"Pity I should have to kill you, Edward. But there is no further point to this. We have said all there is to say to each other. I shall deal with Miss Carr in due time—" Her voice faded on a trailing-off note, and exactly at that second I could hear the elevator in the hallway outside stop at my floor. The mechanical hum of the contraption sounded as clear as a bell. Dame Paul didn't seem to hear it. Nor did she seem aware of the clicking noises that Melissa Mercer's high heels made in the marble corridor. I couldn't wait a second longer. I toed the alarm buzzer, which is no more than a tiny bulge under the carpet beneath the floor. In a momentous few ticks of time, everything happened.
For one thing, the buzzer made a whirring song that sounded like a buzzing bee in the outer office. For another, Louise Warrington Paul did hear that sound, and her gray head flew around to peer in the direction of the disturbance. Only for a fractional removal of her attention on me. But it was enough. All I would ever need in this life. Added to the quick and startling transference of eyes, heads, and bodies was the hurried staccato pound of Melissa's heels running in the outer office. I didn't have time to go for my .45. All I could do I did. There was just no time left to play games.
I rocketed back in the swivel chair, over and down, plunging for the floor behind the desk, shoving the nearest glass ash tray at Dame Paul. Her answer was the only one. A responsive, almost reflex gesture. She closed her open hand into a fist and the sleeve gun made a cough of a sound. There was a rush of air, a swishing swath of hissing noise, and the window behind me disintegrated into a shower of breaking glass. Shards flew. In its immediate aftermath, Louise Warrington Paul swore lustily, scrambled up from the client's chair, and waddled like a frenzied duck for the clutch bag lying on the corner of my desk. That's the trouble with secret weapons like sleeve guns. They're only good for one shot. I came up off the floor in a bound, met her at the desk corner, and slammed my hand down over hers. I've seldom hit a woman in my life, least of all a grandmother type, but Dame Paul was no doddering, helpless old butterfly. She proved that to me in a hurry. Just as Melissa Mercer came running into the office, waving the nickel-plated .22 automatic I ask her to keep in her desk. For emergencies just like this one.
"Don't shoot," I yelled and figured I could wrap up Milady in a fist flurry of muscle. I got the surprise of my life. Dame Paul brought her hand up from the desk, clasped it to her other fist, and made a roundhouse swing upward to my jaw. I didn't get out of the way quite fast enough. The hard blow caught me along the cheek, and it packed a lot of wallop. I fell backward and Louise Warrington Paul followed through with a right and left karate chop that would have taken my Adam's apple and crushed it like a grape had either of the slaps landed. I side-stepped, almost stupefied, but there was nothing left for me to do. It was a joke, really. Melissa standing behind Lady Paul, covering her with the .22, eyes open in shock. What she must have thought. Her friend, lover, and employer slugging it out with a woman who looked as ancient as Dame Paul did. Like a Grandma Moses.
I hit the grande dame just once.
A Sunday Punch delivered on Saturday.
Right on the button, after I waded between her slicing arms, and delivered a smash to her jaw. She flew backward, teetered like a Raggedy Ann doll for an instant—all disorganized, a puppet that had lost its strings—and then her slitted eyes closed, and she fell to the carpet unconscious. She sprawled in the center of the office, just missing Melissa. The Robin Hood hat rolled along the floor. Lady Louise was as hors de as she would ever be.
"My God," Melissa breathed excitedly, lowering the .22.
"You can say that again. You okay?"
"Fine. I didn't know what to expect when I heard the buzzer. But I never expected the old lady again—"
I got down to one knee and checked Dame Paul's pulse. She was all right. But with people her age, even the slightest jar isn't any laughing matter, no matter how good a condition they stay in.
I readjusted my tie, brushed my hair back, and took a deep breath. "She's a great old lady spy, Mel. Works for the English. But she flipped her lid. As least she talked like she did. Hang onto your appetite a while longer. We'll have to clear up some unfinished business."
"What are you going to do with her?"
"Nothing much I can do. Except turn her in. She has got the precious film, according to her. Somebody's going to want it back. But I'm not going to put her through a third degree to get it. This is the government's headache. I wish Felicia hadn't taken off. She'd know who to deliver her to."
Melissa frowned. "A girl just never knows what to expect with you. Is there anybody you want me to call?"
"Let me think about that a minute." I flipped open the clutch bag on the desk. A man in my business doesn't believe in miracles. Or lucky breaks. Or manna from heaven. But there is a jackpot sometimes for people who are on the side of the angels. Among the usual female folderol found in handbags, I discovered a lipstick tube that felt too light to be worth carrying. Sure enough, when I opened the cylinder, out dropped a tiny, closely packed roll of dark film that could only be one thing. I didn't even bother to hold it up to the light and see. Diagrams and numbers wouldn't have meant a thing to an untechnical guy like me. The small spool had to be what all the commotion was about.
"It's Christmas," I said. "The microfilm."
"Are you sure?"
"What else? She probably didn't dare leave it anywhere. She told me she was going to sell it to the highest bidder. Chances are she wanted it with her at all times, so if she had to run, she'd be ready. What a break." There was also a Derringer in the handbag.
"Now—do you want me to call anybody?"
"Yeah. There's only one place to call. The Central Intelligence Agency. They've got a New York field office. I'm sure they'll know what to do with Louise Warrington Paul. There's something mighty peculiar about this whole project, though."
"What does that mean?"
I shrugged. "The CIA has been supposedly involved in all this from the start. Yet we haven't seen a CIA man in all this time. Maybe we've been under surveillance—I'm not sure about that—but isn't it reasonable to assume that the CIA would have been all over this thing one way or another? Weren't they aware of Godlove? Wouldn't they have followed this old doll around just to play safe? Doesn't make sense at all. Something's missing. And Felicia running out of town without so much as by-your-leave. Why should she have to take off in such a big hurry? I tell you it all doesn't add up." I eyed the old lady sprawled on my carpet floor. "I think the whole answer is in the Duchess there. And also in Christian Godlove, who was also Marcus Strang, a butcher from way back. Anyhow, you call them for me. Maybe somebody down there will give us a straight story."
Melissa nodded and started for the door. She paused, and then turned to look at me. Her eyes were wistful, and her expression would have melted the Frozen North.
"After this is all over, Ed, can we talk about Felicia? There are some things I'd like you to know—"
"All right. But call first, huh?"
She snapped me a soft salute, clicked her heels, said "Yes, Sir!" and went on into the outer office. I went back to the desk, pulled out my chair so I could keep an eye on the sleeping Dame Paul and generally keep the situation well in hand. The broken windows let in a lot of fresh air. Cool, early-evening winds.
But somehow it wasn't enough to drive away the stench of a batch of dead fish that had been sold to me sometime yesterday morning when I had received a phone call from the White House, Washington, D.C. A long-distance summons from The Man. The Chief. Mr. Number One.
The only balm in the whole thing was that perhaps they had sold the fish to the President, too.
In the complex, stupefyingly twisted world of espionage and counterespionage, all things are possible. No matter how convoluted their motivation is.
The spy agencies of the universe have made dummies and pawns out of bigger men than me, you know. Look it up. It's in the record.
Men like kings, premiers, sultans,
prime ministers—and presidents. The Cold War and Global Peace and One World Or None have been the sterling excuses for such deceptions. Don't you remember? Read the papers. The Bay of Pigs, the U-2 Affair, the Pueblo. All that international chess to make a point and prove it. At any rate, I was very suspicious that Operation Horsehide would turn out to be another one of those. A Trojan Horse, sort of, to fool the Greeks.
Whatever it was, I meant to find out.
Without stretching my own neck in the process.
15
Last Ball in Play
I went to Shea Stadium the next afternoon. For two good reasons. The CIA man wanted to meet me there because he was a Mets fan who rarely had time to see a game. And he insisted he couldn't tell me all I wanted to know on a telephone once I had turned Louise Warrington Paul over to his organization. Dame Paul had been led away in a daze, her Robin Hood hat askew, her eyes as dotty as two raisins in a pudding. She had just about left the borders of reality when the pinch was officially made.
The CIA man, whose name isn't important, had two good box seats behind the dugout, and as the Mets and the Giants collided for a doubleheader, closing out the four-game set that had begun on Friday, I got the whole scoop. In dribs and drabs, more or less, because his story was punctuated by an outburst of Met homers and the roaring approval of another Shea full house. Cardwell pitched the opener, notching a four-hit shutout, and Boswell and Kranepool homered to make it a 7-0 rout. Ed Charles had hit two doubles, scoring three times.
The CIA man, enjoying himself as much as any civilian, made his story short, clear, and precise. It was roughly what I had expected since the last time I had seen Louise Warrington Paul in the office. She had been set up for the kill by her own people, who no longer trusted her. As way out as that motive was.
"You trying to tell me this whole thing about microfilm and ABM programs was a set-up to trip up the old girl?"
"That's it, Noon. England had wondered about her long enough. She was too prominent and legendary to flush out on just a theory that she might be losing her grip. Also, they had to test her. So they did. They created a whole cloth about the microfilm, put her on it, made her coordinate with us just to see what she would do. Well, she did it, didn't she? Got greedy, went into business for herself, and you saw the results. Also—they had a double motive. They had a code leak and a planned sure-fire method to let this Strang character get in on the act, too. They'd been trying to stop his clocks for years."
"You're going too fast for me."
"Am I? Sorry." His smile was so open and honest, you never would have thought he was interested in anything but baseball. "Strang was Murder, Incorporated. Everybody's wanted a crack at him. But he had gone underground. He had to be flushed out. You wouldn't know, but the man was a walking Death. He had killed just about everybody. Important agents, political assassinations. The works. So Great Britain baited him with this microfilm gag. The stakes would be high for that. So while they were checking on Paul's loyalty, they also got a crack at an international pain-in-the-ass."
"I see." Not even the Mets scoring a flock of runs could make me happy. "So everybody tells everybody else nothing. And a good man like Blassingame is killed. Not to mention that me and my secretary and a dame from Naval Intelligence almost get——" I shook my head sadly. "Tell me, CIA man. Is it worth it? All this playing with other people's lives just to make the world safe for Democracy?"
His face was no longer open and honest. He frowned at me, pulling his attention away from the ball game, where the Mets were accomplishing all sorts of wonderful things. But so much had happened since my visit to Shea on Friday that I had lost interest.
"What kind of question is that? You're in this kind of business, too, from what little I know about your operation. Don't tell me that you still don't know that we have to forget about the individual for the good of everybody else."
I stared him straight in the eye on that one.
"No. You don't have to tell me. But I don't have to like it, do I?" He didn't answer that one. Just shrugged and munched a hot dog.
I didn't stay for the second game. I thanked my CIA informant for his help and drove back to Manhattan in the Olds. The car radio let me know that in the third inning of the second game with Nolan Ryan blazing his fast ball, Jones had tripled with the bases loaded, to make the score 3-0. The Mets won that game, too—6-2, and the double sweep of the Giants put Gil's boys in a perfect position for the drive to first place. But I wasn't in the mood for the National Pastime that day. I was thinking too much about the vicissitudes of running a country and staying alive. I couldn't get over the suggestion that England had launched a spurious espionage operation solely to test a great agent's loyalty and possibly nail another enemy spy in the process. It was equally incredible to me that there would be so much cooperation all around. On all sides. The CIA, Naval Intelligence, the President, and who-knew-who-else?
Which made me think of Louise Warrington Paul. And her final words to me as she was led out of the mouse auditorium in irons, as Melissa Mercer looked on without cheering.
'Ta, Edward. It's been."
"So long, Dame Paul."
Her tiny eyes had glowed fondly, but her stiff-upper British lip hadn't sagged a fraction of an inch.
"You dear fellow. Tell me. If the opportunity presents itself in future, would you do an old woman a very great favor?"
"Name it. If it's in my power—"
"Oh, no question of that. It most certainly is. It's just that I was thinking." The Robin Hood hat cocked at me for the very last time. "I do think it would be such fun to go mountain climbing with you. What larks we could have!"
"Sure. Any time. Consider it a date."
When they led her out of the office, she was alternately nodding and murmuring to herself as if she and I had settled one of the greatest problems in the universe. And the celebrated ghost of Sir Henry Twillson Paul, K.O.B.E., must have beckoned to her from the far side of the Great Divide. Her own very dear Colonel.
I cursed roundly when she was gone. Melissa Mercer didn't try to stop me.
Why the hell hadn't they just asked Louise Warrington Paul to retire and let it go at that?
Too easy, I guessed.
Monday morning I called the White House. On the red-white-and-blue phone. Melissa was at the bank making some deposits and withdrawals. Which was just as well. I had wanted to be alone when I talked to The Man. It was another sunny August day, and the world hadn't altered very much. The UN building was being repaired, and the Mets were on their way to San Diego to tangle with the Padres, one of the new expansion clubs that was proving a good one in spite of all its shortcomings. The Mets were in fine shape, and so was I. It was only that my mood was rotten. Because of what the CIA man had told me, because of not hearing from Felicia Carr, and also because Melissa had strangely kept her distance since Saturday night.
The Chief sounded tired. His voice was slightly hoarse. But I welcomed him home, didn't bother asking about Teheran, and waited for him to say something. He couldn't have been back at his desk too long.
He did, finally. Say something.
"Central Intelligence sent me the full report. Congratulations, Ed. Glad everything worked out. You know, of course, I had no inkling of what was being planned. Normally, I wouldn't have offered you up as bait. But since it's worked out for the best—I really don't see how they could have succeeded without you. Commander Thorpe is properly awed with you."
"Thank you. And the Commander—whoever he is."
He knows me very well. I must have sounded fiat and sarcastic, in spite of my best intentions not to.
"Actually it was far more vital than it may seem to you on the surface. Garnu Sin's death was murder—and the CIA attributes it directly to the machinations of this Marcus Strang, who seems to have had a world-wide ring for which he pulled the strings and pushed the buttons. He was here in this country to coordinate another political assassination. We don't know exactly who. But it could ha
ve been mine—"
"You're saying he was side-tracked by the possibilities of this valuable microfilm?"
"Yes. Such a secret would have been worth millions to interested parties. You've heard about the UN sabotage, of course."
"It made all the papers."
"Strang, again. A show of power and what he could do for his clients overseas. That's the nub of it, Ed. Never mind the grand old lady of British espionage. That was worth it, too. But stopping a menace like Strang is probably as important as anything in the world of politics today."
"All right," I said, relieved. "Just wanted to hear your side of it. Take care now. I'll ring off. Till we talk again."
"Good-bye, Ed. I can't thank you enough—Just remember the need for having to cut bait and fish from time to time."
"I'll remember."
When I hung up, I tried to get interested in going over some old files and records in my desk drawer. I couldn't I kept thinking about too many things. Felicia and Melissa. Melissa and Felicia. Dame Louise Warrington Paul. Christian Godlove's ugly face. The autographed baseball. The dog-eat-dog aspect of it all. The international chess game that moved people around like so many pawns, finding them very dispensable and expendable whenever it served the purposes of the game. It was a bind, all right, and in spite of my lone-wolf card, I was just as much a tool as the next man. I didn't like the idea. I didn't like the feeling it gave me.
The regular phone rang about ten minutes later. It was Long Distance. Washington calling. When the stereotyped operator's voice made the connection, my heart flipped and flopped like a landed fish. It was her. Sounding as breezy, huskily intimate, and as close as the next room.
"It's me," she said simply.
"Hello, you."
"Sorry I had to run out. Just as well. I needed the time to think. Pull myself together. They needed me here for something, and I had to catch a plane at Kennedy. Okay?"
"Okay. I love you."
Little Miss Murder Page 16
