Monkey on a Chain

by Harlen Campbell

  “What did you decide?”

  “Decided not to decide. You decide. If you want me you can have me.”

  “I want you, April.”

  “Then take me.” She held her arms out. I picked her up and carried her into her room, laid her on the bed.

  “You trying to confuse me?” she asked.

  “I’m trying not to hurt you.”

  “Hurt me. Don’t care.” Her eyes were closing. “Don’t care,” she repeated.

  I pulled the blankets over her. I found the monkey and put it on her bedside table, then put out the light and sat with her until she fell asleep. Then I was hungry.

  There was a place called the Bamboo House down the street. Chinese food with a dimly lit lounge. I picked up a menu and sat at the bar, trying to decide what I wanted. Mongolian chicken or April. The bartender was a Chinese girl in her late twenties. She poured me a Johnny Walker and left me alone with the menu. I stared at it for a while, then set it aside and ordered another Black Label. When I finished the drink, I ordered another. I started to feel good, so I went home and put myself to bed. I didn’t much feel like feeling good.

  April was in a quiet mood the next morning. I took her to a House of Pancakes where we both drank a lot of coffee and pushed eggs around our plates.

  “About last night…” April began.

  “Forget it.”

  “No. I was drunk. But I meant what I said. You decide.”

  “I didn’t think you’d remember that.”

  “I thought about how to say it all afternoon.”

  “It’d be a lousy deal for you.”

  “Either way?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. The problem is who you are. Or what I am.”

  “I know what you are.”

  “Maybe not.”

  She put her hand over mine. “All afternoon,” she said, “I thought about you. You know what I kept remembering? That you decided not to go back to the field.”

  “There wasn’t any choice,” I told her. “You know, when I went over there, I was a believer. I had principles.”

  “I figured that out.”

  “How?” I stared into my cup.

  “You have to be a believer before you can stop believing.” She dug the pendant from her purse and put it on the table between us. “Take it,” she said. “If you want to give it to me again, I’ll wear it. If you don’t, I’ll understand.”

  I put the damned thing in my pocket.

  Sam Pauley was in his office when I called at nine. He wasn’t any happier to hear my voice than Foster had been. I told him what I wanted and where I wanted him to bring it.

  He met us in the lounge at the Bamboo House at noon. The years had been hard on him. He was pushing sixty and looked five years older than that when he walked over to our table. He dropped the folder in front of me and glared at April.

  “Why aren’t you alone?” he demanded.

  “Sit down, Colonel,” I told him. “And don’t worry. I’m not going to introduce you.”

  “I should have busted you twenty years ago!”

  “You were too greedy. Where did your money go? Nice little split-level in Virginia? Don’t get moral with me.”

  “Just get it over with!”

  I picked up the folder and leafed through it. “This is all you have on Squall Line?” I asked.

  “That’s it. I should have guessed your bunch was involved.”

  “What makes you think we were involved?”

  “You had a finger in everything that turned a dollar in Saigon,” he growled. “I’m warning you, if that story makes the papers, I’ll have your ass! Dead!”

  “I’m not in the army anymore,” I told him mildly. “If you want my ass, you’re going to have to bid for it like everyone else. And frankly, you don’t have what it takes. You’re mine, Colonel. As long as you want to enjoy your comfy little retirement, you’re going to dance when I pull your string. Remember that.”

  “Don’t be too sure. I can arrange one last little operation. I could have you taken out anytime I want.”

  “I’m a hunter too, Colonel. Better be sure what kind of animal I am before you load your gun.”

  The bluster left him and he eyed me carefully.

  “Some crap has come up from the old days,” I said. “People are dying. Maybe it’s connected with this” I touched the folder “and maybe it isn’t. You reviewed the file before you brought it. Why don’t I ask some questions? If the answers are right, you can walk out of here with your cherry intact.”

  He had no choice and he knew it. “Shoot,” he said.

  “Who arranged Squall Line?”

  “It was an agency operation.”

  “Who authorized it?”

  “The director, I suppose. I have our files on it, not theirs. We were only peripherally involved.”

  “That means you provided the cargo?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who was liaison?”

  “It was Max Corvin’s baby. He was nominally with Air America, but he handled both ends of this, as well as arranging for the transport. I suppose that’s where you guys came in.”

  “Our names aren’t in the file?”

  When he shook his head, I told him not to add any footnotes. He looked at me like I was crazy. I asked him about the payoffs.

  “The Manila funds were paid through a blind out of Hong Kong,” he said. “Three hundred thousand per load. Corvin got another three hundred a shipment to pay for the transport.”

  And there it was. Corvin skimmed three hundred thousand off each delivery.

  “You’re sure of those figures?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “But wasn’t that…exceptional?” I couldn’t find the word.

  “It was outrageous!” Pauley exploded. “Corvin operated like he had God by the short hairs. His support came from the very highest level. You understand what that means. Money pumped into the operation. And you remember what things were like then. The light at the end of the tunnel was just around the corner, and the shit kept raining down. We were reporting two hundred KIAs a week and shipping five hundred boxes home. It was an international police action and we were the only cop on the beat. The diplomats would have sold their mothers for some international support. Well, Corvin had a way to line Marcos up, and they bought it. The hell of it was that it worked, and so what if it cost a couple of million. They were spending that much every hour over there.”

  “What’s Corvin up to now?”

  Pauley shrugged. “No idea. He isn’t official anymore. A couple of years ago he was doing private contracting. He still has some ears. And when a job comes along that can’t be considered for political reasons, he’s available. He’s used, not liked.”

  “Who would get excited if he disappeared?”

  He gave me a long look. “It’s like that, is it?”

  I didn’t answer. It was a stupid question.

  Pauley thought it over. “Some people might get nervous, but if there were no repercussions, I think our people might be happy. It might even please some of the other agencies.”

  “Happy, or grateful?”

  He looked surprised. “Are you in that line of work?”

  “I want to know how big a pain in the ass Corvin is.”

  “I might be willing to put you on to him. If you could guarantee no repercussions.”

  “You couldn’t get that guarantee from God Almighty,” I told him. “One last question. How did Squall Line end? Who blew the whistle?”

  “No one. It ran to completion.”

  “All three deliveries were made?” I asked. I wanted to see how far out Corvin had strayed.

  “Only two were scheduled,” he told me. “That’s all that were ever planned. Two deliveries. You understand the symbolism of the name? A squall line is a storm front. The sea is calm, then the wind comes up, you take a pounding from the waves, the squall line passes over you, and there is calm again. It was never our intention to unseat Ma
rcos. We just wanted to shake him up a bit.”

  “What happened on the second delivery? Why the ambush?”

  “That was a screw-up. The Manila office was kept in the dark about the whole operation, but they noticed an increase in activity in the mountains. Two banks were hit and a bus was ambushed. Some women and kids were killed. Several police stations were raided. The captured weapons were traceable by their serial numbers. They were originally consigned to Vietnam, so when Marcos’s police asked for help, the local boys stepped in. Their idea was to help a friendly government, that’s all. They acted on their own. They didn’t know they were stepping on any toes.”

  “They knew where the landing would take place,” I said. “They knew all about it. There must have been a tipoff.”

  “I suppose so,” he admitted. “Our file doesn’t show the source.”

  “I think I know it.”

  “Corvin?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, it would have been in keeping with policy at that point in time. After all, they were Communists.”

  “We weren’t.”

  “Yeah. Well, you shouldn’t have been there.”

  I didn’t remind him who put us there. “I want Corvin,” I told him.

  “Find out where he is. I’ll call tomorrow morning. Give me that and I’ll say goodbye.”

  “Make it a permanent goodbye and you’ve got a deal, Rainbow.”

  “Fat chance.” I pushed the folder back to him.

  After Pauley left, we ate. April kept the conversation on the problem of Max. I liked the topic, too. It was safer than the other thing on our minds.

  We still lacked a clear-cut motive for Toker’s death, but there were a couple of interesting possibilities. First, of course, was the money. Assume Roy had picked up the usual three hundred for the second delivery, and the other cargo had paid off the Celestina and her crew. Assume it was intact, hadn’t been invested or otherwise grown. I couldn’t remember the exact amount of the accumulated payoff we set aside for Corvin, but it was in the neighborhood of two hundred thousand in green, converted into stones at favorable rates. Say a bit over four hundred thousand in uncut emeralds, rubies, sapphires, maybe some other shit. Assume it had also remained intact. Figure in two decades of inflation on the jewels. There was something like a million and a half floating around in this deal. Plenty of reason for a killing or two.

  April liked the money angle. I didn’t. Nobody involved was poor. Roy had an accountant’s dislike of waste. He would have picked up the money if it were just lying around, but it looked like a fair chunk of it, maybe all, was already in his pocket way back in ’seventy-one. In any case, he wouldn’t have killed Toker for it. I’d helped him give more than that away, partly to Toker, while we were closing the accounts. So, if not for money, why had Toker died?

  Max had some advantages as a suspect, even beyond the fact that I would enjoy killing him. He had a taste for money and he had the skimming to hide. Of course, he had known about part of the loot, at least, for a long time without going after it. And if he was trying to hide the skimming, who from?

  Corvin’s buddies in the agency didn’t know about it, but who would tell them? Toker? He may have found out about the skimming, but how? And would he care? I didn’t give a damn. Why should he? And wouldn’t he have mentioned it in his letter if he had known?

  The other loose ends didn’t throw much light. The detective in El Paso, Archuleta. It looked like he had been a target of opportunity. Whoever had followed April and me had decided to intercept whatever Archuleta learned in Juarez. The rancho at Las Colonias del Sur, Roy’s hideout. Or maybe Roy had had the detective wasted to keep his secret. Both of those alternatives had merit, but there was no way to decide between them yet.

  The biggest puzzle of all was the one I had been staring at since the afternoon April arrived on my doorstep. Why had Toker brought her home? And I hadn’t a clue on that one.

  After lunch, we checked the post office. The package from Albuquerque was waiting for us, and we officially became Holly Anderson and Roger Bacon. To celebrate, I took us to dinner and a play. They filled the evening, and I didn’t have to think about the pendant until bedtime. It spilled out onto the bedside table when I emptied my pockets. I left it there, but it was on my mind and I couldn’t sleep. Finally, I put the thing around my own neck and then I was able to drop off. April spent the night in her room. I hoped she slept better than I did.

  When Pauley answered his phone at nine-thirty the next morning, he was in a better mood. He sounded as if he was smiling. That made me nervous. “You get it?” I asked.

  “Naturally. He’s incorporated as M.C. Consultants. The listed address is in Georgetown. But I doubt it’ll do you any good.”

  “Why?”

  “Well…look, Porter, I couldn’t just ignore what you said. The old days are over, you understand? I had to talk to some people about you—your offer, I mean”

  I cut him off. “What did you do, Sam?”

  My tone must have disturbed him. It should have. He began to apologize, to explain himself. “Nothing that would hurt you. I wouldn’t do that, Rainbow. You know that. It’s just that I can’t forget my oath. I’m an officer, for Christ’s sake! The past is past and can’t be changed, but—”

  “Shut up!”

  “What? You can’t talk to me like that!”

  “Yes I can, Sam, because the past is never past. I can talk to you any way I want and you’ll damned well listen. Or else. Now tell me what you did.”

  “I told some people that Squall Line was making some waves again, that I’d had a confidential inquiry about Corvin. I didn’t mention your name. I just wanted to know, very hypothetically, you understand, how people would react if the operation resurfaced.”

  “And?”

  “Nobody would be happy, that’s the essence of it, Rainbow. I let my people think Corvin was making the waves. You’ll be very interested in what they said. It ties in with your offer.”

  “That’s the second time you mentioned an offer. I didn’t make an offer, Pauley. Get that out of your head.”

  He paused, then tried another tack. “Well, maybe you should think about making an offer. My people would be grateful to see the last of Corvin, given the right circumstances and guarantees. Very grateful.”

  The man was trying my patience. “Get this through your head, Colonel: I made no offer to you. If you’ve led anyone to believe that you could get me to clean up your messes, you made a mistake. I got off the government payroll twenty years ago and I’m not signing up again.”

  “Did I say this could be very lucrative?”

  “You said it. The pay and the work were shitty in ’Nam and this deal sounds worse. You boys are big enough to wipe your own asses. Don’t try to hire me for the job. I mean that.”

  He was silent for a moment, then said, “You’re putting me in an awkward position, Rainbow. I made certain representations, in good faith, based on what you said to me yesterday. If you try to back out now, I can’t be responsible for what might happen.”

  “Cut the crap, Pauley.” I laughed at him. “If your butt is hanging out on this one, it’s your problem. Cover it yourself. But remember, any shit comes my way and I’ll kick butt. Yours.”

  I hung up on him and told April about the conversation while we drove to Georgetown.

  M.C. Consultants was located in a rent-a-room office complex a mile or two from the Mall. I walked around it first and saw no sign of activity. Then April went in posing as a temporary secretary and talked to the receptionist in the lobby. She told her she’d been called by M.C. Consultants for a project and asked when someone would open the office. The receptionist was helpful and apologetic. She said that no one had opened the office in over two weeks, that Mr. Corvin’s desk was covered with unanswered mail. She didn’t give the impression that she thought much of April’s new employer.

  It looked like Corvin was out hunting. So were we, but we needed a new target. I
had to book first class to get tickets on the afternoon flight to Albuquerque.

  Chapter 8

  TIERRA AMARILLA

  The night approach to Albuquerque from the east is beautiful. The Sandia Mountains lie right on the edge of town. As you fly in, you see scattered lights from houses built in the mountains, then nothing as you pass over the national forest, and then the city lights explode beneath you. The plane passes over the entire city and then banks into a U-turn over the mesa. You lose most of your altitude over the west bank of the Rio Grande, and then, after you cross the river for the second time, the land below climbs quickly up to meet you at the same time you drop toward it. You are on the ground before you expect it.

  Except for the grand concourse, the airport could be anywhere. It is only after you step outside that you realize you’re in the desert. The air is thin and dry. Albuquerque International is about a mile high. When the humidity shoots up to thirty percent, the natives wipe their foreheads and complain about how muggy it is.

  After the Philippines, Seattle, and Washington, it felt like heaven, or as close as I expect to come to heaven. We picked up our bags and caught a shuttle to the car. I gave it the same attention I had the last time we flew in. There were no surprises under the hood this time either.

  We had dinner in Albuquerque and then headed home. Placitas is quiet in the early evening. There was very little traffic on the main drag and none on the road to the house. At the driveway, I stopped and told April to take the wheel and follow me the rest of the way in. I walked up the drive with my eyes open for surprises.

  There had been traffic since we left. I couldn’t tell how recently, but I thought it was in the last couple of days.

  The house was waiting silently when we reached the clearing. I motioned April to stop behind me and studied it. The red Jaguar was parked by the front door. The door was closed and the windows all looked okay from this distance. Same with the garage.

  April came up beside me. “What are you waiting for?”

  “Confidence.”

  She studied it briefly. “It looks fine to me.”

  “It isn’t. Stay here until I call you.” I slipped into the woods and worked my way around the clearing to make sure no one was waiting to do to me what I’d done to the two soldiers by the van on Luzon. The woods were clear. I walked around both the house and the garage. The house hadn’t been approached, as far as I could tell, since the Filipinos, Mexicans, or whatever they had been, that Jenny told me about. But someone had been at the garage. The side door showed signs of forced entry. I unlocked it and stepped cautiously inside, then gave my eyes a chance to adjust to the gloom.