Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 10 (23 page)

And they were surprised to see me, as after all I was supposed to be in a holding cell in Burbank or Glendale or somewhere. So I froze and they froze….

They were the best-dressed shakedown artists I ever saw, clean-shaven men in their late twenties in dark well-pressed suits with tasteful striped ties and clean collars and flourishes of hanky in their damn breast pockets and lighter-color fedoras with snappy snugged-down brims. The one nearest me was larger, with the blank expression of a college boy on an athletic scholarship; the other one was smaller but sturdy-looking with a blandly handsome face out of a shirt ad. Neither had taken off his coat to search the place, which was turned well and truly upside-down, bed stripped, mattress on the floor, drawers out of the dresser, the couple chairs upended, nightstand lamp sitting on the carpet, my suitcase on the floor, my clothing scattered. They were insurance investigators poking around the aftermath of a tornado.

The dresser, though its drawers were stacked atop each other on the floor, remained upright, and on it were a few key effects of mine, specifically my little notebook and my nine-millimeter Browning.

It took perhaps a second and a half for all of that to register, and another half-second for one of the clean-cut customers—the one nearest me, who’d been thumbing through a Bible withdrawn from the nightstand drawer, perhaps seeking guidance—to lunge at me, straight-arm slamming the door behind me, sealing me within the cabin, and with his left hand, in a blow as casual as it was powerful, slapping me with the Bible.

The Good Book taught me a lesson, sending me to my knees; but I’d learned other lessons long ago, and swung an elbow up into his groin, not once, but three times, eliciting a howl and sending him tumbling back, cushioned by the mattress on the floor, though I don’t think it did him much good.

The smaller intruder, his face white and wide-eyed with alarm, was reaching inside his suitcoat and I doubted it was for his card. I was still on my knees—the bigger guy was busy rolling around, clutching his balls and yowling in pain—and my fingers found that Bible and I flung it at the smaller bastard, and its pages fluttered like wings as it flew past him, crashing into the far wall, but startling him enough to send his fedora flying and gain me time to get to my feet, grab the nightstand lamp from the floor, and hurl it at him like a bomb.

This missed him also, smashing into, and just plain smashing, the dresser mirror, but at least it kept the bastard on his toes. The bigger one seemed to be emerging from that fetal ball he’d been rolling around in, and I stomped him in the stomach before charging toward the smaller guy, who was clawing under his suitcoat. If he wanted a gun, mine was right next to him, on the dresser, and when I reached him, I snatched the nine-millimeter in my grasp, shaking off shards of mirror making brittle rain, and whapped the barrel across his face, breaking his nose in a shower of blood, twin streams of scarlet shooting from his nostrils, and when his hand emerged from inside his suitcoat, he indeed did hold a gun, a short-barreled .38, but it didn’t last long, fumbling from his unconscious fingers as he tumbled backward, in a crumpled pile that would do his nicely pressed suit absolutely no good at all.

I turned back to the bigger intruder, who was pushing up off the mattress, a very tough man in a nice suit; his hat had flown off too, his face a mask of the rage that had overridden the pain from my elbows in the nuts and stomp to the stomach. He was digging under his suitcoat and probably wasn’t looking for his comb; I pointed the nine-millimeter at his face and said, “Let’s play Wild West and see who wins.”

Something registered in his eyes, and his hand froze within the coat, and I leaned forward and slapped him with the nine-millimeter, like he’d slapped me with the Bible, and his eyes did a slot-machine roll before he fell backward onto that mattress again.

Something was grasping at my pants leg, and I glanced over my shoulder and down where the smaller guy had crawled over—tears streaming down his face with its shattered nose and blood trailing into his mouth like a dripping scarlet Groucho mustache—and I shook him off, as if he were a dog trying to hump my leg. I pointed the gun down at him and said, “This is my best suit. Get blood on it at your own risk.”

He was breathing hard and then he started to choke on the blood in his mouth from his nose. I said, “Shit,” and stuck my gun in my belt, reached down and picked him up by the lapels and sat him on the bed’s box spring, to help him not strangle on his own blood. I’m just that kind of guy.

The bigger one, asprawl on the mattress, was still unconscious. I removed his gun from its shoulder holster, turning myself into a two-gun kid by stuffing it in my waistband next to my nine-millimeter; then I looked in his inside suitcoat pocket for his billfold. The name on his driver’s license was John Smith and he resided in Encino, California; no pictures of a wife and kids, no business cards, no nothing. The other guy, who was sitting there whimpering and snorting blood, didn’t protest when I checked out his billfold.

His name was Robert Jones, and he lived in Encino, too. He also had no wife and kids, nor any sign of being in any sort of business.

A knock came at the door. Had somebody finally noticed the slight commotion? The mild hubbub?

“Yeah?” I called.

The voice was timid, male. “Mr. Heller, are you all right? It’s the manager. Should I call the police?”

“No! No, I’m fine.”

The timid voice tried for strength. “Mr. Heller, please open the door. I’m afraid I have to
insist
….”

I dug in my pocket for my money clip, figuring a sawbuck ought to pave the way to a little silence. With some luck I could catch a night train to somewhere; a sleeper sounded mighty good right now. Maybe a double sawbuck…

I opened the door and William Miller’s hand holding a damp white cloth reached out and the overwhelming odor of chloroform accompanied my final thought, which was to wonder if I’d ever wake up again.

Groggy, my mouth filmed with a medicinal aftertaste and the thickness of sleep, with perhaps just a hint of Lobster Newburg, I blinked under the glare of a high overhead light, a conical shaft of brightness that singled me out in a darkened room. For the second time tonight, I was in the spotlight. If this
was
still tonight….

I sat slumped in a chair, a simple metal folding chair, and my hands were free; I ran one of them up over my face and felt the stubble of beard and ran my fingers into my scalp and massaged. My Florsheimed feet were roped to the legs of the chair; another rope looped my midsection, tying me to the chair. I was in the pants of my garbardine suit and in my white shirt, my suitcoat gone, my tie gone. And needless to say, the nine-millimeter and .38 I’d stuffed in my waistband were long gone.

The glare of the overhead lamp made it hard to focus, but gradually I achieved a sense of where I was. Beyond the cone of light I sat within was a vast, cool darkness, but a certain amount of light—moonlight and perhaps electrical light—came from high distant windows. The smell of gasoline and oil and wing dope wafted through the drafty structure. Gradually, dark bulky shapes within the darkness made themselves known, like beasts crouching in jungle night shadows.

A melodramatic response, perhaps, to being held captive in an airplane hangar, but justifiable. I had knocked the shit out of a couple of Miller’s cronies and now Miller had me—or someone Miller had turned me over to had me—and the only reason I had any hope of getting out of this alive was that I wasn’t dead yet.

Footsteps echoed in the cavernous room, footsteps in the darkness, hollow clops punctuated by gun-cock clicks.

Then I could make out the outline of him, moving out from between the large shapes that were parked aircraft, and finally he stepped just inside my circle of harsh light.

“Forgive the precautions,” William Miller said in that mellow balm of baritone.

Again his lanky frame was draped in a dark undertaker’s suit, navy with a red-and-white-striped tie. It was hard to see where his gray hair began and the grayish flesh left off. He stood with folded arms, his full lips pursed in an amused smile, but his eyes dark and cold under the black ridges of eyebrow.

“Stand a little closer,” I said. “I can’t hear you.”

He waved a scolding finger my way. “Don’t make me sorry I didn’t bind your hands, as well. You did quite a thorough job on Smith and Jones.”

“Are they military intelligence? Or am I contradicting myself?” My tongue felt thick and my head throbbed with a headache almost as blinding as the glare of the overhead lamp. But I was damned if I’d let him sense that.

Now his hands had moved to his hips. “Are you aware that the FBI has a file on you?”

“I’d be flattered if I gave a damn,” I said. “Is that who they were?”

He chuckled. “I understand you once spoke to Director Hoover ‘disrespectfully.’”

“I told him to go fuck himself.”

The dark unblinking eyes had fastened on me, appraisingly. “You also prevented him from being kidnapped by the Karpis and Barker gang. And I understand, from Elmer Irey, that you were helpful last year, in the ongoing IRS investigation of the late unlamented Huey Long’s confederates in Louisiana.”

“If this is a testimonial dinner,” I said, “go ahead and roll out the cake with the stripper in it.”

He began to pace, slowly, measured steps, not nervous, in an arc that traced the edge of my circle of light. “I also gather that you’re a friend of Eliot Ness, that you aided him on various matters when he was with the Justice Department and, later, the Alcohol and Tax Unit.”

“Yeah, I’m a regular Junior G-man. You can untie me now.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he said ambiguously. “You’re also a known confidant of the criminal element in Chicago. You left the police department under a cloud, and you’ve had frequent dealings with members of the Capone mob.”

“So which is it? Am I a public-minded citizen, or a lowlife crook?”

His mouth smiled faintly but there was no smile in his eyes, at all. “That’s up to you…. You mind if I make myself comfortable?”

“Please. Come sit on my lap if you want.”

Miller chuckled again. “I like your sense of humor. Very droll.”

That was a new word for it.

He stepped outside the circle into the darkness, but my eyes were accustomed enough to that darkness that I could make out his movement. He took something from somewhere and came walking back. Another metal folding chair. He placed it at the edge of the pool of light and sat. Crossed his legs. Folded his arms. Smiled meaninglessly.

“You see, we’re aware that you’re considering going to the press with what you’ve learned,” he said. “I mention these various aspects of your life and career to show why we feel you might be willing to cooperate with your government…”

It was out in the open now.

“…and, if you decline to help, to remind you how easily we might discredit you and anything you came up with.”

I laughed once but it was loud enough to echo. “So all you wanted was to talk this over with me? Is that what your friends ‘Smith and Jones’ were doing in my cabin? Looking for me? Under my bed? In my suitcase and dresser drawers?”

“Actually, we were looking for this….” And he withdrew from his side suitcoat pocket my little notebook; he held it up as if it were an item on auction. “…and anything else pertinent, any other notes or documents you might have assembled.”

Then he tossed it to me.

I caught it, and thumbed through. All the pages relating to Amy were missing.

“Everyone you’ve spoken to, we’ll be speaking to,” Miller said.

“Tied to chairs?”

His smile broadened. “No…. You’re really the only one who requires…special treatment.”

“You forgot the kid gloves.”

Now the smile disappeared. “We intend to appeal to the patriotism of these individuals, Mr. Heller…. We don’t anticipate any problems with any of them. Mr. McMenamy would surely not like to have his ham radio operating license pulled, nor would any of the other buffs who’ve reported hearing similar transmissions. The Myers youth is…a youth. He’s unlikely to make a fuss and, even so, who would pay attention? Miss DeCarrie will understand that it was Miss Earhart’s wish to cooperate with her government, and will respect the wishes of her employer and friend. Mr. Mantz and Mr. Tisor occasionally work on government contracts and I’m sure will do the right, public-spirited thing.”

“Or you’ll yank whatever licenses they need to do business. You bastards’ll turn me into a Republican yet.”

“Mr. Heller, stumbling around in the dark…” And he gestured to the blackness of the hangar surrounding us. “…flying blind as you have, you’ve imperiled a top-secret government operation. We are trying as best we can to…stage-manage what could become an international incident of such proportions that the next world war could be precipitated.”

The volume of his voice had gradually risen; it was now reverberating in the vast chamber.

“And, Mr. Heller, speaking with a certain insider’s knowledge of both military and naval intelligence, I can tell you with all honesty and no small regret that your country is at this time in no shape to enter such a conflict.”

This was a new one on me: I’d never been accused of almost precipitating a world war, before.

I said, “I’m just supposed to take your word for all this.”

Both feet on the floor now, he folded his hands in his lap and tilted forward. “Mr. Heller, the disappearance of Amelia Earhart is big news. But how long do you think the disappearance of a corrupt private detective would sustain the interest of the American people?”

Were there others in the darkness around us? I sensed as much, but couldn’t be sure.

I said cheerfully, “Too bad your boys Smith and Jones didn’t stop by my motel a little earlier…. They might have intercepted that detailed letter I sent my attorney.”

He sat back and folded his arms again and the soft mouth formed a sort of kiss. Then he said, “All right…. Now we’ve exchanged threats. Mine is not empty, whereas yours is a fairly pathetic improvisation, but let’s treat each other with a little mutual respect, nonetheless. I’ll pretend I believe there’s a real chance that such a letter exists. And I won’t remind you that a blowtorch to the soles of your feet might elicit the truth in this matter and/or the name of your attorney. I won’t insult your intelligence in that manner.”