than that. She let her borrowed robe fall open as she sat on the bed. “I won’t let you sleep, then. I’ll jangle chains like a ghost! I’ll sing songs that nice girls never heard of, if there are any nice girls left.” But she knew she was a fool.

  “I won’t even be around.”

  That scared her. Slowly, she pulled the robe together. “You mean, you’ll leave me chained here alone?”

  “Till I can get you somewhere else. If I can manage, yes.”

  Her terror was a mute facial contortion. It was shocking that human beings could be frightened to that extent; she had been broken, and broken again and yet again, as that rictus of horror stated without words.

  He stood looking at her, silently. He knew all the truth about courage. Any human being can be smashed, forced to reveal any secret, however priceless, and brain-washed completely as well, if he lives. Some brave individuals manage, by luck, to die before their expert tormentors succeed. But if the torturer has the time and the skill, no one lives and keeps silent about what the other wishes to learn—no one keeps his identity, his dearest belief, his love of country or of God, if the dissuader has the time, if death doesn’t thwart his objective.

  “A brave man—or woman,” he said to her, “dies a thousand times. Bravery isn’t what we were taught, Esther. Neither is cowardice. I was brought up as an American, supposed to be fearless, and if not, a coward. It’s a lie. A brave man is merely the one who, however badly frightened, keeps functioning, just doesn’t panic. A coward quits as soon as fear looms. And all of us can be driven over the big wall. Fearless men are mad.”

  She nodded, her eyes fixed on his, her breath shallow and rapid. “I know. I do know. I was American-brave, once. Oh, very brave!”

  He smiled slightly. “I realize it. And you’ll be all right, here, while I’m out.” He saw the rigidity returning. “Use your head! Solentor won’t be back, or send anybody back, tonight. He wouldn’t be that stupid even if he had the chance. Now listen! Don’t flake off that way! I’ll be back before daylight, or send somebody, to get you away. Solentor went out to his ship, or sub, and you must have heard his boat. My phones are working. He has no idea of what outfit I work for. A moron would assume that I’d contacted some of my people, in minutes, after he left.”

  Her eyes were reasoning again. “Did you?”

  “Questions?” He frowned. “None of The Lever’s people will barge in like second-rate robbers now. The next time they want in here, if there is one, they’ll do a mighty cautious reconnaissance job. Don’t you see why?”

  She started to shake her head, then nodded. “That cobra.”

  “Yes. That cobra; suggesting that this joint may be fixed up with other surprises, even many, and as—unexpectable. You better lie down before you fall.”

  She lay back.

  He moved toward the door, followed by pleading eyes; but the girl didn’t say a word.

  He crossed his living room slowly and went out on the lanai where he stood looking over the night-draped sea at the pale ridges and gouged trenches on the eroded slopes of Rabbit Island.

  How should he tackle Jerry Gong?

  Could he, even in this crisis, this need of aid?

  Did he dare act on his likeliest assumption, that the park watchman was neither an accomplice of the police or of Oddie, nor a perhaps unwitting dupe of others?

  No.

  What bluff could be used to find out?

  Not any Grove could think of, was the answer. He could take a gun, of course, and threaten. But, use it?

  Grove had not carried a gun since his arrival in Hawaii. His reason was simple. A man in an aloha shirt and slacks has no place to carry a gun that a professional cannot detect. The American public has been fed so many gun myths, by TV and movies, that not one adult in ten thousand, including those who own handguns, knows their limits and risks. Specially tailored clothes are needed
to hide a gun from a pro. And the man who uses guns has one in his hand before his victim sees his problem. The fastest draw never beat the ready trigger finger.

  More decent people, Grove knew, had been killed because they had guns and tried, too late, to get to them, than guns ever saved. How often do newspapers report the capture of an armed housebreaker, thief, mugger, rapist, or other criminal, by a citizen who had a pistol and got to it in time to make the snatch? The thought made Grove smile a little.

  And yet, Grove knew, nothing but a gun would hold Jerry long enough for the talk he needed and the hoped-for answers. Jerry had a gun.…

  He drove his rebuilt station wagon to the park.

  Jerry waved as it stopped and cycled on toward the institute. Grove went to Whaler’s Cove and watched the porpoises perform. They’d performed twice, at least, for other night-visiting persons, not expected or known, so far as he could make out from the graphs and from Jerry’s accounting of authorized visitors. So there had been meetings in the park, alien presence, anyway, perhaps scouting prior to a meeting. It was possible that Jerry had known about those events. It was possible, if Grove’s measure of the watchman was mistaken, or even if the meetings had involved Jerry and, say, some of Oddie’s people, which events Jerry would not mention to him, their suspect, in that case.

  After the porpoise greeting, Grove went to the Reef Tank but did not climb its spiral ramp. He waited in the dark entry till he saw Jerry riding back and then, keeping covered, he hurried toward the watchman, halted and crouched. Jerry braked and stepped from the bike when he came up. “Something wrong, Ring?”

  Grove held up a finger, then pointed. He stole toward the cove and Jerry followed with the same quiet care. Obviously Grove had seen something that needed this guarded approach. When Grove held a palm up and stopped, Jerry did too. He also unsnapped the strap that held his Police Special in place and slipped off its safety. Grove then pointed through a clump of trees to a lighter area, beyond. Jerry came close, bike supported by his left hand, and peered.

  Grove took the .45 with the double skill of a trained agent and a professional magician.

  Jerry reacted very quickly but apparently without great alarm. “Nice trick!”

  “No trick,” Grove answered and the watchman knew by the tone that it was, indeed, no trick. He leaned back on his bike a little and said, softly, “Okay. Then what is it?”

  “Just that I have to have answers, right ones, to a few questions.”

  “Such as?” The watchman sounded perplexed rather than frightened.

  “I hate to have to,” Grove replied, slowly. “But I’m desperate and I mean that, all ways you can think. I want to know who you report to, besides the park brass, if anybody.”

  “Easy! Nobody.” Jerry was steady and so was the bike he supported.

  “What makes you suspicious of me, then?”

  Jerry grinned slightly. “Am I?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then you maybe can answer some questions I have.” Jerry didn’t allow Grove to break in. “A long while back you may recall I mentioned being surprised by a smell. Ylang-ylang blossoms, right?”

  “I remember.”

  “Other things happened, that night.”

  “Yes.”

  “Such as you tossed an FBI man into the Reef Tank.”

  “So I did.”

  “Then the feds gave you a going over; tagged you, for a while, too.”

  “Correct. And put you wise to that?”

  “No. Friends in the cops told me, a little of it, later.” Jerry frowned. “Want more?”

  “All there is.” Grove gestured to remind the man of the gun.

  “You planted some salt-water orchids, a while back.”

  “For Mrs. Abbott, yes. With permission.”

  “And another plant. Till I found it, I couldn’t figure why you trained the porpoises to greet you that big way. But I had a hunch there was more to it than fun. And when I saw those new flowers and asked what they were and got told you put them in, I made a point of looking around that spot. Then it was clear.”

  “And you reported that, to whom?”

  “I’ve been considering reporting it, maybe to my old friends in the cops. But I haven’t yet. I sort of hoped you’d finally explain. I know you’re working. I can’t find out for who, not by any hinting around my pals. I almost put it to you, man to man, a time or so, recently. But—”

  “I’m putting it to you, Jerry. You already know too damn much about me. If you’ve reported it, I mean to find out who got that word.”

  “How? If you shoot me, it’ll be no good. If you don’t—”

  “—I could start operations aimed to make you tell me. In fact—you better begin walking toward the Reef Tank, now—”

  “I suppose you could—manage,” Jerry said slowly and with anxiety. Then his tone changed. “My … gosh!”

  “My gosh—what?”

  “This afternoon I went over my gun. And didn’t reload it. Man, what a mistake! What a lucky one!”

  “Very nice try,” Grove replied grimly. Nevertheless he checked. The .45 was not loaded.

  Jerry had then moved his bicycle a little. He looked at the deflated Grove with wonder. “The gun, as you saw, is empty. First time in years I’ve pulled that one. But look, Ring, the bike is now aimed at you. I can put one shot through the top bar—or blast you with buckshot, from the tool kit.”

  Grove nodded as if he already knew. His first reaction to the empty Police Special was astonishment and with it a swift thought that Jerry had deliberately allowed the little play that led to the gun-snatch because he was ready for it, expecting something of the sort. Now he tried to see what use he could make of a situation that either was—or was anything but—so slick that he’d ignored the possibility. He stared at Jerry in the half-shadow but the watchman, as far as Grove could make out, was as flustered in some fashion as Grove himself.

  “I’m feeling ashamed,” the huge man said in a low and embarrassed tone, “to make a mistake like that. And have it discovered by—another pro. But”—he grinned a little—“it sure was a fluff at the right time!”

  Grove held out the Police Special, by its barrel. “You better reload it.”

  The other hesitated. “With two hands?” He shook his head while he replaced the weapon in its holster. “Not that.”

  Grove began to think this reversal of the situation might still suit his need. “If you haven’t reported all you’ve learned about me to a soul, Jerry, maybe you’ll explain why?”

  “We’ll go up to the restaurant level—you ahead—and talk. Okay?”

  “Right.” Grove walked and the aimed bike came in the rear. He heard clicks that told him Jerry was reloading the .45 and he sensed that the gun was being held either by teeth or else by the hand that also could trigger a shot through a bicycle bar or a spreading blast from what he’d known was not a case for tools. A wide-angle blast, in the event Jerry encountered more than one and decided to kill or maim them. Smart, Grove reflected, and about what he’d imagined.

  At the level of the restaurant, which was open on three sides, Jerry gestured at a table in bright light. Grove sat where the watchman indicated and approved of the way in which Jerry parked the bike and came over with the gun to sit across the heavy wooden table.

  “So?”

  Grove shrugged. “So? For one thing, why haven’t you reported me, if you’re not lying? And my aquagraph?”

  “Your—oh!” Jerry was silent for a moment. “You have been a friend, Mr. Grove, for a long while, right? You have been very kind to many people, in the Hawaiian Homelands and in Waimanalo, who are friends of mine; some are relatives. I have suspected you from the night of the found body. But of what? I couldn’t say. I found your—aquagraph—and saw its purpose. But one more thing about that was clear. It was to tell you when other persons were in the park, besides me and allowed people. This meant you would not be here and even did not know when such people might slip
in. You were not, then, with—whoever has made two visits. That I missed but the gadget recorded. So I am left to wonder why you want to learn about them. And who are they? Now, I think, you will tell me.”

  “I think I will,” Grove answered slowly. “I only wish I were certain beyond any doubt that you haven’t spread the word on me to anybody.”

  “And why?”

  “Because I’m acting alone. Because it is vital that nobody—not the police or FBI or even the CIA—know that I’m working here.”

  “I have not told anybody. Should I swear on a Bible?”

  Grove shrugged. “While your gun’s on me? No. I’m going to have to trust you. If I’m wrong about you, if you’ve lied, the result could be disastrous.”

  “Result for whom?”

  “America.” Grove paused and plunged. “Jerry, I am alone out here and I report to just one man. The President.”

  Jerry’s eyes widened. His mouth opened and closed. He shook his head not in disbelief but as if to clear the brain within. “Why?”

  Grove began the story.

  He told it succinctly; but it took more than half an hour. He ended with an account of The Lever’s appearance and of how that had been handled. He did not yet mention the girl.

  Jerry had listened and occasionally nodded but asked no questions. About halfway through the recital he had done a thing that made Grove rejoice. He put away the .45 and sat with hands folded between them on the table top. At the end, he reached out one of those hands and the two men joined in an iron grip.

  Then Grove did explain about the girl. “You can see my problem. I can’t keep her around. Jenny will be in, come morning. Oh, I could dope her and hide her downstairs for a day or so. But I have no idea of her—loyalty. Or the lack of any. You can see, if she’s conning me with the idea of getting back to Solentor, that mustn’t be allowed. In a way, she’s clever. And, Lord knows, she’s a dish! If she told the truth, if she was the one who got us word of this Project Neptune thing, and if she managed to survive yet not to give that away the second time they nabbed her, she’s tough, call it brave. In which case, she deserves a chance to live-to get away and home free. Clear?”