Death of a Citizen (13 page)

We were inside, entering the lobby. It was the usual great, pillared, carpeted hall sprinkled with groups of chairs and sofas that, although similar in design, did not seem to have been formally introduced to each other. One wall was glass, looking out upon a patio with dense, flood-lighted, tropical vegetation. Here and there were the lobby-sitters you find in any hotel at practically any hour of the day or night. Why they choose to read their books and newspapers in a drafty lobby instead of a comfortable hotel room I couldn’t tell you. Maybe they’re all waiting for someone, but if so, why doesn’t that person ever show up?

None of the characters I could see sitting around was a day under fifty, except one. I laughed and put my arm about Tina’s waist as we started down the long room. Her answering laughter was a little slurred, and she leaned against me, as if for support.

“Where?” she asked softly.

I laughed again, as if she had suggested something immoderately funny. “Second sofa on the left, looking out towards the patio. Female, young, close to six feet tall, light brown hair, brown tweed suit.”

“How can you tell how tall she is,
Liebchen,
when you can only see the back of her head?”

“We’ve met her before, with an Ivy-League-looking punk in a golf cap, driving a little Blue British Morris with a funny sign on the back. Remember, the restaurant where you made your call to Mac? They were just coming out the door as I went in. You were heading for the phone booth, maybe you didn’t notice them.”

Tina giggled in an inebriated way that contrasted strangely with her calm voice: “I did not, but I will take your word.”

“She might just be here to keep an eye on us,” I said, “but I’ve got a hunch she’s the finger. Five gets you twenty that as soon as we’ve turned the corner she’ll head for the house phones to let them know we’re on the way up.”

“Then you think they’re waiting for us up in the room?”

“It seems likely.”

She hesitated. “So?”

I kissed her on the ear as we walked. “So, we should have made love in the taxi like I said. Looks like we’re going to be a little too busy now.”

She laughed softly. “I do not think you have your mind concentrated on important things.”

I said, “With you practically crawling into my pants pocket, how can I?” I drew a long breath, and let the kidding go. I said, “Let’s give them a surprise. I’m tired of being the mouse end of this cat-and-mouse routine.”

“Eric, we are not supposed to make unnecessary trouble.”

“What’s unnecessary? Something’s cooking. I don’t like to play other people’s games.”

She leaned her head sleepily on my shoulder as we walked along the soft carpet, close together, “You are sure of this girl?”

I said, “It’s the same girl. It could be coincidence, running into her again.”

“If she uses the telephone, that will be confirmation.”

“She’s not going to use the telephone,” I said. “She’s not going to get anywhere near a telephone. We’re taking her now.”

We were passing the back of the girl’s sofa; I could have reached out with my left hand and patted her smooth brown hair. She was engrossed in a copy of
Harper’s.
She wasn’t watching our reflections in the glass wall in front of her, of course. She had no interest in us at all, but I was willing to bet that, no matter how well they’d trained her, she felt a little crawling sensation at the back of her neck as we went past. Only we didn’t go past.

We walked around the end of the sofa and stopped in front of her. “Why, hello, there!” I said cheerfully.

She did it very well. She looked up casually, decided that I must have been addressing somebody else since she didn’t know me, and looked, back down at her magazine. Then she looked up a second time, with a puzzled frown.

“I beg your pardon.”

She was really quite nice-looking, in a tall and tweedy and young sort of way, and, although she was a much bigger girl, she still reminded me obscurely of Beth. She was still wearing low-heeled shoes, I noticed, but her long legs were fine, nevertheless. She had the lean, clean look of a good photographer’s model. To read, she had put on glasses with thick, dark rims. She took them off now to look at me.

“I beg your pardon?” she said again, making a question of it this time.

Tina was already sitting on the sofa beside her, and Tina’s hand had slipped into the secret pocket of the mink stole. I didn’t like that too well. This was no place for firearms.

Tina said, “You didn’t tell us you were coming to San Antonio, dear.”

I said, “We’ve got to celebrate this reunion. I’d say the bar, if we weren’t in Texas, and if I hadn’t left our bottle in the taxi. But there’s still part of a fifth in my suitcase upstairs.”

“Well, that’s all right,” Tina said. She spoke to the girl. “You will join us in a drink up in our room, won’t you, dear?”

The girl’s face was blank. “I’m sorry. There must be some mistake.”

I was sitting on her left now. I took my hand out of my pocket. The knife made a small click as I opened it. The girl looked down quickly. I drove the blade into her side, holding it with thumb and forefinger to measure the proper depth: just enough to penetrate clothing and skin and an eighth to a quarter of an inch of flesh. Her eyes went wide, her mouth opened, and her indrawn breath was a soft, hissing gasp. She made no other sound.

“Just a short one,” I said. “For the road.”

“Who are you?” she whispered, holding herself rigid and unmoving, braced against the pain of the knifepoint in her side. “What do you want?”

I said, “We’re just some people who want you to have a drink with us, up in our room.”

“But I don’t understand—” Her eyes were hurt and bewildered and scared. She was very good. She licked her dry lips. “I’m sure,” she said, “there must be some terrible misunderstanding.”

“Not yet,” I said. “But it could happen any time. I might even get the idea you were refusing to cooperate, even though you had no such thought in mind. That would be too bad, wouldn’t it? Let’s go, Shorty.”

We had no trouble at all. The elevator was on the ground floor when we reached it, and the attendant took us up without giving us a second look.

“All right,” I said to the girl, as the doors closed behind us and the cage went up to answer a call at another floor. “All right, no more knives, Shorty. There are two guns behind you now. You can turn your head and check this if you like.” She hesitated, and looked around slowly. Her glance moved from Tina’s little Browning to my Colt .22 to my face.

“What—” She licked her lips again. “What do you want me to do?”

I said, “It’s entirely up to you. We’re going to room 315, down the hall to the left, there. You’re going to open the door and walk in. If you want to knock a certain way, first, that’s all right. If you want to say something to whoever’s inside, that’s all right, too. But you’re going in ahead of us, and the first shot that’s fired, if anything at all happens, will be me shooting you.”

“What makes you think there’ll be somebody in your room? What in Heaven’s name makes you think I—”

I said, “If I’m wrong, I’ll certainly apologize all over the place later.”

“But I swear to you, I don’t know anybody in San Antonio except my husband. I was waiting for him to join me when you came along!” The tears in her eyes were as real and as perfect as diamonds. “You’re making a terrible mistake!”

I said, “So, if I’m making a mistake, there’ll be nobody in the room, and nobody’ll get hurt. Let’s go find out, shall we?”

She started to speak, but checked herself, and drew a long, uneven breath, and turned away from me. We went around the corner and down the hall. Tina was beside me. The girl walked, very straight, before us. She stopped at the door.

“You said… you said 315?”

“Yes,” I said. “Give her the key, Tina.”

Tina put the key into her hand. “Eric, are you sure—”

“Who’s sure?” I said. “Tomorrow, the sun may rise in the west.”

The girl said, “You want me to open the door?”

“That’s the idea,” I said. “But any signals or countersigns you want to give first—”

“Oh, stop it!” she cried. “You sound like a bad movie! You sound like… I don’t know any secret signals, I assure you! Shall I open it or not?”

“Go ahead,” I said. “Open it. Walk straight in. You can’t throw yourself aside fast enough that I’ll miss you with my first shot. It’s been tried.”

She said, breathlessly, “I haven’t the slightest intention of making a sudden move, so please be careful with that trigger… Well, here I go, if you’re quite ready.”

I didn’t say anything. She hesitated, clearly hoping I’d speak again to delay the moment; then she sighed and put the key into the lock. As she turned it, I reached past her with my foot and kicked hard. The door slammed back. I had the girl by the collar of her tweed jacket. I shoved her straight forward. She was a nice-looking kid, but if anybody was going to get shot, it wasn’t going to be me, if I could help it.

There were no shots. The room was empty.

I pushed the girl away from me so hard that she stumbled and had to cling to the foot of the nearest bed to keep from falling. I swung around so that I could cover the bathroom, but the door was open there; it was a small place, and I could see that there was nobody inside. I heard Tina move behind me.

“Close the door!” I said without turning my head. I heard it close. “Lock it!” I said.

Nothing happened. The girl was crouching, on one knee by the bed, watching me. There was a funny, surprised expression on her face. She looked frightened half to death, and at the same time she looked as if she wanted to laugh.

“Tina,” I said without turning my head. Nobody answered. I backed away from the kneeling girl, far enough so she couldn’t reach me in one lunge. I looked around. There was nobody behind me. Tina was gone.

I backed to the door and put my hand on the knob. I thought I could hear the sound of quick, light footsteps in the hall outside, hurrying away, but the girl in the tweed suit started to rise and I had to give her my attention. A lot of good men have died as the result of not taking an attractive female adversary quite seriously. I didn’t intend to be one of them.

“Hold the pose,” I said. “If you move, you’re dead.” She froze, looking at the slim-barreled .22 aimed directly at her. I took a chance and yanked the door open lefthanded. Nothing happened. The corridor was empty, except for two objects lying just beyond the threshold of the room: the tall girl’s brown leather purse and her copy of
Harper’s,
both of which Tina had been carrying.

They told the story completely. If Tina had been silently overpowered behind my back and whisked away—which seemed implausible in any case—she’d have dropped her own purse as well, not to mention the gun she’d been holding. No, it was no time for me to be kidding myself. Tina had pulled out, tossing aside the unwanted purse and magazine as excess baggage in her voluntary flight. I crouched, picked them up, dropped them on a nearby chair inside, pulled the door closed again, and locked it.

“She ran out on you,” the tall girl said maliciously, still balanced on one knee by the end of the bed. “I saw her. I saw the look on her face. She’d had enough of you, she was saving her own skin. I don’t blame her. But now she’s gone I want to tell you—”

“I don’t want you to tell me anything,” I said. “Keep your trap shut until I say otherwise. You may stand up now.”

“Yes, sir.” She got to her feet.

“It isn’t necessary to acknowledge the instructions. Just follow them… Now take one step away from that bed and hold it. Did you ever pose for photographs professionally?”

Her eyelids flickered. “Why, yes.”

“I thought so,” I said. “I’ve taken enough pix myself to recognize the type… Then there’s no excuse for your not standing perfectly still, is there?”

She said, “You’ve got to listen to me. I’m not—”

I said, “I’m going to tell you just once more. Shut up. Or comes it a gun-barrel in the teeth.” She started to speak. I raised the pistol slightly. She checked herself. “That’s better,” I said. I reached back to pick up her purse. It contained no weapon. “Mary Frances Chatham,” I said, glancing through the identification cards. “Mrs. Roger Chatham.”

She started to speak again, thought better of it, and stood with her lips compressed, despising me. I tossed the purse back on the chair and stood looking at her thoughtfully, reviewing in my mind everything that had happened since we entered the room. I didn’t think I’d had my eyes off her long enough for her to have got rid of anything she was carrying, but there was no sense in taking chances.

“Take another step forward and hold it,” I said.

“May I?”

“What?”

“It’s an old game,” she said. “Children play it. It’s called Giant Step. You have to ask ‘may I’ before you move.”

It was too bad. I’d warned her. If she’d been a man, she’d have got it squarely across the mouth as I’d promised. Since she was a girl—a girl who looked just a little like my wife—I clipped her above the ear, instead. She swayed, and started to raise her hand to the side of her head, but remembered the gun, and stopped the risky movement. When she looked at me again, her gray eyes were wet with pain. I was giving her a bad time. Well, I wasn’t having much fun myself.

I said, “Mrs. Chatham, I once spent four hard years at this business. I know all about the technique of chattering brightly to distract the opposition. I can’t afford to believe anything you tell me, so I don’t intend to waste time listening to it. The next time you open your mouth without being asked, you’ll lose some teeth. Is that clear?” She didn’t speak. I repeated: “Is it clear?”

“Yes,” she whispered, hating me. “Yes, it’s clear.”

“All right. Now, one step forward without comments. If you please.”

She took the step. That put her far enough from the bed so I could search all parts of it she could have reached without being within too easy range of any tricks she might know. I suspected that, with her physique, given an opening, she’d be as hard to handle as lots of men who thought they were really tough. I didn’t find anything hidden in the bed.