Hamilton, Donald - Matt Helm 14 (18 page)

           
"You tell them, Sheriff,"
I said. "You tell them. I don't know about
Dubuque
, but I do have
Hollingshead
.
He'll make you a fine scapegoat. And once he's in jail, I guarantee, the mad
strangler of
Fort
Adams
will never strike again. You'll be a
hero."

           
"Where are you holding the old
coot?" When I grinned and didn't speak,
Rullington
said,

           
"Damn it, I'm the law around
here, Mister! I don't care how many federal badges you have, you can't come
into my county and. . .

           
He was just making noise and he knew
it. His voice trailed off. Presently he said, "Come to think of it, I
didn't get a real good look at that badge. And you didn't tell me what your
name was, just what it wasn't."

           
I passed him the fancy ID case. He
switched on the dome light and examined it, slowing the car. Then he gave it
back and switched off the light.

           
"Matthew L. Helm," he
said. "What does the 'L' stand for? Never mind. I've seen better-looking
credentials passed out free with breakfast cereal."

           
He could have been right about that.
I said, "You're wasting time, Sheriff. You said thirty miles and we've
come nineteen. Do you want the deal or don't you? If you do, you'd better get
on your squawker and send somebody where I tell you-only first I want your word
that you're going to cooperate."

           
He hesitated. "How are you
going to pull it? How do you figure on catching Janssen without risking Ricky's
life?"

           
I said, "Either you let me do
it my way or you do it yours, which will certainly get you killed, and maybe
your boy as well."

           
"Why should I trust you?"

           
"Because I want Janssen even
worse than you do, and without any more dead bodies cluttering up his back
trail."

           
He frowned thoughtfully. After a
moment, he shrugged his shoulders and reached for the microphone. "Okay,
it's a deal. Where do I send them?" When I told him, he made a face as if
it was a joke on him that
Hollingshead
was hidden so
close to his house, and maybe it was, but he got the message through to the
other car, and hung up the mike. "Okay, now what His voice died. He was
watching the rear view mirror.

           
"What's the matter?"

           
"We're being tailed. If it's
Janssen, he's seen us together and we're in trouble. Ricky's in trouble."

           
"What kind of a car?"

           
"I can't. . . . Wait a
minute." We swung through a series of curves, and he said, "I can't
make out for sure in the dark, but it looks like a white Chevy sedan with a
woman driver."

           
I tried not to react, and I think I
was successful, but I thought: The stupid, perverse, interfering little bitch.
.

           
"It's all right," I said
easily. "She's one of ours. You didn't think I was handling this all by
myself, did you?"

           
"Well, you'd better get ride of
her before Janssen spots her. He said I was to come alone."

           
"Sure," I said. "Pull
up and I'll go back and give her some instructions. Where the hell did those
Detroit
geniuses hide the door handle on this
one?"

           
He made an impatient sound, and
reached over to work the camouflaged handle that looked like an ashtray. The
needle slipped through his khaki sleeve and into his forearm. I pushed the
plunger home.

           
As I dragged the stocky, unconscious
body from under the wheel and propped it up more or less securely in the front
passenger seat, headlights pulled up behind us, a car door opened, and
footsteps hurried towards me. I didn't bother to turn my head. I knew who it
was even before I heard the indignant feminine gasp.

           
"You promised!" Martha
Borden's voice said accusingly. "You gave me your word you'd do your best
to save his life!"

           
I said, "He's alive. Put a
stethoscope on him if you like. You'll find his heart beating like a
metronome." I got him where I wanted him and closed the door,
straightening up outside the car and turning to look at her. "You're a
funny girl, Borden," I said. "You weep for the whole human race, but
you seem to be just yearning to spend the rest of your days with the death of a
ten-year-old boy on your conscience."

           
"What do you mean?"

           
"Carl has undoubtedly sworn to
wipe his hostage off the face of the earth if his instructions aren't followed,"
I said, "meaning, among other things, if the sheriff doesn't proceed to,
and arrive at, the rendezvous alone."

           
"Then what are you doing-"

           
"I don't count," I said.
"He knows me. He knows I don't take orders from hick sheriffs. If he sees
me, he'll know it's no plan of
Rullington's
. He'll
know I'm there strictly on my own. He may talk to me or he may just shoot me,
but he won't take it out on the kid because what would be the point? What
happens to Ricky
Rullington
means very little to me;
he's not my kid; and I don't weep for the whole human race."

           
"You don't have to tell me
that!" she said sharply.

           
"I don't have to tell Carl
that, either," I said. "I'm just pointing out the reasons I can move
in without endangering the boy's life. But if strange cars are lurking in the
shadows with strange people in them-he doesn't know you-he'll think
Rullington
is pulling a fast one. He'll use his wire noose
on sonny, figuring he can't get at daddy safely, and he'll fade out and never
set foot in
Oklahoma
again."

           
Martha shivered. Then she looked up
sharply. "How do you always know exactly what Carl is going to do and
feel?"

           
I said, "It's simple. I just
figure out what I'd do and feel in his place, that's all."

           
She licked her lips. "But that
makes you as crazy as he is!"

           
"Let's hope so," I said.
"If I'm far off, some people are going to die tonight, maybe even
us."

           
I regarded her bleakly in the glare
of the Chevy's headlights. "I can't trust you, can I? Nothing I say gets
through. You still think this is amateur night on the prairie, don't you?"

           
She said stiffly, "The trouble
is, Mr. Helm, that I can't trust you! You've used me to get you here. I'm
involved. I rented the car. I did the driving. I've got to see that I haven't
been made accessory to a murder, don't I?"

           
I said, "Of course, I've got
just about one full dose left for my little needle. I could put you to
sleep." I grinned as she took a step backwards. "Relax," I said.
"I can't leave you here by the side of the road; I don't know who might find
you. And I haven't got time to waste hiding you properly, so. . . okay."

           
"Okay, what?"

           
"We'll play it straight, and I
mean straight. Don't try to be clever. Don't even think. Just get back in that
heap and come along with me, but this time make no effort to be invisible. In
fact, I want you riding my rear bumper all the way. Don't get more than a
couple of car-lengths back under any circumstances. Headlights on at all times.
When I stop, pull up alongside as if you had an engraved invitation to the party.
Everything straightforward and out in the open, nothing sneaky or devious. Do
you read me, I hope?"

           
"I . . . I don't understand,
Matt. How are you going to catch him like that?"

           
"You don't catch a guy like
Carl, doll. You don't even try, unless you like to see a lot of blood spilled
in a hurry, maybe even your own. You either kill him, if you can, or you. ..

           
"Or you what?"

           
"Or you let him catch you.
Let's go."

           
Budville
was a larger town than the sheriff had indicated by about fifty percent. There
were not only the filling station and the two-story general store-both dark at
this hour-but there was also a big barn or shed off the road a little ways, a
quarter-mile to the east. There was a gate in the barbed wire fence open.
Whether or not it was the place specified for the rendezvous, it was the only
place I could see that was suitable for the act I had to put on, so I turned
in.

           
The sheriff had indicated that the
approach had to be made in a certain manner, but I didn't worry about that. The
whole performance was going to come off a little differently from the way Carl
had planned it. I was counting on the fact that he wasn't an amateur who'd go
off half-cocked. Of course, there was always the possibility that he'd really
flipped his wig brooding about his dead daughter, which could make things
awkward. He'd never been a particularly well-balanced character-as if any of us
are in this business.

           
I drove the cop car, which worked
like any other car, along the rutted track to the barn which was decorated with
a tremendous faded advertisement for some kind of chewing tobacco.

           
The other car followed me closely. I
swung around behind the big building and parked among the weeds, headlights
aimed at the weathered door. Martha pulled up beside me according to
instructions. She got out, and I heard her draw an annoyed breath.

           
"Damn!"

           
"What's the matter?"

           
"I just ruined a perfectly good
pair of pantyhose in these damned weeds."

           
"Jeez," I said,
"that's terrible! A whole two dollars and ninety-nine cents or whatever it
is, shot plumb to hell! Maybe we'd better just go home and let the boy die
rather than make such dreadful sacrifices."

           
"You're not very funny,"
she said stiffly. "Where do you suppose he is?"

           
"Carl? Don't worry about Carl.
He's around. Give me a hand here." I was dragging
Rullington
out of his car. "Grab the feet," I said as Martha came up.

           
"Where . . .

           
"Over against the barn door
there, right in the limelight, so Carl can see what kind of a present we've
brought him.. . . That's fine. Let him down easy, and watch out for that cow
turd
unless you like wiping it off your shoes."

           
She sidestepped and glared at me
accusingly. "You're going to let Carl have him! But you promised-"

           
"Sweetie," I said wearily,
"I don't know why I bother to talk to you. You simply never listen. Sure
I'm going to let Carl have him. I'm going to let Carl have all of us, just like
I said. . . . What's that? No, over there by the cars!"

           
She posed prettily, staring in the
direction I'd indicated, and I clipped her neatly on the chin.

           
It's not a procedure I recommend,
except for the movies. It can lead to broken jaws and teeth, not to mention
busted knuckles for the one who does the clipping. In this case, however, it
worked fine. I didn't hurt my hand too much, and she wasn't seriously damaged,
either, I determined after catching her and easing her down against the door
beside the unconscious sheriff.

           
Then I pulled her dress down
modestly, shook my head over the run in her stocking, and straightened up in
the glare of the two sets of headlights. Deliberately, I took out my .38
Special, held it up, and placed it carefully on the sheriff's chest. 1 took out
the folding knife I carry-Carl would remember that-displayed it the same way to
whomever was lurking in the outside darkness, and laid it beside the gun. I sat
down against the barn door on the far side of Martha, safely distant from the
sheriff and the weapons, facing the painfully brilliant lights with my hands in
plain sight on my knees. I waited. After a while he came.

           
"Can you hear me, Eric?"
The origin of the whisper was the corner of the barn to my right.

           
"I hear you, Carl," I
said.

           
"Why shouldn't I shoot you now?
I warned Mac, when I resigned, what would happen if he sent anybody after me."

           
"No, you didn't."

           
"Listen, I told him
plainly-"

           
"You told somebody
plainly," I said. "You didn't tell Mac. You talked to a mimic, a fink
working for a guy named Leonard, who's taken over the whole damned undercover
works for sinister reasons still to be determined. The country's going to hell,
the outfit you've spent most of your working life with is being blasted out of
existence, the head man is in hiding if he isn't dead, and Super Secret Agent
Carl is sneaking around
Oklahoma
with a silly wire noose playing The Mad Avenger! Nuts! Why don't you
grow up and be a big boy for a change instead of moping around crying because
somebody broke your pretty dolly."

           
There was a long, tight silence.
"You take some awful chances, Eric."

           
"I have to deal with some awful
people."

           
"Do you really think I'm going
to believe that the guy I talked with wasn't Mac?"

           
"Did he say for you to
'contact' him if you changed your mind? Did he tell you things were 'presently'
in a very critical state and he wished you'd reconsider? Hell, did you listen
to him at all, or did you just listen to the bleeding of your lousy broken
heart?"

           
"Damn you, Eric-"

           
"I've been telling people
you're a pro," I sneered. "You're no goddamn pro, Carl. You're just a
mushy sentimental slob who'll let your job and your country go to the
dogs-well, to a bitch named Love-while you sacrifice a bunch of poor dumb
country cops to the memory of your sainted offspring. Tell me just how many
dead men do you think Emily would want you to pile on her grave?"

           
There was another long silence.
"Love?" he said. It was a weight lifting, a shadow lightening. I knew
I had him. "Love? Ellen Love, the she-senator from
Wyoming
? What's she got to do with-"

           
"What the hell do you
care?" I was being real offensive tonight, to just about everybody.

           
Well, it was working, wasn't it? I
said harshly: "What do you care? You're Retribution, Inc. You're
Vengeance, Ltd. You're the sword of destruction, the noose of Nemesis. Come on,
come on. Here's victim number three, all set up and waiting for you. Break out
your goddamned piano wire and do your stuff. I hear you're pretty good. You
almost yanked one guy's head clean off. Give us a demonstration, Carl. I always
wanted to see a top
garotte
-man in action. . .”

        
   
Martha Borden stirred beside me and started
to speak. I grabbed her wrist and dug my fingernails into the flesh to keep her
quiet. I heard him coming. His body blocked the glare of the lights. There was
something in his hands. He walked past us and stood over the unconscious form
of
Rullington
.

           
"What did you give him?"

           
"You know what 1 gave
him," I said. "He'll be out for four hours-well, say three and a
half, now. You've got nothing to worry about. You've got all the time in the
world."

           
"Shut up!"

           
There was still another long
silence. I heard a funny little choked sound like a gasp or a sob, and a
whispering metallic noise. He'd dropped the
garotte
into the lap of the seated sheriff, among the other weapons.

           
He stood there a moment longer, looking
down. Then he turned without a word and strode away. Martha started to move,
but I clamped down on her wrist once more, and we sat there waiting. He came
back, carrying something bulky and, from the way he walked, fairly heavy. It
was a child, tied and gagged. He set it down beside its father, studied the
picture they made together, and leaned down and removed the gag.