The Day of the Guns (3 page)

Watford sat back again, picked up a pencil and tapped it against the desk. “We heard what you had in mind.”

“You know the way out. You’re too big to break up. You know we can smear you if we want to. I’ll break up this whole goddamn operation unless you cooperate and you can’t afford to lose your cover. Too much is involved.”

“Mr. Mann ... you are a traitor.”

“Not yet, friend. Not ever. Maybe in your eyes, but not ever. It’s just that we’re sick of some things and do them our own way.”

“Illegally.”

“The terminology is extralegal. We did it in 1776 too.”

“This is 1964.”

“So we’ll do it again.”

THOMAS WATFORD, IMPORT-EXPORT,
was fed from Washington, D. C. It was a tight, secret agency that worked out of LA.T.S, and what they had nobody was supposed to know.

But we knew.

The grand machinery of The Government vs. People Who Cared,
I thought.

I said, “There’s a girl in the U.N., a translator. Her name is Edith Caine. I want a check on her tomorrow.”

“Personal, Tiger?”

“You might say that.”

“Or else, I suppose.”

I shrugged. “I got friends who think public agencies should be public information.”

“No doubt. And where do I deliver this information?”

“I’ll call you,” I told him and left.

I took the bullets I had squeezed out of the pillows to Ernie Bentley and five minutes later had a report on them. They were perfectly bore-marked for a ballistics check and the next time they showed up I’d know where they came from. They were 7.65-caliber Luger ammo fired from another make of gun; they were marked and filed away. I told Ernie thanks, left his office, ducked out the back way and took a cab back to the hotel.

Edith Caine had a British passport. From the outside it looked good, backed up by the usual birth certificate and a phone call to London put her in the clear. Somehow she had made her way pretty well, but it isn’t too hard to pick up a b.g. when you start back far enough. Somebody had died or was missing in her past and she had taken on from there. All I needed now was definite proof of identity. Two days at the outside. She was here and it could look easy. There was nobody to doubt her. Until she arrived at the U.N., cleared all the way, nobody had known her personally. She came out of London, picked up her job and was well liked. The pattern had a familiar ring to it. I had seen it during the war.

Wally Gibbons took time out to meet me for coffee and brought along four head photos of Edith Caine that had been taken for the papers. When he handed them over he said, “She tugs at the heart, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah, man.”

His grin turned curious. “What are they for?”

I tucked them inside my coat. “Reproduction. I want to get copies off to every plastic surgeon here and in Europe.”

“What for?”

“To see who did a face job on her. It would have been one of the big ones.”

“Come off it, Tiger. She needs a lift job like you need a hole in the head.”

“If she had one I’ll find who did it unless it was done behind the Curtain.”

“You’re sick, friend. You got something on that mind of yours again. Now I’m getting that trouble feeling like before and it scares me a little bit. You want to tell me about it?”

“Not yet.”

He picked up his coffee, sipped it and studied me a moment. “I called your hotel this morning.”

“Oh?”

“You had already left, but I was asked some questions by a certain Detective Tibbet. When I identified myself, and since we knew each other he mentioned a maid’s complaint about a hatful of bullet holes in the bedding but no spent slugs. Any comment?”

I shrugged. “Lousy hotel. Who knows what happened after I left? Anybody hear any shots?”

“That’s the funny part. No.”

“Then let them figure it out.”

“Will they?”

“I doubt it.” I called for a refill and turned back to Wally. “Do something for me. Find out who Edith Caine is familiar with.”

“How closely?”

“Personal relationships, business associations ... anybody whose company she’s in with any degree of regularity. Can do?”

“Why sure. Later you’ll give me a breakdown on this I imagine.”

“My pleasure”

“Okay, sucker.”

 

The Army retired Colonel Charlie Corbinet a brigadier in ‘54, found a place for him in government, couldn’t put up with his intelligence or his refusal to go along with certain proposals and eased him out in ’56. The Russell-Perkins company took him on and now he rolled in millions.

But he still hadn’t changed from when he was head of the group that was dropped behind the lines during the war. He was older now, crustier than ever, but behind eyes that once were blue but now had the gray circle of age around their irises, he was the quietly determined probing person he ever was.

He held out his hand, said, “Well, Tiger, it’s nice to know you’re still alive.”

“I had good training, Colonel.”

We both laughed and you’d never realize that it had been ten years since we had seen each other. He told his secretary to cancel everything out for an hour and leave us alone, found a bottle, ice and mixer in a sideboard and poured us a drink. He held his glass up, looking into it. “To the old days, Tiger?”

“To now, Colonel.”

Without moving his head, his eyes jumped to my face, then he nodded and accepted the toast. “This isn’t a friendly visit, is it?”

“Not exactly. I want some information.”

Corbinet sat down and waved for me to do the same. “I see. You know, Tiger, you aren’t the first one to come back. Some of the others have done the same.”

“I heard,” I said.

“And I’ve heard about you. Not directly, of course, but I’m still in a position to pick up pieces of the action. Some of it had your stamp all over it. That business in Panama was very neat.”

“We try.”

“Your ... group ... can come to be well hated.”

“That’s already happened.” I took a pull of the drink. As usual he had made it too damn strong.

“What can I do for you?”

“Rondine Lund. What happened to her?”

Corbinet didn’t say anything for a moment. He watched me, thinking, then played with his glass. “Aren’t you going pretty far back?”

“Maybe.”

“Rondine, eh? You loved her, didn’t you?”

I grimaced into my glass but the effect was bad. “So what?” I asked.

“So you almost spoiled the play at one time. Luckily the war was over.”

“I paid pretty well for my indiscretions.”

“Hell, you almost died for them.”

“What about Rondine Lund?”

Corbinet leaned back and folded his fingers behind his head. “She dropped out of sight after the invasion. I heard the
maquis
caught her.”

“Sure?”

He shook his head. “Nope. Too much was going on to check it out. She had lost her importance along with her war and we were being disbanded. You were still in the hospital when I got that much.”

“From what source?”

“Price Richards in British Intelligence. He picked it up someplace and mentioned it over a drink as we were shipping out.”

“If I contacted him...”

“No good,” he interrupted. “Price died about three years ago.”

“You think there’s a way I can get past him to his source?”

“There’s always a way,” Corbinet said, “but it will take time. You don’t cover twenty years in an hour, you know that. The
maquis
didn’t keep records either.” He took his hands down and leaned on his desk. “So it’s Rondine again,” he stated. “What would you do if you found her?”

“Kill her,” I said simply.

“Well, I think it’s going to take you a long time to find her.”

I stood up and put on my hat. “Colonel ... I think I
found
her.”

Little tight lines pulled at the corner of his eyes. He was going over the list mentally, the ones dead Rondine had made that way, the two towns she pinpointed for destruction, the lives lost on the beach because she found a way to get inside somebody’s mind and pry loose that critical bit of news.

All he said was, “Ah, yes, Rondine.”

“I have to be sure. Colonel. Do you still have the contacts?”

Now his mouth tightened too in an expression I had seen before when the chips were down. “In a certain way ... and I don’t want this repeated ... I’m in much the same position as you. Yes, I have the contacts.”

It was my turn to study him. I put things into place in my head, remembering things I had come across about a certain former intelligence officer, about some peculiar strokes of luck in my own operations that seemed a little too coincidental, and there were a few times I had seen the mark of a fine hand that seemed somehow familiar employed in the same engagement I was involved in.

I felt a grin touch my mouth. “So LA.T.S, never really did let you go, did they?”

“You think too much, Tiger. It’s a new quality and an improvement over the old, but don’t make yourself dangerous.”

“It’s the only way I’m appreciated, Colonel,” I said. “I’ll call you in a few days.”

“Do that”

When I went out the door I covered the tiny lens set in the frame that photoed every visitor and laughed thinking of what the old boy would say when he saw the blank negative. Same old tricks.

At four o’clock I called Wally and asked what he had come up with. He gave me three names: Burton Selwick, with whom she apparently had a business connection; Gregory Hofta, another translator from Hungary with whom she was seen on numerous social occasions; and John Fredericks Talbot, a dashing-type Britisher who held a minor position with his embassy. There was a girl, Gretchen Lark, a U.N. secretary she frequently ate with and I took down their addresses, told him thanks and hung up.

My next dime got me Thomas Watford.

I said, “Tiger Mann. Anything on the Caine woman?”

“Possibly, but I think we had not better discuss it over the phone.”

“Can you meet me?”

He said he would, named a bar on Sixth Avenue and told me he’d be there in an hour. That gave me time enough to get a line started on my three names.

With the last dime I called Barney Dodge and told him what I needed. He came right across with Burton Selwick’s history and placed him as a man of more importance than his position indicated. It was assumed that he was one of those few people who could settle policy differences if they arose and could make decisions his government would back up without prior red tape. If he was a talker he’d be one fine source, but nothing ever pointed to him being loose-tongued. He said he’d give it a fast try and perhaps have some information that night.

It was about all I had time for. Office workers were beginning to hit the streets and were flagging down cabs from the corners. Rather than battle the crowd I started walking north toward the bar where I was to meet Thomas Watford, got there right on time, and that was where I made a mistake.

I should have been early.

Two of the boys he had with him were from a blue-card agency and I knew what they had in mind.

Nobody saw how they did it, but with nice, friendly gestures they lifted the .45 from the rig, let me have a beer while the pressure of two service revolvers were against my side, then they escorted me out of there.

The room they took me to was an unmarked office ten floors from the street in a building in the middle Forties. There was a deadly quiet about the place, every other office window blank. You could rent places like this in any name for any length of time and nobody cared at all.

Then they took turns interrogating me. For two hours I let them waste their time and told them nothing, then it was Watford himself who grabbed the lead.

I said, “How long does this keep up?”

“Until you talk or we say stop. Take your pick.”

“Good enough, kid. Tell me about the Caine girl.”

“That’s what caused the trouble. Where do you fit in with her?”

“I knew her when. It’s personal.”

“Balls. We checked her out back to when she was born. She never had any contact with you.”

I shrugged.

“She’s a British subject, Tiger. She’s in a touchy and responsible position. The British get peeved when a check is run on their cleared personnel.”

“How peeved?”

“Enough to get heat in our direction.”

“Why? She’s only a translator.” I looked at him steadily.

“Your implication stinks,” he said. “We’re not letting anything happen that will foul up our relations with the British. We’re not letting you pull one single stunt, buddy. Now do we talk?”

I pointed to the phone. “That connected?”

“It is.”

“I assume you know your code calls.”

Watford said nothing.

“Call the
circle fry
number. Tell him I said ‘chow.’”

There was more surprise in his face than anything else, then the mask came on. He hesitated a few seconds, nodded and picked up the receiver. I heard him dial the right digits, mumble into the phone, make a few demands, listen carefully, then hang up.

When he turned around his face was tight and flushed. He said, “How do you do it, Tiger?”

I grinned at him. “Easy. A gentle form of blackmail. Now why this sudden heat on me?” I asked him.

The three of them passed a swift look around before focusing back on me again. “Because there’s one hell of a security leak in the U.N.,” he said.

I stretched, got up and walked to the door. Tomorrow they’d use a different place if they had to. I turned around and said, “It figures.”

John Fredericks Talbot had an apartment in Gramercy Park, an exclusive little oasis in the jungle of the city. Enough money lives there to keep the prowl cars on a steady circuit and patrolmen on the beat, and the only way to forestall an identity check is to make like you belong there and take the direct route.