Small Felonies - Fifty Mystery Short Stories (15 page)

"I have just communicated with Boris," he says. "There is problem, comrade."

"Problem?" I say. We are speaking English today. On other days away from embassy, we speak Spanish, German, and French. To become fluent in many of disagreeable Western languages is another of our duties. "What is nature of problem?"

"Kempinski is planning to defect."

I narrow my eyes at Pochenko. "If this is jest," I say, "it is in poor taste."

"I do not jest," Pochenko says. Which is truth. He does not even smile often. "Kempinski intends to defect."

"When?"

"Today. While he is in Madrid."

"Can he be stopped?"

"Boris has dispatched agents, but it may already be too late."

"Kempinski," I say, and shake my head. "But why? Why would he do such a thing?"

"He has left word he desires to live in freedom."

"Freedom?"

"In United States of America," Pochenko says.

I am shocked. I stare out at sparkly calmness of Mediterranean Sea before I speak again. "To desire capitalist way of life, to defect . . . he must have defect of brain."

"Ah!" Pochenko says.

"Ah?"

"That was pun, comrade."

"It was?"

"Da. You said, 'To defect, he must have defect of brain.' In English language that is pun."

"It was slip of tongue, comrade."

"Puns in English language are unacceptable," Pochenko says. "Traitors such as Kempinski make puns in English language—men who have secret desires to live in United States of America."

"I have no such desire," I say. "Is unthinkable desire, depraved desire."

"Then be careful to make no more slips of tongue, comrade. I would not enjoy reporting you to Boris. You would not enjoy it."

"It will not happen again," I assure him. Pochenko is even greater patriot than I, Alexei Dorchev, and for this I cannot fault him or his suspicious nature. "Are we to return to embassy now?"

"No. There is nothing we can do. Boris will notify us when he receives further word about Kempinski."

We lapse into silence. Is not long before blonde girl in disgustingly tiny bikini bathing suit walks by and smiles at me. This is third time she has smiled at me this no-longer-glorious morning; is obvious she is attracted to dark Russian males with superb physiques, and wishes to make of me her sexual plaything. Soon I must go and acquaint myself with her. Is probable she is Scandinavian and will speak English—or French or one of other disagreeable languages in which I am becoming fluent. Perhaps she has useful information which I will cleverly obtain from her. But in any event I will permit her to make of me her sexual plaything so I may again observe repulsive love habits of Western women at close quarters. This, too, is one of duties I and Pochenko and Boris and other embassy officials must perform for good of Party.

But my heart will not be in it this time. Kempinski, the traitor, is too much heavy weight. His actions and motives are beyond comprehension of Alexei Dorchev, patriot.

Defect? Leave decadent island of Majorca, hotbed of capitalist corruption, when so much depends on workers in Soviet foreign service?

Kempinski must have defect of brain!

T
hey were forty-five minutes from the Oregon-California border when Cord noticed that the red needle on the fuel gauge hovered close to empty. He glanced over at Tyler. "Almost out of gas," he said.

Tyler grinned. "So am I. I could sure use some food."

In the backseat, Fallon and Brenner sat shackled close together with double cuffs. Fallon's eyes were cold and watchful—waiting.

"There you go," Tyler said suddenly, touching Cord's arm and pointing.

Cord squinted against the late afternoon sun. A couple of hundred yards to the right of the freeway was a small white building, across the front of which was a paved area and a single row of gasoline pumps. A sign lettered in faded red and mounted on a tall metal pole stood between the building and the highway. It read: ED'S SERVICE—OPEN 24 HOURS.

"Okay," Cord said. "Good as any."

A short distance ahead was an exit ramp. He turned there and doubled back along a blacktopped county road that paralleled the freeway, took the car in alongside the pumps. He shut off the engine and started to get out, but Tyler stopped him.

"This is Oregon, remember? No self-service here. It's a state law."

"Yeah, right," Cord said.

An old man with sparse white hair and a weather-eroded face came out of a cubbyhole office, around to the driver's window. "Help you?"

"Fill 'er up," Cord told him. "Unleaded."

"Yes, sir." Then the old man saw Fallon and Brenner. He moistened his lips, looking at them with bright blue eyes.

"Don't worry about them," Cord said. "They're not going anywhere."

"You fellas peace officers?"

Tyler smiled, nodding.

Cord said, "I'm a U.S. Marshal and this is my guard. We're transporting these two down to San Francisco for federal court appearances."

"They from McNeil Island, up in Washington?"

"That's right."

Fallon said from the back seat, "Say, pop—"

"Shut up, Fallon," Tyler said sharply.

"Where's the restrooms?" Fallon asked the old man.

"Never mind that now," Cord said. "Just keep quiet back there, if you know what's good for you."

Fallon seemed about to say something else, changed his mind, and sat silent.

The old man went to the rear of the car and busied himself with the gas cap and the unleaded hose. Then he came back with a squeegie, began to clean the windshield. In the front seat, Tyler yawned and Cord sat watching Fallon in the rearview mirror. The old man's eyes shifted over the four men as he worked on the glass, as if he were fascinated by what he saw.

There was a sharp click as the pump shut off automatically. The old man went to replace the hose and to screw the cap back on the tank. A few seconds later he was leaning down at the driver's window again.

"Check your oil?" he asked Cord.

"No, the oil's okay."

"That'll be twelve even, then. Credit card?"

Cord shook his head. "Cash." He got the wallet from his pocket, poked inside, gave the old man a ten and a five.

"Be right back with your change and receipt."

"Never mind, pop. Keep it. We're in a hurry."

"Not that much of a hurry," Tyler said. Then, to the old man, "You got anything to eat here?"

"Sandwich machine in the garage."

"Where's the garage?"

"Around on the other side. I'll show you."

"Better than nothing, I guess." Tyler looked at Cord.

"What kind you want?"

"I don't care. Anything."

"I'll take ham on rye," Fallon said from the back.

Tyler said, "I thought we told you to shut up."

"Don't Brenner and I get anything to eat?"

"No."

"Come on, come on," Cord said. "Get the sandwiches, will you, Johnny? We've got a long way to go yet."

Tyler stepped out of the car and followed the old man around the side of the building. When they were out of sight Cord swiveled on the seat to stare back at Fallon. "Why don't you wise up?"

"I could ask you the same thing."

"Easy, Art," Brenner warned him.

"The hell with that," Fallon said. "This—"

"You keep pushing and pushing, don't you, Fallon?" Cord asked him. "You can't keep that smart mouth of yours closed."

Fallon's black eyes bored into Cord's; neither man blinked.

Before long Brenner began to fidget. "Art . . ."

"Listen to your pal here," Cord said to Fallon. "He knows what's good for him."

Fallon remained silent, but his big hands clenched and unclenched inside the steel handcuffs.

Cord slid around to face front again. Pretty soon the old man came ambling back across the paved area, alone, carrying a square of rough, grease-stained cloth over one hand. He moved around to the driver's window again, bent down.

"What's keeping my guard?" Cord asked him. "Like I said before, we're in kind of a hurry."

"I guess you are," the old man said, and flicked the cloth away with his left hand.

Cord froze. In the old man's right hand was a .44 Magnum, pointed at Cord's temple.

"You make a move, mister, I reckon you're dead." Fallon sucked in his breath; he and Brenner both sat forward. Cord remained frozen, staring at the Magnum.

The old man said to Fallon, "Where's the key to those cuffs?"

"On the ignition ring. Watch out he doesn't make a play for the gun."

"If he does he'll be minus a head." The old man reached down with his free hand, never taking his eyes from Cord, and pulled open the door. "Step out here. Slow. Hands up where I can see 'em."

Cord did as he was told. He stood holding his hands up by his ears, still watching the Magnum. The old man told him to turn around, pressed the muzzle against his spine, then removed the .38 revolver from the holster at Cord's belt. "Walk ahead a few steps," he said then. "And don't look around."

Cord took three forward steps and stopped. Behind him, the old man took the keys out of the ignition and passed them back to Fallon, who unlocked his and Brenner's handcuffs. Then the two of them got out and the old man let Fallon have the .38.

"The other one's around back," the old man said. "I slipped into the office while he was at the sandwich machine and got my gun and tapped him with it, then disarmed him. Here's his piece."

Brenner took the .38. "Go see about Tyler," Fallon told him, and Brenner nodded and went around the side of the building.

Fallon said to Cord, "You can turn around now." And when Cord had obeyed, "Lean your chest against the car, legs spread, hands behind you. You know the position."

Silently, Cord assumed it. Fallon gave the handcuffs to the old man, who snapped them around Cord's wrists. Then Fallon slipped the wallet out of Cord's pocket, put it into his own.

Brenner came back, shoving a groggy Tyler ahead of him. There was a smear of blood on Tyler's head where the old man had clubbed him. His hands were also cuffed behind him now. When Cord and Tyler were on the back seat of the car, Fallon gripped the old man's shoulder gratefully. "What can we say? You saved our lives."

"That's a fact," Brenner said. "All they talked about coming down from Washington was shooting us and leaving our bodies in the woods somewhere. They'd have done it sooner or later."

"What happened?" the old man asked.

"We got careless," Fallon admitted. "We stopped this morning for coffee and made the mistake of letting them have some. The next thing we knew, we had hot coffee in our faces and Cord there had my gun."

Brenner said, "How did you know, pop? They didn't give us the chance to say anything, to tip you off."

The old man had put the .44 Magnum into the pocket of his overalls; the heavy gun made them sag so much he looked lopsided. "Well," he said, "it was a number of things. By themselves, they didn't mean much, but when you put 'em all together they could only spell one thing. I was county sheriff here for twenty-five years, before I retired and opened up this station two summers ago. I seen a few federal marshals transporting prisoners to and from McNeil in my time. Housed federal prisoners in my jail more'n once, too, when an overnight stop was necessary. I know a few things about both breeds.

"First off, things just didn't seem right to me. The way they was acting, the way you was acting—there was something wrong about it. The way they looked, too, compared to you two. Whiter skin, kind of pasty, the way some Caucasians get when they've been in prison a while. And then neither of you lads was wearing those plastic identity bands around your wrists. I never seen a federal prisoner yet had his off outside, no matter what."

Fallon nodded. "They broke the ones they were wearing, so there was no way to get them on us."

"Another thing," the old man said, "they didn't want to let you go to the can or have anything to eat. No marshal treats his prisoners that way, not nowadays. They'd go screaming to their lawyers and anybody else who'd listen about abusive treatment, and the marshal'd find himself in hot water.

"Then there was the gasoline. The fella behind the wheel . . . Cord, is it?"

"Cord."

"Well, he paid me in cash," the old man said. "I never seen a marshal in recent years paid for gasoline 'cept with a credit card. Like the one I noticed peeking out of the wallet Cord had when he give me the two bills. Am I right?"

"Absolutely."

"And you get reimbursed for mileage, don't you?"

"We sure do."

"Well, that was the clincher," the old man said. "When I offered to give Cord a receipt he told me to keep it and a three-buck tip. No man on the federal payroll is gonna hand a gas jockey a three-dollar tip; and he sure as hell ain't gonna turn down a receipt that entitles him to get his money back from the government."