The Removers

by Donald Hamilton

  Well, I’d done the same for Tony, so I suppose I had it coming, but it was a funny thing: it did what all the face-slapping and shin-kicking and general roughing-up hadn’t succeeded in doing. I mean, that was all part of the job, but I’d carried the little knife a long time. It was an old friend and wartime comrade. It made things personal between Martell and me. He knew it, all right, and he gave me a kind of challenging glance, asking what I intended to do about it. I started to speak angrily, stopped, and lowered my glance quickly, letting him know I was afraid to antagonize him, lest he come over and hit me again.

  Martell laughed. “All right, Duchess,” he said, and gestured towards Logan. “Fix him up so he’ll last a little while.”

  Beth had caught the silent exchange between us; she was looking at me in a half-puzzled, half-scornful way. I wasn’t measuring up to what she’d expected of me; I wasn’t making the right, courageous speeches. She turned at Martell’s words.

  “Yes,” she said quickly, “of course.” She walked rapidly to the cot, and I heard her breath catch as she saw the ugly wound at close range.

  Martell had stepped back to let her by. Now he put his hands on her shoulders from behind. “They don’t look like much, flat on their backs, do they?” She tried to shrug his hands away. She was looking around helplessly for something to use to stop the bleeding. Martell chuckled. “Is this what you need, Duchess?”

  His hands closed on the collar of her blouse, and jerked apart and down. There was a shrill, ripping sound, and a stifled cry from Beth as the cloth cut into her here and there before yielding to the strain. Some buttons rolled on the floor. Martell opened his hands and let the wrecked blouse fall, in two halves, to her waist.

  “There you are, Duchess. Plenty of bandages, but if you need more, we can probably find you some.”

  He was looking her over with a lot of pleasure, although I didn’t see anything to merit all that attention. She didn’t look very exciting to me as she freed herself from the torn silk: just a woman wearing a handsome chino skirt and, above the waist, a business-like brassiere more or less concealed by a nice, white, obviously quite expensive slip with some lace on it—attractive, but hardly world-shaking.

  Martell licked his lips, however. Even Joey was interested, in his stolid way. Martell said, “Well, go on, Duchess.”

  She didn’t look at him. She was examining a fistful of white silk, obviously closing her mind to the fact that it had very recently been a garment and forcing herself to think of it only as suitable raw material. She tore it into strips, bandaged her husband’s leg quite competently, and wiped her hands clean.

  “There should be a splint to immobilize it,” she said, straightening up.

  “We won’t bother with that,” Martell said. “He’s not going very far, if you know what I mean.” He took her by the arm, clearly pleased that there was no longer a sleeve, even a thin one, to interfere with his enjoyment. In some ways, he was a man of very simple pleasures, Martell. “Now,” he said, “you and I, Duchess, are going in the other room. We’re going to have a lot of fun in there, until your husband chooses to wake up and tell us what he did with that tire—”

  Beth’s face had an incredulous and horrified look. I don’t know why; she must have known it was coming. Maybe she’d closed her mind to that, too. She gave a sudden, frantic jerk and pulled away; then she was running for the door. With amateurs, it could have been a break, and I braced myself to come out of the chair, but Martell was no amateur. He had a weakness, serious for a man in his line of work, but he knew his business. He didn’t waste a moment looking after Beth. His gun came out smoothly, and he took a backward step to a point from which he could cover both Logan and me.

  He said, “Got her, Joey?”

  Joey said, “Yeah, I’ve got her.”

  “Slap her down,” Martell said without turning his head.

  “Sure.”

  It had been a neat bit of team-play, Martell taking over responsibility for Logan and me while Joey, closer, instantly covered the door. Beth had run right into him. Now he held her off a bit with his left hand, and slapped her hard, twice.

  Martell said, “That’s enough. We don’t want to spoil her looks, eh, Joey? Don’t worry. You’ll get your turn. Now watch these two cute ones while I take her back in there and—”

  Beth was sobbing helplessly, less with pain than with sheer terror. The sound annoyed me. I don’t want to sound hard-boiled or anything, but I’d been taking a beating for several hours. Logan was on the cot with a badly injured leg. We all stood a good chance of dying if we didn’t work together properly, and here she was making a big fuss about something of relatively little importance.

  I mean, she was obviously going to be raped anyway. It had been inevitable since early that morning when she’d let them take the shotgun from her. I’d assumed she’d known it—hell, all she had to do was look at the guy—and was planning on it, figuring how best to make use of the fact that she was female, for the common good. I mean, it wasn’t as if she were an innocent young virgin. She was a woman who’d had two husbands and three children. Why did she think I’d wigwagged her to play up to him, anyway?

  I guess the fact is that I’d been counting on her as I’d have counted on a good female agent in the same spot—or any woman with courage and good sense, for that matter. I’d been depending on her to take Martell out of the play and be real nice to him when the opportunity presented itself, like now, long enough for me to put in some propaganda work on Joey, who was long on experience and know-how, but a little short on brains.

  But it was fast becoming obvious that the thought hadn’t crossed her mind, or that if it had, she’d dismissed it as something too horrible to be seriously considered. A provocative glance or two, maybe, even a smile, perhaps, but if anybody seriously expected her to go into that room with this vile man and entertain him. Well! How disgusting could you get, anyway? I wasn’t going to get any help from her, that was abundantly clear.

  At the moment, I would gladly have traded her, and three more like her, for just one kid I could remember, named Tina, who’d have put up a fight, sure, who’d have sobbed and pleaded, perhaps, but who would have yielded at just the right moment, reluctantly at first and then enthusiastically, as if she couldn’t help herself, making Martell feel big and strong and virile and irresistible, keeping him busy and happy until she could get her hands on his gun and blow his brains out. With Tina, I’d have had nothing to worry about except Joey. Martell would never have come out of that room alive...

  Well, Tina was dead. As a matter of fact, I’d had to kill her myself, under orders, the way you kill a savage female watchdog that starts biting the wrong people. It was Tina’s death last year, and Beth’s stumbling upon the unpleasant scene although she’d been warned to stay away, that had led to the breakup of our marriage. At the moment, disappointed and disillusioned and a little scared, knowing it all depended on me now, I couldn’t really see how I’d come to marry the fool woman in the first place.

  Joey had us men covered. Martell had Beth by the arm again, and was pulling her across the room.

  “Please!” she was crying, holding back desperately, “oh, please...!”

  I mean, it was really kind of a silly performance, from a grown woman. I’d known teen-aged girls in France, nice, sheltered young girls, who’d done much better when the Nazis came, without a fraction of Beth’s knowledge and experience. Her terror was too much for the Duke. Whatever he’d had in mind, playing dead—it was a gambit with good possibilities—he gave it up right then.

  “That won’t be necessary,” he said, opening his eyes and pushing himself up on the cot. “The spare wheel you want is five miles back down the road, five-point-three by my odometer. Look for a ravine on the south side. You may have to climb down a ways. Wheels roll, don’t you know?”

  24

  Joey made it in about half an hour. It seemed longer, and I won’t guarantee that it wasn’t, since I didn’t feel lik
e attracting Martell’s attention by moving my arm unnecessarily to check my wristwatch—but as a photographer I used to be able to call off intervals of time with fair accuracy, and I’d say half an hour.

  At the end of it, even Martell was showing signs of strain. After all, a Jaguar uses a fairly large wheel, and a Jag spare tire can hold a lot of heroin which can be sold for a lot of money, a fact which might percolate even into Joey’s dim brain. Of course, Martell had had no choice. If he’d gone after it himself, that would have left us free to work on Joey with threats and blandishments...

  The rest of us weren’t very relaxed and cheerful, either. I kept my attention more or less on Logan. The guy was supposed to be good, and if he had any ideas, I didn’t want to miss them, but all he did was lie on his back and stare at the ceiling. His face was shiny with sweat. I guess his leg was starting to give him hell.

  On the other side of me, in a chair, Beth sat bare-armed and bare-shouldered, trying to assume the casual look of the girls in the corset and girdle ads who float around in their underwear as naturally as if nobody ever wore anything else. I’d paid some attention to her at the start, wondering if I’d misjudged her and if she could have been putting on a deliberate panic act for some reason, but all I saw in her eyes was a dull terror too real to be assumed. There weren’t going to be any bright ideas from her.

  There weren’t going to be any bright ideas from anybody. The age of miracles was over. It was all up to Mrs. Helm’s little boy Matthew, who sometimes played cops and robbers under the code name Eric.

  We heard the Chrysler turn in from the canyon road and come crashing up to the cabin. Joey hurried inside, holding the Jag’s spare wire wheel in a loving embrace. He carried it forward tenderly and placed it on the table.

  He’d already, apparently, pried the tire loose from the rim on one side. Now he pulled the rubber aside and produced a shiny, friction-top, tin can, which he set down in front of him. Then he reached in his pocket and came up with a screwdriver he’d probably got from the Jaguar’s toolkit. All those British cars come equipped with enough tools to rebuild them from scratch.

  Martell put one hand on the can and grasped Joey’s wrist with the other. Joey looked up, surprised and hurt.

  “I’ll do it,” Martell said.

  “Okay, okay,” Joey said.

  Martell took the screwdriver and pried open the can. “Keep an eye on them, damn it!” he said sharply.

  “Okay, okay!” Joey said, turning to face us.

  Martell stuck a finger into the can. I noted that he seemed to poke deeper than necessary, as if he were feeling for something.

  “How is it?” Joey asked, watching us.

  Martell found what he was searching for. I saw his face go smooth with relief. He withdrew his finger, and tasted the white powder that clung to it, and spat.

  “Not bad,” he said. “They haven’t cut it much.” He slapped the lid back on the can and drove it home with his fist. “How many are there?”

  “I didn’t count. The whole damn tire’s full of them.”

  “All right,” Martell said. “Put it back. That Fredericks is a suspicious bastard; if he sees we’ve had it open, he’ll be sure we’ve had a fix out of it, at least—as if I’d touch the lousy stuff!”

  Joey hesitated. “Fenn.”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s a lot of horse. What’s it bring, around a grand an ounce?”

  “So?”

  “I was just thinking—”

  “Nobody ever got hurt just thinking,” Martell said. “Not until they started doing something about it. Did you have in mind doing something about it, Joey?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “Then stick it back in the tire like I told you and stop dreaming. Okay. Now I want you to keep a sharp eye on these characters while I tend to some unfinished business. Duchess!”

  Beth’s head came up quickly. Martell walked over to stand above her. He looked her up and down, and licked his heavy lips.

  “Do you walk or do I drag you?” he asked. “You’re a big girl now, Mrs. Logan. You don’t want these men of yours to see you dragged across the floor like a baby, kicking and screaming. That’s better.”

  She got up very slowly. She looked at Logan, still staring at the ceiling with the sweat of agony running off his face, and she looked at me. She looked at me longer, I guess, because I had two good legs and might get a little farther before the bullet from Joey’s big revolver cut me down. Then she drew a long, shuddering breath and started across the room, and stopped.

  “Larry!” she whispered. “Matt!”

  Nobody said anything. She started walking again. Suddenly Logan moved. I heard the click as Joey cocked his revolver, and Martell’s gun was in his hand. Logan fell back to the cot with a groan, his face gray and wet.

  “Helm!” he said. “For God’s sake!”

  I still couldn’t see that it was worth getting killed for. Well, to prevent it, maybe, but nobody was going to prevent it, and I never could get excited about the idea of dying nobly for nothing.

  I said, “You’re the husband now. You want to be a dead hero, go ahead.”

  He said, “I can’t. We’re all going to be dead, old man, don’t you know that?”

  “I’ve known it for years,” I said. “I’ll still wait for the time.”

  Joey chuckled. He sat down at the table, resting the gun on the big wire wheel lying there.

  “Go on, Fenn,” he said. “Have your fun. They ain’t giving me no trouble. None that I can’t handle.”

  Martell said, in his best Fenn voice, “Nobody’s dying for you today, Duchess. Too bad.”

  Beth licked her lips, pulled her shoulders back, and walked straight into the bedroom. He followed her and closed the door. It didn’t take long. There wasn’t time enough for me to even begin talking to Joey, without looking as if I was rushing things.

  He was wide open for it. I could have worked on his greed, which he’d just betrayed, and dressed it up pretty with an appeal to his patriotism. I could have worried him badly just by letting him know I was a government man. Ever since Dillinger they’ve had a kind of superstitious fear of the G-men, and I wouldn’t have to mention that I didn’t happen to be working for J. Edgar Hoover. But she gave me no time at all.

  Suddenly the door opened and she came out, looking, except for the expression of her eyes, exactly as she’d looked going in. She hadn’t even got her hair badly mussed, not enough that she hadn’t been able to pat it back into place. Except for the missing blouse, and the frozen look in her eyes, she looked as if she’d just been for a stroll around the house.

  Martell was behind her, and he looked angry and unsatisfied. I knew exactly what she’d done. She’d undressed for him fast and let him have her, to get it over with, since she had no choice, but she’d given him no more than he could have got from a properly constructed store-window dummy. In the years to come, if she lived that long, she’d take pride in the fact, no doubt. He’d had her body but he hadn’t touched her soul. Not that she was likely to live that long. None of us were, now.

  He grabbed her and stopped her. I saw his glance touch the wheel on the table before it came to rest on Joey.

  “Okay, Joey,” he said. “Your turn.” He rubbed his head ruefully. “Watch that damn upper berth or you’re like to knock your brains out.”

  Beth’s stony expression didn’t change. She just stood there. Joey looked at her for a moment. It was hard to say what went through his mind, such as it was. Maybe, like me, he’d seen the direction of Martell’s first glance, and got a vague hunch it might be best for him not to leave again. And I suppose he could tell that Lover-Boy Fenn hadn’t gone over real big in there. Maybe he just didn’t figure it was going to be worth the trouble for him to try. But I don’t discount the possibility that he had some kind of decency. This was a woman from a different world, and he’d just stick to his own kind, thanks.

  “I’ll pass it, Fenn,” he said.
/>   Martell looked surprised and annoyed. He started to speak sharply, stopped, and shrugged his shoulders.

  “Suit yourself. I can tell you you’re not missing much.” He gave Beth a shove. “Go on back over there and sit down.”

  Joey glanced at his watch. “We’d better get on a phone and report to Mr. Fredericks that we’ve got it, before he starts getting impatient.”

  Martell said, “Yeah, sure, as soon as we finish what he sent us to do.” He walked up to me and kicked me hard in the shin. He seemed to have a knack for hitting the same place every time. I let him know it hurt. “All right,” he said. “I’m through horsing around, Buster. Where’s Miss Fredericks?”

  I said, “I’m not going to tell—”

  He moved in fast and hard, slugging, chopping with the edge of his hand, slapping, kicking. I covered up as best I could and rolled with the worst ones, riding it out: this didn’t mean anything, either. This was just Martell taking it out on me because a pretty woman hadn’t responded properly to his advances. Or maybe he was just stalling while he figured things out.

  Pretty soon we’d settle down to the lighted-cigarette routine, or he’d send Joey for a pair of pliers. And when Joey came back, he might just possibly walk into a bullet—from my gun, to make it look good later, or Logan’s, but that was lying outside somewhere. In any case, there was something in that tire beside heroin that Martell wanted, and he obviously wanted to get it without having Joey tell all about it later. And since Joey had been so foolish as to refuse to retire gracefully from the room, something might very well happen to him, as it was going to happen to all of us. Meanwhile, Martell was putting on a show, as Fenn, while he made up his mind.