Death Is My Comrade (7 page)

The Post Office Department and the Main Post Office held down the southwest corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 12th Street. Diagonally across from it was the Raleigh Hotel, and a taxi line. Marianne's Ford was still parked outside the post office when I got there. I stayed on the north side of the street, heading for the taxi line.

I poked my head inside the window of the first cab and said: “Can you pull out of line?”

The driver gave me a surprised look. “That's what I'm here for, mister.”

“I mean, pull out and wait?”

He nodded slowly. “I got a meter.” Crushing a cigarette out in the dashboard ash tray, he asked: “Wait where?”

“Up the block.” I gave him a ten-dollar bill. The look of surprise hadn't quite left his face yet and that wasn't likely to chase it away.

“I'll be in the post office,” I said. “Keep your eyes open. If I come out heading this way, get ready to roll. If I stay on the south side of the street, you've earned yourself a quick ten bucks.”

“You law?” Then he shook his head and answered his own question: “Not with the kind of swindle sheet where you can toss around a sawbuck like that.”

“Well?”

“I ain't giving you back the ten bucks, mister, am I? You bought yourself a deal.”

I nodded and crossed the street just as Marianne came out of the post office, climbed into the Ford and swung it in a wide U-turn to head back along Pennsylvania Avenue in the direction we'd come.

A moment later I entered the post office. It was cool in there. I hadn't realized, till then, that I was sweating. Only two of the grilled windows were open for business at this hour. The sign on one of them said:
Parcel Post, General Delivery.
On the other:
Stamps & Money Orders.

I went over to the General Delivery window. The balding, bespectacled clerk was canceling the stamp on an envelope. I read the address upside down. Mr. Allen, General Delivery, Main P.O., Washington, D.C. Marianne's handwriting, of course, and Ilya Alluliev's letter.

The clerk shoved the letter into the “A” slot on the General Delivery board to his left. “Help you, mister?”

“A dozen stamped envelopes, please.”

He gave me a mildly exasperated stare and jerked a thumb to his right. “Other window.”

I bought my envelopes there and took them over to a wooden table against one wall. It was still too early for the kidnaper to make his move, I thought. I lit a cigarette and spread the envelopes on the table blotter in front of me.

Seven o'clock. A man and a woman came in. He had a camera case slung over his shoulder, she was carrying a nylon bag that said
Capital Airlines.

“I'd like to buy some of those there commemorative stamps,” the man said.

“Room 6505,” the clerk told him. “But the sales windows are only open from nine to four.”

“But we're flying home at midnight,” the man protested.

“Winston-Salem,” the woman said. “That's in North Carolina.”

“I'm sorry, sir,” the clerk said. “6505 opens at nine o'clock Monday morning.”

Grumbling, the tourists left. Seven-fifteen. Marianne would be home by now, waiting. I wrote this and that on a few of my envelopes. I smoked another cigarette. A man came in. He looked seedy and furtive and sinister, but all he did was buy a half-dozen postcards. Hell, he was probably the president of a bank. I was projecting.

Seven-twenty-five, and a quick flurry of business. How much does it cost to mail a letter air mail to West Germany? a woman wanted to know. Fifteen cents anywhere in Western Europe, ma'am. I know, but West Germany? Fifteen cents, ma'am. A man mailed a package, insuring it for fifty bucks. Another man bought a money order for seventy-nine ninety-five.

Alone again. One of the clerks told the other a dirty joke. I'd heard it before.

He would come for the letter, I thought. He'd then make contact with his partner. Probably a phone call. If he left on foot I'd follow him and nab him after he made the call. My hand tightened on the pen. I'd scare him, hurt him. And he'd see the threat in my eyes. He'd take me where they were. If he left by car, I had the taxi waiting. The important thing was to put fear into him, and fast. It would be easy, I figured, thinking of Marianne, back in Georgetown, waiting.

Twenty to eight. A kid entered the Post Office. I relaxed and doodled on some more envelopes. The kid was about twelve years old, with a towhead and freckles. He went right over to the General Delivery window and said importantly:

“Anything in General Delivery for Mr. Allen?”

My fist clenched. I broke the pen.

The important thing was to scare him, hurt him, make him know in the first few seconds of contact that I meant business.

A twelve-year-old kid?

Chapter Nine

T
hat's timing for you,” the balding clerk said with a smile as he got Ilya Alluliev's letter down from the “A” pigeonhole on the wall. He was still in good humor from the joke he had told. “Came in less than an hour ago.”

“Oh,” the towheaded kid said.

He had the ransom letter in his hand then. Looking at it without a great deal of interest, he turned and walked outside.

I hit the street five seconds after he did. He was walking west on Pennsylvania Avenue, toward where the sun was going down red and swollen in the hot June sky. Across the street in front of the Raleigh I saw my cab roll back into the taxi line.

The towhead crossed Pennsylvania Avenue at 14th Street, jaywalking across the broad intersection where Pennsylvania, E and 14th converge. He sauntered along past the Willard Hotel. He was in no special hurry. I stayed a half block back. He crossed F Street one block from the Treasury Department and my office.

Reaching the plate-glass windows of a big Rexall drugstore, he stopped. He seemed to be window shopping. Then he hitched up the belt of his faded bluejeans and went inside.

I went in right after him, saw him head for the soda fountain. Most of the stools were taken. He sat down next to the broad back of a large man wearing a T-shirt and khaki trousers. I stood ten feet from them at the paper-bound-book rack.

“What'll it be?” the big man in the T-shirt said.

“Banana split royal,” the towhead answered promptly. “Chocolate, strawberry and peach-vanilla ice cream. Here's the letter, Mr. Allen.”

Mr. Allen ordered the banana split royal and placed a dollar on the counter. “Be seeing you around, kid.”

“Thanks a lot, Mr. Allen.”

Mr. Allen turned, shoving the letter into a pocket of his khaki trousers. He looked like a muscle-stiff with the hard ropes of muscle bunched on his bare arms and under the tight T-shirt, but his movements were light-footed and lithe, like a big cat's. He was a couple of inches taller than I am, and I'm six-one. His sandy hair had been crew-cut. His eyes were blue and as innocent as a baby's. There was a tattoo on the back of his right hand in the inevitable heart shape. He walked right past me, one big arm brushing and turning the paperbound-book rack. It squeaked; they always do.

He hit the street at a slow, carefree amble, and then he started stepping out. I stretched my legs after him, north toward New York Avenue. A block and a half like that, then we reached a parking lot where he turned in, his shoes crunching on gravel. I wasn't wild about the gravel; he'd hear me coming a mile off. But the parking lot meant he had a car and I didn't. I had to make my play in there.

On the sidewalk I lit a cigarette, fumbled for the ring of keys in my pocket and followed Allen across the gravel. He could hear me, of course. I made myself even more obvious by whistling. The attendant's shack, next to one of those glass-walled outdoor phone booths, was shut for the night. It was one of those lots where you pay in advance and can leave your car all night.

Allen went down the aisle between two rows of cars. He stopped at a four-or five-year-old Buick and unlocked the door. I fumbled with my keys at the door of a Volkswagen next to it. Suddenly I stiffened. Volkswagens don't have door locks on the passenger side. If Allen knew that, he'd realize something was wrong, and I wouldn't get a chance to take him when he was off his guard, crouching to enter the Buick. He rolled down the window of his car before climbing in. It was a hot night, with the sun just now setting.

“Damn,” I said, and straightened my back and started to turn. Allen was aware of me now. That was all right, I wanted him to be. “Damn this lock,” I said.

Allen stood less than a yard from me, half-crouched to get into his car. As I turned all the way around he looked at the Volkswagen and the ring of keys in my hand, said, “What the hell,” backed out pivoting and swung his big right fist. I leaned against the partially open door of his car. His fist hit its edge. While he howled I yanked out the Magnum and rotated the cylinder one click, putting a round under the hammer.

“Stick up?” he said, sucking his torn knuckles and watching me warily.

“Not tonight, Mr. Allen.”

It was the name that did it. The name meant I knew. He pivoted again in a blur and dived across the front seat of the Buick, clawing at the glove compartment. I did two things. I flicked my cigarette after him and it struck the window on the passenger side of the Buick and showered sparks in his face. And I opened the door all the way and shoved the sole of my shoe against his rear. His head struck the window hard. His left hand jabbed at the button of the glove compartment, but missed.

I said: “Try it again and you're dead.”

He didn't try it again.

“Back out of there slowly. When you do, I'm going to shut the door. You're going to lean against it with your hands on the roof. Got it?”

He didn't say anything, didn't move.

“I'd just as soon kill you as spit on you,” I said. “If you think I'm kidding, try something. But you'd be making your last mistake. Now move.”

He moved. He backed out of the car as I'd told him to. I could smell his sour sweat.

Then he started to turn, swinging the right hand again. I might have expected that; I hadn't shown him yet he had anything to lose.

I blocked his fist with my left arm, the ring of keys jangling. He ducked his head and charged me. I took one step back with my left foot and slammed the barrel of the Magnum against the side of his head.

That drove him to his knees. He shook his head and glared up at me.

“On your feet, Allen. Turn around. Hands on the roof of your car.”

This time he did it, but he was rocky. He swayed.

“Where are they?” I said.

He told me to do something as unpleasant as it was impossible. Though I had hurt him, I still hadn't showed him he had anything to lose. He had me and the Magnum to worry about here, sure; but he had a kidnaping rap hanging over his head. I heard street sounds, but no crunching of gravel, no other sound at all in the parking lot. I stiffened the fingers of my left hand and extended the thumb at right angles to them, tightening the ridge of muscle on the edge of my palm. I chopped with it at his side, striking for the kidney. His broad back moved to the right and he went halfway down again, one knee scraping gravel. He started to shout. I shoved his face against the car door and the noise he made became a whimper. But then his back stiffened. He had it in mind to turn and take his chances with the gun.

“Don't do it, dead man,” I said. Then I told him softly, matter-of-factly: “That was a judo chop, dead man. I'm an expert at it. A little higher and I could break a rib. A little harder and I could rupture a kidney. You'd cry every time you went to the john. A little higher and a little harder and they'd be trying to take bone splinters out of your lung. Now, where are they?”

He said nothing.

“We'll take them one at a time,” I said. “First, a little higher.”

I used the judo chop on his floating rib. It drove him to both knees. He gasped and clutched his side. Kneeling there, he retched. This is the part I don't like to tell, but it is part of what happened. I had to break him, fast and completely. As he retched, I tasted bitterness in my own throat. Working him over, knowing I could do everything I said I could do, I tried to picture Marianne waiting and not knowing, tried to get a mind's eye view of what it was like when they'd hit Mrs. Gower and taken the twins. That helped a little: I could do what I had to do. But I did not enjoy it.

“That was the rib,” I said, still matter-of-factly. “Shall we try for the kidney?”

“Jesus, you're crazy!” he said hoarsely. “You're a crazy man. You'll kill me.” He tried to get up. He was still clutching his side. He collapsed to his knees again.

“On your feet.”

His right hand scrabbled at the door handle of the Buick. He drew himself up. In the half-light of dusk his T-shirt was gray with sweat.

“Here goes the kidney.”

“No. Jesus, wait.”

“Your name Allen?”

“Al—Bock.”

“How many in on the snatch?”

“Me and a friend. Two of us.”

“Working for who?”

“I don't know.” He started to turn his head and cried: “I swear to God I don't. Leo, he knows. I swear it. My rib,” he added. “You busted it. My rib!”

He winced, and I waited. He expected me to use the judo chop again.

“You supposed to contact Leo?”

He didn't answer. I waited silently, and he flinched. “No. Just go there.”

“Where?”

He said no word, but he made a sound in his throat. Close up, he looked younger than I'd thought—in his early twenties. I had scared him. It wasn't just the busted rib, and it wasn't just knowing I could do what I said I could do. It was the way I'd done it, matter-of-factly, as if I put in an eight-hour day five days a week busting ribs and rupturing kidneys.

I said again: “Here goes the kidney.”

He started to cry.