Assignment — Stella Marni (17 page)

Durell's cigarette tasted fiat and stale. "You tried to buy her and she turned you down?"

"Right." Blossom pinched the bridge of his narrow nose. "So after you kicked some sense into me, I walked the beach in the rain and I was sick there on the sand and then I just sat there and thought it all over. It's too late for me to do anything on the case now. I've made too many mistakes, screwed it all up, because of Stella. The bitch is in my blood and bones, Sam. I still can't hurt her, even though I curse her. But I can keep her from hurting you."

"You're on the wrong track, Harry. Take it easy."

"I'm just warning you. You think you know Stella Marni and you think you can handle her. But you can't. You'll come to grief."

"Like you?"

"Worse than me. She laughed at me. She's afraid of you. You're more dangerous to her than I ever was."

"In what way? What are you implying?"

Blossom's face worked and he was silent, staring at the bleak, rain-swept area of the parking lot. It was growing dark. His breathing was ragged, and he shook his head at his own thoughts.

"You've said a lot of strange things. Make some sense out of them."

"I've warned you, that's all."

"If you have any facts about Stella Marni, give them to me. Or to Markey. Don't talk in riddles. Don't rave about how good or bad she is. Prove something."

"Sorry, boy. You've had it." Abruptly Blossom elbowed the car door open and stood with bent, narrow shoulders in the rain. Turning, he looked back into the car at Durell. His bony face seemed oddly broken, as if the keenness of the hunter's blade had been shattered against some obstacle that had yielded without breaking, yielded and blunted the fine, keen mind behind that face until it was twisted and warped and dulled beyond repair. Blossom said tiredly: "If you're going to Stella now, wherever you've got her, take care. Or you're a dead man."

Slamming the door, Blossom turned and strode away toward the street.

He was more disturbed by Blossom's words than he was willing to admit. He felt a sense of urgency, a need to return to Stella to make sure she was safe, to question her again. Last night had been a time of trial, of hysteria and overtaut emotions for her. He had been gentle with her, restraining the questions he wanted to ask. Now he had to face the hard fact that there was more she could tell him. She had held back vital information that could clear up the terror that threatened those like her who had sought asylum here in America.

The heavy, sullen rain had brought a premature darkness over the city. Lights were bright in the shop windows as he drove south along lower Broadway toward Canal Street and the Brooklyn bridges. He was not followed now. The giant seemed to have disappeared. He took evasive action anyway, checking his mirror frequently to make sure the same cars were not always behind him.

In the lower Twenties he saw the building where Frank Greenwald had maintained his chemical-supply business. The studio where Frank had been murdered looked down from the street like a tall Gothic tower atop the otherwise ordinary building, conical in shape, the ornamental ports and gargoyles looking small from the street level. He glanced up at it twice before he suddenly braked and swung the car in toward the curb.

No mistake. There were lights in the ports of John Krame's studio, high in the dark mist up there. For a moment he hesitated, torn between a need to return to Stella and a sudden curiosity about those lights. Unless the police were still probing around up there, the studio should be dark. Krame was supposed to be in Florida.

Durell found a parking spot and got out and walked back to the building.

Seen in the murky afternoon light, it looked shabby and unimposing, the lobby tracked with muddy footprints to and from the double elevators, which were now operating. Durell got into the nearest elevator and rode up to the twelfth floor. The building was different in these daylight hours, when the various offices and lofts were filled with working people and businessmen. But the twelfth floor, which Frank Greenwald had reserved all for himself, was empty and desolate.

The elevator man was gray and bored. "If you're looking to do business with the Greenwald Company, mister, there ain't any anymore. Mr. Greenwald got himself killed last night. Didn'tcha read about it?"

"I read about it. Are the cops up here now?"

"Just for a couple hours this morning. Wouldn't know about now. I just come back from coffee. You a cop, mister?"

"I'm looking for John Krame."

"Hell, he's down in Miami."

"Then I'll leave him a note."

He waited until curiosity faded to resentment and then resignation in the elevator man. The cage descended and he was alone in the corridor that led to Frank Greenwald's business premises. The pebbled glass door he had entered last night was dark now. And locked. Turning, he walked back and stared up the iron spiral stairway that led to the tower and Krame's studio, where he had found Greenwald and Stella. There was no sound from up there, and he drifted upward as silently as a shadow to the top landing.

The spiral stairway came right up through the studio floor. Lights gleamed from the banks of fluorescent tubes hanging from the tremendously high, domed ceiling, and baby spots shone from a series of pipe scaffolds. He heard the murmur of a man's voice before he raised his head above the floor level. He paused. There was a door at the top landing, but it was open, and it was through this that he had seen the banks of lights. A moment later he heard a jingling sound and quick, tapping footsteps and then the clink of glasses. A woman giggled and then sighed and then giggled again.

Silver Bells, Durell thought.

Excitement moved in him. If Gerda Smith was here, if he had been lucky enough to find her in this place, then there was a direct connection between the offices of the New American Society and this photographer's studio where Frank Greenwald had been killed. It made sense. He looked back into the shrouds of darkness below him on the circular stairway. Nothing. Nobody had followed. Carefully he mounted several more steps, which brought him onto the top landing behind the partly open door. From here he could see clearly into the vast tower room.

The area of the studio visible through the doorway yielded nothing. Rain beat against the high round windows and the big studio window on the north side. The model's dais, draped in velvet under a battery of pink and amber spots, was empty. The props and stacks of flats to the left looked untouched since last night. The air felt cool and damp.

Gently, slowly, with the tips of his fingers, he pushed the door open slightly wider.

He found himself staring into the startled eyes of Gerda Smith.

They had not been expecting company. She was naked, on a couch in a Duchess of Alba pose, a camera on a tripod near her, spots of pink and amber gels focused on her body, shadowing her head. The photographer, however, was not behind his camera. He sat on the couch with her.

Gerda screamed.

The man jumped up and spun around in a low crouch to face the spot at which she pointed. He saw Durell in the doorway and froze. He was a heavy-set, redheaded man. with his hair clipped in a crew cut that should have given his features a youthful appearance, but which only emphasized the coarseness of his face and the sullen droop of his surprised mouth. He wore a dark red singlet and dirty white duck trousers, but he did not look like a sailor. He looked like a man caught in the preparatory acts of love.

"It's him!" Gerda screamed. "It's Durell, Johnny!"

She snatched at a fold of velvet drapery on the couch, cursing in a manner that surprised even Durell; she yanked desperately in an attempt to cover up her extraordinary rounded body. The redheaded man straightened slowly, exhaled. His eyes jumped beyond Durell, across the studio to the bar and a table cluttered with camera equipment. Then he said harshly: "Whoever you are, nobody invited you in, mister."

"The door was open," Durell said. "If you're John Krame, I want to talk to you."

"Not now."

"You're supposed to be in Florida," Durell said.

"Maybe I was. They still fly planes up and down the coast. So I came back this morning. So what?"

"Johnny," Gerda said. Her voice was like a tiny, silent scream. "Don't stand there talking to him.
Do
something!"

"What would you like me to do, baby?" Krame asked. His manner was contemptuous of the girl, and he did not turn to look at her when he spoke. His brown eyes measured Durell with cool objectivity. "'Come on in and close the door, .mister. You can see what you busted up. Just don't hang on the ropes there."

"Johnny!" Gerda said again.

"Shut up, baby. I'll handle this."

"But he
knows
now! Get him, Johnny!"

Krame's mouth shaped soundless laughter, but his brown eyes were cold. There was a hard, competent efficiency about him, a core of brute strength in the way he carried himself. His hand flicked backward, knuckles cracking across the girl's face. Gerda fell back with a squawk of surprise, pain, and outrage. Her pale body flashed in round, plump curves and shadows as the velvet drapery slid away from her legs.

"You're too eager, baby. In lots of things. He's got a gun. Haven't you, mister?"

"Yes, I have," Durell said.

"You're tough, Gerda says. She took a liking to you."

There was something strange about Krame, Durell thought He looked casual, almost amused, but the spotlights overhead gave him away. He had big, square hands and they were clenched hard and the tendons of his muscular forearms were visible, moving a little under his pale skin. Not tanned skin. Pale. If he had been in Miami at all, he hadn't been lolling on the beach in the sun. He'd been busy with other things, indoors. He noted the tight planes of the redheaded man's face, the hard, square jaw, the Slavic cheekbones under thick, bony red brows. He looked amused, yes, but he was not. He looked dangerous, as a big cat pacing through the jungle looks dangerous.

Durell flicked a glance at the girl. "Too bad Gerda tried to get me killed, if she likes me," he said. Gerda's tiny face reflected naked hatred. "You called the
Boroslav
after you heard Damion tell me that Albert Marni might be aboard, didn't you? You heard me tell Damion who I was and what my job is."

"You son of a bitch," she whispered.

"But it didn't work, did it?"

"You were lucky. Or that fool Grozni sold out."

"Doesn't Damion know which side of the fence you work on, Gerda?"

She scrubbed her face where Krame had knuckled her. There were flaring red marks on her cheek, and her face was white except where her cosmetics stood out in blotches of color. He saw that the only things she had been wearing when he interrupted them were the silver bells she wore on her wrists and ankles and ears. On anyone else, it might have been provocative. He was sure that more than one man had made love to her to the tune of the silvery little bells.

"Damion is just a stupid jerk," Gerda whispered.

"Baby, baby," Krame said softly. "I told you, you talk too much. Now shut up. Once and for all, baby, close the trap, nail it shut. Durell and I are going to have a little talk. He's got some things right and a lot of it all wrong, and maybe if I can straighten him out on a few items, things won't be so bad."

"Such as?" Durell asked.

"Such as Stella Marni. And your guess about Gerda, here."

"You killed Frank Greenwald," Durell said suddenly. "You might have been in Miami recently, but you were right here last night."

"Wrong. I was in Miami. I can prove it. You don't pin murder on me," said the redheaded man. His voice was easy, but his tawny eyes were tight and cautious, like a stalking tiger. "I'm a guy who likes a fast buck and the ladies. I like Gerda here, I like this place, I like money the easy way. Sure. But I know when to stop. I don't kill, mister. I don't kidnap."

"You leave that for the other members of your gang. You and Gerda, that's two of you," Durell said. "That leaves another woman and three men to work your racket on the refugees. Who are they?"

"Don't be stupid," Krame said, smiling. "I'm not over a barrel, mister. You are. You're in the ditch right now. You and I are going to make a deal."

"Johnny ..." Gerda said.

"No deal," Durell said. "You're talking to the cops."

"I wouldn't be too hasty," Krame said. He spoke easily, with confidence. "Not unless you're anxious to go back to Stella and find her dead."

It could be a bluff, Durell thought. The redheaded man might be playing for time, looking for an angle. He was smart, mentally agile, and his pale brown eyes were confident It could be, Durell thought, that in coming up here into this hornet's nest he had stumbled onto the very head of the ring he had set out to destroy. Luck, maybe. But he did not trust entirely to luck. Rather than try to read Krame's closed face, he shot a glance at the girl huddled on the couch. Gerda's eyes had opened wide at Krame's remark about Stella, and then had narrowed and become veiled.

It was a gamble, and Durell was a gambler. It was in his blood, and he had been trained to it as a boy by his grandfather, who had owned and worked an old Mississippi side-wheeler. There was no trick, honest or crooked, that he did not know about cards or gambling devices. And he knew how to apply his knowledge of percentages to human factors, as well. He decided Krame was bluffing.

Without making a reply, Durell turned away and walked to a table nearby, where a telephone rested. He picked it up and dialed the FBI district office number, his eyes dark and brooding as he watched Krame and the girl. Neither made a move. When the number was answered, Durell said: "Get me Tom Markey, please."

"He's on the Washington line," the girl said. "Can you call back in five minutes?"

"I'll wait. Interrupt him and tell him it's urgent. This is Sam Durell."