Hamilton, Donald - Novel 02 (24 page)

 
          
Mr.
Nicholson laughed. “Well, it’s the first time I’ve been treated like a
potential desperado, but I can see your point.” He surveyed the group. “Mr.
Kirkpatrick has offered to drive the convertible down to Santa Fe for us, so we
don’t have to split up.” He gestured to the open rear door of the Buick. “Hop
in back, Emmett. Want to talk to you. Doc, you can drive, can’t you?”

 
          
Settling
himself in the back seat of the big car, Emmett glanced at Ann, beside him,
glad that she was on his left where she could not feel the gun. She did not
quite look at him as she answered his greeting; and the warmly sentimental
feeling that had grown inside him, talking about her during her absence, died
abruptly.

 
          
“How
do you feel?” he asked.

 
          
“I’m
all right,” she said. “It was silly of me to faint.” Her words did not mean
anything, he saw, even to her. She was only making a conventional sound rather
than leave his question hanging unanswered between them; and he could see that
she hoped he would not force her to make the effort again. Her face was rather
pale but her mouth had been freshly made up with the clear red lipstick she
used; her hair had been recently combed. The marks of the comb showed where the
hair was damp at the temples. Her eyes looked straight ahead of her, avoiding
him. He wished he could get her alone and talk to her.

 
          
As
the Buick slid smoothly from the curb, Emmett caught a glimpse of Kirkpatrick’s
sweating brown face; the big man’s hand raised in unenthusiastic farewell, and
he remembered that he had wanted a long talk with the federal man who must have
the answers to a number of questions that needed asking. He recalled
Kirkpatrick’s big hand crushing his fingers, patting his shoulder, the big man’s
voice saying:
Take good care of her, she’s
had a tough time.
He wondered if it could have been a warning. He shifted
so that the gun in his pocket would not gouge his thigh, and tried to see, past
the neat, blonde, capped head of the nurse in the front seat, where Dr. Kaufman
was taking them. He wondered what it would feel like to shoot somebody,
particularly a woman.

 
          
Mr.
Nicholson, in the corner of the rear seat beyond Aim, leaned forward to look at
him.

 
          
“Well,
what are your plans now, John?”

 
          
The
older man’s use of his given name startled him, but he was more shocked at his
realization that he had no plans. Everything had led to Dr. Kissel, and
everything was to have ended tidily with Dr. Kissel.

 
          
“I
haven’t thought that far head, sir,” he said.

 
          
“Let’s
see, you’ve got a job with Southwest Petroleum, right?”

 
          
Emmett
nodded. “Starting the first.”

 
          
The
older man chuckled. “We’ve really given you quite a vacation, haven’t we, young
man? Do you mind if I ask how much Southwest is paying you?”

 
          
Emmett
told him.

 
          
He
had a momentary fear that Mr. Nicholson was going to ridicule the salary,
compare it, perhaps, with Ann’s monthly allowance, but the older man went on
without comment:

 
          
“Do
you know any metallurgy?”

 
          
“Not
much,” Emmett said.

 
          
“How
about grease analysis? That’s more in your line, isn’t it?”

 
          
“I
can get along.”

 
          
“Lubricating
oils?”

 
          
“That’s
my field,” Emmett said.

 
          
Mr.
Nicholson rubbed the side of his nose thoughtfully. “We’re associated with
Federal Refining. Their South American branch needs a chemist. Good money.
Quarters furnished. After two years, vacation with pay in the States for you
and—” he glanced at Ann, “—and your family, with transportation paid by the
company.” He laughed. “The reason I know about it is, I was going to offer it
to you anyway, to get rid of you. But it’s a real job, John. You’ll be in
charge of the lab down there; it won’t be just a matter of their putting my
son-in-law on the payroll, don’t worry about that.”

 
          
They
were outside the gate now, the doctor guiding the big sedan across the level,
endless plain at an even sixty-five. Emmett caught a glimpse of the gold-rimmed
glasses in the rear-view mirror; the eyes behind the glasses studying him
briefly. He remembered that Ann had claimed that this man had tried to kill
her, and at the time he had believed her. He still believed her, he found, but
as you believe something to think about, not to talk about it; as you might
know that a man was a crook, and refrain from trusting him with your money,
without feeling assured enough to announce the fact in public. He was going to
get rid of Dr. Kaufman, as a doctor for Ann, and that was the extent of his
intentions. Too much had happened for him to try to understand it all. But he
suddenly did not like the feeling of being completely at the mercy of the
small, neatly manicured hands on the steering wheel.

 
          
He
said to Mr. Nicholson, “I’d have to talk it over with Ann.”

 
          
Mr.
Nicholson said, “I can have you kids on a plane in two hours.”

 
          
Emmett
hesitated. He did not want to ask the question, but it came anyway, “What’s the
rush, sir?”

 
          
“Don’t
be a damn fool, Emmett,” Mr. Nicholson said, forgetting the more familiar form of
address he had been using. “Remember what I told you over the telephone
yesterday. Just because somebody’s just told her she’s a heroine doesn’t change
anything, does it? She didn’t know she was a heroine last Saturday when this
man Stevens accused her of betraying those people.” He cleared his throat. “Hell,
it’s partly my fault, but what does that help? If I’d checked with Kissel
earlier she could have laughed in Stevens’ face when he told her that story;
but what the hell difference is it going to make to a jury that she killed him
for a mistake? He’s dead, isn’t he? She may have a trick memory, John, but my
memory’s perfect, and I heard her blubbering into a telephone asking daddy
please to help her, she’d just murdered a man. Kissel can’t say anything to
change that!”

 
          
Emmett
was aware that the blonde girl in the seat in front of him had moved, slowly
raising her hand to tuck back a strand of shining hair blown free by the rush
of air through the open window beside her. He looked away from her.

 
          
He
heard his own voice saying, “One hysterical woman’s voice probably sounds
pretty much like another, over the phone, Mr. Nicholson.” Not until he had said
it, did the thought become clear in his mind.

 
          
Ann’s
father’s face was contemptuous. “Don’t try to tell me I wouldn’t know my own
daughter’s—!”

 
          
Helene
Bethke turned. “I warned you against being too clever, Emmett,” she said
sharply. “And you’re only guessing.”

 
          
He
said, a little breathlessly, “Yes, but I remember now that when you picked me
up in the lobby of my hotel in Denver a couple of days ago you startled me by
sounding just like Ann. At the time I was rather preoccupied, and I decided it
was just my imagination. But it wasn’t, was it, Miss Bethke. You were looking
for Ann. You wanted to know if I were interested enough in her to perhaps know
where she was; if I’d jump at hearing her voice. I did; after all she was
supposed to be safely tucked away in Young’s Canyon Ranch. But it’s interesting
that you can do it, isn’t it? Imitate her, I mean. But you’re kind of a natural
mimic, aren’t you? I remember, when we were talking that day, you got sarcastic
and repeated back a sentence I had said, taking off my voice and expression
perfectly.”

 
          
“It
doesn’t prove anything,” the blonde girl murmured. “It just shows how smart you
are. You’re just showing off, Emmett. You’ve got a nice brain and you’ve used
it, all the way through, very neatly and logically; you’ve even got a sort of
scared ruthlessness, as I’ve got reason to remember…” She smiled briefly. “… and
as poor Metschnik learned the same night, when he was following you down from
that lodge in the mountains.”

 
          
“Metschnik?”

 
          
“The
character you laid out with a jack handle. You’ll be glad to know his shoulder’s
mending nicely. I think he was calling himself Henry McElroy at the time.”

 
          
“What
was he following us for?” Emmett demanded stupidly.

 
          
“Well,
darling,” Helene Bethke said, smiling, “If he saw the opportunity, he was going
to kill you.”

 
          
“Fortunately,”
Dr. Kaufman said, “that will no longer be necessary.”

 
          
The
doctor had slowed the car a little, and pitched his voice so that it could be
heard clearly in the back seat, above the sound of the wind. Then the sedan
rushed on smoothly for a while through the bright noon sunshine; the telephone
poles that flickered past the windows cast no shadows. Emmett could feel the
drops of perspiration run down beneath his sports shirt. Ann moved a little
beside him, and he knew an aching sense of responsibility. Not only had he
married her; he had brought her here. He slipped his hand into his pocket, with
some difficulty because it was wet, and found the gun. It seemed like a
melodramatic gesture, and he could not see himself using the weapon.

 
          
Dr.
Kaufman said, “I think we can come to a mutually satisfactory agreement.” He
kept turning his head, not all the way around, as he spoke, so that his voice
came back in snatches, as if he were tossing back to them the leaves from a
notebook in which he had it all written down. “You see,” he said, “the
gentleman with the cane back there, who has just so kindly testified to Miss
Nicholson’s wartime heroism, does not happen to be Reinhard Kissel.”

 
          
Then
the car ran on for another space of time.

 
          
Emmett
heard Ann’s voice, breathlessly, “I… thought it was a trick. I thought you and
Dad had arranged… to fool…” He felt her small damp hand on his wrist, and
realized that she was talking to him. “I knew he wasn’t… but I didn’t want to
spoil…”

 
          
Emmett
listened to them. They were way ahead of him, but he was gradually catching up.
Reinhard Kissel was not Reinhard Kissel. It made a wild sort of sense. In the
light of it, everything that had happened began to make a screwy sort of sense.

 
          
“Please,”
Ann whispered. “You have to believe me. I didn’t realize… I thought it was a
trick to help me. It all happened so fast…”

 
          
He
could not understand the pleading, desperate note in her voice. Kissel wasn’t
Kissel, and what he had said didn’t count. They were right back where they had
started, and it was tough. He would have to figure out something else. It was a
big disappointment, all right. Perhaps the real Kissel was dead and they would
never know for certain…

 
          
He
heard Ann’s voice again, with that pleading note in it that said that she was
guilty as hell of whatever she was trying to defend herself against; that said
that she wanted you to tell her you did not believe something you both knew to
be true about her. He glanced at her, and her eyes met his for the first time
that day, and looked away.

 
          
He
whispered, “You knew, and you didn’t…!” He had caught up to them now. He was
right alongside them. He was even a little ahead of them, and he took the gun
out of his pocket. “Let’s go back,” he said. “Let’s go back and talk it over
with Kirkpatrick.”

 
          
He
saw the gold-rimmed glasses glint in the rear-view mirror, and the neatly
manicured hands tighten on the steering wheel as the doctor saw the gun. He saw
the color go out of Helene Bethke’s face, watching him over the back of the
seat. When she moved, he pulled the trigger. The bullet struck where he had
aimed, raised dust from the upholstery and passed through the seat to smack
metallically into the dashboard, passing between the doctor and the nurse. The
sound of the shot was deafening inside the car. The blonde girl froze in the
middle of what she had been about to do or say. The car rolled gently to a halt
at the side of the road, and the heat closed in about it like a great glowing
blanket Dr. Kaufman disengaged the gears and returned his hands to the steering
wheel and did not look around. Presently he shivered a little.

 
          
“Your
capacity for sudden violence is a little amazing, Mr. Emmett.”

 
          
Emmett
said, “I surprise myself all to pieces sometimes. Turn the damn car around and
let’s get going.”

 
          
“Actually,”
the doctor said, “it’s a rather common behavior pattern among young men who
spent the war as non-combatants. A sort of compensatory mechanism to make up
for certain feelings of guilt and inadequacy. You are trying to prove to
yourself that
if
you had been in the
service, you would have made as good a soldier as the next man, or perhaps a
little better…”

 
          
“That’s
all right,” Emmett said. “Just start the car. I’ll take the treatment next
week.”

 
          
He
was beginning to feel a little foolish sitting there holding the short-barreled
revolver, the walnut grips slippery with sweat; and also a little sick with the
knowledge that, if he did not want to become completely ridiculous, he would
have to hit one of them with the next shot. As a bluff, he had carried it as
far as it would go.

 
          
“Tell
him to put it away, Miss Nicholson.” The doctor’s voice was the reasonable
voice of a man who had spent his life among irrational people. He coughed
apologetically and corrected himself. “I’m sorry: Mrs. Emmett. Tell your
husband to put the gun away, Mrs. Emmett.”

 
          
She
stirred, and Emmett glanced at her.

 
          
“Please,”
she whispered. “Oh, please, John! Don’t you understand…?”

 
          
He
stared at her incredulously. Her hand was tight on his wrist and her eyes were
bright and pleading.

 
          
“Don’t
you see?” she breathed. “If we go back… tell them…”

 
          
Emmett
asked softly, “Do you know what that place was?”

 
          
She
nodded her head. “But—”

 
          
“And
you
still
want us to drive away
without telling them they’ve got an impostor—?”

 
          
Her
voice was suddenly clear and firm. “Do you realize what will happen to me,
darling, if they learn that what he said doesn’t mean anything? that I still
have a perfectly good motive for killing Stevens? Is it
that
important, John?” Her voice changed. “Please… for me,” she
whispered. “Put it away. At least hear what he has to say, darling.”

 
          
Mr.
Nicholson said, “Probably Ann’s right, Emmett.”

 
          
“Yes,”
Dr. Kaufman’s voice said, “there’s no need for violence, Emmett. Nothing is
going to happen to you. I wouldn’t dare let anything happen to you now; it
would call attention to precisely what I want to keep concealed. We are simply
going to have a little talk. When we’re through you’ll be at liberty to run to
the nearest telephone, call Mr. Kirkpatrick, and tell him that Dr. Kissel is
not Dr. Kissel. If you still want to.”

 
          
Emmett
looked down at the gun in his free hand. The fact of the matter, he reflected
bitterly, was that a gun was no good unless you were going to shoot somebody
with it. He wasn’t, and they sensed it. He put the thing back into his pocket.
The girl in the front seat relaxed visibly and ran the tip of her tongue over
her dark lips. Dr. Kaufman wiped perspiration off his glasses with a clean
white handkerchief. Emmett was rather shocked at the realization that they had
actually been afraid of him.

 
          
Dr.
Kaufman started the car again. As they picked up speed the blanket of heat
seemed to lift a little, allowing them to breathe.

 
          
“Well,”
the doctor said, “now that the excitement is over, suppose we talk like
reasonable human beings. First of all, the question of Dr. Kissel’s business at
the Project; this does not need to concern us. It is, shall we say, on a higher
operational level. It is enough for us to know that to come here in the guise
of Dr. Reinhard Kissel, a well-known—in his own country—scientist, he has
allowed himself to be crippled, and disfigured by plastic surgery; that he has
given up his family and career in the hope of obtaining for his country a few
scraps of knowledge which, if your country’s peaceful pretensions were genuine,
should have long ago been available to any laboratory in the world…” He smiled
into the windshield as Emmett stirred. “Well, it’s a debatable point, Mr.
Emmett. We won’t argue it. The fact of the matter is that the true Dr. Kissel
came into our hands, dying, well before the end of the war. He had some useful
information about Nazi research; more than that, he had a recognized name; yet,
because of his flight from Austria and subsequent experiences, very few people
knew him by sight. There was a good chance that a substitute, well briefed and
documented, could go undetected for a considerable length of time over here, in
the United States; particularly if this substitute were supplied with a wealth
of interesting information to use, shall we say, as bait.”

 
          
Emmett
reached over and removed Ann’s tight fingers from his wrist. He saw her face
suddenly become drawn and white, and he regretted his action, because it had
been childish. It had not hurt him to let her hold onto him, whatever his
opinion of her behavior.

 
          
Dr.
Kaufman said, “However, in checking all eventualities, those in charge noticed
in the true Dr. Kissel’s account a meeting with an American girl who, if still
alive, might possibly prove embarrassing. The plan was put into action
nevertheless; but as a precaution, Miss Bethke and I were assigned to make sure
that Miss Nicholson was not apt to challenge the identity of the spurious Dr.
Kissel. Unfortunately, we found that the reverse was true. Miss Nicholson had
forgotten her experiences in the Gestapo prison and was very likely, if she
ever learned that he was in this country, to ask ‘Dr. Kissel’ to fill in the
gap in her memory.” Dr. Kaufman grimaced at the rear-view mirror. “Reporting
this, I received one of the comprehensive plans of operation they make a habit
of giving you, ordering me: a) to establish Miss Bethke, and myself if
possible, in a position close to Miss Nicholson; b) to do my best to prevent
Miss Nicholson from attempting to make contact with ‘Dr. Kissel’; c) to lay the
groundwork for removing her without embarrassing questions, should she insist
on seeing him; and, d) to discredit her testimony in advance as much as possible
in case all other efforts should fail.”

 
          
“Then
you did hide the magazine,” Ann whispered. “The one that told about him coming
to teach at Fairmount.”

 
          
“Miss
Bethke took care of that,” the doctor said.

 
          
“And…
you
tried to kill me in Boyne?”

 
          
“Yes,”
the doctor said curtly.

 
          
Mr.
Nicholson drew a deep breath.

 
          
“And…
the time before, when I was supposed to have tried…?”

 
          
“Miss
Bethke administered a slight overdose to give you the necessary reputation for
attempted self-destruction and to have an excuse for getting me on the case.”

 
          
“And…
Stevens?” she breathed.

 
          
“Mr.
Stevens,” the doctor said, “was going to tell the newspapers about your wartime
experiences. Unfortunately, while Miss Bethke was reporting this to me, you
vanished. Not knowing where you were, or how soon we might regain contact with
you, we had to stop Stevens. We could not afford publicity that might reveal
the story of your meeting with Dr. Kissel until we could be quite sure of…”

 
          
“…
of killing me?” Ann whispered.

 
          
The
doctor nodded, watching the road. “We could not take the chance of having you
publicly refuting the newspaper story by citing Dr. Kissel as a witness.”

 
          
“So
you killed Stevens instead? Because I was not… not available.”

 
          
The
doctor nodded calmly.

 
          
“…
and tried to blame it on me, to make Dad believe I…!” Ann’s voice began to rise
“… and then in Boyne to make it look as if I’d committed…!”