The Poisoners

by Donald Hamilton

  She said sharply, “How can anybody be objective about a traffic as filthy and degrading as…”

  She stopped, realizing that I’d been needling her deliberately to get her to betray herself. Angry, she started to speak once more, but checked herself. We faced each other for a long moment.

  I said, “For a dope cop, you’ve got a mighty thin skin, doll. What are you people, anyway, some special agency helping out the Customs and Treasury boys?” She remained silent. It was really none of my business, so I went on: “Well, never mind… So Frankie’s been playing around with drugs, has he? I thought the syndicate had made a big point of getting out of that racket. I thought they’d decided it brought them more trouble and adverse publicity than the profits justified.”

  “That’s what they said, but we don’t have to believe they meant it. Certainly their boy Warfel doesn’t seem to!” Charlie drew a long breath. “Oh, all right. I suppose there’s really no reason I shouldn’t tell you about it. You’ve heard of Operation Guillotine, I suppose.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I can’t keep track of all the fancy code names. What’s this one supposed to signify?”

  “A guillotine is a machine for severing the head from the body, isn’t it? Well, that’s what we’re going to do with this dirty business! We’re going to separate the great, sprawling, ugly bodies of foreign dope production from the greedy, profit-seeking heads—the importers and distributors—in this country. And one of the heads we’re going to chop off is Frank Warfel, to show that even the all-powerful syndicate can’t get away with flooding. this nation with insidious poison… What are you grinning at now, Mr. Helm?”

  “Sweetheart, I’m a pro, remember?” I said. “You don’t have to beat me over the head with all the propaganda clichés. Okay, it’s a filthy and degrading traffic in insidious poison, but let’s just try to consider it calmly, like an ordinary racket, like protection or extortion or white slavery. How about it?”

  She said severely, “You seem to think it’s something to joke about! Do you think it’s humorous that we’re trying to protect innocent people from—”

  “From their own bad habits?” I said deliberately. “Hell, no. I think it’s serious as hell: protecting kids from the evils of marihuana by subjecting them to the evils of jail. Of course, it’s rather like protecting the baby from colic by administering a massive dose of strychnine, but I agree there’s nothing funny about it.”

  She started to react, instantly and indignantly. She was so easy to tease it was hardly sporting. I held up a hand, quickly, to check the impending outburst of righteousness.

  “Okay, okay, simmer down,” I said. “I’m just needling you again, Charlie. I’m sorry. I apologize. The drug traffic is a dreadful thing, and I’m glad we have fine people like you fighting against it. Now tell me all about Frank Warfel’s connection with it.”

  She disregarded my request, and said stiffly: “I see absolutely no justification for your sarcasm, Mr. Helm, or your air of tolerant superiority. Unless you’re one of the misguided people who think—”

  “Who think a joint of grass is no worse than a dry martini?” I shrugged. “Hell, I don’t know a thing about it. I’m a martini man myself. I’ve never tried the other stuff. Honest Dope-wise, I’m pure as a mountain spring—well, as a mountain spring used to be.” I drew a long breath. “Look, Charlie, you’ve got your hangups and I’ve got mine, one of which is that I feel strangely compelled to discourage people from shooting at me or my colleagues in a fatal sort of way. And even if I didn’t feel that way, my boss does, and he’s the boss. Since Frank Warfel is involved in the current incident of this kind, could we please discuss him dispassionately just for a minute.”

  The mechanic went back to work again with his little hammer, and for a minute or two conversation was impossible.

  When we could hear again, Charlie said stiffly, “You’ve referred to marihuana, Mr. Helm, as if nothing else was ever smuggled across the Mexican border, but Frank Warfel isn’t interested in that weed. There’s not enough profit in it, and the amateur competition is too great. Every long-haired hippie who manages to get into Mexico tries to come back with a car full of pot.”

  I couldn’t help a quick glance at her crisp, clipped hair, realizing now that it was an anti-revolutionary symbol: as long as the unwashed, protesting, drug-absorbing young wore their hair long, she’d wear hers short.

  “What’s Frankie’s bag, then?” I asked. “Coke or heroin?”

  “The coca leaf grows only in South America, Mr. Helm,” she said rather pedantically. “Frankie would want his source closer at hand. The opium poppy, on the other hand, grows quite well in Mexico. That’s where the gum comes from. The Chinese opium addicts use it straight, or did before they were corrupted by Western bad habits, but most other users prefer to get their kicks in more concentrated form. Extracting the morphine base from the gum is a fairly simple process; the catch is refining the base into high-grade heroin. The Mexican product has traditionally been pretty poor. They haven’t had the technicians or the equipment, so they haven’t been able to compete with the pure stuff refined in Europe. It takes a real chemist with good laboratory facilities—”

  “A real chemist?” I said, frowning. “I don’t suppose a meteorologist would have an adequate chemical background.”

  Charlie frowned at the interruption. “You’ve got a fixation on this missing Sorenson man, haven’t you? Or do you know something about him you haven’t told me?”

  “Not a thing,” I said honestly. Then I grimaced, and said, a little embarrassed: “Hell, Charlie, I’m a hunch player. Most agents are. I got vibrations when I read that squib in the paper. Humor me and check on Sorenson’s scientific training when you get a chance, will you?”

  She wasn’t impressed. “Well, if you think it’s important,” she said negligently. “Anyway, the border traffic in hard drugs has been relatively unorganized in this area, but we have reason to think Frank Warfel intends to change all that. There are indications that he’s trying to set up a smuggling route between some place here in southern California, and some below the border down along the Baja coast, probably in the neighborhood of Ensenada. Hundreds of pleasure boats wander between U.S. and Mexican waters on a good summer weekend; nobody can really check them all.”

  “Has he got a boat of his own?” I asked. “He didn’t look like a yachting type to me.”

  “That’s more or less what put us onto it,” she said. “He bought a yachting cap and a big seagoing motorsailer a couple of years ago and started getting very nautical indeed. Since then he’s been running down to the Ensenada area quite frequently. Ostensibly it’s just a matter of booze and broads, if you know what I mean—the shipboard parties get pretty noisy sometimes. We have a hunch some of that noise is generated for public consumption, so to speak, and the parties have actually been a cover for some trial runs. Naturally, we’ve left him strictly alone so far. We’ve been trying to determine just how many boats besides the Fleetwind are involved; and where the actual southern terminus is located.”

  “So you’ve got the probable route pinned down,” I said. “Have you any line on the laboratory, and the source of supply?”

  “The source is easy, and at the same time impossible,” she said wryly. “What I mean is, there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of Mexican farmers back in the hills growing the poppies on a small scale. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of independent collectors buying the gum from them and boiling it up to get the morphine base, which they’ll sell to anyone who’ll pay the going price—”

  She had to stop as the elderly gent in coveralls passed us once more, heading for a grimy door next to the office, presumably the john.

  “It would take the Mexican Army to make an impression at that end,” Charlie said when the old man was back on the job once more. “As a matter of fact, the crackdown by our brother agencies along the border has kind of jogged them into taking a little action: burning a few fields and arresting a few
peasants. It won’t last, of course; it never does; but it’s the best we can hope for right now. The laboratory is a different matter. Frankie has got to set up a good one somewhere, if he wants to market a high-class product. We think he must have it just about ready to go.”

  “Have you any idea where?”

  She moved her shoulders half-helplessly. “Not really, except that it will undoubtedly be in Mexico. The surveillance problems are smaller there; besides, the refined heroin takes up less room than the morphine base and is easier to smuggle. We figure it’s either in Ensenada or between there and the border, but Frankie’s been very careful on his south-of-the-border cruises and we’ve had to do our watching from a distance so as not to tip him off. Once we locate the lab, we can get the Mexican authorities to close it down for us—but of course we don’t really want that to happen until the timing is just right. We want to be certain that the place is in actual production, and that Frankie himself has taken delivery of a few kilos and brought them up here, where we’ll be waiting.”

  “What makes you think he’ll handle the smuggling himself?” I asked. “Most of those big boys make a point of keeping their hands clean of everything connected with drugs except the money.”

  “Frankie’s got a problem,” she said. “The syndicate does frown on the dope trade these days, officially, for public relations motives. That means that Frankie’s got to keep his activities secret not only from us, but from his Mafia associates and superiors as well. I don’t think he’ll trust any underlings to handle the first few shipments. He’ll take as few syndicate people into his confidence as possible until he’s got things running smoothly and profitably.”

  “It sounds reasonable,” I said. “But you’re going to a hell of a lot of trouble, it seems to me, to catch just one man with a few pounds of happy-dust.”

  She hesitated. “You don’t understand; it’s not just one man we’re concerned with. At present, the syndicate is more or less out of the drug business, except for a few greedy, rebellious individuals like Frank Warfel. Right now, Frankie’s superiors would certainly crack down on him if they knew he was planning to involve the organization in a risky gamble with dope. But suppose he manages to hold them off until he can show them a smoothly functioning gold mine from which they can all profit? In that case, they’ll be much less likely to chastise him, won’t they? They may even be tempted to change their official policy once more. And even if they don’t, they may find more and more backsliders like Frankie defying their edict—”

  “Actually, from what little I know about them, I gather the various families don’t really have much authority over each other.”

  “That’s right.” Charlie looked at me almost pleadingly. “You see how important it is, Matt? You see that it’s got to take precedence over your quest for vengeance. I mean, thousands of lives will be ruined by drugs if Frankie succeeds; or if… if somebody kills him so we can’t catch him red-handed and make such a big public stink that his Cosa Nostra friends will continue to stay out of the drug business, permanently.”

  Well, she had a point. I might kid her about the strange legal logic that tries to cure an addict by making a criminal of him, but I hold no brief for anyone who tries to cash in on his addiction.

  I said, “Well, to the best of my knowledge, I’m not really after Frank Warfel.”

  “Perhaps not. But judging by your record, which I’ve read with great interest—the parts we were able to obtain—you certainly wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him if he got in your way. And that mustn’t happen.” She drew a long breath. “Look, I’ll make a bargain with you. You leave us our Frankie and we’ll do our best to get you your Nicholas. Okay?”

  I said, “Some bargain. You’ve got instructions to assist me. I’ve got no instructions to assist you—” It hit me belatedly, and I stopped and stared hard at her. “Just what do you know about Nicholas, sweetheart? As far as we know, he’s never been connected with dope, so where did you get the name?”

  She looked down, clearly embarrassed. “Well, I… I just heard something…”

  “Heard?” I said grimly. “Oh, I see. Over the phone.” After a moment, I couldn’t help grinning. “Charlie, I’m surprised and shocked at you, eavesdropping like that. And there I thought you were being so kind and cooperative, saving me from wearing out my dime in a public booth.”

  She said without meeting my eyes, “All our phones are monitored, naturally.”

  “Oh, naturally.”

  “You asked your chief to check up on me. I heard you. Did you think I wouldn’t check up on you?” She forced herself to look at me defiantly. “Do we have a deal, Matt? Frankie for Nicholas and whoever else was involved in killing your girl—as long as it isn’t Frankie.”

  I said, “Hell, I’m not a homicidal maniac, doll, whatever you may have read in my record. If it is Frankie, and you put him away on drug charges, that’ll serve our purpose just as well as shooting him. It’s a deal.” I held out my hand and she shook it. “Okay,” I said, “that’s settled. Now you’d better give me some license numbers and descriptions. Did you recognize the man who ran you off the road?”

  “Yes, it was the ugly one who was driving you around earlier in that beat-up old station wagon.”

  “Willi Keim?”

  “Willy Hansen is the name we know him by.”

  “What model jeep?”

  “It wasn’t the little Universal, but the longer one, kind of fancy, they call a Jeepster. White. California plates.” She gave me the number.

  “And Blame’s wheels?”

  “A sporty convertible, gold with a black top, that she picked up at the airport. She had the top up, of course, in this weather. One of the Pontiacs. I can’t remember all the jazzy names. A Firebird?” She gave me that number, too, and said a little warily: “You sound as if you were planning to take off after her by yourself and leave me here.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Somebody’s got to keep in touch with home base, in case the police report a bad accident involving a gold convertible, or a dead redheaded female body, or something. And you were going to do some research on Sorenson, remember? I’ll head south and check back with you. Have you got anybody at the border to see who goes through?”

  “We’ve always got somebody at the border to see who goes through, Mr. Helm. And in answer to your next question, yes, they’ve been alerted and given all available information. But they can’t take action without bringing in the police officially; that’s not their job.”

  I regarded her for a moment. I would have been happy to trade her for a certain tough, unscrupulous, hot-tempered, redheaded little girl with whom I’d once worked, but that girl was dead. What I had to back me up now was a lady dope cop with ideals, and in this business nothing will kill you faster or deader than ideals. It wasn’t a happy thought.

  “No,” I said, “it’s my job, Charlie. And yours.”

  10

  When I came outside, the mist was just as thick as it had been, or a little thicker, and it smelled just as bad, or a little worse. I went over to the new rental car that had been brought to me by Devlin’s people after I’d explained to the guy on the phone that I’d ditched the other one, because somebody might have seen the license plate at the scene of the shooting and mentioned it to the police. He’d promised to deal with the problem, if it turned out to be a problem.

  I’d already driven the replacement far enough to know that it was never going to become my favorite vehicle: a commuter’s special with too many power gadgets and too little character. It had one of those space-age names—Satellite—that they like to give to cars nowadays when they’re not naming them after animals, birds, or poisonous reptiles.

  Getting into the shiny sedan, I heard a siren on the freeway and saw an ambulance go by up there, heading for Los Angeles. It was the third such emergency vehicle I’d encountered since starting south. Well, it was a bad night for driving. There was bound to be some breakage. With that thought, I slid behin
d the wheel, swung the car around jerkily—a sports car man at heart, I’m not at my best with automatic transmissions and power brakes—and headed for the nearest on-ramp to join the fun.

  Southern California drivers are a courageous lot. You might even call them reckless—perhaps life has lost its meaning down there without real air to breathe. By the time I’d raced that headlong, suicidal traffic through the gradually lessening fog to the outskirts of San Diego, I was happy to pull off the freeway and find a phone. When I called the garage, Charlie Devlin answered promptly.

  “McGrory’s Motor Service.”

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Oh, it’s you. Where are you now?” I told her, and she said: “No farther than that? Well, your subject crossed the border at Tijuana, some twenty miles ahead of you, almost an hour ago. She headed south towards Ensenada, our people report. The white Jeepster was two cars behind her going through the international gate.”

  “Your people couldn’t stick a pin in his tire to stop him, or plant some marihuana under his seat, or something?”

  “Don’t be silly, nobody cares about marihuana smuggled into Mexico. And I told you, these are information people, not action people. When they need muscle they call the police. Or us. Did you want the police dragged into this?”

  “I guess not.” Obviously, if I’d wanted the police, I should have made up my mind earlier. “You’re sure she’s on her way to Ensenada?”

  “No, of course I’m not sure. She could have doubled back, although she wasn’t seen recrossing the border. But she could have swung east towards Mexicali; there’s a good highway just south of the line that runs well over by Arizona. However, when last seen, she was barreling out on Mexico Highway 1, the road that’ll take you clear down Baja California to La Paz, if you and your vehicle are tough enough to make it. It’s about eight hundred miles. The pavement ends about ninety miles south of Ensenada at present. After that, things get pretty rough.”