The Assassin (29 page)

There was a little lavatory leading off the room; he was followed there and allowed to relieve himself, with the door kept open. What was the time? He felt like turning round and yelling at them, demanding to know. It was a human right, the right to know what hour of the day it was. King checked himself angrily. This was just the first sign of nervous strain and physical exhaustion. He had a long way to go before he could afford the luxury of breaking down. And then he noticed three other men had come into the room. The transcriber yawned and stretched, giving his place to one of the new men; the others conferred again, and the man standing behind him said, ‘Come on, that's enough. Button yourself and sit down.'

It was a new team taking over. That meant the first shift was being relieved. If they worked in ten-hour shifts that meant he had been there through the night and it was well into Monday morning. He pulled himself together. Hold on for a while longer. Give the man in the cathedral time to do his job and get killed afterwards; give the organisations man a chance to reach Elizabeth Cameron. Then he could begin to crack for them, just a little; just enough to take the pressure off himself and keep them occupied. He walked back to his chair, wincing as he sat down again, and looked at the new set of faces.

‘Now, gentlemen,' he said, ‘maybe
you'll
allow me to call my lawyer?'

Peter Mathews hadn't slept during the night. He stayed in the cramped little driving seat of the observation car, taking Benzedrine tablets and smoking. She hadn't left her apartment; people had come into the building, including several men who might have been her contact, but it was Leary's guess they'd try to leave together. He had given up trying to better Leary's guesses and he stayed where he was supposed to stay, waiting. He put in two calls during the night, reporting himself and asking about King. No progress, was the answer. He hadn't expected any that soon. Leary knew the type; only a fool underestimated the courage and endurance of a first-grade Soviet agent. Personally Mathews thought they were too soft; the method took too long. A man of strong nerves and sound physique could take up to a fortnight without breaking down. Tired, angry with himself and strung up from the stimulant to keep him awake, Matthews wished they'd give up Mr King to him and, with a couple of guys to help, they'd have the answers by the end of the day. By eight o'clock it was light and the city was alive again after the weekend. The noise volume was increasing and the street where he was parked was running with streams of traffic. A traffic cop, cold and truculent at that unpleasant hour on a March morning, stalked towards him.

‘Move it! Don't ya know this is a no parkin' area.' Mathews showed him a card. He didn't say anything, he just held it in his cupped hand and brought it up under the policeman's line of sight.

‘Sorry, sir.' He moved away from the window; he called the F.B.I. a dirty name and added the Irish and St Patrick's Day to the Bureau. It was hell on wheels for the police; the traffic got snarled up, the goddamned parade screwed up the whole of 43rd, 44th 45th, 46th, and Fifth Avenue itself right up 86th Street from Central Park to Third Avenue. He got mad every time someone took him for a Mick because he was a cop, and he spent every March 17th passing out tickets like confetti just to show his feeling to the whole damned circus show. Peter Mathews put the card back in his pocket. He wished he'd brought a Thermos of hot coffee; he dared not leave his post even for a moment now in case Elizabeth came out.

He decided to move the car in and park in the ‘Residents Only' space outside the apartment block entrance. He could give the porter a five-buck note to square it with him. They knew each other well, and Mathews had kept on good terms with him. He eased out of the traffic, and disregarding a furious chorus of hooting and swearing from the stream of cars he intersected, he turned across and swung inside the U-shaped enclave. He cut in immediately in front of a TV service van; he took the only available space, put on the brake and switched off the engine. The van had no place to park. It stopped behind him, half blocking the driveway. Mathews expected trouble from the driver. He watched in his mirror and saw him get out. He was young, dark, stockily built, wearing white overalls with the name of the TV repair service printed on the back in red letters. But he passed Mathews without saying anything. He walked up the three broad steps under the yellow and black awning above the entrance with the apartment block number printed on it, swinging a canvas bag in his left hand. Mathews went on watching him, just exercising his eyes without any thought attached, still a little surprised that the van driver should have let him in like that and hog the only place. There wasn't much road courtesy between drivers in New York when conditions were easy. Most repair men would have offered to poke his nose through his face for slicing them out of a spot like that.

Perhaps it was the Benzedrine; perhaps it was that million to one instinct which distinguished Peter Mathews from the other eager young men who worked for Leary. He himself wasn't sure what set the alarm bell going in his mind. Most repair men would have raised hell. Why hadn't this one? Why was he different—Mathews was out of the car in the same second, racing up the steps, pushing through the plate-glass doors. There was no one in the lobby but the porter; a glance towards the elevator showed the red light popping on the indicator as it went up.

Mathews didn't waste time. It wasn't just an instinct now. It was a certainty. There was something wrong with the man in the overalls.

‘Where'd that repair man go?' He swung on the porter.

‘Miss Cameron's apartment. He said she'd sent out a call her TV wasn't working. He said they got a lot of calls today from people wanting to see the parade …'

This was the cover, of course. Mathews was at the second elevator, pulling the door open. A pair of overalls and a van. That was how the man she was protecting could get in and they could leave in minutes of each other without anyone suspecting. And that was why he hadn't complained when Mathews took his space. He didn't dare attract attention to himself. And so it was the effort to blend which had made him stand out, the attempt to hide which made him more conspicuous than the row he would have raised outside. The elevator was shooting up. Peter Mathews had his gun out, and the catch off as it came to rest on the twelfth floor.

Elizabeth was in the drawing room when the doorbell rang. She had woken at dawn, alerted to the slightest sound, her nerves quivering with fear. She had gone to the kitchen and made coffee, trying to calm herself. The front door was bolted; nobody could possibly climb up the sheer face of the building. She had nothing to fear, and only a few more hours to wait before she left for the airport.

She was dressed and ready to leave when the bell rang; it would take an hour and a half at least to reach Kennedy that morning. Her packed suitcase stood near the door; there was a letter in her handbag which had been written in the long night hours. It was addressed to Francis Leary; it would be posted just before she and Keller caught the plane. When the bell rang she froze stiff with fear.

It rang again quickly, and this time there was rapping on the outside. Keller. It might be Keller who had changed the plan and come to her direct. The latch was down and the chain was in place. No one could get in unless she opened it from the inside. She came across the floor.

‘Who is it?'

On the other side of the door the man who had given Keller his instructions took a step back; he had his Schmeiser automatic weapon out of the canvas bag, and he got ready to fire it through the door. He wanted to make sure the woman was behind it in the line of fire. One burst would go through the wood like a hot knife through butter. At that range she would be almost cut in half.

‘Miss Cameron? Is that you?'

Elizabeth answered at the same moment that Mathews, coming behind from the second elevator, shot the man in the overalls through the back of the head. The short-barrelled weapon clattered out of his hands, and he doubled up, falling from the knees.

There was a small dark hole in the base of his skull, and a lot of blood. Mathews stood over him; he dragged the Schmeiser out from under him and put it on ‘safe'. Very neat and professional; with that kind of gun you could kill as effectively through a locked door as if it were a paper hoop.

‘Elizabeth? Open up, it's Peter. Come on, open up and take a look at what you've been protecting!' He heard a cry, and then a frantic fumbling with the latch and the rattle of the flimsy little chain. The door opened and she stood there, staring from him to the dead man curled up in a foetal position on the ground. Mathews held out the Schmeiser. ‘Your boy friend was just about to let this off at you,' he said. ‘Nice choosing, Liz. What happened, lovers' quarrel?'

She looked up at him slowly. ‘I've never seen this man before,' she said. ‘Oh God, for a moment I thought it was …' Then she put a hand to her mouth and stopped. ‘Oh God,' she repeated. ‘When I heard that shot and your voice, I thought …'

‘You thought I'd killed your friend, didn't you?' Mathews stepped over the dead man. He gave Elizabeth a hard, angry push. ‘Get back inside while I pull him in. You and I are going to have a talk.'

‘Don't,' Elizabeth begged, ‘please, don't bring him in here—oh, there's blood everywhere.' She began to cry, shivering hysterically, her face turned away. Mathews dragged the body out of the passage and through into the kitchen.

‘You can get the carpet cleaned,' he said. ‘I've just saved your life. Stop making that bloody noise; if you play with these kind of people you get this kind of mess.'

He went into the kitchen, leaving the door open so he could watch her, and quickly searched the dead man's pockets. He carried nothing which identified him; his pockets were empty except for ten dollars in notes, a comb, a half-finished packet of Luckys and a cheap lighter. Elizabeth was huddled in a chair, shivering. Mathews had saved her life by seconds. What a fool to have thought twelve floors above ground and a locked door could have protected her against Eddi King.

‘Here.' Mathews had come back, and she thanked God he had shut the door into the kitchen. ‘Cigarette.'

‘Thanks, Pete.'

He had thought of finding a drink to steady her and then changed his mind. Let her shake it out; it would be easier to break her down. Looking down at her he thought for a moment how unreal it was, how unbelievable that he and she could ever have found themselves in such a situation. Conspiracy and espionage and violent death. He still couldn't believe the girl sitting in front of him had any connection with it at all. He had to remind himself that he had found a hired killer outside her door a few minutes before. That was how truly involved she was in his uneasy world.

‘Now,' he said. ‘I want the truth. That wasn't the guy you brought back from Beirut—who was he? Why was he going to kill you?'

‘Eddi King must have sent him,' she said. She felt numb and desolate with horror; even so the full significance hadn't sunk in, it was still cushioned by shock. ‘King was staying at Freemont the weekend. I found out that he and my uncle were planning and he wanted to shut me up. He murdered Huntley's girl friend Dallas Jay, thinking it was me. Huntley called last night to warn me. I wouldn't listen; I thought I'd be safe here.' She closed her eyes for a moment: Mathews thought her colour was so bad he might have to produce a drink to keep her conscious.

‘Where's the other one,' Mathews said, ‘the one you're going to meet?' He jerked his head towards the suitcase still standing on its side near the front door. ‘You can't stall any longer, Liz. You've got to tell me.'

Elizabeth turned her wrist and looked at her watch; it was a pretty Cartier model in white gold, with a tiny face. She could hardly see the hands through tears. It was almost ten o'clock.

‘I love him, Peter. I'm not giving him up to you. He's done nothing wrong.' If she delayed long enough, he would get to Kennedy. He'd wait for her, but when she didn't come, he'd catch his plane and get away.

‘What was the plan you discovered at Freemont?'

‘They were going to have Jackson assassinated, my uncle and Eddi King.'

‘And you brought in the killer,' Mathews said. He looked down at her and shook his head. ‘We knew you came back with someone; we've known for some days. He was with you the first time I called you up here, wasn't he?'

‘Yes,' Elizabeth said. ‘He was. He'd nowhere to go and I let him stay here. I didn't know what he was supposed to do; you won't believe this but he didn't either. Not till yesterday. I saw him, Pete. I persuaded him to double-cross them; that girl in Beirut who was strangled—she was his girl. He was fond of her. They were paying him a lot of money; I offered him more, but he wouldn't take it.' She raised her head and looked at him; she had no defiance left, only a desperate plea for his belief. ‘He's not what you think, Pete. He wouldn't take money from me. He promised we'd meet today and leave the country. There won't be any killing now. You've no reason to want him.'

Mathews didn't try to bully her. He had noticed that glance down at her watch and he had guessed immediately that she was holding out with a deadline in mind. She wouldn't tell him anything until the man was clear. The place they were going to meet was most probably Kennedy Airport. She hoped to go on talking until he had got there and was on his plane. He lit a cigarette. ‘Jackson,' he said. ‘So that was it. That figures, I suppose. I can't say I'd lose any sleep about him.' He relaxed, deliberately unbending his body from its taut, hostile pose above her. He produced his usual grin and to her surprise he came close and put a hand on her shoulder.

‘You look rough,' he said. ‘I'm going to get you a drink.'

‘I don't want anything,' Elizabeth said. She turned away suddenly and began to cry. ‘Thank God you came,' she sobbed. ‘One more minute and I'd have been shot dead.'