Day of the Guns

Chapter 12

The switchboard operator was a tired old guy who said a call had come in for me earlier, he gave the room number and was about to ring the room when the line went dead on the other end. Both he and the desk clerk said there had been traffic in and out of the lobby all night and neither had paid any special attention to people going either way.

I went back to the room, checked through it but found nothing. Later I’d get a report on the bullet, but it was still lodged in the body and I didn’t want to probe for it.

There was one thing though. In Toomey’s coat hanging on a hook in back of the door were two letters to me transshipped from the other hotel. One was a notice that my trunk had arrived by freight from Mexico. The other was from a German doctor specializing in plastic surgery who stated that although he never had her as a patient, she resembled a woman named Rondine Lund whom he had known when he was a medical officer in the Luftwaffe during the war. He understood that she was dead, but couldn’t be certain.

Well, I could put him straight on that one.

My first call went through the relay to Martin Grady, the second to Thomas Watford. He said to stay there until a team arrived but I wasn’t about to. I gave him the picture as quickly as possible, said I’d check back with him on the slug that killed Toomey and hung up. I didn’t have time to waste sweating out all the details of a police investigation no matter what agency handled it and if Hal Randolph was brought in he wasn’t going to let me off the hook.

I got my gear together, went downstairs and paid the bill, leaving no forwarding address. Three blocks away I checked into another small commercial hotel under the name of Frank Wilson of Memphis, Tennessee. Just three blocks but in the complex of the city, twenty thousand people away.

As late as it was, I called Stephen Midros and got him out of bed.

His voice was a querulous, “Yes, please?”

“Tiger Mann, Midros. Hate to roust you out but something important has come up.”

“Yes, yes, it is all right.”

“I don’t want to make any direct contacts, so you do this for me.”

“Certainly.”

“You know where to reach Gregory Hofta?”

“His home. He will be there. I spoke to him earlier tonight.”

“Good. Have him get the address of Alexis Minner. He’s a clerk at their Embassy...”

“Mr. Mann...” he stopped me. “This one is more than a clerk. He is dangerous.”

“Hofta gave me his history. If his present assignment is just a cover then he’ll be working with other people, too. He may be the lead I want.”

“I was there when this man was in Hungary,” Midros said carefully, keeping the emotion out of his voice that tried so hard to show itself. “He is a killer. Right now he enjoys diplomatic immunity and no matter what he does he can only be considered persona non grata and returned to Russia.”

“He can do one other thing.”

“What is that, Mr. Mann?”

“He can be buried.”

Midros said nothing a moment, then a slight chuckle came over the receiver. “I wish you the best of luck, sir. Anything I can do to assist will be done. I will pass on your message at once.”

“I’ll call you back,” I told him, said so long and hung up.

I needed sleep badly; too much had piled up and there was too much to come and I had to be right to finish it. I double-locked the door, checked the window and pulled the blinds shut, then flopped back on the bed.

How beautifully everything fit, I thought. They had to throw the package together in a hurry because I was something they had never planned on. Into the midst of their intricate planning that had taken years to set up, into their grand scheme to lock up the world through legalistic international maneuverings, comes one guy out of the past with one thing on his mind he never expected to find and that one guy could blow the basket for them.

Rondine knew what would happen. As soon as she left me that first day she had contacted her group and the order went out for an immediate hit.

Only I knew it would happen, too, and they shot up some pillows.

Ah, but she played it cute. She didn’t know where to reach me so she contacted Wally Gibbons, and like a sucker took up my invitation to meet me at my hotel. Then she knew. Then she could pass it along and this time they came back in force for the second try and muffed it again because Toomey and I were ready for them.

She even knew the story would be quashed. The dirty ramifications of international politics aren’t handled by local police and reporters are taboo. All you could do was play the game out as far as it would go until only one was left and that was the final answer, simple and complete.

Gretchen Lark put her finger on it when she inadvertently pointed up the way Rondine played Burton Selwick. He was the key, all right. He had the inside track and all the facts in his head. Rondine was a person to be trusted in his sights, a respected member of a fine old patriotic family, a countryman, a beautiful woman, one whom he had personally recommended for her position and one with whom he wouldn’t be too guarded. She was on the inside, doing overtime work for him in addition to her regular duties and nobody knows more about the boss than his secretary. Or his work.

Rondine, it was a magnificent package!

You knew I’d visit you, kid. You knew I would want to be sure I knew how you did because I’m built that way. You knew I’d want to see how the plastic surgery worked and you were willing to take the chance because they had done such a good job you could afford it. You waited me out and had somebody standing by for the emergency. You had a gun and would have killed me yourself but I caught you on that one too and you had to pass the word down the line and it didn’t take long. Two cars made the swing and tried for a hit on the street. That was a smart angle, calling in professional help. If they had made it nobody would have tied in the political bit. My reputation was enough to justify a kill like that and anybody could have done it, but it was still good thinking. Too bad it didn’t work. Get your money back from the ones in the first car, sweetie, or are they still on the job? If they work it the usual way it’s over for a while. You didn’t tell them they were going after a big one and all contracts are canceled in their book. By now they’ll realize what happened and you won’t be getting them in again.

But it’s the last one you’re going to pay through the nose for, honey. You gave me plenty of time to get back to the hotel and fall asleep. You saw the book of matches and knew where I was. You didn’t think I’d stop off for a few drinks and see a “Late Show” all the way through and your killer hit the wrong man. He’s made too many mistakes to stay in business and now he’s had it too.

And you know, stopping Burton Selwick’s speech was a nice piece of cake. A delaying action. You got wind of what was going to happen and made sure you had time to work up a change of plans. What did you feed him for lunch... the same stuff we used on General Von Selter or the gook you dropped in the Greek’s coffee that time in Athens? You didn’t want to kill the old boy... he was too vital a source of information. Just putting him out of action was enough and his natural illness would cover up the real thing.

I grinned up at the ceiling and fell asleep, the .45 in my hand, a shell jacked into the chamber and the hammer on half-cock.

At ten A.M. I showered, shaved and got dressed. I called Stephen Midros and without discussion he simply said, “One-one-four-nine, Sixteenth. Upstairs over an Italian grocery store. There are four exits in the building, front, roof and two through the cellar, one on either side. Hofta advises extreme caution, the man is known to be an expert in all fields of murder.”

“So am I, buddy.”

“Will you need assistance?”

“Not at this point. I’ll call for it if I do.”

“We have a large organization, Mr. Mann, nothing official, but our people can be trusted and themselves have had experience in this sort of thing.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it, but don’t expose them to this. You might need what you have for the big play coming up.”

“I understand.”

I hung up, made sure I had the address down in my mind, slapped the gun in the holster and grabbed my coat and hat. Pay-off day was shaping up.

The apartment was the middle one of five that had just been renovated into a higher rent bracket, the occupants having the dubious advantage of living in the area of Greenwich Village. I toured the block, separating the funny ones from the real ones, stopping in a few stores to buy things I didn’t need just to pick up the flavor of the locale.

Most of the permanent residents seemed to have international backgrounds, the older ones still speaking with thick accents and having mementos of life in another country on display behind counters and in their windows. A general sampling put them in the Slavic-German category with a few Italians sprinkled about. Twice I heard Russian spoken on the street in conversation, but nobody seemed anxious to exhibit that particular nationality with any artifacts.

Funny how patterns kept repeating themselves. Like Americans going across the ocean to Paris only to wind up in the American Bar or eating hot dogs that they wouldn’t eat at home. There was always that unconscious search for your own kind, the innate desire to know you weren’t alone. There was a sense of security, no matter how false, to hear a word spoken in a native tongue or taste back-yard spices on some familiar dish.

When I was ready I called Charlie Corbinet and told him to use the lever. Both Randolph and Watford wanted to talk to me but he would see that they were put off long enough for me to get this phase out of the way. What I wanted was a city fireman, in uniform, to accompany me on a simple inspection of the premises. All stops would have to come out because we were going to cross agencies and it had to be handled carefully. I said I would meet the one assigned on a corner two blocks away in an hour and got the “good-luck-and-go-ahead” signal from the Colonel on our old Tike R. code and hung up.

At ten after twelve a red city fire-chief sedan pulled to the curb and I got in. The driver was a young guy, the other a man in his fifties, with more the look of a cop than a fireman. There were burn scars on the backs of both his hands and another along the side of his face. He nodded, introduced himself as Captain Murray, the driver as Ron Kelly and wanted to know what the pitch was.

“Inspect all exits at One-one-four-nine, Sixteenth,” I said.

“That’s the Gorbatcher-Smith job. We went through there a week ago.”

“Let’s do it again.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “No violations there. That’s a good outfit and the super is on the ball. They complied with specs right down the line and the place is kept that way.”

“Think of something.”

“Can I ask any questions?”

“Sure.”

“This came through some big channels. Police work?”

“Of a sort.”

Murray grinned and nodded. “Okay, I get the picture. How do you want to handle it?”

“Regular routine,” I said. “Nothing to draw any attention.”

“No sweat. We pull spot checks all the time.”

Kelly took us up the street and stopped in front of the buildings. A police cruiser passed, the cops waved casually and we threw them a wave back. Nobody on the street bothered giving us more than a first look. Cops and firemen were too common and unless there was some action nobody gave a damn what went on that wasn’t their own business.

The superintendent was a middle-aged Italian who occupied the basement floor of the first building and he took so much pride in his job he was almost happy about having an inspection run on him. He led the way through each building, smiling and talking, making us take note of the precision and cleanliness of the place and beamed every time Kelly made a check on the sheet on his clipboard that indicated an okay.

We wasted two hours on the farce, but I got to see what I wanted... the way in and out of the place from all angles, cellar to roof. There was a self-operated elevator that serviced the four flights of each building, an interior fireproof staircase and steel fire escapes that went down the back to the concrete courtyard.

Each fire escape was tested and as we passed the window of Alexis Minner’s apartment I had a quick glimpse of the interior. He wasn’t home, the super had told us that earlier, but on the kitchen table were two empty bottles of vodka, a half-full one and four used glasses.

Murray made an entry on the inspection form, went through the routine of the play and we went back outside. In the car he said, “Satisfied?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“You want anything else?”

“Not now. Which way you headed?”

“Back to the station, I have some work to clean up. Can I drop you off somewhere?”

I told him where to go. It wasn’t far and I had some questions to ask. Maybe Gretchen Lark could answer them for me.

She came to the door in a knee-length paint-smeared smock, holding a brush between her teeth and a palette in her left hand while she opened the door. I took one look at her and laughed and she almost dropped the brush. “Well, this is a surprise, Tiger.”

Only two buttons in the middle held the smock together and from the way it hung and the show of white at the closure I knew she didn’t have anything under it. “You’re going the Village route all the way. I like it.”

Gretchen grimaced, glanced down at herself nervously and didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands. She finally pushed her hair back with her forearm, gave me an impatient look and waved me in. “Look at me! I’m a mess. I wasn’t expecting anybody.”

“You look great.”

“Oh sure.” She glanced back at me over her shoulder. “You men!”

Gretchen dipped her brush in a peculiarly shaded apothecary jar half filled with solvent, picked up a few others and placed them beside it until they were soaked, swished them around and wiped them off, putting them on a table beside her easel.

I walked over and took another look at the study. Burton Selwick was a real British lion, proud, dignified, all his strength of character coming to life through his eyes and the set of his jaw.

“Like it?”

“He looks a shade strained. From here I’d say he was sick.”

She stepped back, frowned at the portrait, turned the easel to catch a different light and, after several moments studying it, nodded slowly. “My fault, I’ve always had a flair for realism. Do you think I should soften it?”

“Hell, I’m no painter. If it’s for his wife I’d make him pretty, that’s all.”

“It might be a good idea.”

“How is he anyway?”

“Much better.”

“What hit him down there?”

“Nothing more than I told you. He keeps having these ulcer attacks. Last year it was gallstones and he had them out, but that job of his doesn’t invite peace and tranquility. He’s a walking medicine cabinet. I think he eats more pills then he does food. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to put something on. It’s too early to be entertaining in the buff.”

I let out a laugh. “Honey, it’s never too early for that.”

“Men,” she said again and walked away.

While she dressed I went back to the portrait of Selwick. From the time I first met him a few days ago until now he had changed. There was little of the jocular type he seemed to be; it was more like he was hiding in the shadow of pain behind a mask of imperturbability. Chin up and all that sort of thing.

The chair that he was posed in was an ornate prop, but in the picture it appeared to be a throne, giving him a regal aspect. I sat in it myself and wondered if Gretchen painted him wearing nothing but a smock like she did when she was alone. I grinned at the thought because Selwick was just a little too dignified to sit through it. It would have shown on his face.

Beside the chair was an end table that didn’t show in the picture and I flipped open the box on it. Selwick’s medicine cabinet. There must’ve been a dozen bottles of assorted pills and capsules there, most from chain pharmacies in the city.

Gretchen came out in a sweater-and-skirt combination, her hair loose and flowing again and the paint smudges gone from her face. She smelled of a cross between turpentine and Chanel No. 5. She pointed to the box I had open on the table. “See what I mean? He sits there and eats them like candy.”

“The doctors must know what they’re doing,” I said.

“Sometimes, although I don’t always agree with their remedies.”

“No?”

She finally got her belt adjusted and patted her hips down. “I used to be a nurse.” She laughed, the tinkly one that sounded so nice. “Funny, but I wanted to try everything. I was good at it, but after a while the excitement seemed to pale. I guess I wasn’t what you call dedicated.”

“You should have tried getting married. You would have been good at that.”

“Someday, Tiger, someday perhaps. There are still a lot of worlds to conquer and although I am only a woman I want to see what life is made up of before I settle down to diapers and dishes.” She perched on an unpainted bar stool and swung her leg on either side. “Now, what do we do? It’s Saturday afternoon and I’m hungry, if that’s any kind of a hint at all.”

“So let’s eat,” I said.

“Where?”

“Oh, there ought to be some local slop chute that serves up the rare and exotic.”

“I’m thinking of that wonderful place you took me the last time, the Hall of the Two Sisters.”

“No floor show at this hour but the chow is good.”

“Can we go back?”

“Why not? Only don’t ask for an interpretation of the menu.”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

Dell hadn’t arrived at the Hall of the Two Sisters when we got there but Joe Swan had and let us through with a big grin and a whistle-and-wink when he saw Gretchen. Swan handled most of the smuggling contacts, specialized in gems and blew the whistle on anybody he knew about handling narcotics. He had a special hate for horse because he lost a wife who was given an overdose by some wise punk at a party and wound up killing him. Down at headquarters he was treated with respect not given the ordinary informer or stoolie and although three rub-outs had been tried, Swan was still up at bat.

He got a waiter to get us our spot, suggested the specialty of the house and when we were halfway through came in to say he had something special to show me, the leer indicating it was of a sexy nature not intended for tender feminine eyes and Gretchen gave me the raised-brow look and sighed fatuously.

But it wasn’t that. Dell was back in his office and after he closed the door he said, “I have information for you, Tiger. Your man with the stiff finger.”

I waited.

“He has been seen.”

“Where, Dell?”

“Not too far from here. In the section between Fourteenth and Fourth Street.”

“Who got on to him?”

“Two people. One is a newsdealer who remembered the hand. He bought a copy of a foreign newspaper that is sold in the section. The other was a contact, Marty Lehman, a junkie. He’s a peddler. The man you’re looking for purchased three caps of H.”

“Somebody steered him to Marty,” I said.

“Not necessarily. Marty, unfortunately, is well known in that section. He took a chance with your man and charged him well above the going price for the goods. He passed it through a door and remembered the hand well. The man paid, Marty was clear and satisfied and so was the customer.” Dell moved behind his desk and sat down. “Have you learned something?”

“It’s coming together. The big thing is that he’s an addict.”

“That is important in a man.”

“He’d almost have to be to be a killer.”

Dell smiled and shook his head. “Tell me, Tiger, have you ever used this terrible thing?”

“I’m not about to, buddy.”

“Yet you have killed.”

“Just killers, Dell. They are animals who need killing badly. I don’t have to get hyped up for that job.”

“Please be careful. I like your business.”

When I got back to the table Gretchen said, “How was she?”

“The great Oriental mystery is a secret no longer. They are all alike. The slant is only in their eyes.”

“Dirty man.”

“Just curious,” I said. “Eat up. I have things to do.”

“Can I go?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Business. Broads aren’t an asset when you’re setting a deal. They’re too damn distracting.”

“Will I see you again?”

“Maybe.”

“When?”

I pushed away from the table and called the waiter in for the check. “You sure you want to?”

Her eyes had a mist over them and a rueful smile tugged at her mouth. “Yes, Tiger, I’m sure. You make me feel foolish saying it, but there hasn’t been too much in my life, not really. I guess that’s why I do so many things that seem strange to those who know me. Since you... well, I feel funny inside.”

“Don’t kid. If anything happens it can hurt.”

“What can happen?”

“It’s a rough business.”

“Please don’t scare me.”

I felt pleasant and relaxed and thoughts of the past and the present were very close in my mind. There was no future after Rondine, but there had never been any future anyway so it really didn’t matter at all. Maybe with Gretchen Lark, but who could tell? You didn’t parade any checkered flag past the grandstand until after you had won the race and it wasn’t over yet.

“Can you tell me?” she asked.

“You wouldn’t believe it.”

“Try and see.”

I leaned back in the chair and felt for the words. “Suppose I have to kill somebody.”

“Is it necessary?”

“Essential.”

“Then there is no choice, is there?”

“No choice at all, baby.”

“Who is this person?”

“Not one... several. Maybe just two. There have been others. I’ve killed before.”

She studied me intently, her eyes filled with quiet passion. “I know that, Tiger. It’s something I can feel in you. Whatever it is you have to do, you’ll do it. Just don’t leave me.”

“I won’t.”

“When do you have to do this?”

I moved my shoulders and frowned. “Tonight maybe.”

“You’ll be careful?”

“I’m always careful.”

“You will be back?”

“Later.”

“I’ll wait for you,” she said gently.

At five I let her out of the cab and had the driver take me back uptown to Ernie Bentley’s new workshop. It was a cross between a laboratory and a miniature machine shop and he was working at a microscope when I got there.

When I was at Minner’s apartment I got the name of the lock on his door and asked Ernie to fix me up with a master key for the make. He said he’d have to make six, one of which would fit and would take twenty minutes to complete.

While I waited I called Charlie Corbinet, got him as he was about to leave the office and asked him about the bullet that killed Toomey.

“Matches one gun that was used on you.”

“The guy must be nuts to hang onto the piece. If he’s picked up with it he’s had it.”

“Not with diplomatic immunity.”

“If he has it. We may not be talking about the same one. I’m thinking he might be smart enough to dump that rod.”

“Tiger...”

“What?”

“In ’41 you were issued an Army Colt automatic. Do you still have it?”

“Okay, I get the point.”

“Do you have anything for me?” Corbinet asked.

“Are you ready to work with probables?”

“Anything.”

“They seem to be located in the Village. If we push them hard they’ll have to move fast and won’t have the time to be careful. The improvisation is coming from their end, not ours. They’re the ones running scared.”

“Then move fast, boy. This coming week is a critical point in our history. If that leak is still there we can lose everything.”

“It won’t be,” I said. “If necessary I know one way of stopping it.”

“We may have to do it that way.”

“Did you see a report on Selwick?”

“I have it on the desk in front of me. They used a stomach pump and all known tests on him. Negative. His condition is a natural one.”

“Clever,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“There are ways to do anything if you have the right means. I can name you two poisons that can kill without leaving a trace and will be diagnosed as natural death.”

“Selwick didn’t die,” he reminded me. “He was in good health except for an organic disorder. Several top medical authorities attested to that.”

“You ought to remember what we did to Krouse and Gettler that time in ’45 to get them off the planning committee and put it directly in the hands of Hitler who we knew would louse up the situation.”

Before he could answer, I laughed and hung up.

Ernie finished the keys, dropped them in my palm and said, “Martin Grady called. We’ve been working on something you might find useful. He suggested you consider it.”

“Like what?”

He held out three black spheres half the size of golf balls. One had a line around its perimeter. “Remember the torpedoes you got as a kid on the Fourth of July? You could hit a sidewalk or a wall with them and they’d blow?”

“Yeah. Fun. The little pebbles inside could gouge an eye out.”

“They work the same way, only these have the intensity of a hand grenade.”

“Stable?”

Ernie shrugged eloquently. “They’re new. They worked fine under lab conditions. Keep them in your pocket and don’t jiggle them too much.”

“Thanks a bunch.”

“I’d suggest you keep them wrapped in a handkerchief or in different pockets. Someplace where they won’t rattle around. And don’t hang your coat near a radiator. Anything over a hundred degrees will set them off.”

“What’s their primary purpose?”

“Same as a grenade. If you have something to pack them with the charge becomes directional and can take a steel fire door down. The one with the white line around it has an incendiary capacity.”

“Thermite?”

“We’ve progressed, Tiger. Something like it only better. Devlin used it in Yugoslavia to get through the safe he got the Morvitch papers out of.”

I dropped one in each side pocket of my raincoat and put the fireball job inside my jacket. “You hear about Toomey?”

“Grady told me,” he said. “I’m happy to stay inside and leave the field work up to you idiots.”

“You’ll never meet any broads in here,” I told him.

“Hell, I got more than I can handle at home. If you use those things let me know how they work. Anything can be improved.”

“Sure, buddy.”

There was a column in the evening papers about the dead man being found in the Chester Hotel. He was identified as a small businessman from a Midwestern city with a passion for gambling, a known welsher and a person upon whom murder had been tried before. The story said he arrived late that evening and occupied a room just vacated and was probably killed by person or persons unknown with whom he had gambled, lost and refused to pay off. Whoever wrote the story made it look like an old story and a warning to the sheep who came East to be fleeced. The big boys take a dim view of the type.

I.A.T.S. were on their toes and had the local police department following their line whether they liked it or not. If the story held, Vidor Churis might take an easy breath. He’d have time for another try at me without any heat on him. A bad kill wouldn’t concern him. He’d know I was still around and he could move with some latitude, knowing the cops were on the wrong trail. He couldn’t make a fast move and would have to wait for me, and this wasn’t going to happen again. Not if I could help it.

But I could stir things up a little.

I called Rondine.

I said, “It’s Tiger, doll.”

Her breathing was audible in my ear.

“First the others, then you,” was all I said. I heard her sob before I put the phone on the hook.

Rain again. I walked in it and watched it wash the streets down with the angular fury of the small storm that seemed to hover above the city. I walked past the row of newly renovated buildings and spotted the apartment that belonged to Alexis Minner. And company.

Funny, how birds always looked for a common nesting place. Dell’s tip put Vidor Churis in the same neighborhood, a hodge-podge of nationalities where an accent or conversation in a foreign tongue wouldn’t be out of place at all. The area was peopled by those of queer habits and odd customs and by nature wouldn’t be looking for spots on someone else’s back. It was an end of New York where privacy meant being lost in a crowd and you could be drinking buddies with your neighbor at a bar five blocks away and never find out he lived next door to you until you walked home with him one night.

There would have to be some liaison between the Embassy and the operatives and what better place than the apartment of a supposedly minor clerk who was, in actuality, a director and executor of kill operations taking orders from the big boss, Stovetsky.

It wasn’t Moscow. It was New York. It wasn’t a dictatorship, it was a democracy and they could move without being harassed by secret police and tapped phones. They worked in an atmosphere of trust and respectability and stuck our noses in it, utilizing every advantage our country was sucker enough to give them.

Crime? Hell. Our diplomats walked on tippy toes for fear of making a single bad move. Oh, don’t offend anybody... let them get away with murder, park their cars by hydrants, make our government a joke all the way down into Mau-Mau territory, needle the nithead countries until they tear our flag down in student uprisings and shoot up our nationals, snipe at our military... and then don’t slap them down, don’t even bitch about it instead, try to remove the intelligence officers who gave the command to shoot if shot at and protect our interests. Make it appear that we were to blame because this country was rich and smart and powerful and everyone else downtrodden because of it.

Brother, what would the militiamen who fought at Concord or the pioneers who cleared the land of hostile Indians say to that! John Paul Jones had a damn good answer to that one... so did the commander at the ridge of Bunker Hill.

We made it the hard way and now the clunkers wanted to take it away and the eggheads were willing to give it to them. But there were some of us who weren’t going to let it go. There are ways of doing things and if there had to be a modern-day tea party we could do that too. If we had to stand in line abreast and challenge officialdom, red tape and radical thinking, it would be done.

They’d never expect it. They knew the usual pattern of things, the way the compromise would come or the total back-down when the propaganda pressure went on. But let them know there was more to us than what they thought and some revisions would be made. Fast. Nobody liked to die at all.

Who was it that had called it the day of the guns? It was back again. You can’t win with scared diplomacy, but a bullet on the way to somebody’s gut doesn’t know any fear at all and moves too fast to be stopped. It has a power all its own of changing the shape of things instantly and instituting a propaganda factor that sticks in a person’s mind all his life. They could stand up to words and would hold down a gun themselves, but what they did when the big hole in the end was pointed at them and they saw the hammer go back was a different story entirely and if ever there was a moment of truth it was then, and not in a bull ring.

I called Wally Gibbons from a drugstore and finally got him at his office. He was excited, but kept his voice down. “Where the hell are you, Tiger?”

“Why?”

“Buddy, you have everybody on your neck. You know they’ve bugged me three times in the last two hours trying to make a contact?”

“Who are ‘they’?”

“Come on, I can read between the lines. They don’t show badges but I know who they are. I’ve seen them work before. You’re hot, feller.”

“Tell them anything you want to.”

“Like what? I’m only a Broadway columnist, remember? Only there are other types on this paper and when Ted Huston who handles the political end saw those guys up here he leaned on me for my bit in it. Something big is rattling our guys and theirs and they’re in a huddle like never before. The Russians have been at a top-level meeting all day and the British and Americans have decided to scrap their differences and hit this thing together. Now on top of all this scrambling going on they take time out to look for my old friend, Tiger Mann.”

“Nice of them,” I said.

“Give me the pitch, will you? If I have to do a cover-up, the least I can have is a track on the business.”

“I told you you’d get it all, Wally. We’re almost there so don’t put anything out until I call it in.”

“Sure... thanks... you’re a great help. Not even a human-interest line except for Burton Selwick.”

“Now what?”

“Oh, staunch British devotion to duty. He’s up out of a sick bed calling the signals at the joint meeting. Vincent Harley Case is doing all his leg work for him, but Selwick’s on the mound. Next week is going to be a turning point in international politics.”

“Great. Maybe they’ll cut taxes.”

“Look, Tiger... I’ll be here all night. If you feel like talking, give me a call. I got a creepy feeling you’re some kind of a time bomb ready to go off.”

I laughed at him, said so long and hung up. Without knowing it Wally had tossed the dice for me and came up with a point. Now I had to make it the hard way.

And it was time.

The windows in Alexis Minner’s apartment were dark and if they were in a tight huddle I’d have an opportunity to get inside. This time I didn’t cruise past the building for a final look. I just turned in the doorway, used the stairs to get to his floor and went to the door. I rang twice, got no answer and took out the set of keys Ernie Bentley had made up. The second one fit, opened it and I walked inside.

As I did I felt the slightest wispy touch of something across my cheek and swore at myself for being so damn careless. Minner had put a check on his door someplace.

I found the thread with the pencil flash on the floor. It was about two inches long, black and as fine as a hair. He would have rigged it from the outside, a trick that could only be done as you closed the door from the hallway, and without it in place he’d know either someone was inside or the place had been broken into.

It wasted a full half-hour, but I managed to get the thread back where I imagined it would have been and hoped he wouldn’t look too carefully if he got back unexpectedly. If there was any edge of surprise, I wanted it myself.

When I closed the blinds over the window I flicked on the light switch, saw that it turned on a single globe in the small alcove, then rigged the bulb with some tinfoil so that when it went on again it would burn out in a normal fashion after a second or so. That set, I opened the blinds and used the flash to get the furniture located and feel my way around.

The apartment was an expensive place and had been tastefully decorated. Apparently Alexis Minner wasn’t concerned about bourgeois decor. There were cigarette burns on every piece of furniture, butts in flower pots, candy dishes and a few ground into the rug. Two vodka bottles and one of Scotch were on the table and some more dirty glasses along with the remains of a sausage.

At one side there were adjoining bedrooms with twin beds in each. Although they were made up, the cigarette burns on each side of the night table between them said all had been occupied and might well still be. Even though one guy rented the apartment, he could have visitors as he pleased and with just the single superintendent and neighbors who liked their privacy, it would be simple enough for them to come and go as they pleased without causing any comment.

Before going through the dresser drawers I looked for any thread checks like he had on the door and didn’t find any. There wasn’t much of anything else, either. The occupants might stay here a long while, but they were ready for a quick move out at any time. There weren’t enough clothes to take up two suitcases.

The bathroom was the cleanest room in the place. Maybe they never used it. There was dust in the shower stall and tub. A glass on the sink held tiny pieces of soap and I could remember them doing that in Europe during the war years. Some things had a stubborn pattern that couldn’t be wiped out, like trying to get too many shaves out of a blade.

Nobody had bothered to clean up the kitchen. The bottles and glasses were still there and a couple of flies had dropped into one and died there. The closets on the wall held a miscellaneous assortment of canned foods and spices, more like emergency stuff than a steady diet. The last one you could smell before you opened it because there were a half-dozen smoked sausages hung from the cup hooks on top.

I grimaced, started to close it and saw the corner of the box on the shelf. It was of heavy cardboard, about eight inches square and pieces of tissue packing were sticking out of the fold-in top. I flipped it open, separated the tissue and saw the bottles inside that reflected pale blue back into the light of the pencil flash.

Very gently I eased the cap off and smelled the contents, then tasted it to make sure. Sodium pentothal. Interesting. There were ways of using the stuff to get things out of a person the easy way. Two of the other bottles were clear glass and didn’t take any tasting to determine the contents. One was prussic acid and the other strychnine.

This bunch was ready for anything and it wasn’t subtlety.

I put everything back the way I had found it and closed the closet door. Legally, anyone could own the stuff so there wasn’t any great necessity of hiding it. Especially if you had diplomatic immunity and never expected a search of the premises.

Which led to some curious speculation.

I began to poke around some more.

With what little clothes they had it was improbable that they’d use the washer-dryer combination that was set in the niche in the wall. I started on the washer and went through it first, but it was the dryer that paid off. I had no definite idea of what I hoped to find, but thought it would be guns.

It wasn’t.

It was a packet of brand-new thousand-dollar bills wrapped in wax paper and stuffed in the area just forward of the heating unit. If anyone had ever turned the machine on, forty-one grand would have gone up in smoke. I slipped out three of them, repacked the rest and put them back where I found them.

Let me be right in what I was thinking and there were going to be a few people declared persona non grata tomorrow.

But that day might be a long way off.

I heard a key go into the lock on the front door and the murmur of voices, a satisfied grunt and some low-key laughter. I said, “Damn!” to myself, ripped the .45 out and got behind the kitchen door. There were at least three of them there and they’d be pros, so what had to be done had to be done fast.

Someone flipped the light on and it glowed for no more than a second. It went out in a bluish flare with a soft popping noise and in that brief interval I saw one thing that brought back a minute from a few days ago. The one in front was wearing a funny velour hat with a feather in the band and the last time I saw him he had been directing the bit when the others shot up the pillows in my bed and I was on a ledge outside, forty floors above the street.

There was one other thing, too. The second guy had his right hand in a bandage and there was a trace of crimson seeping through the gauze. I had them locked in tight now and there was no doubt about it. These three were part of a kill team and the one with the bad mitt could be the guy I nailed in the corridor of the hotel.

One thing I was sure of. None of them was Vidor Churis and none had what could be described as having a round mouth. Two more were someplace else and I wanted them too.

With a thick-tongued accent one said, “Burned out. I’ll get the lamp, Alexis.”

I came around the door the same instant the light switched on and the one in the velour hat screamed out, “Nyet!” and I knew the odds had changed. The guy had been around too much and had probably pulled the same stunt before and he was in a dive going for a gun as I lined up on him.

The other two needed only that one hoarse shout to move and they were down and furniture was in the way and all I could do was pitch off to one side and go for the floor. The first shots from Minner’s gun blasted into the woodwork where I had been and smashed back into the kitchen.

Something flew through the air, hit the lamp and knocked it over in a shower of glass and a flash of yellow and the room was blacker than before because my eyes were not accommodated to the darkness.

The only advantage I had was that it had happened to them too and with three of them scattered around they couldn’t risk random shots without risking their own necks. The blast of the gun still reverberated in everyone’s ears and before it could fade and let the small noises back I skittered ten feet closer to the wall where the one was with the bandaged hand and I could hear him breathing only a little distance away from me.

I eased off my shoes, threw one across the room and it hit and bounced against a chair. Nobody fell for it. I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t give them time to let their eyes and ears get adjusted to the darkness. Any move I made had to be quick while they were on edge and not thinking. They couldn’t be sure I was alone, but it wouldn’t take long for them to realize how the situation stood.

The only thing that annoyed me was that I couldn’t see their faces without exposing my position and I didn’t want to take a chance of getting myself knocked off when the odds were in their favor. But one had a funny velour hat on with a feather in the band and if I saw that again I’d recognize it.

My hands felt the legs of the table and a heavy chair to the side. I tried to remember how the furniture was placed, recalled the details and began to edge around the chair. It couldn’t have taken longer than a minute, but time seemed to drag on and on as I inched along.

The first thing I saw was a small luminous glow and knew it was the watch on the guy’s left wrist. The job was going to take both hands, so I shoved the .45 in my waistband where I could get at it quickly and got ready. I took my time about how I was going to do it, located the approximate position of his head and neck, gathered myself and made the final jump of three feet. I landed on his back with my fingers tearing through the skin at his throat and felt his windpipe crack and burst as I forced his head back.

Even then, seconds before he died, he was able to drum his feet against the floor, just once, but it was enough. That reflex action of dying agony spelled it out for the others and I knew what was coming. I rolled fast, pulling the guy on top of me when the shots blazed out from across the room. Four of the slugs thudded sickeningly into the guy and made him jerk against my stomach. One came right through him and slammed into my hip like a fist but I knew it was spent and never penetrated.

Then the noise was over and only the smell of cordite and blood was left. I felt for the .45. My hands never found it. Sometime during the struggle it had come out of my belt and was on the floor.

I used the body as a shield and pushed forward behind the sofa, feeling to see if there was a gun someplace. Either the guy hadn’t felt up to carrying one because of his hand or he didn’t have one on him. So the odds stayed down.

One shot winked out of the corner and there was the sound of hands and feet scrambling along the floor to duck a return bullet. I had maybe ten seconds before they knew what I was doing, so I rolled on my back, doubled up my knees with my feet against the body of the dead man and gave the body a shove that sent it rolling into the furniture.

I was running after the first roll of the guns. I could hear the bullets slapping into dead meat and the guy I hit never knew he was dying until he was dead. I snapped his neck, then his back while Alexis Minner was still throwing bullets into a corpse across the room and had his gun in my hand and the target in my sights.

The slob ran out of ammo with a laugh thinking he had nailed me and said, “Gorge...”

I said, “Don’t reload, pal. You’re in the sights and I have you lined up.”

For one horrible instant he stopped breathing and I knew how he was feeling. His guts were inside out and his brain going a mile a minute to fathom the situation. There was a lamp on the table beside me and I reached up and snapped it on.

Alexis Minner was face down on the floor, one hand in a pocket going after another clip for his gun and his head was turned toward me with eyes showing white all around the irises and nostrils flared to the fullest with the wildest kind of fear imaginable.

Before I could talk he said hoarsely, “I am a diplomat. I have immunity. This is my house.”

“But I have the gun.”

For some reason, he started to smile. His nerves were geared tight and the fear came out in a smile. “This will mean... trouble for you.”

“Sure.”

“There will be police.”

Two dead men, one to either side of me. They weren’t killed by my bullets. They died under my hands, one with his own bullets in him, but they were dead and we both were pros and now he was trying to snake out from under.

“I’ll give the cops maybe five minutes, Alexis.”

This time he pulled his hand out of his pocket deliberately, wanting me to see that it was empty.

“It will be too late,” I said.

Now his eyes were half-closed, his tongue flicking in and out, trying to hide what he felt inside.

“Who’s on the inside, buddy?”

“What is that?”

“Don’t stall, you bastard. You haven’t got that much time left. Who’s on the inside?”

“I... do not know what you mean.”

“Die silent then.”

He tried the old dodge, the indignant bit. He half raised himself to look at me squarely. “I come here as a diplomat attached to the Embassy. You have... invaded my privacy.” He glanced toward the pair of bodies. “You have done this... you. The police will see that you...”

“Know who I am?” I asked him. I walked over and stood there with his friend’s Tokarev in my fist.

“I am a diplomat and...”

“Know who I am?” I repeated. “I killed some of your friends. You have me on your ‘A’ list and if you keep a copy of your BTO-5’s around you know my category.”

“Mr. Mann...”

Now he knew my name well enough. He was scared and could try to play it out. But all the while he was thinking and when old-time pros start thinking you start to watch out.

I said, “You paid out some of those new grand notes you have hidden in the machine in the kitchen to somebody else who hired a contract killer. Who, Alexis?”

His eyes made an appealing gesture and I knew he was playing it for time. Somebody would have heard the shots and the report was in by now. In half a minute a squad car would come screaming around the corner. But Alexis was well brain-washed. Well trained. He could be scared, but he wasn’t going to talk, and that type you don’t waste time on.

I grinned at him, let him see all the choppers in a fat smile, leveled the gun and when he tried to make the one last move toward his pants leg, shot him squarely between the horns. The whole back of his head came off and splashed up against the wall.

There was one thing I had to be sure of. I took the two Tokarev 7.65’s, ran to the bathroom and fired a shot from each into the five gallons of water in the toilet reservoir. Each bullet spun out dead before it reached the bottom... I got them out and dropped them in my pocket, then went back to the living room.

I found my .45 where it had fallen and for the first time felt lucky. I could make this deal stick all the way with a little fast talk and ballistics would prove me out if there were any cooperation at all.

I wiped the guns first, then got them back in the hands of the ones who had owned them, making sure prints were all over them, then took two minutes to go around the room and wipe out any prints I had left when I touched the furniture. Not everything will hold a print and I don’t make stupid mistakes in handling things that did without gloves, so I wasn’t worried about the rest of the place.

Somewhere outside a siren was whining and I knew it was time to go. Another joined it, so I ran to the kitchen, opened the window, closed it after I was on the fire escape and got down to the courtyard below. From there it was easy to hop the fence, go out through the areaway between the buildings and start walking toward the band of street lights and then north six blocks where I flagged a cab down and told him to drive me to Charlie Corbinet’s house. After I settled back I checked my watch and the whole damn business couldn’t have taken more than a few minutes. Three dead men in a few minutes.

Good score, Tiger. Your playing is up to par.