Day of the Guns

Chapter 8

It was Friday. The rain had stopped at last and the low scud hid the tops of the buildings above the twentieth floors. On the street people still carried their umbrellas and raincoats, not wanting to take a chance on the weather.

Outside the U.N. buildings the black limousines were pulling away from the curbs with taxis filling in the places they left. I waited ten minutes before Rondine came out, watched while she paused in the doorway until a tall brunette in a tan suede coat came out and they walked toward me together.

The brunette I had seen before. She was the one Burton Selwick had visited down in the Village and taken out to supper. When they reached the street I walked up and said, “Hello, Rondine.”

It should have startled her, but didn’t, that’s how good she was. She turned her head almost casually, but her smile was a shade too tight to be real.

“Oh... Tiger,” she said.

“Like a bad penny.” I looked at the brunette.

“Gretchen Lark... Tiger Mann.”

The brunette said, “How do you do, Mr. Mann. Or is Tiger a pet name?”

“My real one.”

“Very picturesque. It has certain connotations,” she smiled. Gretchen gave Edith a small puzzled glance then. “Rondine?”

“Now that’s a pet name,” I exclaimed. “We’re real old friends.”

Her eyebrows went up and her mouth pursed with a humorous, pseudo-knowing look and she laughed, “Well, then, I’ll just say so long and leave you two old friends alone.”

Edith said, “Oh, but...”

I just winked and grinned at her as if she had said the right thing and took Edith’s arm. I thought for a moment she’d pull away when I felt the muscles harden under my fingers, but when I squeezed just a little bit she shrugged resignedly and said, “I’ll call you tomorrow, Gretch.”

“Do that. Good-bye, Tiger.”

“See you,” I said.

Most of the crowd had found taxis by then and we didn’t have to wait. I flagged down a cruiser, eased Edith in, told the driver to take us to the Blue Ribbon on Forty-fourth and leaned back into the cushions with my beautiful killer beside me.

It was almost pleasant, that ride. It was almost like those times twenty years ago when we could sit and feel each other there in the dark and quiet and I could know the sensation of love long before the knowledge of hate. Neither of us spoke. We didn’t have to. We knew what was in the other’s mind and it was enough. I closed my eyes and thought about it and suddenly had to stop myself from reaching for her hand.

When the cab stopped at the intersection I could hear her breathing, forcing herself to keep control and I grinned because that’s the way I wanted her to be. She knew she was going to die but didn’t know when. My lovely Rondine was sweating inside.

At the restaurant I got out, paid off the cab and she stood there waiting dutifully, with perfect composure, knowing yet not being quite sure, that it wouldn’t happen there. Rondine had always been like that. Even when she killed it had been with class. A lady, I thought. A lovely guise. It could cover almost anything.

We took a booth in the back, ordered a drink first, then steaks, and over the highball I grinned at her and she spoke for the first time. “You are making a big mistake, Tiger.” There was ice in her voice.

“I’ll take my chances on how I live or die, kid. No more mistakes for me.”

Then for some reason the ice went out of her. There was a sudden heat in her eyes and the tip of her tongue moistened her lips before she sipped her drink. That was an old trick of Rondine’s too. She could switch from hot to cold before you were aware of it and the new attitude almost made you forget the former one. She hadn’t forgotten a thing.

When she tilted her head back I looked for the surgical scars, but the shadow of her chin obscured the region there. Later I’d find out.

“I don’t understand your new technique, Tiger,” she said. “You were going to kill me earlier.”

“I still will, kitten, so keep sweating.”

“Then why...” she made a motion of her hand around the booth.

“People have been telling me about you. I have feelers out. How’d you do it, Rondine?”

Her eyes creased in a frown. “Do what?”

“Get inside the Caine family.”

Both her hands held the glass delicately and her eyes were steady on mine. “I was born into it. If you asked, then you would have found out.”

“That’s what I was told, but I have other ideas.”

She flicked open her cigarette case, put one between her lips and waited for me to light it for her. Over the flame she said, “And they are?”

“A staid, respectable British family loaded with pride and tradition can have a lot to lose if somebody can jangle a skeleton in their closet. I wonder what they’d do or what they’d agree to do if they were suddenly confronted with something that could put them up to public ridicule and scorn to the point that they couldn’t hold their heads up. Sometimes honor can tumble in the face of pride. It’s an old dodge, sugar.”

I knew I hit it right when her face went almost white. Tiny lines fixed themselves beside the corners of her mouth and eyes and her fingers nearly snapped the cigarette in two. For a few seconds her breath was caught in her throat and if ever she wanted to kill me it was then.

The laugh I made was the nastiest thing I ever heard. “What did you hold over their heads, Rondine?”

Through her teeth she said gently, “I’d like to kill you.”

“I know,” I told her.

Only Rondine could have done it, that quick reversal of emotion, one second full of hate, the next totally calm and poised, thinking fast, ready with an answer. “Why don’t you ask them?”

“I will. There are people working on it now. Before long I’ll have all the facts and you’ll fall. This minute pictures of you are all over the continent going to the offices of plastic surgeons and sooner or later I’ll have the right one who did the face job. Or did you get it in Russia?”

Her smile was ambiguous. “Find out for yourself, Tiger.”

“My pleasure.”

The steaks came and we waited until the waiter left and then began eating to resume the pleasantries. It was like twenty questions now, the probing and parrying. It was fun being with her again, like the old days when we were on opposite sides, lovers, yet enemies, digging for information without wanting to hurt the other.

“Parents?” I asked casually.

“Richard and Agnes Caine: 1892 to 1951; 1896, still living.” She smiled and went on, “Ruth, Patricia, Diana, sisters, Vernon, John my brothers. Both Diana and John were killed during the war. The dates of...”

“Never mind.”

“You have a family crest,” I started.

“Honorably won. Unicorns bearing a shield of red and blue with the bar dexter, beneath, an unfurled scroll with the insignia...”

“You’re doing great,” I cut her off. “You always were a quick study.”

“Remember Cal Haggerty, Rondine?” I said abruptly.

She stopped eating, giving me a curious look. Damn, she was better than ever!

“Who?”

“You killed him, baby. You let him have it with a tommy gun. Right after you shot me.”

She almost dropped her fork and the expression in her eyes was unreadable.

“Hurt to bring those things back? Hell, kid, I don’t feel bad when I think about the people I knocked off. They all needed it. To your way Cal and I needed it too so don’t feel bad about it.” I stopped and picked up my drink and finished it. “Or does the thought scare you?”

Then she was back to normal again. “No,” she said, “it doesn’t scare me.”

“It should, doll.”

We finished eating then, not saying much more. I paid the bill and walked out with her and if anyone had looked we could have been nothing more than man and wife, not executioner and victim. On the corner of Broadway and Forty-fourth I whistled a cab over, gave her address and sat back, smiling to myself. She was on edge now and that’s the way I wanted her.

Unconsciously, she had set her handbag between the two of us and I gave it a squeeze. There was a gun in there, all right. It was easy to wait until she glanced out the window to flip it open, finger the clip out of the small automatic, close it and drop the clip in my pocket without being noticed. Colonel Corbinet had trained us well and we kept up the practice.

She made no objection when I got out and followed her into the apartment, but she did make a point of speaking to the doorman and the porter inside. Both had a good chance to look at me and very deliberately she asked the porter the time and she made a pretense of setting her watch. No matter what I did now there would be personal and time identification by two people and my neck would be in the trap.

What Rondine didn’t know was why I was there.

It wasn’t to kill her. Not just yet.

She pushed the number twelve button in the elevator and I said, “Very nice, Rondine. Good thinking.”

Rondine knew what I meant. She looked at me, smiled and said, “Do you blame me?”

“Not at all. You’ve had the training for it, haven’t you?”

Her smile and the set of her face were peculiar. “Yes, I have.”

Sure, admit it, kid. You’ve had the best. I already know, so why deny it?

She held the bag with her thumb and forefinger on the snaps, the other hand ready to dip into it if she had to and unless you were aware of those things you’d never notice the stance. It just wasn’t quite the way a woman holds her purse. It would have been funny to see what happened if she tried it.

At her door I took the key out of her fingers, unlocked it myself and handed the key back. She walked in, held the door open and said, “A nightcap, Tiger?”

“Sure.”

One switch seemed to turn everything on in the room. Three lamps blossomed into a soft glow and the haunting strains of Dvorak’s New World Symphony chanted from hidden speakers. She threw her coat on the back of a chair, went behind the bar and reached for glasses and bottles. When she made the drinks she handed me mine, said, “Luck,” sipped from hers and put it on the bar. Then she walked out of the room. I didn’t worry. Her bag was still on the chair with her coat.

But she was clever. The door to her bedroom was open enough so that if I walked to the chair she’d see me. As long as I stayed at the bar where I was she’d play the game my way, thinking I was playing it hers.

Come, darling, I have seen the act before. It’s nothing new. Remember Hamburg? Remember that little town in occupied France where you did the bit in a ripped-open pillowcase? Man, but were you hot then. All white, soft skin and flowing, soft flesh and lovely hair and all mine. Mine. Remember the things we did that night? If they knew, the names they’d call us, eh? But fun. Great. Love. Real, true love.

She came out in a quilted, blue housecoat and I didn’t have to be told that there was nothing beneath it. Her legs were the same lovely flash of pink, beautifully molded like a dancer’s, that melted into fabric before they revealed their true beauty; her waist pinched in and rising into the proud outthrusting of her breasts that were so deliberately Rondine’s.

Oh, kid, I thought, what the hell do you think you’re pulling? This old soldier’s been through the routine. Backwards and forwards. Don’t give me the negligee and thigh deal. Hell, I’ve seen more naked broads than you have hair on your head. I’ve put them to bed, waked them up, left them gasping and two dyingand now you’re doing this to me? Nuts.

“Nice,” I said. “You’d make a great whore.”

She stopped in mid-stride and smiled. “Thank you. Have you finished your drink?”

“I’m ready for another.”

“So am I.” She never saw the first one I poured down the drain, but I took the second one she handed to me, tasted it, then walked across the room to the windows. The apartment looked out on Central Park, the view taking in almost all of the giant rectangle that was so tightly laced together with the lights of taxis.

“Nice place, Rondine. Rent must go about a grand a month. Your U.N. job isn’t about to keep you in a joint like this one.”

“I have a private income,” she answered simply. “I consider the position important enough to warrant the loss. My family feels the same way.”

“Hell. I can think up an easier explanation.”

“What would that be?”

I turned around and stared at her. She was standing in the middle of the room, the superb beauty of her turning my guts around. “You have a private income all right, but the source isn’t the family. It’s another government, a Red one.”

She didn’t challenge me. The small shake of her head was almost pitying.

Then I had another thought. “But maybe you are right, kid. Maybe it is the Caine family after all. Rattle that skeleton enough and they’ll come across with anything.” I paused a moment and grinned. “Perfect. Trace back your income and it fits the picture. What a wonderful setup.”

The whiteness was there again, the fine lines back at her eyes, but only momentarily. The hate dissolved into the thinnest of smiles and she raised her glass to take a taste of her drink.

“In two days I’ll have a pipeline into your family, kitten,” I said. “If you could do it, so can I. You should know I’m not working alone. Behind me are others trained to the hilt and they’ll get everything I want.”

“Tiger...”

“How about your brother and sister who are dead? Maybe we’ll have to go that far back if that’s where the skeleton is. Want to tell me about them?”

“Damn you!” She threw the glass and it went past my head to smash against the wall. I never moved. “They’re dead. You let my family alone.” There was a harsh edge to her voice.

I let out a little laugh. “Honey,” I said, “how you forget. You don’t remember your old Tiger very well at all. I never let anything alone until I bury it personally. I want all the answers, sugar. I want you to fall hard and fast and I want to watch it happen. I loved you too damn much so I hate your guts the same way. So remember, girl.”

I wouldn’t let her talk. I said, “Remember all the things we were going to do after the war? The house on the ocean and the business together. How many kids did you say you wanted? Remember... four... and they’d look like both of us and we could teach them the things they should know and not the things they shouldn’t? They’d never know how or where we met... we were going to fake a story about that one, but they would know how much we loved each other.”

“Honey, was I ever a sucker for that. I pulled you out of the fire and nearly wrecked an operation doing it and then you shot me. Love? Hell, you don’t know the meaning of the word. You grifted me for information and called it love. You suckered me, beautiful, but never again.”

Her eyes had widened somehow and there was a lost expression on her face, but she was a great actress.

Suddenly she said quietly, “Do you still love me, Tiger?”

And just as quickly I told her. “Sure I do, Rondine. I always have. It isn’t something you can turn off. After I kill you I’ll go right on loving you like I always have but it won’t make a damn bit of difference to me. The game is over. It’s all cold, hard fact now.”

“You really mean to kill me, don’t you?”

“For certain, baby. You can be sure of it.”

The music was coming to a close. The timing was right for what I wanted to do. I put my drink down and sat on the arm of a big chair and looked at her. “Take off that robe, Rondine.”

If she had a drink in her hand she would have dropped it. She gave me a startled look and one hand went to her throat inadvertently to close the neckline that had been so deliberately opened.

She just stood there a second, then when I got up, took a step back and there was no place else to go because the couch was behind her pressing into her hips.

I walked the ten feet that separated us and stood there in front of her. “What’s the matter, kitten? I’ve seen you naked before, dozens of times, from bedrooms to swimming in a river together. There’s not an inch of you I haven’t explored and you loved every minute of it. Don’t play prude, not with me.”

“Please...” The quiver of her mouth even looked genuine. If I hadn’t seen her do it before I would have fallen for the act.

“Off,” I said, “or do I do it for you?”

Her hands grabbed at the back of the couch and bit into the fabric. Rondine was scared silly. She had a right to be.

“Please...” she said again, “why...”

I grinned at her. “You thinking I’ll jump you kid? Hell, I wouldn’t throw a rock at you any more. I wouldn’t give you another inch of myself. No, baby, I just want to see how far you went with the plastic surgery. Faces can be lifted, but women don’t usually go all the way down to their shoes. The faces they show in the day... the rest they can hide in the night so why bother. But I’m curious about you, Rondine.”

Ten seconds ticked by slowly before she moved. Her teeth bit into her lip and she made her decision. Her fingers came away from the couch, fumbled at the belt of her robe, loosened it, then with one sweeping motion she flung the housecoat wide and stood there like some new Joan of Arc challenging the mob.

The clock turned back twenty years instantly and it was the day Rondine and I were hiding in the loft in France with the maquis somewhere outside searching for her. There was a driving summer rain we knew had wiped out our tracks and in the exuberance of knowing we would make it together had felt the heady flow of happiness that turned into the wild, emotional waterfall of love and ecstasy. She had danced there in the loft and stripped off her clothes piece by piece and, in one final gesture before she flung herself at me, had stood there motionless, arms outstretched, every muscle in her body taut and vibrant, a luminescent, white, beautiful thing that was all mine.

And now she stood there again, breasts hard and proud, her belly trembling, the quiver seeming to run into her thighs, legs at a defiant angle, the auburn tint of her hair highlighted with gold, eyes flashing, daring.

“So you went all the way. The medics did a good job.” There was a cold flat tone to my voice. “Paraffin injections, invisible surgery, hard diet and steady exercise can knock a lot of years off a person’s appearance.” I grinned at her again. “But they can’t operate on memories, can they, kid?”

I stepped back, laughed and turned toward the door. I heard her curse me softly with something like a sob in her voice and she said, “Tiger... turn around.”

She had the gun in her hand this time, the pocketbook open on the chair. “I could kill you right now if I wanted to.”

“No you couldn’t. Rondine. You forget too much.” I reached in my pocket and took out the clip, looked at it and threw it at her feet. “Better try using bullets. You should know how they work.”

Her mouth opened in surprise and she looked at the useless piece in her hand. I saw the tears start and like a kid she sort of crumpled to her knees on the floor and sat there crying with her head down.

She hated to be outguessed and that was the only way she could take it out on herself. But, Rondine had always been like that.

I got the hell out of there.

Downstairs, I walked to the corner, waited a couple of minutes for a cruising taxi and when none came by empty, turned west toward Broadway and started up the empty channel of the street. On either side the apartments rose flatly into the night sky, angular and drab, windows like dull yellow eyes sick of looking out at nothing. Cars were parked bumper to bumper along either curb, stacked there until morning, abrogating every law and violating every rule of common sense until the herd instinct took over at the de-witching hour of eight A.M. I never failed to wonder how the hell they got out of there. One big Caddie had pushed in the nose of a Volkswagen and tomorrow there would be one big bash on the sidewalk when the owners had it out. Halfway down the block somebody had swiped both tires off a Chevvie and left it on chocks. New York at night. Great place.

Traffic went opposite me so I didn’t bother looking for a cab. All I could think about was Rondine.

Naked, lovely Rondine.

How could a woman devote her life to destruction? How could anyone so beautiful as her throw away the only good thing she had ever had? Sure, war could demand things of anyone, but out of war can come peace and decency if you have the sense to let it. Goddamn it, we could have had the world for our own, everything we ever wanted, only she was too warped and twisted inside to take it.

And now? The big now?

Warped and twisted? Balls... she was the essence of total depravity, a person who had gone from one scheme to another to recapture and keep the one thing a woman always wants... control. She needed it. But she’d never get it. That’s why she cried.

For a pro I had gotten too lost inside my own head. There was too much night and too many thoughts and too much Rondine to stop and think of what she would do and I damn near died because of it. I didn’t notice the car slowing down at first until the first shot came and missed, but I knew there would be others and went into a crazy dive toward the curb with the slug from a tommy gun slamming into the parked cars and whistling over my head. I had the .45 in my hand when my back hit the doors of a Buick beside me and let one go through the back window of the Ford racing off down the street.

But it didn’t go any further than that. I was ready for the rest, ready for the second car that pulled up and the guy who jumped out when he thought I was concentrating on watching the Ford and when I turned and killed him with one smashing blow from the butt end of the Army Colt his eyes were white with the murderous horror of the moment. I shot through the window of the car and saw the driver slam up against the window and watched the car swerve into the others across the street and stand churning a moment before it stalled and the yelling from the windows started.

You never run. You walk. Nobody pays any attention when you walk near the scene of a killing. They only get civic when you run and not always then, except that they give descriptions. I took my time about lifting the guy’s wallet before easing off down the block and by the time I heard the first siren I was already in a cab headed back toward Times Square and when I reached the Big Intersection I tapped the driver on the shoulder, handed him a buck and told him to let me out.

Down in the subway station I went into the men’s room, went through the wallet and found thirty-two bucks in small bills stuffed in the money folder and not a card, scrap of paper or anything else. I was almost ready to toss it when I saw it was one of those secret-pocket types with a hidden compartment. I got my finger under the flap of leather, slipped it out and there was a brand-new thousand-dollar bill. I fingered it out, stuck it with the rest in my pocket, went out and tossed the wallet down between the tracks when nobody was watching and went up to the next level where the Coke machine was and had one.