Davidian Report (7 page)

Haig lit a cigarette. “I’m trying to find Davidian.” Was he angling for an informer? Did he hope that Steve would sell out to him; could it be he had heard that Steve worked for hire, not devotion to a cause? The waiters were a stylish drill team, removing plates, making order out of disorder before bringing the steaks.

Steve hooted. “In Beverly Hills?”

Haig lifted bold eyes. “Does that surprise you?” He knew it didn’t. He might think Rube was playing a hand in this, but he knew Steve Wintress was in Los Angeles for only one purpose.

Steve asked innocently, “Why would a man like that turn up here?”

Haig shrugged. “Possibly to meet a very good friend of his. Janni Zerbec.”

Somehow the glass in Steve’s hand didn’t splinter. All of them were eying him. If he didn’t brazen it out, Haig would wonder out loud what was bothering him. He brazened, “Is Janni Zerbec here?”

“Yes, Tim saw her today.” Haig was casual. “You know her?”

Janni wasn’t one for idle talk, certainly not to the Gestapo. Yet she didn’t know the shape of U.S. officialdom. It wasn’t the ugly iron spikes or hunks of jagged stone she was conditioned to; it was clerks like Timothy or smooth operators like Haig Armour. She wouldn’t know how dangerous they could be. Steve decided to play it dumb. If she’d mentioned his visit to Timothy, he would brand her a liar. Let Haig prove which one lied.

“Isn’t she the girl who use to dance in those black-market cafés?” If only Feather couldn’t add. If only she’d forgotten the earlier moment of his indulgence in remembering Janni. His question sounded genuinely curious; this Berlin pin-up of earlier G.I.’s shouldn’t be linked with his personal bitterness over a dancer. He grimaced. “The joints out of bounds for us G.I.’s?”

Feather’s wide eyes widened. “You mean she danced for G.I.’s and lived in the Eastern sector?”

“Maybe she couldn’t read the signs,” Rube said dryly.

Haig’s eyes hadn’t moved from Steve. “You were in Berlin with the Army of Occupation?”

“I was one of the first guys in.”

Reuben’s smile wrapped Steve up in a new blanket of friendship. The kid would have been in high school when Steve was rolling into Berlin. The old men had been sent home, the high school crowd had taken over. Same job, no modern improvements. There wasn’t even a concept of peace any longer between wars. Nothing but stalemate between Armageddons.

Steve became garrulous in imitation of old soldiers. “There were plenty of girls entertaining us conquering heroes. But only one Janni Zerbec. Everybody knew Janni.”

“Off bounds,” Haig commented.

Something in the way he said it made Steve ask what he didn’t want to ask. “Did you?”

Haig had been waiting for this. He let his smile grow reminiscent, his dark eyes slumberous. “Yes, I knew her.”

Steve managed to speak evenly. “You were over there, too, when the war ended?”

“I was there ahead of the lines.”

And Haig could have lined her up before Steve found her. It wasn’t true. Steve was sure it wasn’t true. This lie was a part of Haig’s master plan, only that; something labeled Operation Davidian, with Directive A: dissect Steve Wintress; Subdirective: try Stimulus Janni. And watch Steve Wintress bleed. It wasn’t going to work. Haig couldn’t hear his heart thudding:
Keep your fine manicured paws off Janni, keep your richness for the Feathers—keep away from Janni!
Haig could hear only the question he spoke aloud, “What the hell’s she doing here?”

Haig said, “Perhaps Davidian will answer that.”

Davidian shouldn’t have made contact with her; he’d been warned to stay away from anyone out of his past. Steve asked bluntly, “Are you out here to ship them back to Berlin?”

Haig laughed, “They appear to be here legitimately.” He stopped laughing. “Unless they move into the wrong crowd.” The waiters were again tidying up the table. “Besides it’s not my business. I’m in a different racket now, as you would put it. My doctor advised a quieter job.”

Like hell. Somehow Steve managed a smile. “So you’re looking for Davidian to ask him about his income tax.”

Rube told the waiter, “I’ll have chocolate layer cake with my ice cream.”

“In a way.” Haig continued smoothly, “You might say I’m interested in the amount of money he’s made this year.”

Did Haig honestly believe that Davidian was opening up his engraving business in Los Angeles? It was the kind of maneuvering the department had found successful before; it might be tough to apprehend a guy for murder or wife-beating or subversive activities, but you could move in fast on income tax irregularities. You could use the threat to bargain for the report.

Haig was asking, “Do you get out here often?”

“No.” They couldn’t pin on him the coincidence of Davidian and Janni being in these parts.

“I find it a particularly interesting community. It has a heterology of its own but it isn’t as easy to be lost in it as it is in New York, for example, or Berlin or London. For a fairly simple reason. It doesn’t have the ancient warrens of those tired old cities. It is difficult to find a hiding place in a meadow or on the plains. Or in the wide sprawling spaces of Los Angeles. There’s too much daylight and not enough shadow.”

Steve said sardonically, “Then you won’t have much trouble in running down this Davidian.”

“Not much.” Haig was complacent. “This community has another aspect which is both peculiar and helpful. It is neighborly. Unlike New York, or Berlin or London, where there is, you might say, a psychotic revulsion against so much as recognizing a stranger, the good people here open their arms in welcome. Therefore, undue reticence creates conversation; it actually becomes suspect. And conversation ripples like a pebble in a pond, to the milkman and the breadman and the ice cream man, in the supermarket and the laundromat and the P.T.A. meeting. Whenever I see street after street of neat little white houses, or pink or green or yellow houses, I know that even the children playing on the walks will recognize the presence of a deviationist.”

He had it all tagged so neatly. Yet Davidian had hidden out for months now. Successfully. Perhaps Davidian himself had perceived the pattern, perhaps he was hiding in the open. The danger in this solution was obvious; the kids on the block would be singing about the nice new man instead of the nasty new man. You couldn’t win the way Haig had outlined it. And Haig could be right; he wouldn’t often be wrong.

An urgency to get back to Janni rode Steve’s nerves. She’d have to tell him where Davidian was; the F.B.I. had come too far. It wasn’t safe for any of them now.

It wasn’t easy to get away. He didn’t doubt this had been one of the purposes of Haig’s fancy dinner. To keep him from his job. He made his exit on a palpable excuse about business, insurance business, leaving the three of them at the table, still tied up with coffee and dessert and the check. He caught a cab discharging a couple outside the hotel, announced, “The Biltmore,” loudly, in case Haig had a man hanging around. There was no cab waiting to follow and no car took out after him. It was a long ride, not as long as by trolley and bus, and not as time-consuming. But the expense account wouldn’t stand many of these jaunts. He’d have to get hold of a car if he was going to track down Davidian in these wide open spaces. Moreover, a cab was too easy to follow.

He played the game in the Biltmore Hotel. The lobby was full of conversation, businessmen in responsible business suits. He couldn’t spot a tracker. He went to the desk, asked for a guy who had vanished into Siberia a year back, not a name Haig could check quickly. From there he went to the house phone, put through a call to 819. No one was in earshot when he made it brief to the wrong number at the other end. A fancy flight of steps led to the elevator. He took them fast, caught an elevator waiting, before his call could be traced. He rode to five, a middle-aged couple got off ahead of him but they minded their own business, heading to a room, opening the door and closing it after them. After that he wasted no time in the rug-hushed corridor. He was quick to the fire stairs and he descended on foot. He left by the side door of the hotel.

There weren’t too many people walking around the downtown streets at this hour until he reached Main. Its garish honky-tonks were going full blast. He sauntered along, despite the urgency pressing him. Plenty of movie houses cut their marquee lights and let the cashiers go home before midnight. By sauntering he didn’t make noticeable his examination of the girls remaining on duty.

She hadn’t been lying about her job. She was in the glass cage at one of the meanest of the dumps, leaning on her elbow looking at nothing. When she saw him, the half-smile was turned off. “What do you want?”

“I want to talk to you.”

“I have nothing to say to you.” She made sure he’d know she meant it by glancing over her shoulder for the bouncer. It was the first time Steve had taken notice of the man by the entrance door, a tall, thin punk with sideburns and greasy black curls. Probably considered himself baby’s little protector because she let him walk home with her on nights when she hadn’t anything better to do.

“I think you have. I’ve been with the F.B.I tonight.”

She doubted it.

“They were talking about you.”

She asked harshly, “Why can’t you leave me alone?” The punk was watchful, ready to step across the miniature lobby and make something of Steve.

“You know why.”

She said, “I can’t talk on the job.”

“What time are you off?”

“Not until two.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

Slim was advancing, one foot at a time, as if he found nothing very interesting in bouncing gents with ideas. Steve shambled off. He didn’t want to hit the punk. It wasn’t the poor guy’s fault.

There were plenty of saloons on the street but he needed a place where he could keep an eye on her, a place where she’d know he was watching and that she couldn’t pull a sneak. A decent little Italian restaurant was further up the street on the opposite pavement. It didn’t have to hide its business behind curtains. Steve bought the morning paper at the corner and gave it a try. There weren’t half a dozen people inside including the help. He took the front corner table; it didn’t give him much of a view of her cage but it would do. He didn’t want coffee and crullers but they would permit him to hang around. He’d have a long wait; it wasn’t yet midnight.

Steve glimpsed the headlines in the paper, the four horsemen galloping there as usual, and as he glanced across the way again he almost upset his coffee. She was leaving the cage, the fellow was going to take her place. He waited to see which way she moved, watched her shrug a coat about her shoulders, watched the punk hand her her purse, his hand lingering stickily on hers.

When she cut across towards the restaurant, Steve relaxed. She wasn’t trying to run out. He picked up his paper, kept at it even when she came into the place. He heard her speak, “Just coffee, Pepe.” He didn’t hear what else she said, she might have been asking Pepe to throw the bum out. Steve kept reading the paper. Until she came to the table, carrying her coffee cup. Until she sat down with him.

He didn’t get out of his chair. It wasn’t the custom on Main Street. He said, “You’re off early tonight.”

“I’ll make it up tomorrow night.” She gulped at the coffee just as if it were good, set the cup down and began fishing in her handbag. “Not that it matters to you.”

“Have one of mine?” Steve handed over his cigarette pack.

“So you are paying for information now?”

He didn’t answer, he lit her cigarette. She loosed her red coat, it was bargain basement but it was red, and she wore it with a flair. Her dress was a cheap shiny satin, too shiny. On her it had more style than Feather Talle would have dressed by Adrian.

“What story did you give that bum?”

“He is no bum. He is the assistant manager. I explained to him that you were my cousin and that you became ugly when you drank too much. I would have to get you home or there would be trouble.”

“And he believed it.”

“He could observe you had been drinking.” She swallowed more of her coffee. “As could I.”

“Not that much.” He pushed his crullers to her, she’d eat anything. “Did you tell Davidian that I was looking for him?”

“I do not know where Davidian is.”

He caught her wrist in pincer fingers. As if she were handling poisoned barbs, she removed them one by one. “You will not touch me.”

“Sorry.” He wasn’t. He was in a churn of anger. “But you can stop lying. I’m not the only one who knows better.”

“I do not lie.”

He tried again. “You know how to get in touch with him.”

“No.” He was ready to slam her when she added through an airy swirl of smoke, “He knows how to get in touch with me.”

He hopped on it too eagerly. “You’ve seen him.”

“No.”

“Janni!” She must realize that time couldn’t wait on her tricks. “When will you see him?”

“When he so chooses.”

Had they been alone, he might have rattled the truth out of her scornful mouth. They weren’t alone. They were in a restaurant where she was Pepe’s friend and Steve was her drunken cousin. Because she was pleased at infuriating him, he tried patience. “If you had to get to him in a hurry—”

“There is no way.”

She lied. She was too clever to let Davidian escape her. She was as experienced as he, more experienced, in the sly twists of the underground. What Steve didn’t get was why Davidian had delivered himself into her hands in the first place. The first contact could have been accidental, but why continue it? Davidian knew her record. It wasn’t much different from his own; two guttersnipes out for what they could get. They’d never trusted each other, their only link had been Steve. And then all at once he did know. Davidian needed an address. Someone to pass on his pay to him.

He said, “The F.B.I. is after him.”

She was unmoved. “For what reason? He does not work.”

“One of their men came to see you today.”

Pellets of rage flecked her words. “You set that goat on me!”

“Don’t be a fool,” he advised sharply. “The last thing I wanted was for them to know about you. Haig Armour sent him.”