The By-Pass Control (9 page)

He came out of the darkroom with copies of Louis Agrounsky’s pictures and handed me several. “I’ll mail copies to Newark and the other centers,” he said. “I may even have a few leads myself. A character like this one isn’t going after nominal employment with a background like his.”

“For instance?”

“Some of the places that deal with subminiaturization components. It’s been fairly well developed for the practical purposes of rocketry, but there’s no end to the field in sight. Eventually they’ll wind up with power units as big as the head of a pin. I know a few people who have put out papers on the subject and there might have been correspondence between them.”

“There’s only one catch, Ernie ... Agrounsky deliberately left his field and disappeared. He hasn’t shown up.”

Ernie shook his head in disagreement. “He still won’t take anything small. His mind won’t work that way. No matter what he does, he’ll have to emerge.”

“That first breakdown he had could have been just that—the first,” I reminded him.

“Possibly. In that case, all his knowledge, his training would come out in a hobby. He couldn’t cover it up.”

“Like hell. If he broke completely everything could be shattered.”

Ernie gave me a little shrug, not really caring one way or another. That one motion said it was up to those in the field, not to him, to locate the guy and solve the problem. His was more immediate. He shoved his glasses back on his head and said, “Have you contacted Don Lavois yet?”

“No.”

“Then you’d better,” he told me. “He picked up something about a big buy in the narcotics market.”

“Damn,” I said and rea had for one. I dialed his hotel, asked for his room, and ’et it ring a dozen times before I hung up. “Not there. Look, E nie, I’m goin k to my place and change. If Don calls, have him hop on over, otherwise I’ll call him from there.”

“Will do, buddy. Take care of yourself.”

I stuck the photos he had given me in my pocket and took the stairs down to the street, picked up th fi t cab and had him take me over to the Salem. It took te nmues to shower and change and when I was ready I tried another call to Don. The desk said he still hadn’t come in and th message I left was to have him call on Mr. Martin as soon as possible.

While I made the call I fin e edteployee list Doug Hamilton had checked out, tried to think it through without getting anywhere, then threw the papers back in my suitcase in disgust.

It was time again, all-important time. What was the next step? Which direction? You’d think that there were enough men in the field to come up with som thing, but so far there was nothing but blanks. Vito Salvi had a good reason for killing those Washington boys, but why Hamilton? Why him?

I kept remembering the bodies the way I had seen them last, remembering something I had almost forgotten. Of all the three, Hamilton had shown the signs of ben there the longest. Salvi would never have involved himself ith him if he hadn’t been important. Hamilton hadn’t walked in cold ... he had been directly involved somehow. If he had stumbled on the deal accidentally he simply would have been killed and his body disposed of. But no ... he did hav that address book. He knew about Salvi and where he was. For some reason he had waded into the situation head first and had gotten trapped in something way over his head.

Doug Hamilton might have been stupid, but not
that
stupid. He wasn’t exactly new in inve ticative work and would have covered himself somehow. I looked at my watch, the time twenty minutes to ten, then slapped my hat on and went back downstairs. At the desk I left a not for Don to wait for me, told the clerk to let him have my key to get in and slipped him a buck for his trouble. I took the first cab in line outside the door and gave him the number of Hamilton’s apartment, sweated through the six-minute ride and paid him off in front of the building.

The superintendent wasn’t too happy about the intrusion. There was a time and a place for everything, he told me, and the middle of his favorite program wasn’t it. But he didn’t argue too much. I was still cop to him and he knew the value of staying on the right side when his own skirts were clean.

“Okay,” he said, “so now what?”

“Did any mail come in for Hamilton since I saw you last?”

“Few things.”

“I’d like to see them.”

“Don’t they go back to the Post Office Department?”

“Sure,” I told him, “after I check the addresses.”

“They’re at the desk.”

I stepped back, let him give me a disgusted look, and followed him back to the lobby. He went through the door in the wall, back around the counter and rummaged around in his shelves. Then he handed me five envelopes and leaned on his elbows while I went through them.

Three were bills, one from Con Ed and two from gasoline companies whose credit services he apparently used. The other two were circulars from merchandising outfits I recognized.

“This all?”

“He never got much here. Had an office, didn’t he?”

I tossed the envelopes back on the counter. “Uh-huh. We just have to keep checking, that’s all.”

“Think I ought to readdress them to there then?”

“Hold them for a few more days. You’ll be told what to do with them.”

“Okay by me. He’s still a paid-up tenant as far as I’m concerned. All part of the service.”

“Anybody ever been up to see him since I was here?”

“Nope. He never had many visitors. Besides, we aren’t that exclusive. If anybody wanted in they only had to ring the bell. The doorman isn’t on except daytime and I’m pretty busy all over the building.”

“But they’d have to ring the bell?”

The super shrugged, making another vague gesture. “Unless they come in behind somebody else. Then what good would that do? They all keep their doors locked here.”

“Standard equipment?”

“What else?”

“Pick proof?”

“Depends on what racket you’re in. The locksmith over on Third that we use when a tenant loses his keys opens them fast enough. He’s bonded though. Good man.”

“You have a master key?”

“Nope. Nothing except for building entrances, storerooms and like that. You think somebody jimmied his place?”

“Possible.”

“Well, he was a funny guy.”

I looked at him. “Why?”

“Nothing special,” the super chuckled. “He wrote a letter to himself once though, about a week before he died. That’s funny. Now what was he going to say in his answer?”

I leaned on the counter, staring down at him, and his face seemed to tighten when he saw my expression. “Where did he send it to?”

“Damned if I know. It was just from himself to himself. He gave it to me to mail on the way out like he did sometimes. I do it for everybody. Part of the service,” he said defensively.

“Well, where was the address?” I demanded, an edge in my voice.

“I told you, I don’t know. It wasn’t here or I just would of stuck it in his box.”

“His office?”

“So who can remember? Look, mister...”

“You checked it, didn’t you?”

“Sure, I told you, but I just thought it was funny. I didn’t look. If that’s all you want I got things to do. I ...”

“Go ahead and do them,” I said, and watched him swallow hard and scuttle back into the office. He came out the door, gave me the look too many people reserve for cops, and walked up the lobby indignantly.

A break, at last there was a lousy break in the pattern.
I went back to the street, turned north to the first open store that had a pay phone in it and dialed Charlie Corbinet.

He finally lifted the receiver and I got a taciturn “Yeah?”

“Tiger, Charlie.”

His tone changed immediately and he said, “Nothing new on this end yet. One team thought they had a lead on Agrounsky in Philly but it turned sour.”

“Then try this ... get the Post Office Department checking all the General Delivery boxes in the area for a letter Doug Hamilton addressed to himself. He might have had something hot and didn’t want to keep it where it could be found.”

I could hear him scribble on a pad beside the phone. “Where’d you pick it up?”

“By accident from the super at his apartment building. It may not be worth anything but it will have to be run down. He was in this tight, buddy.”

“Will do. Shouldn’t take long. Call me back in a couple of hours.”

“Right.”

I hung up impatiently. With luck the Post Office boys wouldn’t take that long and we’d be able to move out. It had been morning since I had eaten so I stopped by the Blue Ribbon Restaurant on my way back to the hotel, had a welsh rabbit with a cold beer on the side, then took my time getting back to the Salem.

The desk clerk saw me as I came in, and remembering the buck, smiled. “Your friend is waiting for you upstairs, Mr. Martin. He came in a few minutes after you left. He has your key.”

“Thanks,” I said.

The elevator was on self-service and crept up to my floor, the door opening as if it were getting tired of the job. I walked down the carpeted hallway to my room, knocked twice, out of habit standing back from the door jamb.

Inside a TV was softly reciting the news and sports. I knocked again, louder this time. Nobody answered.

I didn’t like it. There was something there I could smell and when the feeling started up my spine I knew it was all wrong somewhere. I yanked the .45 out, cocked it in my fist and tried the knob. The door opened, all right, and that was all wrong. Don Lavois never would have sat behind an unlocked door for anything.

With the nose of the gun I gave the door a shove and it opened almost soundlessly, swinging inward until a shaft of light flooded the hallway. I hated to take the chance but I had no choice. I went in in a crouch, the gun ready to spit if anything I didn’t know moved.

But it wasn’t necessary. Nothing was moving. There was nobody in the small bathroom or the closet. There was only Don Lavois on the floor dead with a small-calibre bullet hole directly between his eyes, lying on his back where the shot had thrown him when he had opened the door for a killer, thinking it was me.

Don’s coat was draped across the back of one chair facing the TV set, the wallet still in the pocket. There were three one hundreds, two fifties and a five there, his expensive diamond-studded wrist watch dropped carelessly on the set.

Robbery wasn’t the reason for his murder.

He had uncovered something important he wanted to pass to me. He found out the reason for the narcotics Vito Salvi had hidden in his apartment and possibly the supplier of the stuff. A quarter pound of H at its highest purity factor was worth a hundred thousand dollars and that placed the action in the big league, big enough to make somebody keep his eyes open if someone was around asking the wrong questions.

Don Lavois had plopped himself right in a trap. Damn, I should have called in one of the others who knew their way around the junkman’s back yard, someone they would not have suspected of being inquisitive! One question too many in the wrong place and a killer tailed him home. It was plain enough now ... he stopped at the desk in his own hotel, picked up his message and came to mine. The killer had to have a good break and an easy getaway and I supplied all the avenues of escape. If he overheard the desk clerk’s conversation with Don it would have made it even simpler. And Don, expecting me, took it head on.

I looked down at his body. His gun was still in the holster on his belt.

The desk clerk was glad to give me the information. Yes, there were several people at the counter when my friend picked up my key. No, Mr. Martin, he couldn’t remember any of them. Oh yes, just one. A nice old lady on the ground floor who had been a resident for ten years. I thanked him and hung up.

Newark Control answered my call on the first ring and after I identified myself, put Virgil Adams right on. I gave it to him quickly and in detail, knowing that everything was being taped for analysis later.

When I finished Virgil said, “Have you inspected the body yet?”

“No. I’ll let the police do that. They won’t want anything touched.”

“Take a chance. See if the bullet penetrated.”

“Hang on.” I laid the phone down on the table and knelt beside the body, turning the head to get a better look at the wound. There was an exit hole in the back of the skull no bigger than the one of entry. I felt myself grimace, looked up toward the far wall and saw the tiny black ring in the window sill where the slug had buried itself after passing through Don. Automatically, I went to the spot, took the filler out of my ballpoint pen and probed into the hole. The filler capsule was a good four inches long, but it never touched the slug deep in that hard wood and plaster.

I picked the phone up, said, “High-velocity slug, probably a .22 and steel tipped. It went through everything.”

“Then it fits, Tiger.”

“Spell it, Virgil. What the hell are you talking about?”

“Niger Hoppes, the Soviet agent who escaped the Canadian network three years ago and made it back to Russia.”

“I remember him.”

“He never stayed there. He came back and was planted somewhere in the U.S. and held in abeyance until they needed him. And they need him now. He works with a .22 Magnum silenced pistol and is an expert marksman. He’s the one who picked off Daniels and those two consulate employees in Madrid our people had tagged as spies. Got them inside a jail cell from a building two hundred feet away.”

“Damn it, Virgil ...”

“Don’t play him down. He’s another assassin type. He and Vito Salvi worked as a team right after the war and he knows his business. Product of everything from the C.Y.O. up ... a party member and damned dangerous.”

“What was Don’s last report?”

“He had found a contact who was willing, for a price, to point out a person who was reputed to have been involved in an extraordinary narcotics deal. There were no names. He was down on Canal Street at the time but headed someplace else and was supposed to call back. He intended to make contact with you first to see how you wanted it handled.”