Matt Helm--The Interlopers (21 page)

I sat down facing him. “That’s my story,” I said, drinking from my own can.

“Mr. Stottman didn’t like you much.” Pete’s voice was flat and expressionless. His dark eyes watched me steadily.

“I didn’t like Mr. Stottman much,” I said. “Come to that, I don’t like you much. So what?”

“You didn’t report. Some people higher up are annoyed. They had to read it in the Canadian papers.”

“Stiffs aren’t my business, friend. I’m not required to report anything to anybody. I just carry the mail.”

“Mr. Stottman had a funny idea you aren’t exactly what you pretend.”

“I know Mr. Stottman’s funny idea,” I said. “He made it pretty clear. Frankly, I think your Mr. Stottman was a paranoid crackpot who should have been put away in a room with upholstered walls.”

Pete drank more beer and studied the can thoughtfully. “Paranoid,” he said softly. “Hell, I’m just an ignorant redskin, Nystrom. Don’t waste those big words on me.”

I grinned. “Sure, you’re stupid like Hiawatha.”

“That imaginary, romanticized creep!”

“Sitting Bull, then. Mangas Colorada. Chief Joseph of the Nez Percé.” He remained silent, and I went on. “Okay, for the sake of your limited intelligence, which I don’t believe in for a moment, let’s just say that friend Stottman was the kind of sick guy who sees enemies and traitors where there aren’t any. I took time out to drive clear to Seattle just to humor him. I got myself a copper-riveted, brass-bound identification to make him happy, and he still wouldn’t drop his crazy suspicions. So they got him killed, and we’re sorry about that, but—”

“How do you figure?” Pete’s voice was sharp.

“If he’d minded his own business,” I said, “he’d still be alive down in the state of Washington where he belonged, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t have got himself shot, carelessly walking in on a couple of guys laying for me.”

“Mr. Stottman didn’t walk into places carelessly. And he never used a knife. Those other two guys were killed with a knife, it said in the paper. He didn’t even carry a knife, Nystrom. I did the knifework for both of us when it had to be done.”

“So he took a knife from one of them. They weren’t very bright, judging by their clumsy tailing techniques—they’d been following me a whole day. It wouldn’t take a genius to disarm one of them. Only Stottman wasn’t quite fast enough with the blade when he did get it, and the other got off a shot.”

“You didn’t say anything about hearing a shot.”

I said, “With an outboard motor running, how much could I hear, a mile out on the lake?”

“You’ve got answers for everything, don’t you? But if it happened like you say, and the punks were laying for you, Mr. Stottman saved your life.”

“Who asked him to? I handled the creep with the rifle in Pasco, didn’t I? I could have taken care of those two. Hell, I knew they were around, I was just waiting for the right time to ditch them or deal with them when your friend blundered into the line of fire and got himself massacred.”

“Pretty cocky, aren’t you? For a mere courier who never killed a man in his life before this week. Where’s
your
knife, Nystrom? Could it be in the hands of the cops, labeled exhibit A?”

I hesitated, shrugged, took out the Buck knife, and slid it across the dinette table. Pete looked down at it and up at me. He picked up the knife, opened it, ran his thumb along the edge approvingly, and tried to close it.

“Press the back of the handle near the end, there,” I said. “The blade locks. Keeps it from shutting on your fingers when you’re skinning out your elk.” I reached out and reclaimed my knife. “Just what the hell is your theory, Pete? That I mowed them down, all three of them? That makes me pretty good, doesn’t it? Thanks for the compliment.”

“You’re pretty good, all right,” Pete said. “Whoever you are. The question is, are you good enough? Thanks for the beer.”

He gave the pup a casual pat, pushed him aside, and went to the door and stopped, looking back. I met his look. It was a moment of understanding. Regardless of what had been said he knew quite well that I’d killed Stottman somehow, and I knew that he was going to make me pay for it somehow, if he could. He was announcing the fact quite openly.

Of course, he wasn’t being completely frank. He wasn’t telling me that he was delivering his flamboyant challenge, threat, or whatever it was, in order to keep my attention firmly fixed on him while another man sneaked up for the actual kill.

After leaving Sitka, we spent the rest of the day cruising along sheltered passages between large, spectacularly mountainous islands—well, spectacular when the fog let us see them—with thickly wooded shores. At least the forests were thick where the lumbermen hadn’t been at them, but in many places it looked as if a mad barber with giant clippers had been at work, leaving the dirty bare skull of the earth shockingly naked.

“What’s the matter, darling?” Libby asked, coming up beside me where I leaned against the rail. “You look like another kid ran off with your ice cream cone.”

I gestured toward the denuded shoreline we were passing. “I thought they only hacked them down like that back in the days of the bad old lumber barons who never heard of conservation.”

Libby laughed. “You worry about the damndest things, Matt. I mean, Grant. You worry about that dumb mutt you’ve got to drag along for identification—and I don’t thank you for turning him in with me this morning when I was sleeping soundly—and now you’re worrying about trees, for God’s sake! The Japs need the lumber and somebody wants their money, so what’s the problem? After killing four men in less than a week, are you going to weep over a pine tree?”

I didn’t think the stuff was pine, but in other respects she was perfectly right, of course. However, as usual her sense of security was microscopic. I glanced around casually. A stocky male figure in jeans and a heavy, hip-length jacket was hunched over the rail up forward.

“Raise your voice a little,” I said. “Pete didn’t hear you the first time.”

Libby followed my glance, but ignored my sarcasm. “That’s the man who visited your truck this morning after I’d left? Stottman’s assistant?”

“That’s the man. Now he seems to have appointed himself my shadow. It’s an old psychological device: keep haunting the evildoer and eventually he’ll get nervous and betray his guilt, you hope.” I grimaced. “Pete would just love to hear you confirm that I killed his plump sidekick, not to mention those other characters. He’s pretty sure already, but not quite sure enough to get mad enough to act.”

She made a face at me. “Let’s go inside and discuss it over a drink. It’s cold out here!”

“I’ve got to go feed that dumb mutt, as you call him,” I said. “I’ll meet you in the bar in half an hour.”

She frowned, clearly annoyed in her feminine way that I’d prefer a dog’s company to hers, even briefly. She turned without speaking, marched away to the nearest door, and paused a moment to look at herself in the glass, tidying her windblown hair. She disappeared into the cabin.

I grinned; then I shivered as the raw wind bit through the ski parka I’d inherited from Grant Nystrom. It seemed a long time ago since I’d been warm enough to welcome a swim, down in British Columbia. I went down to the car deck, said hello to the pup, checked my watch, and at five o’clock sharp turned him loose to run while I stirred up his meal—five cups of dry dog food, water, and half a can of horsemeat, if you’re interested in the dietary details. He wasn’t what you’d call a dainty eater.

Then I glanced at my watch once more. I waited until exactly ten minutes had passed, then leaned out the camper door and blew the come-here whistle softly. It took Hank a minute or two to respond, and when he came romping up between the cars, I could see that the collar he was wearing was just a little newer and blacker than the one he’d had on when I turned him loose.

I carefully didn’t look toward the aft end of the hold where, jammed in among a bunch of passenger cars, stood a vehicle that looked like a boxy Ford delivery van converted for camping—a vehicle I’d first seen in Prince Rupert when I’d delivered Smith, Junior, to what he’d called his lab truck. Even without looking, I was aware that a bearded young man I didn’t recognize was leaning casually against a door of the truck.

That would be the partner young Smith had referred to, ostensibly drinking a Coca-Cola, actually standing watch while the youthful pride of the undercover services, inside, checked the material I’d gathered from the last two drops and altered or replaced it judiciously so Hank’s collar would do the nation’s interests no harm, and maybe even a little good, when I finally delivered it in Anchorage.

It was the kind of tricky secret-agent stuff that always makes me kind of embarrassed; it seemed like a kid’s game a grown man wouldn’t want to be caught playing. On the other hand, I was relieved to have the latest information in the pup’s collar defanged and defused, so to speak; and even more relieved to realize that four of my five contacts were now history. Only one act of my superspy drama remained to be played—Nystrom in the Northwest, or the Courageous Courier—well, two, if you counted the delivery in Anchorage, assuming that Holz let me get that far.

After the pup had finished eating, I turned him loose once more while I busied myself cleaning house after a fashion. When ten minutes had passed again, I called him in with the whistle; and he had his old collar back. It was a cute routine. I didn’t know if it had actually fooled anybody, but I was sure it had made the boys in the lab truck feel clever and useful.

Hank was licking his chops happily, savoring the aftertaste of whatever tidbit they’d used to lure him in. I regarded him sternly.

“Some one-man dog you are, Prince Hannibal,” I said, “making up to anybody who scratches your ears or offers you a handout! Now try to be good and stay off the furniture.”

When I came into the cocktail lounge and looked around for Libby, I couldn’t spot her at once. Then a woman lounging at the bar shifted position and smiled at me, and I realized that it was my attractive colleague, self-styled. I’d got so used to seeing her in pants that I hadn’t recognized her in a dress. It wasn’t much of a dress; at least there wasn’t much of it. The main impression she gave, sitting there, was of slim, endless legs in figured black stockings. Above was something brief, black, and sleeveless.

I gave the exposed limbs, as the Victorians used to call them, the amount of attention they deserved by whistling softly.

“Where’s the party?” I asked. “Should I break out a tux or am I all right in slacks and a wool shirt?”

Libby laughed. “It’s our last night on board, darling. According to the purser’s blackboard, we’ll be landing in Haines, Alaska, around six A.M. After that, I understand, we cross the border under our own power, and the going through Canada can get pretty rugged. I… I just thought we ought to celebrate a little while we have the chance.”

We did.

In the morning, in the tiny bathroom of the stateroom we’d finally put to use, I shaved, after a fashion, with a dainty, pink lady-type machine supplied by Libby. I’m not partial to those power mowers, even the gentleman-type ones, but it did a halfway decent job, and I didn’t figure folks up there on the last frontier would be too critical of a few remaining whiskers. As I was finishing, several shocks ran through the ship.

“You’d better hurry,” Libby called from the other room. “We seem to be docking.”

I came out of the cubbyhole to find her fully clad, packing her suitcase. I got my shirt buttoned up and tucked in while she was completing the task; then I picked up the single item of luggage and followed her out into the corridor and down the stairs, which were crowded with people hurrying to their cars. When we reached the deck below, one of the big landing doors was open, and the ramp was being lowered into place.

Libby made her way to the yellow Cadillac, unlocked the trunk, waited for me to place the suitcase inside, and slammed the lid. She was back in her mannish corduroy pantsuit, but it still didn’t make her look noticeably like a man. Her short, dark hair was a little tousled—we’d slept too late for her to take much time with it—and her face looked pink and young and sleepy.

“Wait for me at the border,” I said. “Or I’ll wait for you. They don’t open it until eight anyway, I heard somebody say. There’ll be time for me to stir us up something to eat in the camper before they let us through.”

“I’m not hungry,” she said and hesitated. When she spoke again, her voice was soft. “Matt.”

“Yes?”

“It was nice,” she said. “Whatever happens, last night was nice.”

I looked at her for a moment. She wasn’t the sweetest, gentlest woman I’d ever met, or even the most beautiful. I still wasn’t quite sure of her motives and loyalties. Nevertheless, we’d managed to share something special for a few hours—something a little different from the enjoyable but meaningless man-woman stuff we’d indulged in previously—but it wasn’t the sort of thing you could talk about without spoiling it.

“Yeah,” I said. “Nice. Be careful, doll. We don’t know what we’ll be running into on shore.”

This was a lie, of course. I knew—or hoped I knew—exactly what we’d be running into: a professional killer named Holz. But I couldn’t warn her further, no matter how nice it had been. I just turned away and squeezed between the parked cars to the camper and checked on Hank. There wasn’t time to let him out for his morning airing. The first cars were already driving off the ship, including, I noted, an old white Plymouth station wagon.

I told the pup to hold everything, closed the door on him, and took a quick look under the truck to see if any bombs had been added or any brake lines or steering linkages removed in my absence. I checked the engine compartment. Even commercial vehicles are encumbered with a lot of Mickey Mouse gadgets these days—that big, rugged, powerful truck engine was decorated with a cute little automatic choke, for God’s sake! Apparently modern-day truck drivers are considered too stupid and feeble to pull a knob out of a dashboard. But there didn’t seem to be any gimmickry that hadn’t been there before.