Murderers' Row (7 page)

I asked, “Why did Jean die, Dr. Perry?”

He blinked. Obviously, he thought it was a strange question for me to ask. After all, I was the guy who'd killed her, wasn't I?

“Why, I don't know,” he said. “I wasn't there, how could I say? I rather assumed—” He stopped, embarrassed.

“That my hand slipped? It seems to be a common assumption in these parts,” I said. “And a convenient one, for some people.”

“If you're implying there was something wrong with Jean—”

I said, “Obviously, there was something wrong. With Jean, or you, or me, or somebody else. She's dead. Maybe you should have examined my hands before clearing me for the job, Doctor. You might have prevented the slip, if there was a slip.”

His voice was stiff. “Maybe I should have.”

“Maybe,” I said, “you should examine them now.”

He didn't get it at once. He said impatiently, “Really, I'd better see to my patient—”

“Look at them,” I said gently. “The right one is of special interest, Doctor.” There was a little silence, as he saw what I was driving at. I said, “Note the weapon. It uses the .38 Special cartridge firing a one-hundred-and-fifty-grain bullet with a muzzle velocity of eleven hundred and fifty feet per second and a muzzle energy of three hundred and sixty-five foot pounds. Now note what happens when I exert pressure on the trigger—”

“Eric.” His voice was professionally calm and soothing. “Eric, put the gun away. There's no need for hostility. I am certainly not trying to duck my share of the responsibility for your unfortunate mishap.
Careful
!”

“Don't panic, Doc,” I said. “It's a double-action revolver. Not much happens immediately as the trigger moves back, except that the cylinder rotates, bringing a new cartridge into line and the hammer rises, so. This being a pocket pistol, the hammer has no conventional spur, just a little grooved cocking piece that won't hang up in the clothing. Now I catch it with my thumb before the hammer can drop, so.”

He couldn't help a sharp intake of breath as the hammer fell a fraction of an inch before being arrested by my thumb.

“Eric—”

I said, “Let us review the situation, Doctor. There is now a loaded cartridge lined up with the firing pin and, of course, with the gun barrel. The trigger is back as far as it will go, rendering all safety devices inoperative. The hammer is fully cocked, held only by my thumb. The muzzle is aimed at your abdomen. The range is about three feet. I ask for your prognosis, Doctor. What will happen when your driver, sneaking up behind me, clouts me alongside the head with a blackjack or gives me a karate chop to the neck—and the hammer slips out from under my nerveless thumb? I think the matter deserves our most careful consideration, don't you?”

There was a space of complete silence. The big man behind me, belatedly aware of the situation, had stopped moving. Dr. Perry licked his lips, watching the gun with fascination.

I said, “There is a time element involved, of course. It's quite a strain, holding a gun like this. When my thumb gets tired, and maybe a little slippery with sweat—Don't forget, I'm the guy whose hand keeps slipping and killing people.”

“Eric,” he said. “Eric, don't be hasty. I can understand the resentment you feel towards me, but I swear the instructions I gave you seemed perfectly safe, well within the bounds of what the subject could tolerate—”

I laughed. “Doctor, you flatter yourself. I'm not mad at you, although I do think you might at least wait for the autopsy results before talking as if it were all my fault. After all, you had a hand in it, too. But the hell with that. I'm not pointing a gun at you for personal reasons.”

“Then what—”

I said, “You got a call from Washington while you were driving here, didn't you? You were told that my attitude seemed to be somewhat uncertain, and that it might be a good idea to make absolutely sure that I came in as ordered. Am I correct?”

He hesitated. Then he nodded reluctantly.

“All right,” I said. “Well, here's a message to take back. Tell the man upstairs that limited measures have failed and the full mad-dog treatment may be indicated. Tell him that I recommend a silenced rifle with a telescopic sight. A shotgun could do the job, but it would be pretty damn noisy and messy. A good man with a pistol might deliver, but he'd be taking chances. I may have a superman complex, Doctor, but I'm not laboring under the delusion that I'm bullet-proof.”

“Eric, you're talking wildly—”

“Shut up,” I said, “and listen carefully. The one thing I want you to impress on him is that he must not make the mistake of trying to take me alive a second time. You're getting away with it tonight. No one else will. Do you understand? I may not be the best man he's got, but I'm pretty damn good; plenty good enough to handle anybody he sends after me with orders not to kill. Tell him not to waste trained men by ordering out to get me handicapped by silly instructions like that. They simply won't come back. Is that clear?”

Perry licked his lips again, watching the cocked revolver in my hand. “It's clear.”

“I've been a member of this organization a long time, off and on,” I said. “I know how it works. I know that if he really wants me, he can get me—dead. I'll even make it easy for him. I'm sticking to my cover as Lash Petroni, hoodlum. If I'm mowed down one dark night, it'll just go down in the records as another syndicate kill. If that's what he wants, tell him to go ahead. I won't even duck. I've got other things to do besides watching the bushes for hidden guns.”

Perry asked quickly, “Other things? What other things do you have to do, Eric?”

“Never mind,” I said. “He'll know. Just tell him the choice. He can have me killed. That's all he can do without risking a massacre that'll hit front pages clear across the country. I won't stand still for the dog-catcher with the net. I won't stand still for interference of any kind. If I bump into one of the boys, I'll go for him without asking questions. A savage battle to the death between agents of a super-secret government organization wouldn't look very nice in the headlines, would it? The publicity would put him out of business, and he knows it. And it's just what I'll give him if he tries any more of this horsing around. Tell him to send out the elimination squads or forget it. I'll be in touch when I have something to report.”

“Eric,” Perry said, “Eric, I want you to consider carefully the consequences of—”

“Never mind the consequences,” I said. “He'll know what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. If he wants it done, tell him, leave me alone. If he doesn't, shoot me. That's his choice. And now you can tell your driver to get your patient the hell out of my car, but don't you move until I give the word—”

It was a tricky business, but not as bad as it might have been. He was just an expert on medical matters; I didn't have to worry about him. Pretty boy Alan wouldn't have worried me under any circumstances, certainly not with his mind on his tummy. The driver was my only real concern. He was probably an old pro, but I gave him no chance to prove it. While he was helping the walking wounded from one car to the other, I stepped into the little Ford and took off.

The mirror showed me an argument behind me. The driver obviously wanted to drop everything and come after me. In a 3.8 Jag sedan he could have run circles around what I was driving. But Dr. Perry had sworn an oath to Aesculapius, and his primary concern, after all, was Alan, not me. When last seen, they were loading the patient carefully into the imported sedan with the buggy-whip antenna.

Driving away, I tried to guess what Mac would do when he got my message. He'd get mad, of course, but that didn't matter; he wasn't a man to let temper affect his course of action. On the other hand, if he really thought I'd flipped and was an active menace—Come to think of it, I had been kind of casual about slipping that knife into Alan without even waiting for identification.

I shook my head quickly. Whether my brain was running smoothly on six cylinders or limping along on five, it was all the brain I had available. And there's a kind of unwritten rule in the organization that goes:
nobody dies for nothing.
It doesn't apply to sentimental schnooks like Alan, who get perforated making like damn fools on their own time. But Jean had been on duty when she died, grimly sticking out a lousy assignment.

And I'd been there.
She's got to survive, of course,
Mac had said. Those had been my orders. Exactly why she had died wasn't very important, in this connection. It had been my job to see that she didn't. The least I could do was take over where she'd left off, so her death wouldn't be, let's say, wasted.

It was very quiet at the Tidewater Motel when I reached it. The pool was deserted again. The water still looked blue-green and cold. The window of unit seventeen was dark. I knocked softly. The light came on, footsteps approached the door and it opened to show me the small face of Teddy Michaelis, yawning.

“You took long enough,” she said. “Come in.”

She was a pajama girl, which, if I'd come for pleasure instead of business, I'd have found disappointing: nighties are much nicer. With her short, blonde hair, in her loose blue-flowered silk coat and tapering blue trousers, she looked like a small, sleepy, barefoot boy.

“Well, get inside before somebody sees you, stupid,” she snapped when I didn't move at once. I moved past her. She closed the door and locked it, saying, “I hope you had sense enough to make sure you weren't followed.”

The room had unpleasant associations for me. It was almost an exact duplicate of Jean's, a few doors down. There was the same beige wall-to-wall carpet, the same blond furniture, and the same TV set on the same revolving stand. Only the feminine debris was different; Teddy Michaelis would never take any prizes for immaculate housekeeping, either.

I walked to the closet and looked inside. I inspected the bathroom and found it empty. I turned to look at the small, boyish figure standing by the door, watching me warily. Despite the aggressive attitude with which she'd greeted me, she was obviously scared. I could hardly blame her. From her point of view, it must have been kind of like inviting a man-eating tiger to tea.

“Let's not play cowboys and Indians, doll,” I said. “Every cop in the state knows my car after the alarm that went out. What was I supposed to do, take it out in the woods and paint it pink, just for you?” She looked disconcerted, and I went on, “As far as I know, I came here clean. But I'm not guaranteeing how long it will last.”

“Oh.”

“Now,” I said, “say something that makes it worth my trouble.” I glanced around once more, and decided to take a chance on a mike. It didn't seem likely, under the circumstances, that she was in league with the police; and if anybody else was setting traps for me, I might as well take the bait and see what happened next. “Let's start with why you lied to the cops for me, doll,” I said.

“Don't call me that.”

I made her a sweeping bow. “I humbly apologize for the familiarity, Miss Michaelis, ma'am.”

“Papa used to call me doll,” she said, still standing there watching me, unmoving. “That's why—” She stopped.

“That's why you don't want to hear it from my degenerate lips?”

She smiled slowly. She was gaining confidence, I saw. She hadn't known just what to expect when I first came in: a hoodlum, a murderer. Now she was realizing that, depraved and wicked though Petroni might be, he was fundamentally just another male.

“You said that,” she murmured. “I didn't.”

“Your meaning got through, honey,” I said. “Loud and clear. Any objection to honey?”

Her smile remained. “If you have to call me something, why not try Teddy?”

“Teddy,” I said. “Like in bear. Okay, Teddy.” I frowned at her. “So Papa used to call you doll?” She nodded. I said, “And Papa is Dr. Norman Michaelis, scientist, electronics expert, and Washington big-shot. Widower. One daughter and a private income from his inventions. I like that private income, Teddy. Folks with private incomes can afford to pay for their notions, even the crazy ones. What's your notion in getting me out of jail and asking me here?”

She didn't answer the direct question. She was frowning right back at me. “You checked up on me?”

“Did you think I wouldn't? A mouse I've never seen before saves me from the cops and asks me to a conference in her motel room. Would I walk in cold?”

She hesitated, and asked curiously, “What's a mouse, Jim?”

“Don't act dumb. A mouse is a broad.”

“I mean,” she persisted, “is it good or bad? Like dream-boat? Or like bitch?”

“A mouse,” I said, “is something small and cuddly. Like a doll, which is what your daddy used to call you. Let's stick with that. Let's brush it hard and see where the dandruff falls. Used to? What made him stop?” She looked at me and didn't answer. I said, as if quoting from memory, which I was, “Dr. Norman Michaelis is currently resting and relaxing aboard a seagoing yacht belonging to friends. That's the official scoop. Don't ask me how I got it. I've got connections.”

Actually, I'd got it from the dope given me by Mac during the preliminary briefing. Michaelis' disappearance had been temporarily covered up, to avoid embarrassing questions while the search was in progress.

The little girl said quickly, “It isn't true. I suppose they mean the
Freya,
but she's anchored up a creek not twenty miles from here, where she can't be seen unless you're right on top of her. Nobody's aboard except Nick, the paid hand. They've painted out the name and home port, but how many jib-headed, eighty-foot schooners are there on the Bay? I got that much for my money, anyway, before somebody got to the man I'd hired and bought him off. Or scared him off. Anyway, he turned in one report and quit.”