Assignment — Stella Marni

by Edward S. Aarons

  He found the two men just at the corner of the terrace, under the grotesque, batlike wings of the ornamental gargoyle there. They were sprawled against the stone like prisoners who had just been stood up in an execution yard.

  Frank Greenwald's body was nearest to him. Durell turned him over gently. The man's face was flaccid and empty in death, his baldish head shining oddly in the rain. The back of his skull had been crushed in as if with one brutal giant's blow. The rain had washed away most of the blood. Durell made a sound deep in his throat, turned, and looked at Art Greenwald.

  Art was sprawled on his back. At first glance, it looked as if he, too, had been killed with one crushing blow. It was impossible for both men to have been killed this way, like sheep awaiting the slaughterer's hammer. But it had happened. He couldn't conceive of Art standing patiently waiting to be killed.

  He felt for a pulse. Art's wrist was cold. He felt nothing, and probed deeper, willing Art to be alive. Something beat under his fingertip, thin and shallow and fragile. He drew a deep breath, watched Art's chest move slightly as if in sympathy with his own respiration. Art's face felt abnormally cool. His eyes were closed. But there was still a seeping of blood from the wound on the back of his head.

  He was alive.

  Durell stood up. Under the grotesque wings of the gargoyle, Art was dry, sheltered from the rain. He knew better than to attempt to move him alone, without medical advice. He carefully searched for other wounds, but there were none. Just the one crushing blow on the back of the head. Art could remain like this for some time without too much danger to him, until a doctor could be summoned.

  Durell turned away, memories in him. He had known Art for a long time. He had visited Art's apartment, laughed with his wife, Rosalie, a plump, happy woman. Art had stood by him at a time when he had been alone, forced into isolation and suspected of treason on McFee's orders. There was so much he wanted to repay him. And now it might well be too late. Much too late.

  Durell felt badly shaken. He had never felt quite like this before. There had been no real hint of danger in this when they had come up from Washington on the train this morning. An had simply been worried about his older brother's infatuation for Stella Marni. There had been no hint of ruthless murder looming with shadowed face in the future.

  He looked at the tall girl in the terrace doorway. She had not moved. Her face was hidden in the shadows. There was a rigidity in her posture, as if she had to exercise every ounce of control to stand there and watch him. She looked as if she would take flight at any instant.

  Durell's eyes were dark and hard. He blamed her. He hated her. Because of her, Art might die, and Rosalie's tears would never cease to flow.

  He did not know how he could explain this to McFee.

  He blamed himself.

  Art was an electronics man, not a field agent. He should have seen to it that Art was careful, that nothing happened that Art couldn't handle.

  His face was turned to the girl, like stone.

  "Are they both dead?" she whispered.

  "Art is still alive. He'll need a doctor. But you ought to know. You arranged to get them here."

  Her eyes were enormous. She still held her head twisted to one side. "Please. Don't say that. I didn't know what would happen."

  "You knew about the danger, though."

  "Yes. Yes, I did. That's why I tried to keep Frank away from me. I tried to insult him, to make him stop loving me, to make him forget me. I didn't want him to be hurt."

  "Who did it?" Durell asked.

  "I don't know."

  "Stella, don't lie to me now. I warn you."

  "But I don't!"

  He took her arm roughly and pushed her back into the studio. The vast ceiling high overhead seemed to oppress him. Shadows seemed to hang there, grinning down at him. The girl stumbled over the threshold, and almost fell, but he made no move to help her. She sank into a chair.

  He went to the bar she had indicated before and found a bottle of brandy and some glasses and poured a small amount for her. Their fingers touched when he gave it to her, standing over her like a tall, dark shadow. She looked up quickly, took the brandy, sipped at it, shuddered.

  "This fellow Krame, who runs this place," he said. "You're sure he's in Florida?"

  "Oh. yes. He has nothing to do with it."

  "Where is he staying in Florida?"

  "Some Miami Beach hotel. The Carillon, I think."

  He swallowed his brandy. It did nothing at all for him. The girl's fingers had felt cold. Looking down at her, he hated her and at the same time was moved by her helpless beauty. She leaned forward a little, elbows on her thighs, her eyes lowered, holding the brandy glass in both hands. Her mouth shook. Two tears trickled down the classic soft curves of her cheeks. He damned himself for feeling attracted to her. He told himself he ought to know better. But he couldn't help it. When she looked up at him and their eyes met, something happened. It was electric, an indefinable knowing, a drawing together, a mutual surprise and wonder.

  To hell with all that, he told himself.

  His voice was savage. "I'm going to call the police and an ambulance. Anything you want to tell me before I do?"

  "Is Art vour friend?"

  "The best."

  "I know how you feel then. Please don't look at me like that. Please! I didn't want anybody to be hurt or killed." She looked down and her soft pale hair fell in a loose screen across one side of her face. Under her green raincoat she wore a gray jersey skirt with a wide, brass-studded black belt and an apple-green sweater with a gold pendant around her neck. There were no rings on her fingers. She whispered, "Must we leave them out there in the rain?"

  "Yes. Frank's beyond help and to move Art without a doctor's assistance might mean death. They can't be moved."

  "It seems so cruel."

  "Death is always cruel. Death like that is even worse. It's unspeakable. But why should you cry about it?"

  She shook her head, didn't answer.

  "More brandy?"

  "No," she whispered.

  "Nothing to say?"

  "I can't tell you anything."

  "You can't — or you won't?"

  "I don't dare."

  "Afraid for your father's life, too?"

  Her head came up sharply this time. Now her eyes hated him. resented him. They searched his face for compassion, and when she found none, her mouth tightened in silence. He wanted to slap her. He wanted to shake the truth out of her. He had never felt such a deep, abiding rage before. He knew it was dangerous, against all his training, against all the cool objectivity he ought to maintain. He felt confused, twisted by a dark sympathy for this girl, twisted between hate and admiration for her. There was no explanation for how he felt.

  He looked around for the telephone and found it on a Chinese taboret near the door to the vast studio. He looked down the iron spiral stairwell, but there was no sound anywhere else in the deserted building. Returning, he picked up the phone and dialed the number of Blossom's district FBI office. His mind grew cool and calculating.

  The girl came up with a rush, caught at his arm.

  "Don't, please."

  He hadn't finished dialing. "Are you afraid?"

  "Yes. They'll kill my papa. Or they'll do things to him."

  "They?"

  "The people who want us all to go back. To come home." She shuddered. "You know how it is or how it has been lately."

  "You don't want to go back?"

  "No, no."

  "But you told the Senate subcommittee you were quite willing."

  She said wildly, "What else could I do? What choice do I have? In two days it will all be over."

  He put down the phone. "Two days?"

  "Yes. That is all."

  "Tell me about it"

  She hesitated. Her blonde head was lowered. She stood in an attitude of defeat and he wanted to shake her again and he wanted to put his arm around her and comfort her. He wanted many things all at once, and time wa
s running through his fingers — time for himself and for Art Greenwald.

  He said gently: "You're in trouble. I know about it. But you've refused help. Why haven't you been honest with the Senator and with Blossom?"

  "Blossom?" she shivered. "No. Not with him."

  "Has he bothered you?"

  "I don't know what to call it. He is strange. I made him mv enemy."

  "How?"

  She wouldn't look at him. "He came to me almost two weeks ago. At first he was pleasant enough and I began to trust him. But then he — he fell in love with me. I know how that sounds, but it is the simple truth. He was like a man — I don't know how to describe it — he was like a madman. I never met anyone like that before. I could not control him. And when I — rejected him, he began to hate me. He never let me alone. He was always after me. On the phone, waiting for me on the street, insisting I come to his office to make statements. And always his eyes on me, hungry, waiting, hating, and hoping/'

  Durell sighed. He was not surprised by her words. He had suspected it from his first meeting with Blossom. If only he had more time...

  As if she sensed his thought, Stella said, "Your friend. He needs a doctor badly."

  "Will you talk to me or to the police?"

  "Why must you be so cruel?" she begged. "I do need help. You men are all alike, it's always been like this, the hounding, so cold-eyed and angry with me when I say no. I can't..."

  "Make up your mind." he said. "You know a lot. I want to have everything you know. I'm going to smash this group that tortures you people. I won't rest until I do. Do you understand? Do you believe me?"

  She looked up at him and something changed in her despairing green eyes. Something glimmered deep inside her as she searched his face. It was quiet in the huge, strange studio. There was no longer even the familiar sound of rain.

  "If I told you, I would risk my father's life."

  "That's the chance you take."

  "And otherwise?"

  "I call the police. You'll go to prison. Your father won't be helped that way, either, will he?"

  She covered her eyes for a moment. "I don't understand. Why was Frank killed? I didn't do it, whatever else you may think of me. I picked up that piece of iron... I was frightened, I heard you downstairs, and I didn't know what I was doing. But my fingerprints are on it now. Yes, I see what you mean. If I don't trust you, I'm finished, one way or the other."

  A thought occurred to him. "Would they want to frame you for murdering Frank Greenwald?"

  "No, no. They want me back in Europe. As a propaganda victory."

  "Then they don't intend to leave Frank's body here for long. Obviously, they think Art is dead, too. Which means they'll be coming back."

  Fear touched her. "Soon?"

  "Yes, soon. If they're as efficient as I think they are." He thought of Art Greenwald, dying outside. He couldn't wait any longer. He picked up the phone again.

  "Wait," Stella said. "Will you trust me?"

  He kept on dialing. "Should I?"

  "I'll tell you everything I can, everything I know. Please. Perhaps you can help. It's just that — I know Mr. Blossom hates me, even when he says he loves me. He hates all of us who are here as I am. I couldn't bring myself to feel that he was on my side. Can you understand?"

  The telephone was ringing, far away across town.

  "I can understand that," Durell said.

  "If you give me a chance — please, listen to me! — if you let me go now I can meet you later, I can — Don't you see I want help? I want to trust you, Mr. Durell. Art Greenwald said you could do something about all this. Mr. Greenwald "talked about you as if — well, he seemed to think my only chance was to have faith in you."

  Somebody began speaking on the phone. Durell said: "I want Blossom, please. It's urgent."

  "Just a moment"

  "Can I meet you at your hotel? In an hour or two?" Stella Marni asked. She touched his sleeve. Her eyes were a desperate prayer. "Just don't — don't turn me over to Mr. Blossom. I'm afraid of him. I know that he — Everything will be lost if you do."

  Durell lowered the phone, covered it with his hand. When he looked at the girl, he suddenly found himself believing her. His mind jumped ahead to what would happen when Blossom took over. There was no avoiding Blossom's jurisdiction now. And the metropolitan police would be in it, too. The girl would be lost, drowned, destroyed. He knew what would take place inside her. She would retreat into a silence that nothing could break. She would destroy herself under Blossom's hate and antagonism, rather than yield anything.

  He said: "All right. Take my hotel key. Be careful getting out of the building. The people who killed Frank may be coming back at any moment. Don't let them grab you."

  Hope shone in her eyes. "Thank you," she whispered.

  "Go to my hotel room, lock the door, and stay there. Don't answer the phone, don't open the door to anyone but me. Make sure it's me when someone knocks. I'll give my name after I rap twice. Don't talk to anyone or try to see anyone. Understand?"

  "Yes, yes. I am grateful."

  "You may not be," he said grimly. He thought of Art Greenwald and Art's wife and the rain outside under the gargoyle. "Not after we've had our talk. Understand, I'm trusting you with my own neck."

  "I understand."

  He looked at her with cold eyes. "If you cross me, you'll live to regret it."

  Blossom's thin voice rattled in the phone. Durell gave the girl the key and asked Blossom, in rapid turn, to send a doctor, an ambulance, and the morgue wagon to the address on Fourth Avenue.

  Chapter Five

  Durell stood in the hospital corridor and watched two white-coated attendants wheel Art Greenwald out of the operating room. He caught only a glimpse of Art's face as he was rolled by, and it was unrecognizable. The nurse who had been sent to summon him to the conference in the hospital board room waited impatiently for him, and Durell shrugged her off until the doctor came out of the swinging doors beyond.

  "How is he, Doctor?"

  "Not very good. We've done what we can."

  "What are his chances?"

  "Perhaps one in five. By all reason, he should be down in the morgue with his brother right now. But he's stronger than he looks. We'll do whatever is possible, Mr. Durell, but he was hit hard. Some of the bone splinters were driven in rather deeply. Has he a family?"

  Durell thought of Rosalie's warm, happy face and the tightly knit family circle into which Art had drawn him and made him feel at home. "Yes, I'll notify them."

  "Don't let it go too long."

  "Has he been conscious at all?"

  "I'm sorry, no."

  "Any chance he might be able to talk tonight?"

  "Hard to tell. There's deep coma now, of course; he might come out of it briefly, and maybe not. If he does, he probably won't be rational. Best chance will be if the coma changes to natural sleep. I understand the FBI is keeping a man and a tape recorder at his side."

  "Right," Durell said.

  "Nothing more you can do, then, is there?" The doctor gave him a tight, meaningless smile and walked away.

  The nurse said: "Please. Mr. Durell."

  "All right, I'm coming now."

  The hospital corridors were cloaked in a postmidnight hush as he followed the nurse's white, slithering uniform down to the board room that had been set aside for a conference. Dickinson McFee was there, which did not surprise Durell. Blossom sat with several young FBI agents in a small group at one end of the polished conference table. There were also several uniformed cops, a homicide inspector from Center Street, and Blossom's second in command, Tom Markey. Markey was a short, balding man in his fifties, slow-spoken, calm, with brown eyes reflecting all the unwanted wisdom gleaned in his profession.

  "Sit down, Sam," Markey said. "We've been waiting."

  "Good morning, General." Durell said to McFee.

  Dickinson McFee nodded curtly. He was a man of short stature, dressed in neutral gray, yet the force of his pers
onality dominated any room he occupied. His powers as head of K Section went beyond any known definition, but he wore his responsibilities easily, with a mind that was cool, as retentive as an electronics calculator, and objective in all things. One glance at McFee's stony face convinced Durell that he was in trouble. Blossom looked smug, his narrow face turned like a wedge toward him. his mouth curved in a smile without meaning, his eyes glittery with a faraway vision of triumph.

  Blossom's thin voice filled the room. "We're going to have this out right now. The Senate Internal Security Subcommittee works with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and jurisdiction in this matter of the Reds' repatriation campaign lies entirely within the province of the Attorney General's department. We are the police agency in this matter, and I trust that fact is clearly understood by all present."

  No one said anything.

  "We are particularly interested in Stella Marni." Blossom went on. His eyes were pale and glittering. "We have worked hard on this case. I have given it all of my personal attention. Do you suppose for one moment that the disappearance, within the past two months, of dozens of Hungarian. Polish, and Bulgarian nationals, not to mention a few handfuls of other expatriates from satellite countries within the Soviet orbit, has gone unnoticed by us? We have our own leads, our own sources of information. We know the sudden rise of disappearances and repatriation are the direct result, not of a loosely organized coercion campaign from abroad, but of the activities of a ring right here in New York. Personal contacts, not threats in the mail from abroad, have been made in all recent cases. It's a small ring, tightly organized, efficient, deadly, powerfully armed with facts on all the victims. I know the names of some of the members of that ring. But it you ask me for that information. I must regretfully decline to give it to you. We are building a case that might have been ready to present today, if it had not been for Durell's interference, which led to the homicide he claims to have discovered."

  "Claims?" McFee repeated. "Do you doubt Durell's statement?"

  "His interest in this matter is not official, and therefore it is bound to be distorted by personal motives and emotions. I cannot accept anything Durell has told us. For example, you may wonder how an amateur like Frank Greenwald came close enough to this ring I spoke about to get himself murdered. You may think this implies an amateur has done more than the FBI." Blossom smiled thinly. "What Greenwald discovered, or thought he had discovered, has been known to me for weeks. We haven't moved because our case hasn't been legally air-tight, that is all. And, of course, Greenwald has been intimately connected with these people through his infatuation with Stella Marni. He was accepted by them simply because of his amateur status. He was familiar with that studio in his building, naturally. He came to know Stella Marni when he saw her entering and leaving the place, months ago, when she first started to work as a photographer's model for the man who leases the studio up there. That studio was not unfamiliar territory to Stella or Frank Greenwald. She visited there often. And in spite of Durell's statement, we know that she was there last night. But Durell denies this."