The Blackbirder

by Dorothy B. Hughes

  She ate early, cleaned up after her. She didn't go upstairs until after the 9:30 news broadcast. There was still no mention of her or of Jacques. In her bedroom she looked out the window at snow and darkness. She even went into the front room where she could see the road. She counted two cars at intervals. Across on the corner there was golden lamplight in a room, a child sprawled in a chair with a schoolbook.

  She returned to her own bedroom. Tomorrow she'd better leave, not push her fortune longer. Wait for darkness, make her way into town. The bandanna over her head, the levis, the mackinaw. She'd have an easier time getting into the hotel than in the blanket. Watch the lobby for a safe moment, get her parcel, leave. She wouldn't need to return to her room.

  She undressed, folded her clothes over the chair, ran water for a bath. It relaxed her. Her own underthings were clean and dry now, she put the young girl's down the laundry chute. Her unknown fairy godmother would never realize that she herself hadn't dropped them there. Julie Guille in ancient times wouldn't have known.

  She slipped into the bathrobe, brushed her hair before the dressing-table mirror in the almost blacked-out light. Only a person who had lived with silence these days would have heard the sound. Someone outside the house below. She turned off the light swiftly, stood, ears pointed for sound.

  It came. Someone circling the house. More than one person. At the rear now. Voices muffled. She snatched up her clothes, fled into the closet, dressed there. She even put on the mackinaw, tied the bandanna about her head. Gun in right pocket, torch in left. The purse was a hazard. She emptied it, stuffing its contents into the deep pockets of her levis.

  The sounds were in the house now. She knew who made them. Not the women of the house. The rightful occupants wouldn't murmur, wouldn't walk softly.

  There were no back stairs. The windows were high above the ground, too high for escape. She was trapped. Unless she could make it down the front stairs before the intruders started up. She couldn't. She knew by rustle they were even now in the living-room. She could wait until they came, hold them at bay with Jacques's gun. To what avail? To run with this pack biting her heels?

  She couldn't escape them that way.

  There was only one chance now of escape. It was ancient; in the time of Euripides it couldn't have been new. Sometimes it worked; that was why it was remembered. More often it didn't. If it didn't, she would submit. They weren't using the lights below, no reflection shone on the snow outside. They planned to take her unawares.

  Without sound she opened her bedroom door, the full way, the way the other two bedroom doors stood. She flattened herself not behind it but against the wall on the other side of the opening. Normally they would search first in the guest room, the one at the head of the stairs, not in her center room. They would hunt together because they must know she was armed. She waited. She heard the step on the stairs, saw the faint glimmer of a torch. She listened to the plush of their steps at the head of the stairs. They did enter the first bedroom. She waited further, until they were inside that room, advancing to the inner bath.

  Now! In that moment she moved, moccasin-footed, softer than they, a dark shadow in a dark corridor. Soundless, rapid, down the stairs. The front door at the left. She opened it. And she heard the thick voice, “My gun is pointing at your spine. Close the door quickly and do not move.”

  She hesitated. One eel-like twist and she could be outside, running. She couldn't run fast enough. Not with two, no, three of them now. They hadn't come on foot. And Schein would welcome a chance to use that gun. A suspected murderess attempting to escape. Killed by the real murderer. Because she had ridden behind his bull neck on the night he killed. He might shoot her now before the others could come downstairs. She put full force into her closing of the door. The bang echoed like a shot in the quiet house. She didn't turn, she stood rigid.

  The cry “What— ” came from the upper hall.

  Running steps now. No attempt at quietness. Blaike and whoever was with him. The torch a pond of light on the stair carpet.

  “Turn on the lights.” It was Blaike who called as he ran.

  And it was Albert Schein who said with grisly satisfaction, “It is all right. I have her covered with my gun.”

  She didn't turn until Blaike snapped on the hall light, said, “So you were here.”

  “Isn't that why you came?”

  It wasn't Popin with him. Popin wasn't in this. It was a member of the police department, ugly gun in ugly holster, a dark, bewildered face. “I wouldn't have believed it. Mrs. Anstey, she never would have believed it.”

  Julie said, “I haven't hurt anything. I'll pay back everything I've borrowed. I've kept a list. I'll have the window fixed.”

  Blaike told the policeman, “You check it over with these people. We'll see they suffer no loss. And thanks for your co-operation, Sena.”

  “Wait a minute.” Her voice didn't come out strong, demanding. It quivered. She appealed to Patrolman Sena. “You aren't going to arrest me?”

  He said, “If it was me alone I'd have to arrest you. But the F.B.I. has first call these days.”

  “F.B.I.?” She looked at Blaike's amused smile. She looked at the gloat on Schein's face. “They aren't F.B.I.”

  Blaike said, “I'm afraid we are, Julie.”

  Sena believed them. The implications of his belief covered his simple face. He was more than a little proud of helping the secret service. She couldn't prove to him that they were impostors, foreign agents masquerading as government men. Their credentials must be perfect; they had passed muster of the police. She risked an answer scornfully, “Why would the F.B.I. want me?”

  “Merely for questioning,” Blaike stated. “Come on.”

  Schein said, “First we take her gun.”

  She handed it to Blaike, said, still scornfully, “You needn't check. It hasn't been fired.”

  He put it in his overcoat pocket. “This way.” His hand was strong under her elbow.

  She walked proudly, head erect, as if she weren't bludgeoned by defeat.

  An officer waited in a police car outside the wall.

  La Fonda lobby was as always sedentary. The hatted house detective raised a knowing smile. Flanked by Blaike and Schein, Julie walked to faint music back to the elevator. The same pretty Spanish girl, uncurious. Up to third. The death walk to Blaike's room. She wouldn't be detained long in this hotel. Held for questioning. Not by the F.B.I. By the Gestapo. She knew that sort of questioning. How long before death would be a boon, how long before she would be screaming for its release? What did they want to know? But of course they didn't want to know anything. They didn't even want to kill her. They wanted to return her to Paul Guille.

  Blaike held open the door. She stood motionless. “Enter,” Schein barked. She walked inside.

  “Your coat?” Blaike took it. “Sit down.” He pushed forward the armchair. Schein took the straight one by the desk. “Drink?”

  “I am not a drinking man,” Schein repeated.

  She said, “No.” The percussion of fear beat over every inch of her. She was colder than she had been that night in the snow. Begin. Get it over with.

  He poured a small Scotch from a bottle. “You'd better take it. You need it.”

  She swallowed it slowly. It put a false warmth into her. She asked, “How did you find me?”

  “Someone reported a window broken at the Ansteys'. I have been working in close cooperation with the police. The fact that it was stuffed with newspapers from the inside meant something. And some neighbors mentioned they thought they'd seen a bit of light.”

  She asked, “You aren't of the F.B.I.?”

  “I assure you I am. If you want to examine my papers, go ahead.” He took them from his inner pocket, held them out. She ignored them. He replaced them. “Schein has been working for us as a counter-espionage agent in Yorkville. Both of us after one thing.” His eyes narrowed on her. “You know what that is.”

  She shook her head.

  “
The Blackbirder.”

  “I know nothing of that. Only what you yourself told me.”

  Schein said, “You were with Maximilian Adlebrecht the night he died.”

  She turned to him, looked him up and down slowly from the pasted toupee to the black box toes. Distastefully. Then she said, “You killed him.”

  He was as motionless, as potbellied, as a plaster Buddha. He said. “The police send me after you. They have found a brown coat in a locker. A coat like that one worn by the girl with Maxl. There is much blood on it.

  They have found a pair of gloves, the palms covered with blood. Brown gloves. In a trash can. They have found out a Juliet Marlebone is missing from an apartment on West 78th Street. There is a postcard sent from Chicago by Juliet Marlebone. If you did not kill him, they wish you to answer questions.”

  She repeated, “You killed him.”

  Blaike broke in harshly, “Did you see who killed him? Did you see him die?”

  “No. Certainly not. I said goodby to him at my door. When I was upstairs at my window I saw him lying on the pavement. Dead.”

  “You heard the shot?”

  “I heard nothing. Not even a backfire.”

  “Yet you knew he was dead?” Schein asked heavily.

  “I knew. He wouldn't have been lying on the walk— ” She could set him as if he lay at her feet now. “Not in his good coat. Not unless he was dead.”

  “You knew he was going to be killed,” Schein stated.

  “No. How could I know that? What are you trying to say?”

  He said it heavily, chunkily. “Your appearance with him in that suspect pro-Nazi rathskeller was for him the kiss of death.”

  “Oh, no!” The horror of it spread over her face. He didn't mean an accidental betrayal; he meant a deliberate signal: this man is to die. She appealed to Blaike, “You don't believe that, do you? You can't believe that. Why would I do that?”

  “That's one thing we want to find out,” Blaike said. “Why Maxl was killed.”

  She closed her eyes. What if they were truly of the F.B.I., actually believed that? What could she say? She knew nothing.

  “Jacques,” Schein's voice accused. “Did you kill Jacques Michet?”

  She shook her head, kept shaking it.

  “If you did not, why did you not report to us what you found? Why did you run away? Why have you been hiding? Why was Jacques killed? Who is the Blackbirder?”

  She didn't say a word.

  Blaike took over. “What did Maxl tell you that caused him to die? What did Jacques tell you? Why did you come to Santa Fe?”

  She broke in, “I don't know. I don't know anything about this.”

  “You don't know why you came here?”

  “Yes. Of course I know that. I don't know about those deaths.”

  “Who is the Blackbirder?” Schein thudded.

  Why did you come here? Why did you meet Maxl? Who ordered it? Who is the Blackbirder? What did Jacques tell you? What did Maxl tell you? Why did you kill Jacques? Why did you run away? Why? Why? Who is the Blackbirder?

  She had stopped trying to answer. The questions were darts hurled harder and faster at her, the target. She wasn't wearied. She wasn't frightened. She was angry but she controlled it now. Once on the outskirts of Lille she had been questioned for two days. At the end of that time her questioners had been more exhausted than she. She had shut her mind, sealed it in an inner compartment of her consciousness. Even as she had it shut away now. In that faraway other world she had known the purpose of the questioners. She didn't now. Within the closed box she tried to understand. She couldn't. Not without knowing who these men were. She could figure out something more important, escape. For of course she must escape from them. When she had the blueprint she closed her eyes, leaned weakly against the back of the chair.

  Blaike believed it. At once his voice was kind. “Here, Julie. Drink this.”

  She opened her eyes childwide, took the glass of water. “Thank you.” She didn't know if Schein also believed. He was biting the end from a cigar. She finished the water. She said, “I'll tell you what I know. It isn't much.”

  “That's the girl.” Blaike's smile was human. He took the glass, passed a cigarette, lit it.

  She kept that wide innocent look in her eyes. “I've told you most of it already. I knew Maxl in Paris. Not well. I don't remember where I met him. He was at the Sorbonne— I don't know whether a refugee or a fifth columnist. He never discussed politics with me. I met him by chance that night— a week ago last night, wasn't it?— at Carnegie. After the Russian Relief Benefit. I thought it was chance. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe he had been looking for me.”

  “Why do you think that?” Schein's pig eyes horned at her.

  She shook her head. “I didn't until you F.B.I. agents insisted he had something to tell me. Actually he didn't.”

  “Nothing about blackbirders?” Blaike asked.

  “No, nothing.”

  “He didn't speak of the Blackbirder?” Schein demanded.

  He knew. He had heard; an underling waiter had reported scraps of conversation.

  She said, “Oh, yes, we spoke of him. All refugees do.”

  “And why do all refugees speak of him?” Blaike asked.

  “Because"— she lifted her head—"because when a refugee runs away from torture or death he can't always make arrangements to reach a place of safety. He hasn't time. Nor influence, nor money. And even if it is against that just but merciless thing called the law, the Blackbirder is doing something that refugees consider above the law. He is helping the helpless.”

  “For a price,” Schein sneered.

  “Perhaps,” she defended hotly. “There's bound to be great expense in a venture of this sort.”

  “You do know something about it.”

  She looked quickly, startled, at Blaike's slant smile. “But I don't. Only it's logical. He'd do it for nothing if he could, but he can't.”

  “Who is the Blackbirder?” It was Blaike saying it this time.

  “I don't know.” At his skepticism she repeated, “I don't know. I thought from something you said that it was Popin but I don't believe a man who knows nothing of mechanics could fly a plane. Do you? It might have been Jacques. But who would kill him? Not those he helped. The F.B.I.?”

  “That isn't the American way of solving lawlessness,” Blaike stated.

  “I don't know who the Blackbirder is. You can ask me over and over but I can't tell you. I don't know.” She listened to their silence, still skeptical but not denying her. “Shall I continue?”

  “Yes. Go on.” Blaike walked to the table. “I'm going to fix a drink. Will you— ?”

  “No, thank you.” She repeated what she had said before concerning Maxl's death. “I ran away because I was afraid. I was afraid the police would think I did it. Because I had been with him.”

  “And why did you choose Santa Fe?”

  She would not mention Fran. She would not mention her fear of government investigation. Her hesitation was only momentary. “I told you I was afraid. I didn't want to be locked up. I couldn't stand it. Once I was locked up— ” She broke off, wet her lips. “I came here because I thought I might need the Blackbirder's help,”

  “You knew he was here,” Schein pounced. Smoke clouded his heavy face.

  “I didn't. I mean, I didn't have certain knowledge. Don't you see?” She ignored him, turned to Blaike. “I didn't even know there was a Blackbirder, not really. It's all been whispers, a legend, something a refugee believes in because he needs to believe in it, because he might have a desperate need for such a man some day.”

  “To escape a murder charge?” Schein pointed.

  Her mouth hardened. “To escape Gestapo agents who somehow manage to reach this country despite the F.B.I.”

  Blaike's voice was quiet. “Couldn't it be they enter by such a method as blackbirding?”

  This was why the F.B.I. was searching for the Blackbirder. They couldn't chance the entrance of dang
erous aliens among honest refugees. Nor the escape dangerous aliens over the same route. Somehow she hadn't thought of it that way. The Blackbirder to her had been only a shadowy figure of refuge. He was still that but a sinister blackness darkened his shadow. His helping wings could be abused. She shook away the tremor.

  Blaike went on casually, “So you came to find the Blackbirder. You didn't know about him, only so vague rumors"— suddenly he whirled on her—"yet you knew whom to seek! Popin!”

  She must walk softly. Whatever these men were she mustn't jeopardize Popin. He was her one link with Fran; with Jacques gone, he was the one hope of escape for her and Fran. If she said Maxl told her of Popin, it couldn't hurt Maxl. But possibly it could endanger the bearded artist. She remembered what she had told Blaike on Tuesday night. “He was kind to a friend of mine. I thought he would help me if I needed help.”

  “And you didn't know he was part of this blackbirding?” he mocked.

  “Not until you said it,” she retorted.

  “What did Jacques tell you?” he countered.

  “He didn't have the chance to tell me anything.” She was truly bitter for that. “You interrupted.”

  “He was in your room at least thirty minutes before I interrupted. You didn't just sit and look at each other for that time.”

  “No.” Her eyes closed. “No, we talked. We talked of his wife, Tanya.” She looked him full in the face. “She was my friend. She died in a concentration camp. Because she was my friend.” She stood up then. “We didn't mention the Blackbirder. You can believe me or not. I'm very tired. I'd like to go to my room if I may. Surely you can wait until morning for anything more. I've told you all I know.”

  She swayed while he probed her face, steadily, searchingly. She endured the scrutiny. And he accepted her weariness, her honesty, her innocence. He said, “I'll be right back, Schein. I'll see Julie to her room.” She did not refuse him. Nor did he question her using her own room. They went up the corridor. “You have your key?”

  “Yes. I carried it with me.”

  The corridor was silent. “You were in the Indian's home at Tesuque?”