Six Seconds to Kill

by Brett Halliday

  “I could invent a name for you, but why is it necessary? I have been phoning all day, here and there at various places, because I have an amusing proposal, perhaps you would say a preposterous proposal. To begin with, as a form of password, tell me simply the given name of your husband.”

  “He’s dead,” she said, and added, almost against her will, “Felix.”

  “Yes. Dead, buried, but not forgotten. He never raped and murdered anybody, as is well known. But Eliot Crowther climbed up on his dead body and became rich, successful. Now I will tell you the reason I am calling you, and why I do not wish to pronounce my name. I would like very much to kill Eliot Crowther.”

  She sucked in her breath. “What?” she said faintly.

  “Now my dear Camilla. I hope you can hear me over all the hubbub. I am told that you, also, have mentioned such a desire, but possibly you were not serious. Possibly it was something to speak about over coffee, to startle, to make yourself seem interesting and tragic.”

  “I don’t know. I—”

  “But you must know. You must decide, so I will waste no more time or thought. I am in earnest! I have an excellent plan, I think, but it requires a woman. I will count ten to myself.”

  There was silence. Camilla touched her forehead to the shiny blackness of the phone. The fog closed in. Suddenly she knew with absolute certainty that Paul London had been her last chance, and she had sent him away. Why would he bother with her after he came back? She had chosen—instead of someone who knew her and cared what happened—a succession of indifferent strangers. Life was dirty and tiresome, and she could see how it had to end, too much to drink some night, too many pills. Sirens. Headlines. And who would care? But first—

  “Ten.”

  “If I only could,” she said. “I dream about it. In dreams I get away by sprouting wings.”

  “If you’re serious, you know,” the voice said, “escape should not be part of the dream. Sirhan Sirhan was not foolish enough to try to escape. I know things about you. You have attempted suicide. This way, to kill an enemy first, is more honorable, it has significance.”

  She giggled, a surprising sound considering what they were talking about. “I’ve made plans, but I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “That is most simple, the beginning. You first decide you will do it. Then it is one step at a time. I will make it simple for you. I promise to arrange everything.”

  “I want to do it,” she assured him. “I hate everything he represents.”

  “I like people who know how to hate. So many today are without feeling, without spirit. I detest such people. I think we will do well together. I will telephone you tomorrow night, at six precisely, at your apartment. Please be home. Be alone, OK? Simply say yes, you are determined, you have decided to revenge yourself and show there is a place for justice in the world. I will tell you to do thus and so. I will provide the weapon. Believe me, we will kill this son of a bitch, one hundred percent. You will become a footnote in the history books. Consider everything carefully, please, and tomorrow at six I will call you.”

  The phone clicked in her ear.

  As she turned back to the bar a face swam out of the fog and closed with her. The jowls were meaty, the voice was too loud, but the eyes, Camilla thought, showed signs of kindness and warmth. He was lonely in a strange town. “That drink we were talking about,” he said.

  She enunciated carefully. “A martini, thank you. Very dry, on the rocks, a twist of lemon.”

  He used his cigar to summon the barman. “Coming right up.” He touched her arm. “Baby, I’m dying. I was beginning to think there weren’t any friendly women in Miami Beach.”

  The fog withdrew slightly and she saw that his eyes, far from being kind, were cold and appraising. He was fingering her skin as though it was some kind of dress material.

  “Cancel that drink, will you? I’m sorry. I feel—sick all of a sudden.”

  He tried to hold her, his smile fading, but she brushed past him.

  CHAPTER 2

  Eliot Crowther’s secretary nodded to Abe Berger.

  “Go right in. He’s expecting you.”

  Berger, a big, rumpled, carelessly dressed man, entered the attorney-general’s office. Crowther reached across the desk to shake hands. He kept in shape playing four-wall handball with subordinates, and Berger was quite sure that he invariably won. He was tall and lean, with a shock of wavy white hair, which made him look a little too handsome. This is almost as much of a handicap for a politician as seeming too intelligent. As a corrective, he wore a pair of half-moon reading glasses.

  “Everything under control, I hope, Abe.”

  He spoke briskly, but something about his diction always gave Berger the impression that he was speaking lines written by somebody else. Everything about him was carefully packaged. Even his reputation for coldness and disdain, Berger thought, was a part of that package. A reporter had once astonished Berger by asking if he liked the man, a completely meaningless question. He neither disliked nor liked these people. His job was to see that they stayed alive through their term of office. Some gave him more trouble than others. That was the only difference.

  He sat down and lit a cigarette deliberately. “We want to ask you if you’ll consider calling off the Miami trip, Mr. Crowther.”

  Crowther’s head shot forward. “Why on earth should I do that?”

  “You saw the proofs of Jack Anderson’s column.”

  Crowther shrugged. “Abe, is that going to hurt anybody? The Friends of Pan-American Democracy have decided to give me their Freedom Medal. It’s been in the works for months. It’s an annual affair, and we both know that the award doesn’t necessarily go to the person who deserves it most. It’s a way of getting a nationally known speaker. They’d have every right to be miffed if I pulled out now, just because a crusading newspaper columnist, with a ruffle of drums and a blare of trumpets, has revealed that my law firm has been receiving a retainer from an American copper company. The company happens to be on cordial terms with a Latin American government which happens to be headed by a man who doesn’t happen to be a Jeffersonian Democrat. But what does it signify? I don’t condone Colonel Caldera’s political tactics for one moment. Naturally U.S. Metals has a stake in the political stability of the area. So does the United States government. So do the Friends of Pan-American Democracy. It just isn’t a sinister thing, that’s all. I hope nobody’s going to believe that with my record I’m in favor of any kind of political dictatorship.”

  He laughed and sat back. “I didn’t mean to give you a stump speech, Abe. Let’s just say—cynically, if you will—that canceling Miami because of some half-baked allegations from a discredited newspaper columnist would be the worst kind of political blunder.”

  “What we were thinking,” Berger said patiently, having waited for a gap between sentences, “is that we could organize something important somewhere else, to take priority. If you could make the announcement before anything breaks out of Miami it wouldn’t seem that you were ducking anything.”

  Crowther looked at him over the half-glasses. “Is it that serious, Abe?”

  “Possibly not. But my theory about what to do with trouble is to detour around it. Miami’s full of volatile Latin Americans of every political persuasion—right, left and middle. We have an FBI report that one of the middle-of-the-road groups is organizing an anti-Caldera demonstration for Saturday—anti-Caldera, and anti-Crowther. I don’t know much about it, but apparently this isn’t something we’d worry about ordinarily. They’re professional people, lawyers and so on, and they’ll keep inside the police lines.”

  “That doesn’t sound bad. Don’t forget I’ve integrated more than a few schools. This won’t be the first time I’ve seen a picket sign with my name on it.”

  “The catch seems to be,” Berger went on, “that political leadership in the Spanish community down there is pretty much up for grabs. Both the left and the right are looking for an excuse to get out in th
e streets and make some noise. There are a lot of guns in that part of the world, as I don’t need to remind you. I’m not saying we can’t protect you. I think we can. But why not finesse the whole thing?”

  Crowther removed his glasses and tasted the end of one of the ear-pieces. “What does the Bureau recommend?”

  Berger hesitated. “The feeling there is that this is a chance to get certain people out in the open so we can see who they are. That’s their problem. The Secret Service problem, to put it bluntly, is to keep you from being shot. Knock on wood.”

  “Abe, talk sense. I’ve made a few enemies along the way, but this Latin American business is very remote, believe me. Off the record”—he returned his glasses to his nose and peered over them at Berger—“the CIA believes that the Caldera regime may be shakier than most people realize. The matter has been talked about at the cabinet level, and I take the position that this government cannot afford to let Communists assume power in a country within bombing distance of the Panama Canal. But I’m not publicly identified with this view—it’s not my department. So will you stop jittering?”

  “Franklin Roosevelt was shot at in Miami.”

  “A long time ago. I agree, some psychotic might get the idea that he could help his faction by taking a shot at me, but that’s one of the hazards of holding public office. It can happen anywhere. I don’t think it would be a bright idea to ride down Eighth Street, through the heart of the Spanish section, in an open convertible. I usually try to cooperate, even though I do think you fellows tend to get a little overprotective at times. Get me to the hotel so I can deliver my speech. Then get me back to the airport. My God, if a cabinet member can’t go into any American city any time he likes, this country is really in a bad way.”

  “I don’t like it,” Berger said gloomily. “But I’ll go down tomorrow and see how we can set it up. Under the circumstances I want you to wear your bulletproof vest.”

  “O, Abe, for God’s sake,” Crowther said irritably.

  Lorenzo Vega, in a battered six-year-old Dodge—it was knocking badly, but who had money for a ring job?—turned off Biscayne Boulevard on 72nd Terrace. It was 11:00 P.M. on the nose. He prided himself on keeping appointments exactly on time. In this business it was important.

  He was looking for a black Chevy parked between street lights, and he already knew it would be a Hertz rental. That was the way they operated. His headlights picked it up, parked on the left. There was a figure at the wheel. He had his lights on high beam, hoping to glimpse a face, but of course the agent was shielding himself, and all Vega could see was the back of the hand with a burning cigarette stuck between the fingers. They had a mania for secrecy, these people. Why couldn’t they make a simple appointment to meet him in a bodega? This was the United States, their own country, after all. What were they afraid of?

  And yet he was in no position to criticize. They hadn’t come near him for more than three years. Whatever they wanted, he had made up his mind to ask for $5,000, and if they acted shocked he would direct their attention to the rise in the cost of living.

  He parked. As he walked back, all he saw was the hand and the cigarette. He touched the front door-handle, for his own amusement, and of course he was told quietly, “Get in back, Lorenzo.”

  He entered the car. The driver started his motor and drove back to the boulevard, where he turned left, then right on 69th Street and came to another stop. Apparently procedures had changed since Vega was dropped from the payroll. The rear-view mirror was tilted up. The driver was wearing a hat and wraparound shades. His hair curled up at the back of his neck, another sign of how times had changed. In the old days, they had always seemed fresh from the barber.

  Vega scratched his belly reflectively, starting a tape recorder tucked in his belt. It wasn’t a modern model, but it was the best he’d been able to come up with on short notice. No one, he knew, was going to look after Lorenzo Vega unless he did it himself.

  The agent continued to cover his mouth, and when he spoke he didn’t turn around. “I’ve got an easy assignment for you.”

  Vega’s voice should have been cool and self-possessed, but he was at a disadvantage here, and what came out was nearly a whine. “You’re going to have to show your credentials. I’ve had trouble that way.”

  The man flipped open a leather folder. Still without turning, he used a tiny pencil flashlight to light up a card giving his government affiliation and declaring that his name in his present role was Frank Robinson.

  “Does that satisfy you? Of course it could be a forgery, but you know that. You’re no maiden.” The light clicked off. “What kind of shape is your organization in?”

  “Are you sure we want to call it an organization?” Vega replied bitterly. “For three years I haven’t seen a penny of funds, and now all at once, when apparently you want something, what I have in the way of a cadre is myself, my brother and a couple of cousins. But I still have a following! The point I’m making, I can’t get them to come to meetings on a regular basis when I have nothing in the way of patronage, know what I mean?”

  “What about your paper?”

  “I have no paper any more, Mr. Robinson. What I have is a printer’s bill, six months overdue, and this, I regret, I am unable to pay.”

  “How much?”

  Vega hesitated for a tiny tick. “Approximately five thousand dollars.”

  The agent laughed. “One other thing you have, Lorenzo, is a sense of humor. Here’s what we want, and if you can’t do it we’ll just have to go into the files and get somebody else.”

  “Those others. They’re big on flowery promises, but can they deliver? When I say I will do something, you can rely on it.”

  “Yeah, yeah. We’re thinking about Saturday.”

  “Crowther?” Vega said alertly.

  “You know that Galvez and his NLS crowd are going to run a demonstration in front of the St. Albans. ‘American imperialist bandits,’ kind of thing. That we don’t care about, it’s par for the course. Did you know Gil Ruiz is in Miami?”

  Vega sat forward, genuinely surprised. Gil Ruiz was a Brazilian, a professional revolutionary, he called himself—a professional phony, in Vega’s opinion. He had been in on the overthrow of a very stupid, very backward, very corrupt military regime, but the day-to-day business of running a government had bored him. Ever since, he had been sneaking around from one underground movement to another, stirring up trouble and getting his followers killed and jailed. He was a man of gesture, with an aura of spurious romance which appealed to susceptible teenagers. He had no business being in the United States.

  “Gil Ruiz is definitely not in Miami,” Vega said flatly. “You are misinformed.”

  “Somebody who looked like him landed on Pepper Key two nights ago. One of your local Communists picked him up in a Volkswagen camper. Unfortunately we lost track of him coming into Miami. Perhaps you also aren’t aware that an ad-hoc committee of leading leftists is calling for a rival demonstration Saturday?”

  “I have heard something, but how many can they influence, after all? A handful.”

  “Considerably more than a handful,” Mr. Robinson said dryly. “You haven’t been keeping up. Our estimate is four hundred. Galvez will have twenty or thirty at the most, walkers not fighters. The so-called militants will elbow them out of the way and take over the demonstration. And that won’t mean peaceful picketing. We think they’re going to try to storm the hotel. Ruiz, we believe, has been brought in to organize this, which indicates that they’re shooting for something big. It’s an easy scenario to write. Take over the St. Albans, cut off the electric power, disrupt the luncheon, kidnap Crowther—”

  “Kidnap Crowther! Maria! That would be an impressive thing. On American soil!”

  “They’ll settle for less. We won’t know till it happens. Luckily, we know about Ruiz, so they won’t be taking us by surprise. There’s going to be heavy media coverage, and purely for propaganda reasons, we don’t want to call out the Nation
al Guard. We would prefer to have the Latin community handle the problem in its own way.”

  “But I had no idea—four hundred! Students, probably. I assure you, four hundred militant students are no joke. I can’t produce an effective counterdemonstration out of thin air. The paramilitary organizations are dissolved. The cadres stay home watching Jackie Gleason on television. Saturday afternoon there will be football games. I can predict that no one will feel ambitious about being cracked over the head on behalf of Eliot Crowther, a person of so little magnetism. I dislike him myself. Tell me exactly what it is you want. I would like to help you because of our past associations. It will take money, you know.”

  “We want you to get out a special edition of your paper, what’s its name again—”

  “Libertad. Three years ago it would have been on the tip of your tongue.”

  “A lot has changed in three years. If your regular printer won’t cooperate, go to somebody else. Leaflets would be just as good. Don’t mention Crowther. Or Ruiz, naturally. The Commies and Castroites want to give the impression that the refugee community is opposed to United States policy, so on and so forth, so let’s come out on the streets to show our gratitude for American hospitality, the American way of life, the greatest country in the world et cetera—you’re the writer, put it in your own words. Then get on the phone and start calling people. You used to be considered quite a fair organizer.”

  “In those days, I will remind you, I had money in my pocket. I could buy a person a glass of rum. If he needed a new shirt—”

  “We understand that you’ll have expenses. A thousand dollars should cover it.”

  “Including the printing? Some people will be working Saturday, putting in overtime, I will have to recompense them for taking time off. I say it with regret, but in this day and age, ideology is not enough. Even five thousand would be inadequate, but I would try to manage.”