The Detonators (17 page)

“You remember me?”

“Well, we were never introduced. But you are… were a friend of Elly Brand’s. We met, just to say hello, in the Miami Airport a couple of years ago. As a matter of fact I don’t think we even said hello. My business was with Elly, right?”

“You’ve got it.”

“And Elly’s dead, so what have we got in common worth talking about?”

A certain constraint in his voice made me fairly certain that, although it wasn’t common knowledge, he was aware that Eleanor Brand, a journalist lady I’d known quite well, had been knifed to death on a Chicago street because of her association with me. The fact that the murder had been paid for later didn’t change the fact that a very nice girl was no longer alive.

I asked, “You know what my job is?”

“More or less,” Meiklejohn said. “One of those screwball Washington agencies.”

“I need information. Fast information. And I don’t want to go through Washington to get it, for various reasons I don’t care to specify.”

I heard a short laugh at the other end of the line. “You’re starting to interest me. And I guess Elly would have wanted me to help you, damn you. So ask your questions.” When I’d asked them, he said, “It’ll take me a few minutes. Do you want to hold on or call back?”

I shuddered. “It was hard enough getting through once; I wouldn’t want to try it twice. I’ll hang on right here.”

It did take a while. A stout gent in a flowered shirt who’d come up behind me thought it took too long and, by looking at his watch pointedly and jingling his change nervously, made his impatient opinion quite clear. At last Meiklejohn’s voice spoke in my ear.

“Got pencil and paper handy? The following were killed in the blast or died from their injuries: Harlow Francis Catlin, fifty-five; Mary Elizabeth Parks, thirty-two, and her husband Oliver William, thirty-three; Miguel Alemn Perea, thirty-four; and Jerome Robert Shattuck, forty-four. Do you want the wounded?”

“Perea?” I said. “Hired locally?”

“No, he was a U.S. citizen. American born. Interpreter-translator, among other things.”

“And that Parks couple?” I asked. “Who were they?”

“A couple of unlucky tourists who just happened to be in the embassy because he’d lost his passport.”

“Okay, give me the injured.”

“It’s a pretty long list. Ranging from bystanders who got nicked by flying glass and needed only the Band-Aid treatment, to one poor dame who wound up in a rest home—right near here in Coral Gables, as a matter of fact—badly burned and mangled in a pretty permanent way.”

I drew a long breath. “The woman’s name?”

“Marsha Bettina Osterman, forty-three. Actually, Mrs. Osterman. Maiden name, Frelinghausen. Took a secretarial job with the glamorous foreign service because she was tired of her dull life as a Florida widow living on her defunct husband’s pension and insurance. Got herself sent to Argentina just in time to get blown to pieces. Too bad. According to her pictures, she was a good-looking woman before it happened.”

“Any others with serious injuries?”

“None that shouldn’t be healed by this time, barring a few scars.”

“Do you happen to know the name of Mrs. Osterman’s rest home?”

“Yes, it’s right here. The Krueger-Fischer Sanatorium on Crescent Drive. No number given. Coral Gables, as I said. Aside from the satisfaction of playing Boy Scout and doing my good deed for the day, what do I get out of this, Helm?”

“A bottle of booze and as much of an explanation as I can give when I’ve got the final answers.”

“Make it Jack Daniels,” he said.

That was the call I wasn’t supposed to make. Having made one, I made another; then I checked in with the local control that had been established for the mission to impress people with how seriously we took all this. I spoke a code phrase to let them know the patient was alive and doing well, and got a phrase back that let me know there were no messages or instructions for me. Very professional undercover stuff, like in the movies. I hoped the opposition had an ear on the line so they could appreciate it. And even if they weren’t equipped to listen in, I hoped they were watching and I wasn’t playing to an empty theater.

I turned the phone over to the fuming fat tourist, who was working himself up to a fine coronary, and returned to the Oriental jewelry emporium to find that Amy had all the necklaces and bracelets in the store spread out on a counter in front of her. At least it seemed that way.

“Oh, Johnny, aren’t they
beautiful
?” she said breathlessly when I came up to stand beside her. “How can I ever decide? You’ll just have to make up my silly mind for me.”

We got out of there minus a few travelers checks and plus a jade necklace and a couple of matching bracelets. In the sunshine outside, I checked her when she started up the sidewalk.

“Can you bear to pass up the casino, at least for the time being?” I asked. “And can you stand missing lunch?”

She glanced at me, surprised. “Of course, but where are we going?”

“How about Miami?”

“Are you serious? Sail all the way back there—”

“Who said anything about sailing?”

A taxi took us to the local airport. The tickets I’d ordered by phone were awaiting us, and the international red tape was minimal—U.S. Customs and Immigration checks you out right there in Freeport so you don’t have to stand in line on the other side. I made a phone call from the Miami Airport, and we paused to get something to eat there, then took a cab to Coral Gables. The sanatorium was as pleasant as a place full of the aged and ailing can be, with white buildings surrounded by wide green tree-shaded lawns. I stopped at the reception desk inside.

“I’m Matthew Helm,” I said. “This is Miss Amy Barnett. I called just now and arranged for us to see Mrs. Marsha Osterman.”

I was aware that Amy was regarding me curiously, wondering why I’d dropped our Mister-and-Missus cover, of course; but wondering more who Mrs. Osterman might be and why we’d come all this way to visit her. The gray-haired woman behind the desk checked a schedule and nodded.

“Yes, she should be ready for you. Mr. Helm…”

“Yes?”

“You’re aware that Mrs. Osterman doesn’t… communicate?”

“No,” I said. “I wasn’t aware of that.”

“But she does seem to like visitors just, the same. However…”

“What is it?” I asked when she hesitated.

The woman at the desk looked up at me soberly. “Mrs. Osterman doesn’t know that her friend Mr. Barnett is dead. My condolences, Miss Barnett, but could you please refrain from mentioning your tragic loss? We don’t feel she’s ready for the shock quite yet.”

I suppose I should have felt triumphant at having confirmed my wild guess about Doug Barnett’s personal involvement; but, it was hardly a triumphant occasion.

“We won’t say anything about it,” I said quickly, to save Amy from having to make a properly grieved response.

“Very well. Miss Pritchard, here, will take you to her.” Miss Pritchard was a sturdy young woman with dark-brown hair cut in a businesslike bang across her forehead. She wore a black linen skirt and a white cotton blouse and seemed to be a little self-conscious about them.

“I’m new here,” she confessed as we walked. “I’m still not quite used to dealing with patients and not wearing my uniform. I guess I miss the authority or something; but we try to make this as little like a hospital as possible. It’s really a lovely place for them, the poor dears.” She paused at a door. “Here we are. You will be careful? Remember that she does see and hear, although you should speak clearly because there’s still some residual hearing loss from the explosion. And she does feel. I think she feels very much. You mustn’t hurt her. Just a minute.” Miss Pritchard went through the door, which closed behind her. In a couple of minutes she was back. “All right. She’s ready for you now.”

We get them at the place out in Arizona that we call the Ranch, too; the ones who didn’t make it back in one piece. There are two kinds. There are the ones who hide their disablement and disfigurement in dark rooms; and then there are the ones who face you in the light and take perverse pleasure in watching you wince and swallow hard at your first sight of them. Mrs. Marsha Osterman belonged in the second category.

It was a fairly large, sunny room with an old-fashioned high ceiling and curtains at the two big windows. An effort had been made to temper the institutional atmosphere as much as possible, although the electric bed bore no resemblance to an antique four-poster. But the mahogany dresser and its mirror looked solid and moderately old, like stuff that had been in somebody’s family for a while; and so did the two comfortable chairs for visitors. There were a couple of realistic paintings on the wall, in heavy frames, that appeared to be family portraits; and a couple of nonrepresentational modern things as well. It looked as if Mrs. Osterman had been allowed to furnish her room with a few of her own belongings, or, if she hadn’t been up to doing it herself or hadn’t really cared, somebody had done it for her.

However, like the hospital bed, the wheelchair struck a discordant note in the pleasant surroundings, as did its occupant. I’d seen as bad or worse before, but Amy gasped and gripped my arm fiercely.

I said softly, “Why get all upset? It’s just some of your nice friend Albert’s work. I thought you’d like to see what he does in his spare time, when he isn’t whipping people.”

“Stop it! She can hear you!”

Good girl. If she was thinking more of the feelings of the woman before us than of her own horrified reactions, she was going to be all right. But it was really pretty grim. The figure in the wheelchair was wearing a handsome bed jacket, violet, with some white lace at the wrists and throat; and there was a blanket across the knees, except that there were no knees. Professionally, I found myself separating the blast damage from the burn damage. Apparently the woman had lain helpless with the shattered legs, later amputated, while the fire worked on her—I hoped she’d been unconscious at the time. The left hand was a burn-scarred claw, and most of the left side of the face including the eye had been seared away. The right side of the face and the right hand were still human. The hair, where it still grew, was thick and black and glossy, carefully arranged to minimize the effect. Well, a little. The remaining eye watched us steadily out of the ruined face.

I drew Amy forward. I remembered to speak slowly and clearly: “I’m Matthew Helm, Mrs. Osterman. A friend of Doug Barnett. He may have mentioned my name sometime.” It seemed that I was forever being forced to claim a friendship that didn’t really exist. There was a slight change in the seated figure to tell me the woman was timed in and receiving. “And this is his daughter, Amy,” I said.

There was a long silence; then Mrs. Osterman’s good hand lifted in a small, beckoning gesture. I was prepared to urge Amy forward, but the girl was always better than I gave her credit for being. She stepped forward quickly, took the older woman’s hand, and, after a moment, pressed it to her cheek; then she was on her knees beside the wheelchair, crying, and Mrs. Osterman was stroking her hair gently.

“Oh, my dear, we could have been such good friends!”

It was a harsh whisper. The lips, badly distorted on the left side, hardly moved. Amy looked up, startled; then she took the older woman’s hand again and kissed it, jumped to her feet, and ran past me and out of the room, still sobbing.

To break the silence that followed, I said, “If you’re wondering about her hair, she became a blonde for a job she’s doing for us.” I stepped closer, so I wouldn’t have to speak so loudly. “Is there anything I can do for you, Mrs. Osterman?”

The figure in the wheelchair didn’t speak, but after a moment the shoulders moved slightly as if shaken by silent laughter at my dumb question.

“Oh, Of course.” I studied her for a while. “You could have asked Doug… No, I see. He loves you. You love him. You don’t want him to have it on his conscience. What about my conscience, ma’am?” Again she didn’t speak, but her answer was quite clear, and I grinned. “Okay, so you don’t give a damn about my lousy conscience. Fair enough. But I’ll have to ask you to hold off for a few days, preferably longer, so it won’t be too obvious who gave it to you. Make it easy for them to call it heart failure or something.”

She was trying to say something, but apparently the words she’d brought out for Amy were the only ones available to her today. I studied her face carefully.

“I see. You have no plans for using it very soon; you just want to know it’s there if things get unbearable.” I saw her head move in a slight nod, and I went on: “In that case, I’d better warn you that you may get some bad news shortly, Mrs. Osterman. Don’t let it rush you into anything you weren’t planning on anyway. Wait to make absolutely sure. All kinds of rumors get around, and a lot of them aren’t true, if you follow me. Now, where’s a good hiding place?”

She was watching me carefully; obviously she would have liked to question me, but the words wouldn’t come. At last her hand moved slightly toward the dresser. I went over, reflecting that a woman in her condition who’d have a big mirror in her room was obviously a woman who never kidded herself much about anything. I saw the jewel case lying there; when I touched it, she nodded. I brought it back and placed it in her lap, noting that she had some function left in the crippled hand; it could hold the case steady in a clumsy way while the fingers of the good hand worked the lock. I turned away to get at the little capsule I carry—the key to the big black door. It’s not mandatory except on certain types of high security, high-risk assignments, but I’ve been around too long and know too much about our operations to feel quite comfortable without it.

When I turned back, she’d selected a ring with a rather large opal; as I watched; she pressed a tiny concealed catch with her thumbnail and the jewel swung up like a miniature trapdoor, revealing a golden cavity. I placed the death pill inside. She snapped the ring closed.

“Real Borgia stuff,” I said. “I’ll put it back for now. When you start wearing it, they’ll think it’s a good symptom, a nice bit of vanity that shows you’re beginning to take an interest in life at last. I suppose we could call it our little private joke. Bite hard and swallow fast when you want to go. Good-bye, Mrs. Osterman.”