The sergeant glanced at Fitzgerald. ‘Get on with it, sergeant,’ Lewis boomed.
‘Yes, sir. The bellboy the German assaulted confirms they were the clothes our man was wearing before he took the bellboy’s uniform. The pants and sweater came from a haberdashery shop in northeast Washington, purchased only a few days ago. We got on to that lead, but the shop owner couldn’t really remember the customer. We were luckier with the jacket. We managed to trace it through a laundry stub found in one of the pockets. Belongs to one John McBride, deceased. A labor organizer, we discovered. His mother is a known radical and runs this library and boarding house for international pacifists. It seems a likely hiding place for our man. He may have borrowed some of John McBride’s clothes.’
‘We need a warrant and a dozen men.’
The sergeant smiled sheepishly. ‘The warrant’s in the works, sir. And we’ve got fifteen men in the cars already.’
‘Good man,’ Lewis said. Turning to Fitzgerald, he grinned broadly. ‘This could be it. The break we’ve been waiting for. You want to be in on the kill?’
‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ Fitzgerald said.
ELEVEN
By early afternoon Max was up and dressed. Annie had brought him a charcoal gray suit that John McBride had only worn twice before being killed; the collars of her son’s shirts were too big for Max, so he wore a collarless white shirt under the jacket. It was increasingly a bizarre feeling for Max to be dressed in a dead man’s clothes, and whatever Annie McBride said to the contrary, it was as if he were more and more expected to take the place of the dead man. She had even mistakenly called him John when she brought lunch.
Max was not up to being a surrogate anything to anybody.
But this will be solved soon, as well, he thought. For he now had a plan. One more night and he’d be gone from this room, from this city, from this country forever.
He heard a knocking at the front door downstairs, and pricked up his ears. Annie McBride finally answered it and he could hear muffled voices. Suddenly he felt on guard once again, laid the sketch down on the small table where he was working, got up and went to his door. She was talking now, but he could not make any sense out of the conversation. Opening his door slowly, he half stepped out into the hall. The voices carried up the stairs to him.
‘No,’ Annie McBride was saying. ‘We don’t need any of those here. No call for them.’
‘It’s a trial offer, ma’am,’ a man’s voice replied. ‘Nothing to lose. We install the units free of charge, and you use them for ten days before deciding. You don’t like them, we take them out free of charge. No risk to you. Just let me get a look at your rooms and I can give you an estimate on the spot. All the rooming houses hereabouts are installing them. What do you say?’
‘I say you should shove off and stop bothering me. I don’t want any of your so-called intercommunications systems. God gave us a healthy pair of lungs for a purpose. To be able to shout up the stairs if need be.’
Max smiled at the comment, his tension slackening. He moved back in the room, closing the door behind him. Below, he heard Annie slam the front door shut in the salesman’s face.
Now there’s a hard sell, he thought. I’d hate to be the salesman who knocks on the door of this house.
Fitzgerald sat in the idling police car next to Chief Inspector Lewis, watching with his mouth agape as Agent Niel skipped down the steps of Annie McBride’s house.
‘The silly son of a bitch,’ Lewis said, his jaw clenched. ‘How the hell did he get onto this?’
Fitzgerald simply shook his head, for it was obvious that the Bureau man had traced the lead before them. This could not be a matter of coincidence.
‘I’ll carve out the heart of any man in my command who is tipping off the Bureau,’ Lewis said.
Niel now noticed their car parked down the street and on the same side as the McBride house. He grinned at them, approached the car, and stuck his hatless head in the back window.
‘Fancy you being here, Inspector Lewis.’
Fitzgerald felt Lewis next to him tense as if to attack, then control himself with a heavy sigh.
‘What in the name of Jesus were you doing at that house, Niel?’
Niel grinned back at him impishly. ‘Let’s leave the Lord out of it, inspector. I was merely ascertaining the lay of the land. I was hoping to gain entrance posing as a salesman of intercommunication systems, but the good lady was having none of it. I did, however, see enough from the stoop to figure things out.’
‘And just what the hell have you figured out?’ Lewis blustered at him.
‘The dining room cum library and sitting room are off the hall to the right. Unoccupied. The kitchen is to the left down the entrance hall. The stairs are at the end of the hall. Our man will most likely be above stairs.’
‘Our man?’
‘Come on, inspector. The German agent. He’s been traced here.’
‘Listen, Niel. I’m going to ferret out your little informer in the police department if it’s the last thing I do. And if you’ve managed to compromise this raid by your silly melodramatics—’
‘Hardly silly,’ Niel interrupted. ‘And hardly melodramatic, either. Have you got the back garden covered?’
‘Of course I have,’ Lewis barked at him. ‘Do you take me for a fool?’
Niel only smiled in response to this.
Fitzgerald was beginning to have a bad feeling about the raid. Nothing seemed to be going smoothly, he thought. Every step of the way on this hunt for M the unexpected had turned up, the surprise element. And I am damned tired of surprises.
‘Shall we be at it, then?’ Niel said.
‘This is my operation,’ Lewis said, shifting in his seat to climb out the back door. He opened the door and uncurled his long frame out of the car; Fitzgerald followed from the other side.
The street was alive with blue-uniformed police. Theirs was the only car in the block; the other police had left theirs in the next streets, out of sight of the McBride house. They were all converging on the dwelling on its side of the street, as well, to avoid detection from the windows above. Fitzgerald saw a pair of uniformed police manning the intersections at either end of the block, their vans turned crosswise in the street as barricades, sealing the street off to traffic.
‘If he’s in there, we’ll get him,’ Lewis said, signaling for a sergeant near the McBride door to station men at each corner of the house.
Lewis turned to Fitzgerald. ‘You can see it all from here, Mr Fitzgerald. It’ll be over in a couple of minutes.’
Fitzgerald understood that he was meant to remain behind at the car like some incompetent civilian whom the professionals did not want getting in the way. He momentarily bristled at this, but kept his tongue, leaning against the car in feigned repose. He and the driver of the car remained behind as Lewis and Niel moved toward the house. The car, left running, was vibrating in rhythm to the rapid beating of his own heart.
‘What was strange about him?’ Max was saying inside the house. His entire body was alert suddenly, tingling.
‘He wasn’t a salesman, that’s all,’ Annie McBride said, still out of breath from negotiating the stairs to Max’s bedroom. ‘The minute I closed the door on him I knew something was wrong. He was dressed too flashy for a door-to-door salesman. He wasn’t carrying a samples case; he didn’t even offer me a pamphlet on his product.’
‘So he’s a rotten salesman.’ Yet even as Max said this, he knew he was indulging in false optimism. ‘Besides, how could the police have got onto my whereabouts so soon?’
Mrs McBride did not bother listening to his protests. She crossed the room to the window and, standing to one side and slightly lifting the lace curtain, she glanced out at the street below.
‘Look at that,’ she said.
He went to the other side of the window and looked through a fold in the curtains. ‘I don’t see anything.’
‘Exactly,’ she said, letting the edge of the lace flutter back
against the window. ‘This time of day there should be all sorts of activity outside. Cars going by, pedestrians. But now there’s nothing.’
‘Christ!’ he hissed, feeling automatically for his gun where he had earlier strapped it under his left arm.
‘We’ve got to get you out of here.’ She thought quickly. ‘The attic. It’s the only way. Then out the roof and through the back garden.’
‘They’ll have it cordoned off, as well,’ he said, thinking out loud.
If they really are there, he thought.
But of course they are there. Now stop wishing and start moving.
‘I’ll stall them somehow,’ Annie McBride said. ‘You’ve got to get out of here.’
A loud rapping sounded below at the front door, and they both froze momentarily. Then a shout came: ‘Police! Open up. We have a warrant.’
This galvanized them both: Annie ran screaming from the room, crying out at the top of her lungs for help, like a frightened animal. Max thought of stopping her, of silencing her, but figured she was only trying to save herself now, and he bolted out of the room on her heels, but turned up to the stairs for the attic as she ran down the stairs to the front door. He remembered something suddenly. It would be a long shot, the final gamble, but there was no other way out.
Annie’s screams followed him up the stairs: ‘Help! Help! He’s a killer! He imprisoned me. Please help. He’s getting away through the back!’
Max heard the front door crash open and then this last bit was repeated by Annie even as he lunged against a tiny locked door to the attic, ripping it off its hinges.
She hasn’t betrayed me, after all, he thought. She’s sending the police on a wild goose chase instead, giving me a few minutes to make an escape. Bless you, Annie McBride.
The attic was a clutter of old trunks and wooden boxes filled with books, periodicals, and old clothing. Max made his way through these to one of the dormer windows and looked out.
Wrong one, he thought, and then moved to the one to his left. From this window he saw what he was looking for: his memory had served him right. He unlocked the lower sash of the window and tugged on it, but the window was stuck.
Christ! Come on, he said to himself, putting all his might and effort into pulling the window up, but the wood was sealed tight and the sash would not budge.
Let’s just hope that all the police have followed Annie’s false lead into the back garden, he thought as he drew the pistol out of its leather holster, reversed it to hold it by its barrel, and began smashing the glass and frame.
Fitzgerald and the driver had both automatically raced for the house at the sound of cries from within, as had all the other police stationed outside. By the time Fitzgerald had reached the hall, he could see Lewis and Niel following a squad of police out the back door to the garden. He was suddenly alone with a large and frightened looking woman in a bulky cardigan who he figured must be Mrs McBride.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked, and she nodded dumbly at him, closing her eyes.
‘Did he harm you? Do you need a doctor?’
‘Out the back,’ she said, her hand to her heart. ‘Hurry. He’s getting away.’
Suddenly Fitzgerald heard the distant tinkling of glass being broken. The sound seemed to be coming from upstairs, and his eyes went upward automatically, not understanding. Then, looking at Mrs McBride, he saw her eyes flick nervously toward the stairs and a look of absolute despair crossed her face.
‘He’s up there, isn’t he?’ he shouted at her, but did not bother waiting for an answer. He dashed to the stairs, taking them two at a time, drawing his revolver from out of his overcoat pocket.
It’s going all wrong again, he thought, reaching the first landing and rushing headlong up the stairs to the second floor. All wrong. It’s like a bad dream.
He reached the second floor and saw a door open down the hall, but the sound of breaking glass was now more distinct, coming from the floor above, and he kept to the stairs, climbing as fast as he could.
He can’t get away, he told himself. Not again. I won’t let him. He tripped on a step, falling heavily with his cheek against the cold steel of his revolver, but quickly got up and kept moving to the top of the stairs. At the dormered third floor, he immediately saw the small door torn open and made for this opening. Across the cluttered attic space he saw the German, crouched in the frame of a window.
‘Stop or I’ll shoot!’ he yelled.
The German looked back at him with an intensity that penetrated Fitzgerald like a knife blade; it was a look so full of hate and contempt that he was momentarily mesmerized by it, just long enough for the man to leap from the window.
Fitzgerald shot at the empty space, not believing his eyes.
The man’s committed suicide, he thought. Thrown himself out of the window.
Max felt the wind go out of him as his chest struck a limb of the tree outside the dormer window: the escape route he had noticed his first day at the house. His grip failed for an instant, for his left hand was almost useless, but he held onto the small branch with all his might even as a burning pain shot up his left arm. The branch swung and he held on, swinging with it. Below he could see people congregating in the street, pointing up at him.
Not police, he thought. Neighbors, most likely; curious at the sound of the shot and all the police activity, and all coming out now to see the excitement.
But he had no more chance to think as the branch he was gripping suddenly bent double and cracked. He felt himself slipping down through other branches that tore at his face and ripped his clothes. He grabbed frantically at branches, and suddenly his fall was broken when his right hand caught in the fork of a branch and he was able to wrap his legs around the limb next to it, securing himself. He quickly and deftly shinnied down this limb to the main branch of the tree, the people below getting closer and closer to him, their eyes wide in amazement.
But now he saw men in blue uniforms approaching from both ends of the street. Climbing down, he looked around desperately for some means of escape once he was on the ground. He dangled from the lowest branch for an instant, expecting another shot from Fitzgerald above at any moment, but none came. Damn his soul, Max thought, as he dropped the last five feet to the ground and instantly pulled out his revolver again. Damn him forever. I’ve got to kill him; that’s clear.
The neighbors, startled and screaming at the sight of the gun, provided Max with cover from the approaching police for an instant until he became orientated. No one tried to stop him as he ran first to Annie’s electric car parked under the tree, only to discover that there was no key in it. He then bolted out of the crowd toward the police car at the curb down the street from the house, exhaust fumes pumping out of its tailpipe into the cold air.
‘Stop right where you are!’ one of the policemen running after him shouted.
Max turned toward the voice, crouching at the knees and holding the pistol in a triangle from his body. He pulled off two fast rounds and the cop who had yelled for him to stop suddenly tumbled over in the street, crying out and grabbing his shattered lower leg. The other stopped for a moment to help his fallen comrade.
Max leaped into the driver’s seat of the police car as shots rang out, one smashing into the side of the door in back of him. He put the car into gear, released the parking break and headed directly for two policemen coming at him from the other direction. One of them, red-faced and portly, managed to get one wild shot off before Max nearly ran them both down, their bodies diving to either side of the car as it lunged forward. Only then did he see that the street had been barricaded by a police van.
Nothing for it, he thought, pushing the accelerator to the floor and swerving to miss the front bumper of the van parked at the intersection of O Street. He miscalculated, smashing into the van and tearing off its left front wheel in the process. His lighter car ricocheted from the collision, bouncing up onto the sidewalk and smashing through piled snow and a street lamp. For an instant his visio
n was blocked by snow on the windscreen, and the car lost traction, fishtailing out of control. He threw the wheel into the spin and the car righted itself, its tire treads finally catching the cobblestone of the sidewalk beneath the snow. Another shot rang out, passing through the back window and whistling inches from his head to shatter the glass in front of him, and he again floored the accelerator and sped around the police van, lurching off the sidewalk and heading south down 31st Street toward the river.
The car was limping but still operable, he realized. Looking back through the side mirror, he saw a flurry of activity behind him as the police tried desperately to clear the crippled van out of the way so as to be able to give chase. But he had already turned off 31st before they were able to clear the street, heading west and again south into narrow lanes near the river, and still there was no pursuit.
Fitzgerald watched it all from the dormer window. By the time he reached the window and realized that the German had not jumped to his death, but had used a tree outside to attempt an escape, it was already too late to shoot. Crowds of neighborhood people were gathered beneath the tree, and Fitzgerald was afraid to shoot for fear of hitting one of them. He watched helplessly as the German swung down the branches and leaped to the street; watched unbelievingly as the man raced to the very car he and Lewis had come in, stole it and made his getaway, disabling a police van in the process and thereby blocking the path of pursuit until he had such a head start that no one would be able to follow him.
He’s done it again, Fitzgerald thought, slamming his fist against the window sill. The bastard’s outdone us. Will this never end? Fitzgerald left the attic and walked down the stairs despondently to the second floor. He heard movement in the room there, approached the open door, and saw Agent Niel searching the room.
‘He’s got away again,’ Fitzgerald said.
Niel looked up, his small white teeth baring through his drawn lips.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘He’s made us all look like fools. But for the last time. I swear that.’
Max bumped over railroad tracks and then parked and left the car amongst freight cars at the deserted side railings. No one was about to see him as he headed off on foot south, soon coming to a barge canal that he followed to his right, west, along the pathway upriver. No one was following him, and after half an hour of walking he left the towpath to hide in the dense greenery edging the canal. He was far enough away from the car now that it did not matter if the police found it. They would not be able to track him. Perhaps they might even think he had hopped a train out of town. With his boot he scuffed snow away from a boulder and sat, hidden in the bushes.
The German Agent Page 16
