The Revengers (15 page)

I shook my head. “I’m a very poor citizen. All the time the political fate of the nation was being decided, I was either out of the country or up in the mountains communing with a trout, recuperating from a very rough trip, never mind where.” I frowned. “Lorca. I never heard the name before, except for a Spanish playwright I remember vaguely from college.”

Eleanor said, “I think he’s of mixed Spanish and Anglo-Saxon ancestry. George Winfield Manuel Lorca de Sapio, something like that. I can never get those endless Spanish names quite straight. I believe in his younger and more active days he was sometimes known as Kid Sapio or The Sapper, maybe because of his favorite weapon. . . . What’s the matter?”

It was Old Home Week, goddamn it; and I didn’t like it a bit, the way the past kept coming at me lately. I said, “Hell, a syndicate character calling himself Manuel Sapio died down in Baja California, Mexico, on a bluff overlooking a deserted cove called Bahia San Agustin, except that it wasn’t deserted when I was there. There was a boat in the cove and there were people all over that cactus coastline and they all had guns, including Sapio and me. It was a smuggling deal with ramifications and Washington had an interest beyond drugs, never mind the details, although it would have made very interesting material for your article, Miss Brand, the one on yours truly. Or maybe it’s in there? If so, you know that I put Sapio out of action myself, but some other folks moved in and got the drop on me and executed him while he was still unconscious, with a bullet in the brain. . .

Eleanor said, “My God, I didn’t know you were involved in that; you really get around, don’t you? I thought I’d done a pretty good investigative job on you, but. . . She shrugged resignedly. “Anyway, that’s the man, all right; but the execution didn’t take. Lorca wound up in a San Diego hospital with the skull doctors working on him in shifts around the clock.”

“When I knew him as Manuel Sapio, he was a very tough specimen,” I said. “I’d be very much surprised if a hole in the head had mellowed him much. Of course, you’re supposed to be able to turn a tiger into a pussycat if you sever the right aggressive connections up there; but I’d want somebody else to check that the transformation was genuine before I stepped into the cage.” I grimaced. “Except that we both seem to be in the tiger cage whether we want to be or not. Well, it just shows.”

“What does it show?”

“That it doesn’t pay to be soft-hearted. If I had executed him when I had the chance, instead of just putting him to sleep in my gentle humanitarian fashion and leaving the job to somebody else, he’d have stayed executed.” I frowned. “Let me get this straight. Your theory and that of some of your journalistic friends is that this repentant Mr. Lorca is a phony, is that what you’re trying to say?”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t say it very loudly, or to anybody I didn’t trust. That’s another thing we noticed, a straw in the wind so to speak. Strange things seemed to happen to people who got in the way of Lorca’s election campaign. Oh, no black sedans with tommy guns poking out the windows. No skullduggery in dark alleys. Just . . . things.”

“Sure,” I said. “Things. What you’re suggesting is that organized crime, whatever you want to call it, instead of just buying up a ready-made politician here and there as in the past, has now constructed one of its own, who’s ridden to power—and will presumably continue to ride—on the current wave of anti-crime feeling, as a man who really knows the evil but has rejected it in favor of the good. As a confessed, reformed sinner who hates the sin he’s renounced and knows how it should be dealt with better than anyone. And then?”

She shrugged. “Oh, then, as soon as he feels himself secure, we’ll see a lot of underworld fall guys falling to make Mr. Clean look good. There’ll be a lot of sacrificial goats and chickens offered up on the anti-crime altar. But in the meantime . . . well, with a truly powerful secret friend high up in national politics, who knows how far the syndicate can go? They already control a lot more of our country than people are willing to believe.”

“And what,” I asked, “has all this got to do with ships sinking up and down the Atlantic coast?”

After a moment, Eleanor shook her head. “I don’t know. As far as I was concerned there was no connection; not until you came along. I was working on a different story entirely. You’re the one who brought in George Winfield Lorca, you and your lady charter-boat skipper. I didn’t know that he had anything to do with what I’m investigating now. I still don’t, really.”

“Yes, you do,” I said. “You know that Harriet Robinson took the sacred Lorca name in vain, in this very connection; and was instantly punished for it. That can’t be coincidence. So the connection must exist. All we have to do is find it.”

She hesitated. “The Lorca dossier you brought is still in my room where you left it,” she said a bit reluctantly. “Maybe we’d better go through it together and see if we can spot anything significant.”

Ten minutes later, we were emerging from the elevator on the fourth floor, having signed the dinner check—her obligation as head of this journalistic partnership—and picked up my key at the desk where Fred had left it. I was aware of her walking silently beside me in her nice white button-down-the-front silk dress and her neat high-heeled pumps that made no sound on the hall carpet; and I knew she was aware of me, too. I hadn’t missed her poorly concealed reluctance to suggest a conference in her room, at this hour of night.

“Matt,” she said.

“Don’t give it a thought, Elly,” I said. “We got those emotional involvements all taken care of a couple of hours back, remember? That goes for physical involvements, too. Just business, business, business all the way, okay?”

She said stiffly, “Don’t try to read minds; you’re not very good at it. All I was going to say was that I’m pretty tired. That dossier can wait until morning, can’t it?”

“Sure,” I said. “Whatever you say, Boss.”

“Matt.”

“Yes, Elly.”

She looked straight ahead as she walked. “You’re jumping to conclusions. I’m not really the shy ingenue type; and normally the idea of holding a late consultation with a man in my hotel room and having him sleeping next door wouldn’t bother me a bit. I . . . I’m just trying to avoid a situation that could be very embarrassing for both of us. I can’t explain. But I’d appreciate it if you’d stop acting like the experienced man of the world being so damned patronizingly considerate of the timid little girl from the sticks with her silly sexual hangups. I’d appreciate it very much.”

We’d stopped in front of my room, since I had that key still in my hand. I looked down at her for a moment; and she met my look steadily.

I said, “My mistake. I. . . Then I saw what was lying on the carpet at her feet. I grabbed her and felt her body react with instant, violent panic. “Easy, easy!” I breathed in her ear, after drawing her close in spite of her struggles. “Listen! Get the hell out of here, fast. Call 23572 from a booth in the lobby. Tell them where you are and stay right there until they come for you. 23572. Now scat.”

I released her and shoved her away and saw her, after a moment’s hesitation, turn and tiptoe away. Hoping our brief scuffle had been heard, I spoke more loudly.

“Hey, baby!” I said hoarsely. “Hey, sweetheart! You almost had me fooled with that cool professional look. So, all right, let’s move the meeting inside where we can give the subject serious consideration. . . . What the hell did I do with my key?”

Perhaps I was making a fool of myself, but if there was no audience it didn’t matter. I glanced again at the telltale Fred had set on my door, now lying on the floor nearby. Well, it could have been the maid coming to turn down the bed, but if so why hadn’t she entered Elly’s room as well? That telltale was still in place.

I fumbled with the lock long enough to make them nervous in there, if they were in there. Then I hit the door hard, slamming it back against the wall, and went through it. . . .

I’d figured he probably wouldn’t send anybody to do the job alone. If he was the man I thought he was, he knew who I was and what my business was. You don’t send a lone soldier after an experienced professional in my fine of work, not unless your boy is very damned good; and with all due modesty, the fact that I’m still around in spite of arousing a certain amount of hostility here and there over the years, would seem to indicate that there aren’t many boys available that good. I could name you a few who might qualify, or who might think they qualified, but they aren’t in private employ.

So he wouldn’t send just one. And he wouldn’t send three. That would be giving me undue importance and suggesting that I was really somebody to be afraid of; and that could not, of course, be admitted publicly by a man in his position. Besides, three men tend to get in each others’ way when the going gets rough, particularly in a confined space like a hotel room.

So there would be a two-man team inside. One man would be posted right in front of the door facing me, armed, to attract and hold my attention the instant I entered; while the second would be waiting on one side or the other—to my left, in this case, since the door swung right —to get the drop on me from behind while I stood gawking at the first, all shocked and bewildered and scared.

I caught a glimpse of the decoy gent in front of me, but safely back out of my reach, gun raised, as I crashed inside; but he would keep, I hoped. I swerved sharply left and the second man was there, all right, taking aim; but he’d been expecting to have my helpless back to aim at as I came to a screeching halt, a steady target. He didn’t get it. He got my front instead, coming at him; and I took advantage of his moment of paralyzed surprise to slap the gun from his hand—it was as easy as that—and grab him by the lapels of his gaudy sports coat. His shirt was equally dramatic, I noticed.

I was between the two men now. The one in the center of the room had a clear shot at my back but of course he didn’t take it. I mean, if you’re a man with a gun who’s had any training at all, you don’t take any hasty shots toward your partner’s position. You get the permissible sectors of fire clearly set in your mind first thing; you remind yourself firmly that shooting in that direction is simply not allowed. Just as the AA guns on a warship are blocked, or were back when they used that kind of rapid-fire guns—for all I know they use lasers now—so that the ones aft can’t blow the heads off the guys serving the ones forward if somebody gets excited, so each member of a good hunting partnership, whatever the quarry, establishes certain limits for himself beyond which he must not fire, at least not without thinking it over and being very, very careful. It was possible that the man over by the bed could have shot me hoping that his teammate was not quite in line or that my body would stop the bullet; but the warning signals were screaming in his brain—
danger bearing, danger bearing
—and with the klaxons going off in there and the red lights flashing he took a moment to think it over and wait for a safer shot. I swung the other guy clear around by his bright coat and slung him straight at the gun and heard it fire.

The sound was muffled between the two bodies. I saw the man with the gun step back, aghast, as the partner he’d shot went to his knees on the carpet feeling behind for the place that hurt, that he could not quite reach. Before the standing man could recover, I had his gun. I sent him reeling back with a blow to the windpipe, not as hard as it might have been. Nevertheless, he grabbed for his throat, strangling, fighting for breath.

“Should I close the door?”

I whirled, stepping aside quickly so I could cover the two men and the doorway as well. Eleanor Brand was standing there. She seemed to have lost some height. I saw that she was in her stocking feet, holding one of her sharp-heeled white pumps at the ready.

I said harshly, “I told you—”

“I know what you told me,” she said calmly. “Just a minute, let me get my purse and my other shoe.” She disappeared into the corridor, and returned after a moment, and closed the room door. “All clear,” she reported in the same calm voice. “The noise wasn’t really very loud; it sounded kind of muffled. Nobody seems to have noticed.” She bent down to set the shoes neatly before her, and stepped into them. When she straightened up, I saw that her face was suddenly quite pale and a little shiny; reaction was setting in. “That was. . . She swallowed hard, and cleared her throat. “That was really very neat What are you going to do with them?”

“Cut their throats and put them out with the hotel garbage,” I said.

“No,” she said. “You’re just kidding me.”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m just kidding you.”

“If you’d really wanted to kill them, you’d have used your own gun.”

I said, “We’re here to do a story, remember, not to argue with a bunch of Bahamian cops. Guns cause a lot of trouble, particularly in foreign countries. I can never understand why. You can kill a man with anything from a baseball bat to a knitting needle and nobody really minds; but if you shoot him with a firearm, people get all excited. Why did you come back?” Then I shook my head quickly. “Skip it, temporarily. Let’s get rid of the trash before we go into all that.” I turned to the standing man, leaning weakly against the bed, a heavyset gent in white slacks and another gaudy sports shirt. He was gradually managing to pull in enough air to survive on. “You,” I said. “I don’t know who sent you, not really, but if you should happen to meet a gent named Lorca, alias Sapio, give him a message from me. Tell him that he’d better try to remember a bay in Baja California and what I told him one night on a bluff overlooking that bay. That was before I put him to sleep along with his four henchmen. They were really rather pitiful, no problem at all, just like you two clowns. Now haul your ass and your friend to hell out of here and don’t let me see you again. Next time I might get mad and hurt you.”

The standing man tried to speak, but nothing but a rattling sound came out of his bruised throat. He bent over his teammate, who groaned as he was lifted but managed to stay on his feet once he was put there. I nodded to Eleanor, who opened the door, looked out cautiously, and gave me a nod in return. She stood well back as the two stumbled out; then she closed and locked the door behind them.