The Removers (15 page)

“I think the newlyweds have had a spat, sir,” I said into the phone, and I saw Beth cringe at the corny description. I went on: “If I’m correct, he’s right on the ragged edge: he’s driving sad and he’s driving mad. When those cool, calm characters flip, they really flip. He’s stomped out of the house, I figure, on an errand he doesn’t care much for, and he’s probably kind of hoping, subconsciously, that somebody’ll arrest him before he has to go through with it, or that the Jag will flame out on him, or that he’ll manage to kill himself, or something. But he’ll be damned and blasted, old chap, if he’ll stop of his own accord; and if he gets where he’s going it’ll be rawther tough, don’t you know, on anybody who happens to get in his way. It should be something to see, if you’ve got a strong stomach.”

Beth’s eyes looked big and wounded. Mac’s voice spoke in my ear: “The state police were considering a roadblock, but other agencies got wind of the situation and took a hand. At present he’s merely being tracked, like a guided missile, but he’ll be at the border presently. Advice has been requested, urgently.”

I hesitated, and said, “They’re damn fools if they stop him on the way down.”

“That’s the consensus here. And returning? Assuming that he does return? The previous man didn’t, you remember.”

I said, “My money’s on the Duke. If that bomb he’s driving doesn’t kill him, in his present mood, no two-bit Mexican desperado will.”

“And your advice?”

“It depends on whether they want some kilos of the white stuff or a guy named Sally.”

Mac said, “That’s all very well for them, Eric, but you’re not forgetting that it isn’t Fredericks we’re after?”

“I’m not forgetting,” I said. “But I don’t relish the thought of trying to make a man like Martell talk by direct methods, even assuming I could get him alone, in a suitable place, alive, which is a lot of assuming. If he was using Rizzi, the chances are he’s using Fredericks the same way. So let’s take Fredericks out from under him and see what happens.”

“If they let him come back through, with cargo, can you guarantee safe delivery eventually? It’s a big shipment, and they don’t want to take chances on its getting loose in the country.”

I said, “Sir, do you want me to hang up on you?”

“Eric—”

“Guarantee! What kind of jackass talk is that, with all due apologies?”

He sighed, two thousand odd miles away. “I know. I was instructed to ask.”

I said, “So there’s a risk, and maybe everything will go wrong, and there’ll be many happy dreams sold at a thousand per cent profit. All I can say is that if they stop Duke Logan with cargo, all they’ll get is Duke Logan with cargo. If they let him through, there are intriguing possibilities, but the word is possibilities.”

“You have a plan in mind?”

“How can I have? The Duke took off before I could talk him into doing for us what he’s now doing on his own accord. I haven’t had a chance to talk with him at all. I’m going to have to intercept him somehow, before he makes delivery at this end, and it’s going to be tough, since I don’t know anything about his arrangements. But he must have made some or he wouldn’t know where to go, down there, or where to come, up here. Wait a minute.”

I was still watching Beth. Her expression had changed slightly. She said quickly, “I know. something that may help. I heard him talking on the phone.”

I nodded, and spoke to Mac: “We apparently have a lead of sorts. We’ll see what can be done, if he gets back.”

Mac said, “I’ll see what I can do at this end. The rest is kind of up to Mr. Logan, don’t you know?”

“Righto, sir.”

There’s something about that clipped, British—or phony-British—way of talking that’s terribly contagious, don’t you know?

I put the phone down. I was looking at Beth, but for some reason I was seeing a long, low, green car—the color is known as British Racing Green—hurtling across the Arizona desert with that fine, wicked sound that you get only from high-class machinery that’s really carrying the mail. Barring the true racing cars, the Jaguar is possibly, along with its American counterpart the Corvette, the most ridiculous vehicle made, from the viewpoint of efficient and economical transportation. You’ve got power enough to move a ten-ton truck attached to a loadspace barely adequate for two men and a small toothbrush. But it’s an ego-satisfying machine in every respect; and I kind of wished I was down there, flying copilot with the Duke. I’ve done some fast driving myself, from time to time.

Well, he’d just have to make it on his own. Sooner or later, most men do. I looked at Beth.

“What did you say to him?” I asked. “Something silly like, ‘If anything happens to the children I’ll never forgive you’?”

She said quickly, “I didn’t mean—”

“No, of course not.”

“I never asked him to give in to Fredericks! You can’t believe. I never dreamed he’d do it! I didn’t want him to! I just—”

“You just went desperate on him,” I said. “He’d done everything he could do—except that one thing. He’d made the kids as safe as he could. He’d even tried to get Moira Fredericks as a hostage. That was going pretty far, but you were pushing him hard, weren’t you? And that plan fizzled, and you couldn’t take it any more, and you started telling him how you’d feel if anything went wrong—as if he didn’t already know—and it got to the point where he’d had it. He just looked you in the eye and walked to the phone and said,
Logan here. You win. I’m ready to deal.”

She started to speak, but changed her mind. I didn’t have the words right, of course; he hadn’t said exactly that, nor had she. But it had happened more or less that way, and they’d both glared at each other full of pride and resentment—they hadn’t been married long enough to work out a way of handling these things. They’d both been adults for years, to be sure, but the marriage itself was very young.

He’d made his call, and she’d stood by, not believing he really meant it, and he’d stalked out to the four-wheeled projectile under the carport, not believing she’d really let him go. He’d switched it on, started it up, and sat there for a moment watching the gauges. You don’t take off with a sports-car engine stone-cold, not even in the middle of a family explosion. She’d have thought happily that he was reconsidering; even so, she’d have been thinking of going out to him, just thinking it, when the Jag backed out sharply, swung around, and shot ahead.

Then she’d come running across the yard, no doubt, but he’d be watching the tach now and reaching for second gear, keeping the revs down because the mill was still cold, concentrating on the car because everything had gone too far and it was too late and he didn’t even want to hear her calling after him, if she did call.

“Please don’t look at me like that!” Beth whispered. “Matt, what are we going to do?”

Suddenly I felt kind of sorry for her. I mean, I suppose a woman ought to be able to get a little frantic now and then without causing her man to do more than slam the door hard on his way out.

I said, “We’ll figure something, but first, what’s the chances of getting something to eat around here? I haven’t had anything since breakfast, and the circumstances weren’t favorable to good digestion, if you’ll recall.”

She hesitated; it was clearly hard for her to think of such mundane things as food. “There’s cold roast,” she said, “and I think there are some cold boiled potatoes. I could fry them for you. You used to like them fried, didn’t you?”

It made me feel funny that she should remember that. “Yes,” I said. “If you don’t mind, I’ll stop in the living room and make myself a drink. Do you have a road atlas?”

“Yes, it’s in the living room, too. On the shelf under the window.”

A little later, she came into the living room with a tray of food and a small silver ice bucket. I looked up from the atlas, as she took some cubes from the bucket and dropped them into my warm drink.

“What are you looking for, Matt?”

“I was kind of figuring the earliest he could be back,” I said. “According to my information, he’s heading south southeast, which doesn’t tell us much. I don’t know the border very well, at least not from the dope-smuggler’s angle. When did he leave?”

She hesitated, and glanced at her watch. “It was... quite a while ago.”

“It must have been,” I said, “for him to be clear down in Arizona already. He must have that Jag really screaming. Well, let’s hope he hangs onto it, or they’ll be picking up pieces of Logan all over the southwest.”

Her breath caught. “You don’t have to say things like that, Matt!”

“Sorry,” I said. I looked up at her. “How the hell
did
you come to marry him, anyway, Beth?”

“Can’t you understand?” she said. “Can’t you understand that I couldn’t do it twice?”

“What do you mean?”

“I met him,” she said. “I liked him very much. He liked me. I thought I knew what was coming when he asked me, very formally, to have dinner with him out here. I was right, of course. He said he wanted to. to ask me to marry him. But first, he said, there was something he had to tell me. He told me. Everything.”

“Stout fella,” I said.

She paid me no attention. “I was shocked, of course,” she said, “terribly shocked. He hadn’t seemed like that sort of person at all, any more than you. Matt, do you think I have an. an affinity for men who. do you think I really, subconsciously, under all my civilized ideas and ideals, want someone. someone violent...?”

“You mean,” I said, “like the prissy schoolmarm type really wants to be raped?”

She flushed, and went on quickly: “Anyway, Larry saw on my face what I was thinking. ‘I’m sorry, my dear,’ he said, ‘it was too much to ask, of course.’ And he had exactly the same weary look that you had when you said we might as well call it a day. And I couldn’t do it again, don’t you understand? I couldn’t do it a second time! I know you think I failed you, and I still think you had no right to expect. But I couldn’t do it to him, too. I just couldn’t!” After a while, she said quietly, “Maybe it would have been better if I had. I. I’m not very good at this sort of thing, Matt.” Presently she added, with a touch of defiance, “I don’t think anyone should have to be!”

I said, “It would be nice if thinking made it so.”

I frowned at her for a moment longer, wondering if there could have been some basis for her theory about herself; it
was
odd that twice she should have picked men with dark secrets. Well, her subconscious was her problem. I yawned and put the atlas aside and started to eat. The drink had been a mistake. It had only reminded me of all the hours I’d been without sleep. When Beth spoke again, her voice seemed to come from far away.

I asked, “What did you say?”

“What did you do with that sexy little girl? That’s her car outside, isn’t it?”

I wished she hadn’t asked. I had a sudden picture of the kid as I’d last seen her.
I asked you what side you were on,
Moira had whispered,
and you kissed me. I asked you why we had to come here and you said because you wanted me safe. Safe!
I had no trouble at all remembering the contempt in her voice and expression.

I said, “I traded that sexy little girl for a safe-conduct pass for the kids. When young Peter checks in tomorrow morning, tell him it’s okay to bring them home.”

Beth frowned. “I don’t understand—”

I said, “I’m not too proud to borrow a good idea. There was nothing wrong with the Duke’s plan except its execution. I just went ahead with it after you left.”

“You mean—”

“I mean,” I said, “she’s being held in a certain place. Fredericks has been notified that anything that happens to my kids happens to his kid, too. I think I managed to convince him that I mean it.” I drew a long breath. “In other words, we’ve got the children off the streets. We’ve canceled them out. It’s just a game for grownups, now.”

Beth was still frowning. Then her forehead cleared. “I see. Well, I don’t suppose she’s very proud of her parent, and she seemed quite fond of you; I suppose she was glad to cooperate—”

“I didn’t ask her,” I said.

Beth’s frown was back. “But then, how did you manage—”

I said, “I twisted her arm until she screamed. It was a very convincing scream. Anyway, I think Fredericks bought it.”

Beth was staring at me wide-eyed. “You can’t be serious! Why, the child was obviously in love with you! She’d have done anything—”

“Love, shmove,” I said. It was like being in a foreign country, speaking a language nobody understood. “Look,” I said, “that sexy little girl, as you call her, has very odd, almost biblical notions about family. You know, honor thy father and mother, that sort of thing. Her father happens to be a racketeer and her mother’s a hopeless alcoholic, but as far as she’s concerned that’s strictly beside the point, and so is the fact that she’s not really very fond of the old man. He’s her old man, and that’s that. Now, what am I going to do, kiss her gently and ask her to save humanity by casting her lot with the forces of truth and beauty represented by myself? And then have her spend the rest of her life remembering—with the old man dead or in jail—that she had a hand in putting him there; that she let herself be sweet-talked into turning against him? Nuts. So now she has a sore arm for a couple of days instead of a sore conscience for the rest of eternity. And she hates me, but that’s not going to do her any harm; probably she’s better off for it.”

Beth was still staring at me as if I’d sprouted claws and fangs. It didn’t matter, apparently, what you did to people’s psyches, but twisting their arms was terrible. Then she thought of something else, and her expression changed.

“But if you have the girl—if you’re holding her—then everything is all right, isn’t it? I mean, Larry doesn’t have to. to go through with it. We can trade her for—”

“For what?” I asked. “Do you think Fredericks is going to walk into a police station and sign a notarized confession of his crimes just because I happen to be holding his daughter somewhere? Don’t be silly. All I’ve done is buy our kids a kind of temporary immunity, and don’t think Fredericks isn’t doing his damnedest to figure a way to hit back. Holding Moira Fredericks doesn’t solve a thing. It just gives us a little time in which to operate more freely than we could if we had to worry about what might be happening to Betsy and the boys.”