The Menacers mh-11

by Donald Hamilton

  I'd been pretty relaxed so far, enjoying the ride and the scenery, but now as we got back into our seats and were flown up the green Pacific coastline towards Mazatlбn, which means the place of the deer, I felt the familiar, nervous, beginning-of-the-job tightness take hold of my throat and abdomen. It's a sensation you never lose, no matter how long you stay in the business. At least I don't seem to.

  Not only was I working again after several months' layoff, but I was working with people who were bound to resent me, which meant I couldn't trust them even to make it to the john without explicit instructions and careful supervision..

  My contact was there, all right, in the Mazatlбn terminal, in her snug white linen pants and her crazy palmleaf hat. She wasn't exactly what I'd expected. She looked like a kid. I don't mean the cuddly, blonde, lisping, baby-face type, but the slim, dark, big-eyed, hollow-checked kind of young girl who doesn't seem aware of the fact that she's going to be beautiful some day.

  She annoyed me at first glance, which wasn't quite fair, since I'd been prejudiced against her before I ever saw her. But now I wasn't condemning her merely for her taste in clothes and countersigns. The two most dangerous aberrations in our line of work are idealism and innocence, and if I was any judge she suffered from both.

  She was talking to a tanned, rather husky young woman with short blonde hair who wore a skimpy, sleeveless, bright orange garment with native designs on it-just a sack with holes for the arms and head- undoubtedly purchased at one of the local tourist shops. My girl took off her sunglasses casually and wiped them with a Kleenex as the crowd from the plane kind of washed me past her.

  I responded by mopping my face with a handkerchief as instructed. It wasn't hard to make the gesture convincing. I was dressed for Santa Fe and Mexico City, mountain communities a mile and a half high, cool and dry. Down here at sea level the temperature was in the high nineties and the humidity was running it a close race for the hundred mark.

  I did notice, as I went past, that Priscilla Decker didn't look quite as dewy at short range as she had across the room. She was getting on towards twenty-five, I judged, and she was beginning to show just a hint of the dried-up look of the professional virgin, which is what happens to them if they're left on the vine instead of being picked, so to speak, at the proper time. I didn't know whether this was good or bad from my point of view, but at least I wouldn't have to make allowances for extreme youth. She'd had the years. If she hadn't taken advantage of them, that wasn't my fault.

  That was all there was to it. I didn't look to see where she went; I wasn't supposed to pay her any attention. She was supposed to find me when the time came. I waited for my suitcase to be unloaded-I don't think flying is going to be really practical until they invent self-propelled luggage to match the planes-and was driven to the Hotel Playa by a genial robber who charged me twenty pesos, about a dollar sixty, which was obviously too much since he was disappointed when I didn't give him an argument. There was a reservation waiting for me here, but it didn't really matter. The winter season wouldn't begin for a month or so yet, and they had lots of room.

  Playa means beach in Spanish, and they were situated right on theirs. It seemed like a hell of a good idea, so after making sure the air-conditioner was going full blast in my room, I changed into trunks and walked out there. Some pretty big waves were breaking against the shore-well, big for -a calm summer day- but I'd recently learned a bit about surf and swimming in the line of duty, and I watched the crests briefly to get the timing, and dove under one and paddled out a ways, ducking beneath the white stuff as it came at me.

  There were some other people playing around out there, including a woman in a white satin bathing suit – a sleek, one-piece job, not a bikini-who caught my eye for some reason, perhaps just because I have that kind of an eye and she was the only woman venturing out that far. She swam pretty well, but with a European touch to her style that I couldn't quite identify. Maybe she behaved just a bit as if she'd been brought up on the breast stroke and the crawl were a later accomplishment.

  She was quite slender, almost thin, and her hard adult body sheathed in wet white satin was a lot sexier than most of this soft nymphet stuff you see on the beach covered by practically nothing but a good tan. Something about her had aroused my curiosity-if you want to call it curiosity-so when she headed towards shore I gave her a minute or so and then picked up a crest, paddled hard to match its speed, and let it carry me in.

  A good-sized breaking wave, even a summer wave, can give you a pretty rough ride; it's kind of like being shaken by an angry dog. I cut out of it before it buried my head in the sand, and stood up. I'd been carried past the woman, and I turned casually to seaward as I pounded the water out of my ears, and there she was, coming towards me, smiling faintly.

  "I wondered how long it would take you to recognize me, Matthew," she said.

  For a moment I still wasn't quite sure. I mean, the lady whose name popped into my mind had been pretty good at changing her appearance to suit the job, but she'd always been a fairly well-developed specimen of womanhood. She'd often been described as sexy in official reports-sometimes even as voluptuous-but never as slender. But it was Vadya, all right. There was no doubt about it. I'd slept with her a couple of times and shot her once; I ought to know.

  I said, "I'm ashamed of you, Vadya, trying to fool your old friends like that. When did you decide to go on a diet?"

  "Diet, hell," she said, "if you'll excuse it, darling. Do you know how many operations they had to make after you were so ungentlemanly as to put a bullet into me, and how many operations to erase the signs of those operations? I was a shadow, a skeleton, when they finished carving me up and putting me back together. And then it seemed like a good idea to try to keep my new svelte figure. Some people do not have as sharp eyes as others. Obviously. I have been here for several days. If anyone among your people had recognized this sylph-like creature as Vadya, you would not have been sent here, would you? They would have sent someone I did not know, instead."

  "You knew I was coming?"

  "Of course not. We did not know who was coming; but we knew someone else probably would be, besides those already here. It is not a job for a college boy with a degree in accounting or foreign relations, even if he can draw his pistol in a fraction of a second and make magnificent scores on the targets that look like men but are really paper. Nor is it a job for an unclaimed maiden with beautiful ideals and strange yearnings." Vadya smiled. "It is a job for crude, realistic people like you and me, darling. Of course, now that you are here, I will probably have to kill you, but I am glad to see you nevertheless. Let us get out of these soapsuds and have a drink."

  3

  SOME PEOPLE HAVE A thing about fraternizing with the enemy. They seem to feel that disloyalty is something you can catch across a table, like the common cold. They act as if the only safe way to remain faithful to duty and country is to quarantine yourself with none but certified patriots in a place where no sinister bacteria of subversion can possibly reach you from the infected creeps on the other side.

  Personally, I have a little more faith in my loyalty than this, and if the enemy wants to fraternize, I'm happy to be fraternized with. Why work like hell to ferret out someone's intentions by devious methods, when you can maybe get him, or her, to tell you all about them over a cold rum Coffins?

  As I settled down in a wooden chair under one of the numerous brown-thatched cabanas that sprouted like mushrooms from the sand in front of the hotel, sharing beach space with some green palms and a rustic life-guard tower, I reminded myself that Vadya undoubtedly had reasons of her own for renewing our old acquaintance. She hadn't picked the exact moment of my arrival to go gamboling in the surf for nothing. Well, that was all right. We'd played this game before, and while the score had been very close upon occasion, I was a little ahead on points. At least I'd never had to have any of her bullets dug out of me.

  I sat back and sipped my drink and listened to the surf, th
erefore, waiting for her to break the silence first and set the conversational mood however she pleased. Far up the beach some kids were popping firecrackers. It's about the only thing I really have against the Mexicans. They don't wait for the local equivalent of the Fourth of July; they'll set the damn things off any time of the year, day or night-and in our business we tend to be kind of allergic to sudden loud noises.

  Aside from the distant explosions, everything was very peaceful. A little spidery sand crab of some kind popped out of a hole not six feet away; a shore bird, perhaps a sandpiper, tripped along down where the sand was wet, daintily avoiding the waves that reached out for him. There were some islands off the point on which the hotel stood. Across the blue bay to the left was the city of Mazatlбn, spread out along the shore.

  It looked like a sizeable community. I remembered that Mac had credited it with a population of seventy-five thousand. Clouds hung around the horizon as a reminder that this was the tail end of the rainy season down here, but the rest of the sky was blue and the sun was bright.

  Vadya stirred and reached out to pat my hand lightly, and the sand crab, if that's what it was, scuttled back into its miniature den.

  "Darling," Vadya said, "it is nice to see you again, even if you did almost kill me."

  I said, "That'll teach you. When you slip a guy a Mickey, don't stand around waiting to see him fall on his face. He might just manage to get out a gun and shoot you first."

  "I guess I was fatuous to expect an apology." Her voice was a trifle sharp. "Or even an expression of-regret."

  I grinned. "Cut it out. Under similar circumstances, you'd have done exactly the same thing to me, if I'd been dumb enough to let you. You might even have shot straighter than I did." This wasn't getting us anywhere, and I asked, "Who's handling the main job for you here, or is it a big secret?"

  It was a crude, head-on approach, and she stalled automatically: "Why, I am handling the job. The whole job. Why should I need anybody else?"

  I said, "Because it's not your type of job and you know it. You're just running interference, I figure. You're here to make with the sex, and the guns if necessary; to take me out of play at the proper time – me, or whoever was sent. For the heavy work, the primary objective, they'd have somebody else lined up, somebody with more muscle and less finesse. Who is it?"

  "Do you really expect me to tell you?"

  "Sure," I said. "Why be cagey about something I'm bound to find out pretty soon, anyway?"

  Vadya shrugged. "All right. If you must know, Harsek is coming. I was handy, vacationing in Acapulco. I was just rushed up here to keep track of the subject until Harsek arrives."

  I whistled softly. "Harsek, eh? The Mad Czech?"

  "He is not so mad. He is just very, very tough. Tougher than you are, darling."

  "Nobody's tougher than me," I said, grinning. "Except perhaps you. Certainly not a fat bully-boy with a shaved head who's made his reputation scaring poor little Turks and Arabs with his silly Luger. A Luger, for Christ's sake! A story-book pistol with a trigger pull that works around fifteen corners before it gets to where the gun goes off; a muzzle-light cannon that – shakes like a leaf in the breeze. I never knew a Luger-boy yet who wasn't strictly for show."

  Vadya laughed. "You are just talking to make yourself brave."

  "Who needs courage against Harsek?" I asked flamboyantly. "All I'll need is a fly-swatter. There'll be nothing left but a spot of grease. When is he coming?"

  "I have told you all I'm going to," she said, smiling. "And you have given me nothing in return but boasts and ballistics."

  "Harsek," I said thoughtfully. "I thought he functioned strictly in the Near East. They must want whatever we've got-or whoever we've got-pretty badly to pry Harsek loose from his favorite stamping grounds and send him all the way over here. How much manpower does he plan to use?"

  "Really, darling! You want a great deal of information in exchange for none at all."

  "Exchange?" I said. "Why, I thought we were just having a pleasant chat. Two old Mends-well, enemies – meeting again after so many months. You make it sound like bargaining day at the local mercado. What do you want to know?" She didn't answer at once. I watched a white seabird commit apparent suicide out there, hurling itself deliberately into the waves. A moment later it was airborne again, presumably with something in its beak or claws, but that was a detail I couldn't make out at the distance. Of course, it could have missed its target. This happens, even among birds. I said, casually, "It's a screwball deal, isn't it?"

  "What is?" Vadya's voice had a cautious sound.

  "A bunch of grown people getting all stirred up about some kook's psychedelic visions." Regardless of my own beliefs, I had a hunch that a skeptical attitude would be more profitable here. I asked, "What's Spanish for flying saucer, anyway?"

  She glanced at me warily. "Plato volante, I believe," she said. "Or disco volante. Why?"

  I grinned at her. "All right, play it close to the chest if you like. But I must say I'm starting to wonder about those guys in Washington. I've had a lot of weirdies sprung on me in the way of assignments, but this is the first time they've put me to chasing imaginary spacecraft, or even the screwball who imagined them."

  She permitted herself a small laugh. "Yes, it is rather lurid, is it not? I must say I had the same feeling when the mission was explained to me." She moved her bare shoulders ruefully. "Of course, one asks no questions. One has one's orders."

  She wasn't giving much away, not even her true feelings on the subject-but at least the UFO gambit hadn't come as a total surprise to her. Whatever wild notions were going around, they apparently weren't confined to Washington.

  "That's right," I said. "One does."

  "Well, how are you going to obey yours, darling? Now that you know with whom you have to deal. Do you really think you can get your prisoner past Harsek and me, and across the border into the United States?" She glanced at me. "What is your plan, darling? It must be very good."

  I laughed. "Now we come to it. A straight question at last. Well, in return for Harsek's name, I'll give you a straight answer. Pay close attention, doll, because this is important."

  "I am listening. Tell me what you plan to do to outwit us, two of the best agents in the business if I may flatter myself as well as Harsek. Tell me. Then maybe I will tell you if it will work."

  "Outwit you, hell," I said. "Why should I bother? My orders are simple and straightforward. I have explicit instructions to shoot this character with the vivid imagination-to shoot him stone dead-if you or Harsek so much as crook a finger or lift a voice in his direction. What did you think they sent a guy like me down here for, baby, to make sure he got his two A.M. feeding on schedule?"

  There was a little silence. Vadya was looking down at her glass so that I could not see her eyes, but I knew her pretty well, and I had an uneasy hunch that I'd just said something that amused her-and something that she'd wanted to hear, as well, although this did not really make sense, in the light of what I knew about the situation. Of course, I didn't know everything, and some of what I did know could be wrong.

  Vadya raised her glass, and drained it. "I see," she said. "I wondered. This explains things."

  I said, "Of course, your names weren't specifically mentioned in the orders, but the principle laid down was clear. I intend to follow it. And then I'll go back to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I left a drink waiting – a drink and a lady named Carol-when I rushed off to chase little green men in the sky. The drink's probably warm by now, but liquor and ice are plentiful up there. The lady's another matter. She's kind of special, you might say unique. She was quite warm when I left her. I hope she hasn't cooled."

  Vadya smiled. "You are trying to make me jealous. That's childish."

  "Maybe."

  "And also you are giving me a warning, are you not, Matt? One might even call it an ultimatum, mightn't one?"

  "One might," I said. I still had the nagging feeling that I was playing into her ha
nds somehow, but I'd already started on this heavy-menace routine and it was too late to switch to another approach. I made my voice hard. "Pass the word, doll. I'm not here to fool around, and guarding the body is not my sport. I flunked my Red Cross lifesaving course, but I did real well in Practical Pistolry. I am taking this imaginative specimen north alive if you leave me alone. But if you make one move, one half a move, all we'll have is a corpse to share-and don't try calling my bluff, doll, because it's not a bluff. My instructions are to consider this crackpot strictly expendable, and rather than lose him to you, or Harsek, I'll expend him right now." I got to my feet abruptly. "How do you sign for the drinks around here?"

  "Take that chit to the bar." Vadya's voice was expressionless. "They'll give you a slip to fill out. Incidentally, there's a space for propina, which means tip, and fifteen percent seems to be customary."

  I looked down at her for a moment, feeling baffled and uncomfortable, the way a man always feels in the presence of a woman who knows more than he does and is smart enough to take full advantage of her knowledge.

  "Thanks," I said sourly. "I've only lived along the Mexican border for about half my life, but thanks anyway. It's nice to know what propina means after all these years."

  Vadya shrugged. "You were so stupid about disco volante. I am aware that you know some Spanish- it's in the dossier-but I thought if that is the way you want to play it, I would oblige you. Matthew?"

  "I really bear no hard feelings for what you did to me. And I really expected no apologies. You know that, don't you?"

  "Sure," I said.

  "We do not have to play tough and make faces at each other, do we? Will you take me to dinner? Seven-thirty in the lobby. We will go to the Copa de Leche, which means glass of milk, and is the closest thing to a first-class restaurant to be found in this town. It is air-conditioned, too. Seven-thirty is early for dinner in Mexico, very early, but you will be tired from all your traveling." She smiled up at me. "I am not luring you away from the action, darling. Nothing is planned for tonight. However, if you are suspicious and want to eat right here instead, that is all right, too. The food is quite passable and the dining room is up on that balcony and reasonably cool. But do wear a coat and tie in either case. One gets so tired of seeing grown men in romper suits, like superannuated schoolboys."