The Demolishers

by Donald Hamilton

  Sandra grimaced. “Ready with a scapegoat like Daddy?”

  I said, “So far, I’ve heard nothing to indicate that what he did for us, and himself, has got your pop into any trouble. Angelita Johansen’s two sidekicks are listed as unmourned casualties of the Florida drug wars and there’s no reason to think they won’t stay that way.” I glanced at her. “Incidentally, the game now stands at seven to thirteen.”

  She frowned. “Game?”

  “We figured that they’d made thirteen points in three bombings, right? Deads a point apiece; woundeds don’t count. And you toted up our score yesterday and made it five. Well, you can add two to that. Arthur Galvez and Howard Koenig were taken out last night on my orders.”

  She started to ask a question and stopped. “Oh, those were the two members of the Council…”

  “Right. So we’re still behind, but gaining. And I haven’t had the slightest protest from my conscience, not a twinge.”

  “Which just goes to prove that it doesn’t exist, as I told you.” Sandra shivered. “To call it a game is disgusting, Matt. Like those body counts in Vietnam.”

  “If they’re dead, they’re dead. Counting won’t hurt them. And your problem is that you’ve got the strange idea these are people we’re talking about. We’re People, honey. Those are Enemies. A different species entirely. Open season.”

  “That’s a convenient way to think, if you can manage it. I can’t.” She grimaced. “But I can’t forget La Mariposa, either. What does that make me, a schizo?”

  I said, “No, just a normal human being, unlike some. But in answer to your original question, yes, I’m looking for a scapegoat, somebody to carry the ball while I run interference. Let’s find out if this scion of New England nobility, Jerome Elliot, fills the bill. Maybe he’ll see us at his office.”

  19

  We never got to see the offices of the Elliot Manufacturing Company. After keeping me on hold for several minutes, a secretary came back on the line and informed me that Mr. Jerome Elliot, Jr., would meet us for lunch at a place called the Chowder Hut. Noon sharp. She didn’t say if he planned to pick up the bill. If he was a real chip off the old block, he probably wouldn’t; those old New England merchants and manufacturers didn’t get rich buying meals for nosy strangers.

  From the gas station phone I could see Sandra giving the Porsche tender loving care, filling the tank, cleaning the windshield and rear window, and even opening the engine compartment back there to check the oil. She was wearing a black silk blouse, and her white slacks fit her nicely—no fashionably baggy bloomers for Mrs. Helm, Jr. I told myself I liked tall blondes and to hell with sturdy little females with shorn black hair. I made a second call, to the contact number, and asked to have the rendezvous covered. At this stage of a mission dealing with folks who got their kicks blowing up restaurants it seemed unwise to keep a lunch date without taking a few precautions.

  “All set?” Sandra asked as I returned to the car.

  “Check. Linda Anson’s dream man is meeting us for lunch. I wonder why.”

  Sandra frowned. “What do you mean?”

  I said, “We have no official standing that Elliot knows about, and he must be pretty damn tired of people asking him about last spring’s explosive incident. Why should he give us the time of day? Even if he’s a little curious about a fellow victim and wants to see you, why make a lunch of it? He could have had us in his office, answered our questions politely, and got rid of us in ten minutes.”

  “I don’t think you understand.” Sandra was very serious. “It’s like a club, a very exclusive club.”

  I said, “I’ve seen things go boom a few times myself, ma’am.”

  “It’s different for you, it’s your business,” she said. “You play games with… with death all the time. For us peaceful citizens to get that kind of a look into hell is a very significant experience. It changes everything. I think maybe Jerome Elliot wants to talk to somebody who’s been there, too.” Sandra hesitated. “Let me handle him, Matt. I have a hunch, after looking at all those glamour shots at the Ansons’… Let me ask the questions, please.”

  “I never argue with anybody’s hunches. Carry on, as they say in the navy.”

  We killed a little time sightseeing; then Sandra looked up the restaurant in the guidebook and navigated us to the address given, but we had a hard time finding a place to leave the car—the parking problem is no closer to being solved in Newport than anywhere else. The Chowder Hut turned out to be a self-consciously gloomy saloon-type establishment with a long, old-fashioned bar and butcher-block tables that would have looked more authentic if they hadn’t been sealed in plastic.

  Although we were right on time, noon sharp, there was no Elliot there to greet us. He had a table reserved, however, but I didn’t like it. Even though Trask’s people were supposed to be covering us, I didn’t like it. I had us moved into a corner where I could put my back against a wall. Wild Bill Hickok had once, just once, made the mistake of sitting with his back to the door. I’d hate to make him feel, wherever he is, that he’d died in vain. Even sipping slowly, we had time to reduce the liquor levels in our glasses significantly, and watch the place fill up, before a blow-dried young businessman came marching in briskly, consulted the headwaiter, and was directed our way. I rose and shook hands with him and was told that he was Jerry. I told him that I was Matt and that Sandra was Sandra.

  Along with his breezy, first-names-only style, Elliot had some other informal habits; and we got to watch him strip for action, removing the coat of his expensive gray suit and arranging it neatly on the back of his chair, unbuttoning his vest and shirt collar, pulling his tie down to half mast, and finally sitting down with a sigh of relief. To me, it always seems like a weird performance, undressing in a public restaurant, but more and more of them are doing it. A gesture of rebellion against the three-piece suit, I suppose. It must be nice to find an easy revolution, one that can be won just by sitting down to lunch bravely in your shirtsleeves. A waiter placed a drink before him. He helped himself to a healthy slug, eyeing Sandra with interest.

  “So you’re the girl who almost got blown up last night,” he said. There was an odd intentness in the way he looked at her, and I remembered her remark about an exclusive club; I guess he was searching for signs of the trauma they shared, beyond the obvious scar. He went on: “That’s twice for you, the paper said. Well, once was enough for me; but we both carry the terrorist brand, don’t we? My right shoulder looks as if somebody’d played tic-tac-toe on it with a sharp knife.”

  Sandra said, “At least we’re still alive. That makes us the lucky ones, I guess. So far lucky, anyway. Maybe they’ll get me next time, the bastards. I’d like to tie them all into chairs, the whole lot of them, in a nice circle, and put a big bomb in the middle of the circle, and let them sit there watching the fuse burning down very, very slowly while I look on from a safe distance, laughing fit to kill as they mess their pants and scream for mercy. Mercy? After they killed my husband like that? Well, you must hate them as much as I do, after what happened to your girl.”

  Her savagery startled me; it was out of character. She saw me looking at her and closed one eye minutely. I realized that she was playing her hunch. Something about the dead Linda Anson or the live Jerry Elliot made this approach seem promising to her.

  I gave him a sharper scrutiny. He looked pretty stock to me, right off the young-executive shelf. There was quite a bit of hair, so meticulously arranged it made me remember Tallman’s tough, no-nonsense crew cut with nostalgia. It was light brown with chestnut glints that might or might not be real. The face it framed so carefully was boyish with a cute little cleft in the chin and a slightly upturned nose. Whatever the origin of the hair color, the freckles were genuine. If he could have played a guitar, he’d have made his fortune as a rock-and-roll idol of the wholesome, as opposed to the degenerate, variety. But the hazel eyes were uneasy, he was a little too hasty with his Scotch or whatever, and his response was
a little slow.

  “Hate? Well, naturally I hate those SOBs; but you’ve got it wrong about Linda. She wasn’t my girl. I mean…” Elliot grimaced. “We used to go together, certainly. But that was back when we were all kids together. That night at the Silver Conch was, well, just a friendly date for old times’ sake. I was getting married the next month.” He made another wry face. “Hell, the way everybody acted afterwards, you’d think getting blown up with a girl was the same as being caught in bed with her!”

  “What happened?” Sandra asked. “About the wedding, I mean.”

  “Oh, it went through on schedule.” He gave his boyish grimace again. “Rally around the flag, boys and girls, even if the groom’s picture just hit the front pages alongside that of the town tramp and he has to march up the aisle with his arm in a sling to remind everybody of his indiscretion. Janet is a very loyal girl.”

  “That’s your wife?” Sandra asked.

  “Yes. Janet Whiteley as was. Very fine family, the Whiteleys, but the old Puritan blood pumps strongly through their arteries.” He took a sip of his drink and looked down at the glass and shook his head ruefully. “I’ll have to do penance for this, I’m supposed to have rejected the Demon Rum, but I couldn’t face talking about… about it cold sober.”

  “About the bombing?” Sandra asked.

  “That’s what you came here to hear about, wasn’t it?” His voice was a little sulky. “Well, I’ve told everybody else, why not you? As far as I was concerned, the whole thing took only a second or two. We were sitting there talking and sipping what was left of our wine, waiting for dessert, when something hit me in the back and right shoulder. There was a kind of wave of heat and sound, not really a noise, if you know what I mean, just a great, deafening, numbing shock.”

  He glanced at Sandra and she said, “I know.”

  “It was like a nightmare,” Elliot went on. “I mean, it was unreal. One moment we were talking politely over our wine; the next, I was feeling my shoulder and back blasted by this incredible force and watching bug-eyed as Linda’s face and dress… well, they were simply ripped right off her. At least that was the way it seemed: shreds of flesh and rags of cloth—and blood, lots of blood—kind of streaming away from her like when one of those creatures disintegrates in a horror movie. And glass, lots of glass. I remembered wondering where all that glass was coming from, even as I was being hurled on top of her along with the table and everything on it. The next thing I knew, I was in the hospital.” He glanced at Sandra. “Well, you know what it’s like. You’ve been through it.”

  She said, “Yes. I try not to remember.”

  He shrugged. “Why bother to try? It’s there like the scars. It may fade a bit, but we’ll never get rid of it completely. I can still see…” He stopped and gulped down the last of his drink and signaled a waiter for a refill. He went on: “What really happened was, there was one of those serving stands behind me and a little to the right, you know, one of the folding jobs with a tray on it. There were some dirty dishes and stuff on the tray, and a big glass pitcher of water. Well, the explosion picked it all up and threw it at us. I got chopped up by the flying china and they tell me I had a fork sticking into my shoulder like a spear. Linda took the heavy water pitcher right in the face; it kind of exploded when it hit. It fractured her skull in addition to all the superficial damage, if you want to call that superficial. They kept her alive for a couple of days, but she never regained consciousness. Perhaps it was just as well she never knew what had been done to her.” He was silent for a moment; then he shivered slightly and reached out for the fresh drink that had been placed in front of him. He tasted it and set it down. “Maybe we’d better order. I’ve got to see somebody at the office at one. They have chowder, chowder, and more chowder. Oyster, clam, fish, you name it. Very substantial; one bowl is a meal and a half. But if you can’t take chowder, they serve a pretty good hamburger.”

  Everybody settled for clam chowder. It turned out to be very good, the creamy New England product rather than the thinner Manhattan variety; and we didn’t talk much as we shoveled it out of the outsized bowls.

  “Reminds me of picnics on the beach when I was a kid,” Elliot said at last, sitting back with a sigh of satisfaction. “We’d dig the clams ourselves at low tide and steam them in seaweed.”

  “Was Linda a picnic girl?” Sandra asked.

  Elliot laughed shortly. “Not so you’d notice. Janet was—we all grew up together—but Linda! Gripe, gripe, gripe. Sand in her shoes. Bugs in her hair. But, God, she was pretty even way back then!”

  Sandra spoke carefully: “If somebody showed you how to get a crack at this outfit, the Caribbean Legion, to pay them back for what they did to her…”

  He laughed again, short and sharp. “You don’t know how ridiculous that suggestion is!” Then he realized that he’d betrayed more than he’d intended, and he went on hastily: “I mean…”

  “You mean she was blackmailing you, don’t you?” Sandra said.

  There was a long silence. At last Elliot licked his lips and asked, “How did you know?”

  “I saw her pictures at her parents’ house. Lovely, but quite immoral and unscrupulous. Ordinary standards of human behavior were not for her.” Sandra shrugged. “Besides, why else would you jeopardize your impending marriage by allowing yourself to be seen in public with a woman you yourself just called the town tramp? You wouldn’t have called her that if you were still fond of her, so it could hardly have been the friendly farewell date you claimed. She must have twisted your arm in some way to make you buy her a dinner in one of the best restaurants in town.”

  Elliot shook his head. “You’re a smart girl, Sandra, and you’ve got the basic idea all right, but you missed a little on the details. Linda actually wanted us to meet at a shabby little roadhouse she knew; but with my wedding only a month away I wasn’t going to get involved in any sneaky, back alley assignations with a girl Janet detested. If I had to see Linda—and she made it sound imperative—it was safest doing it right out in the open in the Silver Conch.”

  Sandra said dryly, “Not so safe after all, as it turned out; but you couldn’t know that a gang of Caribbean fanatics would join the party.”

  Elliot ignored that. He said, “You’ve done some pretty good guessing; you might as well hear the rest. It was something that happened a good many years ago. Linda got pregnant. It could have been mine. She said it was. I hit my folks for enough money to pay for the abortion without telling them why I needed it. I went with her to where it was easy and legal, never mind where. Linda had the evidence, all the bills with my name on them. And Janet is pretty straitlaced—I told you about those puritanical Whiteleys—and she’s always felt strongly about all that right-to-life stuff, even before they started calling it that. She knew about Linda and me, of course, it must have been pretty obvious at the time; but a long-ago love affair was one thing. A secret pregnancy and abortion might have been harder for her to accept. At least Linda thought I’d be willing to pay to have the information suppressed.”

  “What did she want the money for?”

  “Thirty-five thousand was the figure,” Elliot said. He glanced at me when I whistled, and smiled thinly. “Yes, Linda was never a piker. She didn’t say why she needed it, exactly, but I got the impression that she’d played one of her gold-digger games with a gentleman in New York who wasn’t a true gentleman. Few of them are, in New York. Just what he’d been buying and she’d been selling wasn’t quite clear—beautiful as she was, I can’t see anybody paying thirty-five grand just to sleep with her, but she’d held out on him in some way, and he wanted his money back, the cheapskate.”

  “Could it have been a gambling debt?” Sandra asked.

  Elliot shrugged. “I suppose so. It wasn’t one of her vices back when I was going with her, but she picked them up fast.” His voice was bitter, the disillusioned voice of a man remembering an angel with shop-soiled wings. He went on: “Of course she’d already spent the money. The m
an apparently told her that if she didn’t pay up by a certain date, he’d send some of his friends around to see her with brass knuckles. That’s why she fled from New York and came back here hoping he couldn’t find her. However, he tracked her down; she’d just got a call from him reminding her that her time was almost up. So thirty-five grand, please, or Janet learns the worst about the man she’s about to marry.” He grimaced. “Of course, with Linda, you never knew. That menacing gentleman in New York, who was no gentleman, could have been quite imaginary. She could just have developed a compulsive desire for a sable coat.”

  He swallowed the last of his second drink and looked around for a waiter, but changed his mind and shoved the glass away from him. People were leaving now, finished with their meals.

  “I’ve got to get back,” Elliot said with a glance at his watch. “I told her no deal, of course. I mean, I couldn’t let it get to be a habit. That long-ago abortion I paid for was all right; she’d been entitled to all the help she needed under those circumstances. But now… I couldn’t have her thinking she had something on me and coming around with her hand out every time she wanted a fur coat, or more gambling money, or whatever. Anyway, I said no. I told her I’d see Janet myself that very night and tell her all about it; and Miss Linda Anson would be smart to settle for a good dinner and forget the whole thing.”

  “I bet she didn’t like that,” Sandra said.

  “She didn’t.” Elliot’s voice was grim. “I hadn’t realized what kind of a person… I think she must have been on something. She hadn’t drunk very much, just the wine, but maybe it reacted with something she’d taken earlier to prepare her for the interview. Anyway, she started in on me in a nice, low voice, smiling at me fondly across the table, and telling me things about myself and herself… She made it all dirty, everything we’d shared when we were younger. I’d been very much in love with her, and she told me what a prize sap she’d thought me, mooning around her like an affectionate puppy. Then she got to work on Janet. I suppose she was jealous, she never liked losing a man to another woman even if she didn’t want him anymore; and she said some pretty vicious things. By the time she was through… well, as far as I was concerned, that New York hoodlum could have her if he made it quick; otherwise I’d do the job for him.”