The Revengers (19 page)

It was very revealing and, I suppose, rather touching; but I forced myself to say deliberately, “I don’t mind ugly girls, but ugly girls who keep talking about it all the time kind of bore me.”

She turned on me sharply; then she drew a long breath and said very softly, as if speaking to herself, “A sense of humor is supposed to help. And a
very
thick skin.”

“You’re the one who said it,” I reminded her. “An ugly little monkey with a notebook, you said.”

We stepped out of the elevator on the seventh floor, checked the room numbers, and started in the right direction, but Eleanor touched my arm and came to a halt facing me.

“Look,” she said, “look, do you really have some kind of crazy therapeutic theory about me, is that why you keep needling me like this?”

I said carefully, “I’ve got to put up with you in the line of duty, Elly. And you’ll be a lot easier to put up with if I can kid you out of this nonsense about what a revolting freak you are. The other, what happened to you, you can’t help. Okay. So I have to listen to the lady’s nightmares; I don’t have to listen to her daymares, too. What’s the matter, did you have a pretty little sister your daddy loved better than you?”

We were walking again. Looking straight ahead, she said rather stiffly, “No, but I had a pretty little mother who wanted a pretty little doll-baby to play with and got something that looked like a junior-grade female chimpanzee instead. Well, what did she expect? Daddy wasn’t the handsomest man in the world; he was just smart and rich which was why she’d grabbed him in the first place. But if she wanted pretty babies she should have married a movie star.” She paused, and a funny little smile tugged at the corners of her mobile mouth. “You haven’t told me I’m not a revolting freak.”

“Hell, I told you you had pretty shoulders, didn’t I? I’ll get around to reporting on the rest of you eventually, don’t rush me. . . . Hold everything!” I caught her arm and pulled her to a halt.

“What is it?”

We’d turned the last corner, and the room numbers were going the right way and getting close, and there were two men waiting outside a door down the hall ahead. When they saw us, they stopped talking and moved apart—and I knew at once that it was wrong.

These were not just a couple of lower echelon escort-type gents waiting for the big shots inside to finish their business, meanwhile chatting casually about football or baseball or women, and pausing in their talk to open the door for some honored and expected guests, after which they’d just resume their interrupted conversation. These were men waiting to carry out a prearranged plan, taking up prearranged positions. I knew from the way they moved a little too stiffly, a little too carefully, that they were feeling somewhat tense, the way you always do before the action starts—even though it shouldn’t be too damned difficult to deal with just one man and a girl, all unsuspecting.

“Back to the elevator,” I said, swinging Eleanor around. “If I say run, run like hell. Do you remember the number I told you last night?”

We were walking away now. They didn’t follow us, at least not while I had them in sight, but that meant nothing.

“23572?” She must have had questions, but she didn’t ask them.

“Good girl,” I said. “If anything happens and we get separated, you get clear, all the way clear and call that number. Somebody’ll come for you.”

The elevator was before us now and we were in luck: the door was opening. Two well-dressed young black men stepped out, talking with soft Bahamian accents, paying us no attention. I took us back down to the fourth floor. There was nobody in the hall except a black maid shoving a cart, who didn’t give us more than a casual glance. The room doors showed. undisturbed. Apparently the maid hadn’t got to us yet; more important, nobody’d been in to set a trap since we’d left. I let us into my room and locked the door behind us.

“Okay,” I said. “So far so good. That was what he meant by being very careful, apparently. Now we wait for Phase Two.”

“What is it, Matt?” she asked. “What’s happening?”

I shook my head. “Let’s not waste time guessing. Sooner or later somebody’ll let us know what’s up. Open your purse.”

She glanced at me curiously but obeyed. I pulled one of the guns I’d liberated yesterday from the depths of my suitcase—it was Warren Peterson’s, I noted—and showed it to her.

“Do you know how?” I asked.

“Just a little.” She studied the weapon carefully and said, “At least I know it’s a revolver and doesn’t have a safety.”

“Hell, you’re a ballistics genius,” I said. “A lot of people who write books about the damned things don’t know that much.”

“It’s the kind you don’t really have to cock, isn’t it? You can, but you don’t have to.”

“Correct. A long, strong pull on the trigger will do it all.”

She licked her lips. “What do I shoot?”

“When I tell you to point it at somebody,” I said, “you point it at him. And when I tell you to shoot him, you shoot him. And keep on shooting him until I tell you to stop shooting him. Not after lunch or tomorrow or next month. Now.”

She grinned briefly. “Yes, sir, Mr. Helm, sir.”

I checked the loads and snapped the cylinder back into the frame. I stuffed the weapon into the big leather purse that matched her shoes.

“One more little detail,” I said. “I don’t really care who you blow away, as long as it isn’t me. But be kind of careful about that, huh?”

She nodded, sober now. “Yes, I know. I’ll be careful.” She touched the weapon lightly, before closing the purse. “I wish I’d had that, that night.”

“Best purity-preservation medicine in the world,” I said. ‘That’s one of the things it was invented for. But nowadays they seem to figure, better ten lovely innocent virgins deflowered than one lousy rapist shot. Well, it’s a funny world full of funny people. . . .”

The telephone interrupted my foray into social philosophy. I glanced at Eleanor and picked it up. A familiar voice spoke in my ear.

“Matt?”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “I was reporting at the specified location at the specified time, but I didn’t like the looks of the welcoming committee.”

“I’m afraid you’re getting a bit jumpy, Matt.” Mac’s voice was cool. “As soon as we finish here we should consider another visit to the Ranch for rest and re-evaluation; don’t you think?” The Ranch is the place in Arizona where I’d wanted to send Brent for training, the place where they also patch up the damage from the last mission and make you ready for the next. I didn’t take the suggestion too much to heart, since Mac was talking for public consumption, as indicated by the fact that he was carefully and repeatedly employing my real name instead of my code name, the warning signal. He went on, “Our colleagues of the OFS are quite harmless, I assure you.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “Will you ask them to be harmless inside the room, please? Back from the door where I can see them all as I come in. The door unlocked and nobody behind it or near it. No weapons in sight. I’ve had trouble with somebody in this hotel already, two somebodies— three somebodies, come to think of it—and I’m responsible for the young lady’s safety. As you say, I’m jumpy as hell. If anybody waves a firearm at me with whatever motive, or comes at me from an unexpected direction, no matter who, I won’t be responsible for my jumpy reactions.”

Mac said, “It all seems quite unnecessary and even slightly paranoid, but if that’s the way you prefer it, I will ask Mr. Bennett to instruct his men accordingly. Incidentally, he’s very interested in said young lady. He thinks she may be able to provide him with valuable information about a nautical terrorist problem with which his organization is concerned. He’s very anxious that she should be delivered here promptly so that he can interview her. As a matter of fact, he finds the delay quite annoying, although I have explained to him that your instructions require you to take all possible precautions where Miss Brand is concerned.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “I’ll bring her along. Matt out.”

I laid down the instrument and sat for a moment, running the conversation back in my mind to determine just what he’d really been telling me, that didn’t necessarily correspond with the words he’d been speaking. Eleanor was silent. The girl had an endearing habit of keeping her mouth shut and saving her questions until the time was right for them. At last I looked up at her where she stood, waiting.

“We’ve both got trouble,” I said.

‘Tell me.”

“Mr. Bennett of the OFS wants to interview you. That’s polite for taking you over and, presumably, freezing us out. The OFS, as you undoubtedly know better than I do with your Washington experience, is the Office of Federal Security, formerly the Federal Security Bureau, formerly . . .”

“Yes, I know.”

“Whenever somebody complains too loudly about their high-handed methods they get themselves reorganized under a different name; they change their name almost as often as they change their shirts, and they’re very meticulous about their button-down shirts. A very high-class bunch of spooks, far above us low peasants laboring sweatily, and sometimes bloodily, in the undercover vineyard, lie takeover kids. If there’s publicity involved they’ll grab it, no matter who was on the job first. Strictly in the public interest, of course. Right now they seem to have a terrorist problem at sea and think you can help them, which means they must have come across a political angle to all these sinking ships of yours. . . . What?”

Eleanor was shaking her head. “No. It’s not political and it’s not terrorist. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not that.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“What made you so sure those men were waiting in this room last night, Matt? I’m a pro; it’s my business to know. Take it from me, whoever thinks that, is wrong.” She grimaced. “It’s just the sort of simple-minded answer those officious jerks of the OFS would grab at. They’ve got two pat answers for everything, and if it isn’t drugs, it’s just got to be terrorism. But they’re full of shit, if you’ll pardon the phrase.”

I nodded. “I guess you’ve done quite a bit of work on this story already.”

“Enough to get the feel of it. There’s a crazy random feeling to it, Matt, a kind of amateur feeling, if you know what I mean. Did you ever come across a case where you just knew that when you caught up with the guy he wouldn’t be a trained agent on a mission, or even a dedicated revolutionary following his stem political principles? You could just feel that you were dealing with a poor damned jerk who’d grabbed a gun and started shooting people, simply because somebody creamed his new car or hurt his girlfriend.”

“I know what you mean,” I said.

She said, “Look, the ones that go down are mostly kind of slob ships, if you know what I mean; flag-of-convenience vessels that are getting on in age and aren’t too well managed or maintained. Cheapo ships, you could call them. Exactly the kind of beatup old buckets a terrorist would scorn; he’d make his big political statement by sinking some shiny new freighters or container ships or preferably giant supertankers, wouldn’t he? Lots of publicity. Important losses that would make the shipping world sit up and take notice, and pay up promptly when the price was stated. But this has been going on for a couple of years already with no demands that I’ve heard of; and I’ve listened very closely, I can tell you.”

“Any other kind of pattern?” I asked.

She hesitated. “Well, there’s something funny about the crews. I’ve been interviewing all the survivors I could trace; that’s what I’m doing here in Nassau. Some of the men off of the last ship sunk are in the hospital here and I’ve been talking with them. I was there yesterday questioning a young officer, the third mate, who was on the bridge when it happened.” She frowned. “Matt, the funny thing is, he’s hiding something.”

“What?”

Eleanor shook her head. “I don’t know yet; but he took refuge in being too sick to answer—he was pretty badly burned—when I started asking too many questions about how it happened. Damn it, I know when an interviewee is trying to keep something from me; it’s the first thing you learn in this racket. And I’ve hit some others like that from the other ships, usually officers. They just don’t want to talk. I don’t know what it means yet. Some kind of collusion? Barratry? A giant industry-wide insurance swindle involving ancient ships that are worth more to their owners at the bottom of the sea?” She shrugged. “I don’t know, but I hope to go back to the hospital today, if this business of yours doesn’t take too long, and see if I can’t pry it out of this one. He’s pretty young and I think he’s having a hard time living with it, whatever it is.”

I said, “You can’t have it both ways, Elly. If it’s a giant criminal conspiracy of some kind, it’s unlikely to be an amateur production.”

She shrugged. “I can’t help it. But I know damned well it’s not a terrorist caper; I’ve dealt with a few of those and they smelled altogether different.” She grinned abruptly. “Hardly evidence I could present in court, right?”

I asked, “How do you feel about sharing your information with the OFS?”

“Stupid question number one thousand,” she said. “How do you think I feel? It’s my story, goddamn it. What’s the matter with these law-enforcement freaks, anyway? The information is there. The sources are there. If they want to know something, why don’t they do a little simple investigative work and find out for themselves, instead of trying to hitch a free ride on our coattails? Then they can go ahead and cheerfully betray their own informants instead of trying to force us to betray ours—and see how far their next investigation gets, after word gets around they’re not to be trusted!” She shook her head grimly. “Like this boy in the hospital. Obviously, what he knows is discreditable to him or he wouldn’t be hiding it, would he? And obviously, he’s not going to tell me unless I swear to him that his name will never come into it; that I’ll only use his information to help me learn what’s going on and nail those responsible, not to crucify him. That I’ll cover for him all the way, even if it means going to jail and telling the judge chuck-you-Farley.” She grimaced. “What the hell kind of a law is it that tries to make people break their sacred goddamn oaths to people who’ve trusted them?”