The Innocent Bystanders c-4

by James Munro

  "Who's after you?" Candlish asked. "The coppers?"

  "No," said Craig. "Not the coppers. These lads mean it." And Candlish smiled.

  "You brought a feller here once," he said. "Big fat feller. I did a job for you. Is that him?"

  Craig nodded, and Candlish sighed. "Ill charge you . nowt, John," he said. "But there'll be others, and it'll cost money to beat him."

  "How much?" asked Craig.

  "A thousand quid."

  "Fifteen hundred," said Craig. "Ill pay in dollars. You're entitled to your share."

  "I couldn't take money off ye," said Candlish. "I knew your da." He paused, and Craig marveled for the hundredth time that twenty years of London hadn't modified Candlish's voice in the slightest, so that he had only to speak to carry Craig back at once to his childhood: the cobbled streets, the gulls and docks, the cold, gray-glittering sea.

  "Where?" Candlish asked, and Craig had dreaded the question. "Ireland," he said.

  Candlish went out and Craig saw him dismissing his men, then at the telephone. There was no other way. He'd realized it there in Regent's Park, when he looked at Joanna Benson's view. He couldn't kill himself. Not now. Maybe if he'd been left alone and got drunk enough he'd have done it then. Maybe. But he couldn't try again. And he couldn't just drift, waiting for Loomis to find him. All he could do was finish the job, and do it well enough for Loomis to lay off him till the next time. That meant going back to the States and finding Marcus Kaplan—and getting more information. There had to be more. That was why the Americans had him, but he could be found.

  Candlish came back. "We'd better make a start," he said.

  He rose and put on a bowler hat of antique design that made him look like a bookmaker with a taste for religion.

  "That fat friend of yours won't have forgotten me," he said.

  Loomis missed him by seven minutes. When he arrived the boatyard was locked up tight, and a sign outside said closed till further notice. Nobody had seen Craig, nobody had seen Candlish. The staff—three men and a lad —were on holiday, and Mr. Candlish had probably gone up North to see his relatives . . .

  Mr. Candlish, in fact, was driving to Holyhead in a fish lorry, and Craig went with him as his mate. They stopped in the suburbs for Craig to have his photograph taken, and were met outside Holyhead by a young man in an Aston Martin DB6 who had Craig's new passport—not too new, not too blank, the American visa exactly as it should be. Craig found that his name was John Adams, and that he was a general dealer.

  "Useful that," said the young man. "You can deal in anything you like. Early Picassos or army surplus. Two hundred and fifty quid please."

  "Send me the bill," Candlish said.

  "Anything you say, Mr. Candlish."

  The Aston Martin roared and disappeared, nervous at being so far from London, and Candlish drove on down to the docks. In place of the fishing boat Craig had expected there was an elegant power launch complete with owners—a thin Manchester cotton broker and his fat Sal-ford wife—Craig and Candlish were the crew.

  "Six hundred quid they want—and a hundred and fifty for the lorry," said Candlish. "It's a bloody scandal."

  There was satisfaction in the thought that A. J. Scott-Saunders had provided the money.

  They sailed at once, and made for Cork. There was relief in handling a boat again, the relief of knowing that one skill at least had not deserted him—and the realization of what waited for him in the States killed his need for alcohol. The fat lady from Salford could cook, too, and the weather was clear and bright. The trip at least was bearable, and more than bearable when Arthur started to talk about the old days, about the father Craig could scarcely remember. He took the wheel while Arthur slept, and when it was his turn, found that he too could sleep. Four healing hours that left him alert, ready, as the boat ran into a small, empty cove and Candlish and Craig prepared to go ashore in the dinghy. The thin man and fat woman said nothing, but their eyes on Craig were hungry. Money was going ashore. A lot of money.

  Craig took the oars and Candlish cast off. The sea gleamed in the morning sunlight, bright and diamond-hard, without the Mediterranean tenderness Craig knew so well.

  "You'll have to watch those two," said Craig.

  "I'll watch them." Candlish's voice showed no trace of worry. "They're a bit scared of me, John."

  Craig was still laughing as the dinghy beached. They walked ashore dry shod.

  "Straight up to those cliffs," said Candlish. "Get to the top and you'll find a bit of a path. Follow that and you'll come to a farmhouse. There'll be a Volkswagen there. Take it."

  "Stolen?"

  Candlish chuckled. "Your own car, lad. All in order.

  There's papers to prove it. Just leave it where you want. When the police find it—you'll be miles away." It wasn't a question. He had no doubts of Craig's ability. "Good luck, John."

  Craig scrambled ashore. "Thanks," he said. "So long."

  Candlish watched as Craig went up the beach to the cliff. A good lad. A hard one to get on the wrong side of. He touched the inside of his jacket, and the hundred-dollar bills crackled like music. That fat bitch would be happy when he paid her. Slow and easy he rowed back to the launch.

  Craig found the Volkswagen waiting, a road map open on the front seat, and drove at once to Cork and breakfast in a hotel. Bacon and eggs and tea, and a waiter who talked because he felt like it, because it was a beautiful morning. Craig went next to a travel agency, and then bought clothes, a suitcase, shoes, and set off for Shannon across the cheerful Irish landscape, the improbable green grass and whitewashed cabins unreal as a film set. And why not? The Irish were all actors anyway. That didn't make them any less efficient when they wanted to be, Craig thought, and drove the Volkswagen with care. He daren't risk an accident.

  At Shannon, Ireland stopped and Mid Atlantica began. Even the tea tasted different, at one with the plastic and insurance machines and flight calls. Craig boarded an Aer Lingus Boeing at five o'clock. Nine hours later he was in Chicago, and it was eight p.m. Two hours after that he was at Kennedy, and it was eleven p.m. He went into New York by bus, and found a hotel in the West Forties in downtown Manhattan, and slept for fourteen hours. When he awoke it was time to find Miss Loman.

  He rang Marcus Kaplan Inc. and asked for him by name. When a secretary's voice told him he was on holiday, he said:

  "My name is Adams. John Adams. I had rather hoped to see Mr. Kaplan."

  "I'm sorry, Mr. Adams. We have no way of contacting him right now."

  "Oh dear," said Craig, very British. "It's about claypigeon shooting. What I believe you call skeet shooting over here."

  "That's right," said the girl, and the voice was weary now, long-suffering—a secretary too often involved in her boss's obsession. Skeet shooting to Kaplan was like a fix to a junkie. She didn't dare get in the way. Get off the hook, her instincts said. Fast.

  "You might try Miss Loman, sir," she said. It was that easy.

  She lived in Greenwich Village, on the ground floor of a house in Grove Street, with a small brick yard where a maple tree somehow survived and even gave shade. When Craig called she had been sunbathing, and had to put on a robe to answer the bell's ring. When she saw who it was, she blushed again.

  "I'm sorry," said Craig. "Did I disturb you?"

  "No," she said. "I was in the yard. Do you want to come out?"

  He followed her, thinking how young she was, how easy her movements, with the ease that comes from knowing, really knowing, that nothing can ever go wrong, nothing can really hurt all that much. There was a chair under the tree, and she waved him to it. She sat on a li-lo that lay in the full glare of the sun. She was still blushing.

  Craig said, "What's wrong?"

  "It's ridiculous," Miss Loman said. "Every time I see you I'm like this. Maybe you think I don't have any clothes ... I was sunbathing."

  "Go ahead and sunbathe," said Craig. She hesitated. "Look, Miss Loman, I can't be a prowler. I'm British."

 
She giggled then, took off the robe, and lay down. She wore a tiny bikini and her body was sleek with suntan lotion. A small, luscious body that would one day be fat, but that day was yet to come. A woman's body, thought Craig, who had never subscribed to the theory that women were failed men and ought to look like it.

  "I've come to ask about your uncle," he said.

  Miss Loman pouted. "He's fine," she said. "But he's not my uncle."

  "I'm sorry, I'd forgotten that," said Craig. "Just an old family friend, isn't he?"

  "That's right."

  "Is your father in the millinery business too?"

  "My father's dead, Mr. Craig. So's my mother. Marcus brought me up. Supported me." She hesitated. "He's supporting me now. I got bored being a secretary."

  "You know where he is?"

  She swung round to look at him, her body's movements forgotten. She was wary of him now. "I can't tell you," she said.

  "He's in danger," said Craig. "He could be hurt." She got up and backed away. Craig sat on, under the tree.

  "Just who are you?" she said.

  "You weren't surprised at what I said. You knew it already," said Craig.

  "And how did you know I was here?" She hesitated, then—"Adams. You rang up Marcus's firm, didn't you? Called yourself Adams." She took a step backwards, then another. "I want you out of here."

  Craig sat on, and she retreated further.

  "Marcus knows where his brother is," Craig said. "Maybe you know it too."

  The words stopped her.

  "His brother's dead," she said. "He died in Volochanka prison."

  "He's alive," said Craig. "He escaped from prison—God knows how. The story is he's in Turkey."

  She began to move again, and Craig, still slouched in his chair, suddenly had a gun in his hand. It moved up slowly from her waist to a point between her eyes.

  "Look at it, Miss Loman," said Craig.

  "I'm looking," she said. "You'd never dare-"

  "Miss Loman, you don't believe that," said Craig. "Come and sit down."

  Slowly, her eyes fixed on the gun's black mouth, she obeyed. Craig still didn't move.

  "There's a question you missed," he said. "You should have said, 'Who the hell are you, anyway?'"

  "Who the hell are you, anyway?"

  "British Intelligence. M-16. Department K," said Craig.

  "You'll have to leave here sometime. Ill call the police-"

  She stopped. Craig was shaking his head. "Why wouldn't I?"

  "All sorts of reasons. If you did that—I'd kill your uncle. Or you. Or both." "But that's crazy."

  "Miss Loman, you're up to your neck in a very crazy business. There's another reason. Your uncle wants to see his brother." Her eyes looked into his then, for the first time ignoring the gun. "You know that's true, Miss Loman." She nodded. "I'm the only one who can find him."

  "You think you're so good?"

  Craig said wearily, "I have to be. If I don't, I'm a dead man myself."

  He stood up then, and the gun disappeared in a blur of speed. She looked up into flat gray eyes that told her nothing at all.

  "Where's your uncle, Miss Loman?"

  "Miami Beach," she said. "The Portland Arms."

  "Any skeet shooting there?"

  "Yes," she said. "But nobody goes there now."

  "We will," said Craig.

  He moved then, and took her arm. She could sense the power, carefully controlled, in his hard hands. There was something else too. He was trembling, but her body meant nothing to him. She was sure of it.

  "I meant what I told you," he said. "If I don't get Kaplan, I'm dead. And if I die, Miss Loman, I'm going to have company." He paused. "I'm sorry," he said, "but I'll have to watch you dress."

  To her amazement, she realized the apology was genuine.

  CHAPTER 6

  He wouldn't let her pack. She wore the new dress Marcus had bought for her birthday—a drip-dry thing in glittering yellow, and her handbag was big enough to contain a spare pair of stockings, bra, and pants. He let her take them, but that was all, then they walked together down the street, the pretty girl and the attentive beau who was taking her out to lunch.

  "Nothing's more conspicuous than a suitcase," he said. "Even if your neighbors aren't nosy."

  They took a cab to the air terminal and a bus to Kennedy. He paid for everything in cash, and seemed to have plenty. All the way he was polite and attentive, and she realized that in other circumstances this man would have been attractive to her, tremendously attractive, in spite of the threat of cruelty behind the politeness. Perhaps even because of it. But he was unaware of her as a woman, she knew, and the thought irked her, even then.

  Only once did she almost panic and try to get away. They were in the departure lounge, waiting for their flight call, and a cop walked by, the kind of cop you needed in a situation like this. A big one, big and mean, not the kind who helps old ladies across streets. She stirred in her seat, ready to run, to scream maybe, but Craig was as fast and as sensitive as a cat. His left hand reached out and touched her arm, and pain scalded through her. He let it go, and she saw that his right hand was inside his coat.

  "No," he said. "Not yet." She sat very still. "I had to do that to your uncle once," he said. "You're a hard family to convince."

  Then the flight call came, and they went out to the 727 and he was polite and attentive all over again as he sat by her side. It should have felt like a nightmare, she thought, but it wasn't. She knew that everything he had told her was true, and she was very frightened. For the first time in her twenty-three years of life, death was real to her. She did exactly what he told her, and the smiling, polite man watched her as intently as ever. When they touched down at Miami he bought her a meal, then took her to the car-rental firm that tries harder, and watched as she hired a Chevrolet coupe with the money he had given her. She drove, and he made her pull up on the road into town, slipped something into her hand. "Here," he said. "Put it on."

  It was a wedding ring. Slowly, hating him, she put it on her finger.

  "Don't be sentimental," Craig said. "That's a luxury, believe me—and we can't afford luxuries. You're alive, Miss Loman. Be thankful."

  She drove on, and he made her pull up at a supermarket. They went inside and he bought whisky, sandals, a shirt and jeans for her, and for himself, toothbrushes and a zippered traveling bag. They went to a motel then, and he booked them in for the night, saying little and sounding, when he did speak, like a New Yorker. The woman at reception hardly looked at him, at her not at all. The unending soap opera on the transistor radio had all her attention. Craig thanked her even so, and they drove past the dusty palms, the minute swimming pool to cabin seven. She switched on the air conditioning at once as Craig carried in the bag. The plastic-and-vinyl room was as glittering and unreal as a television ad, but the chairs were comfortable and the twin beds still had springs. Craig opened the bag, took out the whisky, and mixed two drinks, offered one to her. She shook her head.

  "Suit yourself," he said, and took off his coat and sprawled on the bed. She saw for the first time the supple leather harness of his shoulder holster, the gun butt that looked like an obscene extension of his body. Her eyes misted with tears.

  "Not yet," said Craig. "You can cry later. Drink your drink."

  "I hate you," she said.

  "I know. Drink your drink."

  The whisky was strong, and she choked on it, but the tears left her.

  "Get your uncle on the phone," he said, "and tell him exactly what I say. Tell him you're with me—and he's not to worry about you if he does as he's told. Then tell him to meet us at the skeet-shooting place—does he know where it is?"

  She nodded. "He was at the championship here five years ago," she said.

  "Tell him to be there in an hour."

  She looked up the Portland Arms in the phone book, and did just as he said. Aunt Ida was at the beauty shop, and that made it easier. Her uncle took a lot of convincing.

&nb
sp; "Craig?" he said. "That tough Englishman?" "You're to meet him at the skeet-shoot—in an hour," she said.

  "Honey—you know I can't do that."

  She said quickly, "Marcus, you've got to. If you don't— I'm all right now. But if you don't—maybe I won't be. I'm not fooling, Marcus."

  "He's with you?"

  "Yes," she said. "He's with me. Marcus—please do as I say."

  Craig took the phone from her.

  "That's good advice, Mr. Kaplan," he said.

  "If you harm that girl-"

  "It'll be because you didn't turn up," said Craig. "Drive carefully."

  He hung up. She was looking at him in loathing. "I don't believe it," she said. "The first time I met you— I liked you."

  "It doesn't matter," he said. "Get changed." "Here?"

  "In the bathroom, if you're shy," he said. "Just do it. And hurry."

  When she came back she wore the shirt and jeans. The gun lay on the bed, near her hand, and her eyes went to it at once.

  n

  "Go on," said Craig. "Pick it up. Shoot me." She didn't move. "Go on. Get the gun."

  She leaped for it then, and the speed of his reaction was terrifying. He came at her like a diver, and a hard shoulder slammed her into the bed as one hand pinioned her gun hand, the other splayed beneath her chin, thumb and forefinger pressing. She forgot the pain that made her drop the gun, forgot the pain in her breast where his shoulder had caught her, and thought only of the agony the thumb and finger made, crushing nerves, choking out breath.

  "Please," she gasped. "Oh, please."

  He let her go, and the intake of air was an unavoidable agony to her. He picked up the gun and dropped it near her hand.

  "Want to try again?" he said. She shook her head. "Poor Miss Loman," said Craig. "But I had to do it, you know." "Why?" she said. "Why?"

  "To show you you can't win. Look at my hands, Miss Loman."

  He held them up in front of her, and she saw the hard ridges of skin from fingertip to wrist, and across the knuckles.

  "I can break wooden boards with these. With my feet, too. It's called karate. I'm a Seventh Dan black belt. There are only five men outside Japan who can beat me—and they're not in Miami. Miss Loman, we're not taking the gun." He moved his hands closer to her. "Just these."