Black Cat Thrillogy #1

by Reginald Bretnor

“Sí. My military aide went out this morning, with the North Korean minister and some sort of delegate from Beijing, and they bought the ammunition and the guns. My aide did not choose the shops; they did. They bough four guns, as you requested—in four separate places. They are being very careful.”

  “Naturalmente. And the rest?”

  “As you specified. Feng has been shown your requirements. He has agreed to meet you in an empty office in our Ministry of Agriculture, where there is room for TV cameras. From there, you and he will go into the other room, where all is as you wanted it, but that room he does not know about.”

  “Otherwise he is satisfied?”

  “De seguro. He says that he can kill you anywhere.”

  There was a silence, before Estrada asked, “How do you propose to fight this man, my friend? Now we have bought the tools, how will you use them?”

  He listened to the explanation. Then he spoke very softly: “I should not say this thing to you, amigo. I should never say it to the head of a great and friendly state. But do you realize that you are mad?”

  “How would you fight him?”

  “I have watched him. I would never fight him unless I absolutely had to.”

  “I have to,” said the President of the United States.

  They entered the small room simultaneously, by adjoining doors, each group escorted by four Uruguayan officers. The room was new and bare, its slate-gray walls forbidding. Between the doors a table stood, guarded by two more Uruguayans and a grim Chinese. On it there were four double-barreled shotguns, a box of shells.

  Feng was in his marshal’s uniform. In the flesh, he seemed even taller, harder, straighter than on the screen. His cold eyes had taken in the room; obviously he did not like what he had seen. He was speaking to one of his three seconds who, like Quinton and Ouyang and Sergeant Easting, were armed with submachine guns. They were burly men, obviously military but with more than a hint of secret police about them. Loring Giroux was the only man there out of uniform; he wore slacks and a good tweed jacket.

  “Sir, he’s been asking whether he’s on TV,” Major Ouyang said, sotto voce. “They’ve told him that he is, and he’s annoyed because there’s just one camera. It looks like he’s going to make a speech.”

  Almost immediately, lights went on dazzlingly, and the familiar tirade started.

  “Want me to translate it, sir? It’s the same malarkey, only he’s accusing you of trickery, with compliments. He says he’s going to kill you anyhow.”

  “Don’t bother,” Loring Giroux answered. “I’ve heard it all before.” He watched Feng’s mobile face, and listened to the ranting voice, and wondered whether he had underestimated him, or overestimated him, or—Abruptly, his mind flashed him a picture of Ouyang, of his expression when he had looked at Feng. Ouyang’s own parents, he recalled, had been in China when the Reds took over.

  “Major—” He smiled at him. “—let’s try and keep it cool, shall we?”

  As suddenly as it had started, the speech was over, and Feng was barking questions.

  “Sir, he wants to know what the picture is.”

  “Tell him,” the President replied, speaking very clearly, “that we are going to fight with two of those four shotguns. Tell him that they were chosen by his own people, not by ours, and that there was no time for prearrangement or collusion. Tell him to pick two guns, then to select one of them for himself. I will take one of the two remaining.”

  They waited while the Marshal and his seconds made a choice. Then Giroux made his. He picked a double-trigger brush gun, with 25-inch barrels, by Francotte, opened it, checked safety, locks, and firing-pins.

  “Now, Mr. President, this Feng demands to know where you will fight.”

  “Say that I will tell him after we enter the next room. We will go first.”

  They then went through the door, which an Uruguayan brigadier opened for them; and, carefully and suspiciously, Feng and his seconds followed them. It was a room slightly larger than the other, windowless, equally slate gray. It was glaringly illuminated for the TV cameras which, raised on platforms high above the floor, stared down through armor plate. Dead center, there was a standard poker table, with two chairs. There was an armor screen, placed so the seconds, three on either side, would hold the table in their field of fire—but not each other.

  “What does this mean?” Feng demanded.

  “Tell him,” Giroux said, “It means that we will fight here, in this room. Tell him that in my part of the United States, many years ago, we had a type of duel which men fought only when nothing else could settle a dispute—when neither would be satisfied with less. We will sit together at that poker table, he and I. Face to face, we will aim our loaded shotguns at each other, our fingers on the triggers. Then we will wait while the countdown clock—” he pointed at the wall—“ticks off one minute. The last ten seconds will be counted out loud. When it comes round to zero, we will fire—together. If either of us fires prematurely, the other’s seconds will be free to kill him. It is all very simple.”

  Feng listened to his interpreter’s translation, and as he listened his brows drew down like gathering thunderclouds. His voice erupted in a burst of rage.

  Loring Giroux waited for no translation. “Ask him,” he said. “Is he afraid?”

  Ouyang snapped out a few contemptuous words of Mandarin. There was no answer. Momentarily, a look of calculation flickered across the anger on Feng’s face. Then, spitting on the floor viciously, he strode towards the table.

  Briefly, after that, politeness and formality took over. Two Uruguayan field officers stood behind each chair. They bowed to the two duellists. They seated them. They ushered the two groups of seconds into position, the Americans with their Smith & Wesson 9mm caseless submachine guns on one side of the impenetrable screen, the Chinese with their approximately equal pieces on the other. Then the Uruguayans left the room, closing the door behind them.

  The brigadier stepped forward. “Gentlemen,” he asked, “are you ready?”

  Loring Giroux, looking into the twin muzzles of Feng’s gun, said, “I am ready.”

  Feng nodded silently.

  The brigadier stepped back out of the seconds’ field of fire. “Begin!” he ordered.

  The countdown clock began to tick. Like every fatal, final clock, it ticked with an immense and deadly slowness.

  Sixty.

  And fifty-nine.

  And fifty-eight…

  While the world held its breath, Loring Giroux raised his eyes to the unfamiliar and unfathomable eyes confronting him. He had done this at many another poker table, not always at completely friendly games. But it had not been like this. He felt the mounting tension in the room, the silent-screaming tautness of friends and enemies…

  And fifty-seven.

  And fifty-six.

  And—

  Strangely, his own tenseness did not mount. He knew he was afraid, but it was as though he rode his fear with tightly gathered reins. Looking into those eyes, into their blacknesses, he thought, Did I read him right? Have I succeeded in reading him at all? What sort of hand does he think he’s holding? What does he make of me? Now that he knows what this is all about, how is he really taking it? He must’ve thought he had it figured out just now when he decided to shut up and fight… The chances were, he thought, that Feng had then remembered his own much younger, better trained reactions. Well…

  The clock ticked on, but Loring Giroux made no attempt to keep account of it. Forty seconds were left to go, perhaps. Forty, or thirty-eight, or thirty-nine. It made no difference, that time to certain death. Here! He brought himself up short. Now that’s no way to think. He saw the cable-tightness of Feng’s jaw, and wondered whether Feng too felt fear. This is how the world stands today, he thought. Like this Chinese and me. That is why he and I must kill each other—

  Suddenly his f
ear welled up within him, and the certain outcome, whose certainty he had not fully dared to face, confronted him, and through his mind flowed all those thoughts which come to men who know that they must die. Thoughts of those loved, those lost, those who would never touch his hand again. He tried to tell himself that even though he died his country could not lose. Nor could the world. Feng could not win.

  Oh, God! Were there now only twenty seconds between him and death? Twenty? Or twenty-five? Perhaps fifteen?

  He dropped his eyes. He saw the fingers of Marshal Feng’s left hand, around the fore end of the pointed gun. Five precious seconds passed before he comprehended their significance. Their knuckles were beginning to run white, and on the index finger’s tip stood one small drop of sweat. And there was one thing more.

  Then his own fear fell away, and he raised his eyes again, and looked once more into the eyes of Feng Teh-chih, and smiled.

  “Ten!” called the Uruguayan brigadier.

  Slowly, with the ticking clock, he counted down, while the Marshal and the President measured the death that lay between them. The brigadier’s own voice rising high against his will, he counted down to Six, to Five, to Four…

  And, with four seconds left, Feng very deliberately put his shotgun on the table, and stood up.

  It was an excellent performance. His face, carefully composed, showed only anger and contempt. Even his voice, at first, was thoroughly controlled. “This is an idiocy!” he said. “Did you think that I, Feng Teh-chih, would really sit and play your stupid game?” Then suddenly he yelled, “It can prove nothing, nothing, nothing! I shall not let the Chinese people be cheated by this trick of the imperialists! Never! I—I shall yet defeat you, weak Giroux!”

  Loring Giroux, of course, did not learn what he had said until he heard it translated later—but he divined its meaning. “Well, Marshal Feng,” he answered, “are you leaving us? These shotguns are as nothing compared to H-bombs. Surely you aren’t going to give up so good a chance to prove that I’m a paper tiger?”

  Feng did not wait for a translation. He sent his chair crashing to the floor. He bellowed to his seconds. Without another word, he marched out through the door, and they followed him.

  Loring Giroux knew that death left with them. Gradually his fingers on the shotgun relaxed. Mechanically, he opened the gun, took out the shells. He pushed his own chair back—

  Then there was tumult all around him. Estrada Orde had pulled him to his feet and was embracing him. Major Ouyang was doing his best to shake his hand. Quinton, swearing mightily, was pounding him on the back. Newsmen were swarming in, and the TV crews were practically hysterical. Champagne, as if by magic, had appeared out of nowhere.

  * * * *

  It was not until some hours afterwards, when finally they were relaxing in the plane, that General Quinton said, “My God, that was tight there for a while. Laurie, I would’ve sworn that guy would never chicken out.”

  “He didn’t,” the President replied.

  “Sir?”

  “He didn’t. He’s no coward. He’s just completely practical; he’d never give his life unless he’d win by doing it—undying fame, perhaps. At least a victory. He had me buffaloed for just a minute though—until I saw his hands. He wasn’t keyed up half enough—not for a man who’d put on all those raving acts. His hands were tight, but they weren’t tight enough, and they were steady as a rock. It was then I knew he wouldn’t go the route, that he was waiting for me to back down. He’s not a poker player.”

  “What about that threat that he’d defeat you later?”

  “That was for the home folks. Now he’s going to try and play another hand. He figures he’ll get it all explained away, or if not, he’ll simply polish off the opposition. That was the reason for hinting that he’d planned it. This time, I think he’s wrong. I think he’s done for. His people don’t like losers.”

  * * * *

  A fortnight later, Loring Giroux dismissed a special evening meeting of his Cabinet, and went upstairs to where his wife was waiting. He scratched the sheepdog by the desk. He rubbed Beauregard’s smug whiskers. “That cat’s getting fatter than a pig,” he said. “What you been feeding him?”

  She smiled at him. “Shrimp, liver, and filet mignon.”

  “He has it coming. He’s no paper tiger.” He returned her smile. “You’ve heard the news?”

  “Feng?”

  “Yes, he’s down the drain. But, Jen, that isn’t all. The Chinese have just sent a message to the world. They want no cross-the-table shotgun duels; they said exactly that. They want to settle all outstanding differences. It’s just been broadcast.”

  She came to him, and took his hands, and kissed him on the lips. “Oh, God!” she whispered. “Like Cousin Kerby fought the steamboat man—Oh, thank God!”

  Then Loring Giroux put his arm around her, and led her to the doors that gave out on the balcony, and threw them open.

  They stood there together, breathing the clear new air.

  THE MURDERERS’ CIRCLE

  The invitation came as almost a complete surprise to Bryce Lasher, not because he didn’t think he deserved it—he knew he did—but because, after making his abrasive reputation as a mystery critic by denigrating the traditional British detective novel and excoriating its writers, he had expected nothing but enmity on his arrival in London, and for nine days that was exactly what he had experienced—that and, of course, often being snubbed completely, which was even more gratifying.

  His publisher, who had made money out of the UK and Commonwealth rights to his three ruthless, overly explicit novels (termed mysteries only because no one could deny they were full of murders), had at first offered him consolation. “Don’t worry, laddie,” he’d said. “They’re just jealous of your sales in Liverpool.” Then he had realized that no consolation was necessary.

  But even Sounders Egan, the company’s editor-in-chief—a neat, military little man, who had negotiated Lasher’s very favorable contracts—though he was invariably polite and solicitous, could not quite conceal his own suppressed antagonism. He did his duty, arranging autographing parties and bashes for fellow writers, critics and reviewers (which were attended mostly by those who needed the free drinks), and even two speaking engagements, one of them at some sort of police training school where his audience appeared rather puzzled. When the critics and reviewers labelled Lasher abusive, unintelligent, and semiliterate, Egan actually seemed to delight in handing him the clippings. Therefore Lasher was astonished when Egan himself extended the invitation.

  The business day had almost ended. Lasher had happily signed a satisfying contract for a fourth novel not yet written, and they had had a drink to cement the deal. He had actually risen to take off when Egan put a friendly arm around his shoulders and said, as though it were a sudden inspiration, “Bryce—you don’t mind if I call you Bryce, do you?—do you have anything planned for this evening?”

  Lasher had promised himself to spend the evening prowling Soho, where he suspected that his personal decor, patterned after the most expensive male ads in Vanity Fair, would bring him a variety of interesting adventures, but he quickly decided that it would keep. Well, well! he thought. Are they starting to come around? Or are they going to try to soft-soap me into laying off? He laughed to himself. If they thought they’d stop him that way, they’d better have another think coming.

  “I guess I don’t,” he answered. “What’s up?”

  “Well, I don’t know if this’ll interest you,” said Egan, “but a small group of us meet about once a month and have dinner, and sometimes we have a speaker but sometimes we just talk things over. Some of us are authors—there’s Dame Euridice Claythorpe, for example—”

  Woof! thought Lasher. Dame Euridice, with more than 130 novels to her credit, was the unchallenged doyenne of country house party mysteries; much of what he had said about her work would, in a strict
er age, have been considered absolutely libelous.

  “She and who else?”

  “Oh, there’ll be other writers, and a critic or two, naturally, and Commissioner Thwaites-Horton—you know, he runs Scotland Yard. Some of us are into the book end; others are aficionados—really avid ones too. But Jennifer Ouseley’ll be here any minute now. She’s driving right down, so you might like to ride with her. She’ll fill you in on the others.”

  Jennifer Ouseley had come to be regarded as Dame Euridice’s foremost amanuensis and natural successor, and the comments Lasher had made on her work had been tempered only by his realization that, of all mystery writers, she was without doubt the most desirable, at least physically. Not only had she been featured in the tabloids caparisoned only in an infinitesimal French bikini, but thousands of British housewives daydreamed of her reputedly tempestuous love affairs. She had black hair, full red lips, a Gypsy’s eyes. The idea of riding down there with her—wherever there might be—made Lasher surreptitiously lick his lips.

  “And you won’t have to bother to dress,” Egan went on. “We’re very informal—a tight little group, all very close friends, quite democratic really. After all, Peter Splain was a Yarmouth fishing smack captain for years before he took up writing, and Braxton Bellingham—remember, those very technical mysteries?—is scarcely a public school man, even if he is one of our foremost authorities on water snails. Then there’s our host for the evening, dear old Alf Hobble—a real diamond in the rough and rich as Croesus. But hold on—here’s Jennifer now—”

  The door had opened, and there she was. Her eyes swept over Lasher, doing all sorts of things to his glands. She smiled.

  “And who have we here, Sandy?” she asked.

  “My dear,” Egan replied, “this is Bryce Lasher, of whom you’ve certainly heard—”

  Licking his chops, and not surreptitiously, Lasher wondered momentarily about how she’d react. He needn’t have. Her smile embraced him. She laughed softly. “Of course!” she cried out. “Why, what fun!”