Metzger's Dog

34

Washington—(UPI)—In a press conference at noon today the White House announced the deaths of William Blount, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Deputy Director Arthur Pines, reputed to be Blount’s most trusted assistant. The two officials were victims of an automobile accident which occurred while they were beginning a surprise inspection of several outlying installations in the vicinity of the CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia, shortly before dawn. Within seconds of the accident an escort vehicle reached the scene and rushed the victims to the nearest medical facility, a CIA emergency station near Langley. Both were declared dead on arrival. Autopsies have been conducted by the agency. As yet there has been no indication of foul play, but a White House spokesman said that the President has ordered the agency to conduct a thorough investigation, saying that in the deaths of two key members of the intelligence community the possibility can never be ruled out.

Chinese Gordon tossed the newspaper on the floor. As Kepler reached for it, the huge dog lunged past him, pushing his arm aside, and scooped up the newspaper in its jaws, then bounded for the open door of the garage.

“What the hell was that?” said Kepler.

Outside they heard Margaret’s voice. “Oh, sweetie, what a wonderful big boy you are. Thank you,” she sang.

“She’s trying to teach him to bring the paper in,” Chinese Gordon muttered. “He doesn’t get the idea yet. He keeps grabbing it and running out the door. That’s the third time today.”

Kepler popped the top of a beer can and stared at Chinese Gordon. “You really ought to break him of that.”

Chinese Gordon’s jaw tightened, the muscles on the side of his face working convulsively. He said quietly, “I’d like to do that. I’d like to. What do you think of the car accident?”

Kepler sipped his beer. “You train the cat too?” Chinese Gordon looked up to see Doctor Henry Metzger walking backward, laboriously dragging a large turkey leg through the kitchen doorway onto the balcony.

“Margaret probably gave him a treat,” he lied. He remembered leaving it out on the counter when he was making room for Kepler’s beer in the refrigerator. “He likes turkey.”

“He must.”

“What about the car accident?”

“It would be hard to know what really happened to them, but I agree with the President. Foul play can never be ruled out—or something like that. That good big sweetie out there nearly tore my arm off fetching the paper out into the alley, so I don’t remember the exact words. I suppose they might have gone along to watch their agents spring the trap on the late lamented Jorge Grijalvas and gotten taken out.”

“Doesn’t sound likely, does it? I mean, those two weren’t career spooks, they were appointed. They were both fatassed businessmen a year ago.”

Margaret walked in the door wearing large saucer-shaped sunglasses and a bathing suit. The dog followed her, with the newspaper still clenched in its jaws, leaping with pleasure and uttering muffled grunts. “Here’s the paper,” she said. The dog rushed up and dropped the newspaper on the floor. It was wet and had been chewed through in the middle.

Kepler looked down at it. “Smart as a whip, and a mouth like velvet. If we could get him to fetch those Donahue papers, our problems would be over.”

Margaret passed on up the stairs. At the top she called, “Chinese, you can’t give Doctor Henry Metzger a whole turkey leg. He’ll choke on the bones.” Then she said more quietly, “Come on, Doctor Henry, let me cut that up for you.”

Kepler sipped his beer and studied Chinese Gordon. “That’s curious,” Kepler said. Then his eyes seemed to brighten. “No, I guess you’re right. Those two were too important and therefore worthless for a night operation in the great outdoors. Let me look at the newschow and see how much of it I can read.” He gingerly peeled off part of the front page and examined the article. After a few moments he said, “In-house doctors, in-house autopsy, only CIA people on the scene. If they weren’t at Jorge’s final fiesta I’d say they were burned by their own band of merry men.”

Chinese Gordon nodded. “Okay, if that’s true, what does it mean?”

“A man whose animals outsmart him should not pretend he’s Socrates. Stop asking me questions you think you know the answers to.”

Margaret leaned over the balcony and said to Chinese Gordon, “Immelmann’s on his way, and I told him to bring a fresh newspaper.”

Kepler said, “Good, you can show him your dog’s reverse fetch.”

Chinese Gordon shrugged. “I don’t know why I waste my time talking to you. Margaret, tell him your theory.”

“What I think is that these two did not die in a car accident. They didn’t die at Palm Springs either. Therefore they were killed. The CIA is hiding the way it really happened, so they must have killed them. It doesn’t matter why they did it, what matters is that there are new people making the decisions now who know that the Director was killed.”

“So?”

“So even if it had nothing to do with the Donahue papers, they’ll be much more interested in keeping them a secret, because they have a whole new reason to worry about setting off an investigation.”

“I suppose so.”

“You suppose so?” said Immelmann from the doorway. The dog rushed to Kepler, snapped up the soggy newspaper again, and ran with it to Immelmann. “No thanks, old fella. I brought my own. Hey, Margaret, you’re doing great with him.”

“Yeah,” said Kepler. “She’s teaching him to take out the garbage.”

Immelmann said, “Well, what did you decide? Are we going to take them up on it?”

“Up on what?” said Chinese Gordon.

“I thought that was why you wanted me to bring my newspaper. Didn’t you read it? They made us another offer.”

Washington—(AP)—Benjamin Porterfield, who recently left the Mr. Food Corporation to become president of the prestigious Washington-based Seyell Foundation, announced to the Foundation’s trustees today the results of the independent audit he ordered upon assuming the post. The audit, conducted by the Maryland firm of Crabtree and Bacon, revealed that the Seyell Foundation has approximately five million dollars less than had been reported in last year’s audit. Mr. David Welby of Crabtree and Bacon said that it is customary for audits to be conducted whenever there is a change of power in a foundation of this kind, and that there is no implication of dishonesty on the part of previous officers of the trust.

“Actually,” said Welby, “it’s a series of bookkeeping errors made ten to twenty years ago and perpetuated. Tax-exempt organizations are regularly audited, but mainly to see whether someone is doing something he shouldn’t. Nobody, including the government, is interested when a foundation reports its assets too high.” When asked for examples, he mentioned that there was an entry in the list of assets of $619,352 for a house owned by Theophilus Seyell. Welby became curious because the location of the house in New York would indicate a higher value, and later learned that the house had been given to the city in 1954, and the cash value included in the foundation’s report as a cash asset. “It’s sort of pitiful,” said Welby. “The money was counted twice but never existed.”

PORTERFIELD SAT BEHIND THE GIGANTIC DESK in the Seyell Foundation office and stared across the room at the wall where the portrait of Theophilus “Just Plain Ted” Seyell hung above the door. He had already decided it had to go. In the days when Just Plain Ted had occupied this office, before it had been dismantled and transported to Washington, that space had been taken up for thirty years by a portrait of Seyell’s father, painted from Seyell’s description by a young artist of limited talent. Seyell’s father had been long dead by the time Just Plain Ted had become rich enough to require an ancestor. He’d reacted to the need with his usual common sense by hiring the artist who would work cheapest, a man who made his living dashing off caricatures at Coney Island for a quarter each on Sunday afternoons. It was the first time the man had been able to afford to work with oils on canvas, and the result was something like a police reconstruction of an old man wanted for long-forgotten crimes involving piracy on the high seas and the deflowering of virgins. When Just Plain Ted had seen it, the story went, he’d pronounced it satisfactory and paid the artist the thirteen dollars he’d agreed to. Then he’d said to one of his vice-presidents, “Hang the old son of a bitch up there where I can gloat at him now and then.”

During the inventory of the Foundation’s records the old painting had been found behind a filing cabinet in the basement, and Porterfield had decided that the time had come to hang it again.

Kearns walked into the room and sat down in the armchair in front of the desk.

Porterfield raised his hand. “Thanks for coming. And tell Goldschmidt I saw the articles in the paper. They should be fine.”

Kearns nodded. “The transfers are going pretty well. If we can assume that the people who dropped out of sight have the sense to take care of themselves until this thing is cleared up, we’ll be able to protect just about everybody.”

“I don’t suppose anything turned up since I talked to you?”

Kearns started at the pattern on the carpet. “You knew it wouldn’t. These people all worked for Jorge Grijalvas. Nothing about him seems to have any political implications. He was just an old-time gangster. He did pretty well in the Los Angeles drug trade and had a lot of very nasty people on his payroll, but there’s no way we can hunt down all of his connections. Every piece of paper he and his friends owned has been examined, and none of it is worth anything. We did get a hell of a haul in weapons and cash, and quite an assortment of drugs, of course.”

“Just what we need.”

“There’s no sign of the papers, no sign that he ever had a van rigged with a twenty-millimeter automatic cannon. We thought that somewhere he might have some ammunition for it, a few spare parts, something.”

Porterfield sighed. “I keep wondering about all this. Grijalvas doesn’t fit.”

“Maybe someone he met in the drug trade, somebody big enough to think there was a point to this, just hired him to handle the dirty part of it. He must have had some pretty serious international transactions.”

“All along they wanted money instead of political concessions but were willing to let a man like that get his hands on the cash.”

“If they were big enough to hire him, they’d be big enough to make sure he didn’t rob them. They’re capable of shutting down the city of Los Angeles when they feel like making a point.”

“And yet they needed to send him to Palm Springs, and without the papers to trade, not so much as a photocopy. If they had any notion there was a possibility we’d pay off, wouldn’t they have given him that much? It might have helped him and would actually strengthen their bargaining position.”

“With us, not with him.”

“Exactly.”

“He was just a sucker?”

Porterfield leaned back in Theophilus Seyell’s chair and gazed at the vaulted ceiling. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

The telephone on the desk buzzed and Porterfield leaned forward to pick up the receiver. “Yes?”

Mrs. Goode’s voice said, “I think it’s the call you were waiting for. When I asked who it was, he said, ‘Captain Greed. Put Porterfield on.’”

“Thanks, I’ll take it.” Porterfield pushed the button on his telephone and said, “Hello, Captain. This is Ben Porterfield.”

The voice sounded young, the accent flat, maybe Californian and maybe Midwestern but definitely American. “No time for amenities. Do you really have five million dollars in cash?”

“Yes.”

“Bring it with you to Washington National. I’ll expect you within a half hour, alone.”

“See you then,” said Porterfield, and hung up the telephone.

“Who was that?” said Kearns.

“Nothing very important, I suppose, but I’ve got to keep seeing these damned professors or people are going to wonder if the Seyell Foundation is what it appears to be. I’ve got to meet one of them at the airport in a half hour.”

“He calls himself Captain?” said Kearns as he stood up.

Porterfield chuckled. “If that were the worst thing about him he’d be practically normal. I’ll talk to you in a day or two.”

As soon as Kearns disappeared, Porterfield buzzed Mrs. Goode. “Please get me a taxi. And don’t tell anyone about that telephone call for twenty-four hours. If I haven’t gotten in touch by then, tell Goldschmidt. Meanwhile, tell Alice I had to go to London and I’ll call her.” He put on his suitcoat and straightened his tie, then went to Theophilus Seyell’s closet and pulled out the two large suitcases. They were heavy, but with the small casters on the bottoms he could wheel them most of the way, he thought. It would have been easier if he could have afforded some help, but he’d have to manage. He couldn’t take the chance that someone in the Company would change his mind without warning and see a chance for another trap. This time it had to be ended. Goldschmidt and Kearns, at least, were old guard. He’d sometimes trusted his life to their decisions. But they’d both been in Langley too long. There was no way to tell how they would react when it actually came down to experiencing the feeling of losing.