More Good Old Stuff

Death for Sale (“My Mission Is Murder,” Dime Detective, November 1947)

On the way to the hotel he sat in the back of the taxi, a broad, sullen-looking man, searching inside of himself for the sense of satisfaction that should be his. There was nothing there but weariness — a dejection compounded of the solid year of search. From the beginning he had known he would win, one day. The perennial cliché of the ever-narrowing world drifted through his mind, and he smiled. No, there is no haven in this world for a man who is hunted.

Once upon a time there had been hiding places. The Foreign Legion, the lonely cattle camps along the Amazon, the fields north of Kimberley. But this is a day of fingerprints, forms, visas, permits, regulations — statistical control of population. “And what is your reason for desiring entrance to this country, monsieur?” “How long do you intend to stay, sahib?” “How do you intend to support yourself, Señor?”

Of course, there is always the secret landing by night from a small boat. But then the wheels of bureaucracy grind out the little pink and green forms — work permits, income taxes, census — and it is as though your coming and your forced departure and your name and your secret were written across the sky for all to see.

Even so, it is easier to hide from a government than it is to hide from a man.

Jan Dalquist, riding placidly up Canal Street in the back seat of the taxi, recognized this fact. Particularly if the hunter is provided with adequate funds. The hunter doesn’t have to be clever. Jan Dalquist knew his own faults. He wasn’t clever. He was dogged, painstaking, stubborn, silent and grim. Not clever. Not clever at all.

But he was an excellent hunter of men.

The huge net of the justice that the democracies dropped over France and Germany after the war was a net of compromise. The diameter of the mesh had to be small enough to entrap the major and intermediate beasts who walked like men. But it could not be so small that it would seine in millions, who, by burdening the mechanism of justice, would make fair trial impossible. As a consequence, thousands of vicious little men had slipped through the meshes and scattered across the world.

Jan Dalquist had been after one of these men for a year.

He was not employed by any government. He was paid by a small group of French industrialists: men who had been beaten to the earth by the German occupation, men who had not known how to compromise, men who thirsted for revenge in the calm, unemotional manner of a banker collecting a debt. They paid for the hunting of other Frenchmen. They were well satisfied with Jan Dalquist. They paid well for the service of a reliable assassin.

Jan Dalquist was after a Jean Charlebois. The facts were very simple. At the time of the Allied invasion, a large band of Maquis were wiped out by German troops. A betrayal was suspected. Only three of the Maquis escaped. Later, after the town was captured, German records indicated that the betrayal had been engineered by one Jean Charlebois, one of the three who had escaped. The son of one of the industrialists who financed Dalquist had been killed in the raid. Thus the assignment to find and kill Charlebois.

The industrialists had little patience with the slow machinery of government. So Jan Dalquist, who had lived in France before the war, and who had gone back during the war as an operative — air-dropped — was contacted and hired as a trustworthy killer.

Had they asked him a bit earlier, or a bit later, he would have refused — for he recognized that he was a man with a profound distaste for taking the tools of justice in his own hands, for acting as judge, jury and executioner. But the offer was made while Dalquist was still in an army hospital where a clever surgeon was attempting to make the ragged flesh and shattered bones of his hands resemble fingers, trying to cover the bone-deep burns on the soles of his feet with skin grafts from the insides of his thighs.

The memory of the basement room in Gestapo headquarters was too vivid. And so Dalquist had said yes. And having once agreed, it was not in him to back out until the job had been completed.

They gave him three names. Dalquist had found the first traitor in Brazil after nine months of search. He still awakened in the middle of the night, seeing again the death of the first. He remembered the man’s hand most of all. It had happened in a field outside of Belém. Long after the man had appeared dead, the hand scrabbled at the white dust.

He had found the second one in Montreal after another seven months. The ice was thin on the river. Almost transparent. After he had shoved the body down through the hole he had stamped through the ice, he saw it being borne away by the current, turning lazily so that once the misty face was turned toward him, the eye sockets dark under the film of ice.

And he often dreamed of this, too.

The taxi arrived at the hotel and he registered and followed the boy up to his room. He tipped the boy, locked the door and stood for a long time at the window, his mutilated hands shoved deep in his pockets, staring down fourteen stories at the busy New Orleans streets. A square, quiet man with a grave face which held a look of suffering. He looked across the gilded channel of Canal Street, looked into the narrow streets of the French Quarter. Jean Charlebois might yet be there. If so, it was the end of the third search, the end of the mission. But he wouldn’t permit himself to think of what he would do once Charlebois had been found and punished. Such thoughts would dilute resolve.

He unlocked his bag, took out the small black notebook. He sat on the edge of the bed and examined, with little interest, the record of the search for Charlebois. The man had escaped the consequence of his treachery for two and a half years. There was very little writing on the sheet.

Jan Dalquist slapped the book shut and put it back in the suitcase.

He sat, studying his hands, rubbing the numb tips of his fingers together, looking at the places where there should have been fingernails. There was no sense of accomplishment in him. Only fear. And not of Charlebois. It was an odd fear. It was as though, three years before, in a basement room in Gestapo headquarters, he had ceased to exist. He had become a machine, dedicated to the wishes of a small group of bitter men.

This was the last case. After it was over, he would have to find himself again. There would always be men who would pay him to hunt other men. But that wasn’t the answer. He knew that the two and a half years of constant search, of sudden violence, had deadened him, soured him. No, that wasn’t the answer. He began to think of himself working with moist earth and growing things, with placid acres on which the sun beat and the rains fell. He could almost smell the rich loam.

After his shower, he strapped on the shoulder holster, checked the clip on the .32 automatic and snapped it into place. It made no visible bulge under the dull gray suit. He sighed heavily, and left the hotel, walking toward Burgundy Street. As he walked, he carried in his mind the accurate picture of Jean Charlebois.

Five foot nine. One hundred and thirty-five pounds. Dark, thinning hair. Sallow complexion. Heavy eyebrows. Gold cap on right eyetooth. Nervous, agile, quick. High voice. Neat and clean. A chaser of women. Likes jewelry. May have small mustache. Weak eyes, but unlikely to wear glasses.

The late sun was gone and the lights were beginning to click on. Jan Dalquist walked through the dusk, feeling at each step the little bite of pain at the soles of his feet — the pain that would be with him until he died. And, in his heart, he carried another type of pain — the pain of an intelligent and civilized man, a man of intuitive delicacy, who has been thrown up against the most brutal and animal aspects of war; who, having discovered that the battle must be fought on the brute level, has made the tools of violence his own, has learned to use them with an incredible efficiency because they are foreign to his essential nature.

He walked and his mind was like a closed fist; the muscles tensed, the kinetic force poised, the entire organism aimed at the careful destruction of Jean Charlebois.

It had to be a delicate destruction. You cannot shoot a man down in the street and walk away. The circumstance must be right. It must be planned like a successful civil murder. Not like military justice.

The trapper baits and sets his trap, and then backs off, removing sign and scent of his passage. He stands for a moment and tries to look at his trap with the eyes of the animal which he wishes to catch. What are the possibilities of escape?

In that way, Jan Dalquist looked at the Ancient Door. It was in a building set flush with the sidewalk, with buildings tight against it on either side. Two rooms opened onto the street. One was a small bar, dim, unclean, with rough wood walls, old flags and swords on the wall. The other room was a dining room with a small raised platform at the far end. Between the bar and the dining room was a big, ornate iron gate with a sign on it which said “Meals Served in the Court.” He noticed, then, an open door in the back wall of the bar.

He ordered a drink at the bar, picked it up and walked casually back. There was a small court there, open to the sky, with an asthmatic fountain bubbling in the center of it. A few tables were covered with soiled, checked cloths. Another sign said “Dance by Candlelight under the Stars.”

There were only two doors leading from the court, the door through the bar and one into the kitchen. Except for one old man who sat at the bar, staring moodily down into his drink, Dalquist was the only customer. Through the open grillwork of the iron gate, he saw the entrance to a stairway that went up to the rooms overhead. That would bear investigation.

He selected a position at the bar which gave him the widest view of the dining room and sipped his drink patiently. Jan Dalquist had a great deal of patience. As he waited, he went over the several plans which he had devised to accomplish the destruction of Jean Charlebois, alias Ramón Francesco, alias Pierre Duval, ex-Maquis, ex-employee of the Gestapo, ex-Frenchman, ex-human.

Two noisy couples had a drink at the bar, and then went into the dining room. Jan Dalquist watched carefully without giving the impression of watching. He relaxed internally when their order was taken by a doughy man who could not conceivably be Charlebois.

A pretty girl, her hair a close-fitting cap of blond curls, walked into the bar from the street and sat two stools from Dalquist. She had a wide face, with something secretive and sensitive about the mouth. He glanced at her hands and liked their square, competent look. It suddenly occurred to him that a couple would be far less likely to arouse Charlebois’s suspicions than a single man.

He watched her carefully, saw her look at her own image in the rounded, polished surface of a silver decanter that stood, out of place, on the back bar. He saw the little wrinkle of laughter as she saw her distorted image.

“Not very flattering, is it?” he said quietly.

She turned toward him quickly, startled by the way his words had spoken her thoughts. He saw the flicker of analysis, the debate with self whether to ignore the comment. He knew that his grave, impassive face would weigh in his favor, that she would not rule against him because of his appearance.

She didn’t. She smiled and said, “Keep a woman away from anything in which she can see her face.”

“Men are just as vain, you know. Before you came in, I was staring at that thing and imagining what it would be like to go through life with the face I saw in there. It made me feel happy about the face I have. That is a pleasure seldom experienced.”

She cocked her head to one side and inspected him gravely, a glint of humor in her eyes. “Why seldom? You’ve got a very good face. Solid and dependable-looking. Nice eyes.”

He bowed and said, “Thank you, friend. And what else do you see about me?”

She pursed her lips for a moment and then said, “Let me see. About thirty-six. Scandinavian ancestry. By the way you speak, you’ve been well educated. Your suit is well cut. There’s something sad about your face. As though you’ve had a great deal of trouble. I’d guess that you’re some sort of professional man. Maybe an engineer.”

He laughed. “You’re observant. However, I’m thirty-two. And I’ve had an average share of trouble. I have a small job to complete and then I’ll be unemployed. How did you learn to use your eyes so well?”

“I’m down here trying to paint. Let me see your hands. I can tell a great deal from hands.”

“I’d rather not.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re not pleasant. They were injured a few years ago.”

He saw the quick compassion. He said, “I’d very much appreciate it if you’d have dinner with me. That is, if you haven’t other plans...”

Her smile became wooden. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think that—”

“I know. You’re not accustomed to meeting men in bars and being taken to dinner. But I’m perfectly harmless and I’m lonely. I have no ulterior motives. Please don’t disappoint me.”

She looked down at her cocktail for a long second and then smiled over at him. “Okay. I’m Jerry Ellis.”

“How do you do, Jerry. Jan Dalquist. Now I’ll have to give you a second chance to refuse. I told you that my hands aren’t pretty. They’re insensitive to the extent that I can’t wear gloves over them while I eat. For that reason, I haven’t had dinner with a woman in a long time.” He put his right hand, fingers spread, on the top of the bar. He looked closely at her face, saw her eyes, saw the minute tightening of her lips.

She said, “Sit over here, Jan.” He moved over and sat on the intervening stool. She put her warm fingers on the back of his hand and said, “I’d be delighted to have dinner with you. And you’re a very silly man. Very silly.”

Something about the way she said it made him want to throw his money on the bar and walk out. No ulterior motives! She was far too trusting to be dragged into what might turn out to be a nasty mess. She seemed to be a nice person.

She said: “Charles, the bartender, is going to be quite astonished. I drop in here several times a week, and at least once each week he has to tell some ardent gentleman that I prefer not to be annoyed. I brush the others off myself. He’s going to look at you and wonder why I have dinner with you.”

Jan grinned and said, “Being a bartender, he can see that I’m a harmless type. Besides, I played on your sympathies.” As he spoke, he saw a man in the white coat of a waiter walk through the dining room. Some small gear clicked in his mind. Jean Charlebois.

The hunter raises one hand and cautiously spreads the brush that impedes his view. The cold blue barrel of the rifle points toward the clearing. The buck stands, nostrils quivering, head turning slowly in all directions. The hunter cradles his cheek against the smooth stock. He takes a deep breath and lets half of it out. His right hand tightens slowly, the trigger pressing against the pad of his right index finger. The sight bead is centered on a spot just behind the flat bone of the right shoulder of the buck. The right hand tightens...

“What on earth were you looking at then?” Jerry asked. “You looked quite frightening for a minute. Like a man looking at old ghosts.”

He glanced quickly at her, annoyed that he should have changed expression on seeing Charlebois. It was important to distract her attention.

He said, “That transparent? I was wondering about you. You seem like a person it would be easy to hurt. Obviously then, you have been. You could never grow to be as wise as you are without having been hurt. I was wondering what sort of person would do that to you.”

Emotionally, she withdrew. She was a girl sitting beside him, sipping a cocktail. Physically she was there. But her mind had gone back into the past, and the look of sensitivity about her mouth twisted into something scornful and not fitting to her.

She said, “You sound like you wanted to know. It’s all a bit dull. I may tell you sometime, and watch you trying not to yawn. Maybe there’s no one on this earth who is the least bit interested except me. And I’m only interested now because the net result of being hurt is that I’m down here alone, trying to do work I’m not suited for, trying to think of what I should do next — trying to make a plan for my life that’ll make sense. I don’t make sense to myself these days.” She turned toward him and grinned. “Do all the people you meet start weeping on your shoulder?”

For a moment he dropped the pretense. He said, “Maybe we’re both at a crossroads. I’m doing work I’m not suited for, and I don’t know why I continue. It’ll soon be over and I have no plans.”

They were both silent for a few moments. He said suddenly, “Before this turns into a wake, we better have another drink.”

So they talked of New Orleans, of the tourist-consciousness of the French Quarter, of the proper Vermouth for martinis — discovered a mutual liking for frog’s legs, hot weather, Mozart and Duke Ellington. They were gay, and surprisingly young, and some of the ghosts left his eyes and the basement room took another backward step into the past.

But while they were talking, Charlebois crossed beyond the grillwork door a dozen times, and the man’s habitual way of walking, the angle of his head, the slope of his shoulders, were all indexed, recorded — filed in a compartment of Jan’s mind which was as still and cold as a starlit night on the steppes. And he discovered which set of tables were served by Jean Charlebois.

He offered her another drink and she said, “Just one more. That’ll finish me. Then you can lead me to a table.”

“The blind leading the blind, Jerry.”

The Ancient Door had filled up, and it was difficult for Jan Dalquist to estimate the proper interval which would give him assurance of getting one of Charlebois’s tables. He managed it. The headwaiter held the door open with a flourish, and Dalquist followed Jerry Ellis into the dining room, unobtrusively guiding her over to a table served by Charlebois.

When Charlebois came with the menus, Dalquist glanced up at him and said casually, in clipped Parisian, “I assume that you speak French?”

“Yes, monsieur,” Charlebois said. “Monsieur speaks very well.”

Dalquist glanced at Jerry Ellis, ascertaining from her puzzled expression that she didn’t speak the language. He said rapidly, “It is very crowded in here, and the young lady has no French. Have you not a quiet place where we might eat alone? With you to serve us?”

“One moment, monsieur.” Charlebois hurried off.

Jan turned to Jerry and said, “I’m sorry, but I just happened to think of it when the waiter came to the table. I asked him if there was a place where we could dine alone. I always feel conspicuous when the tables are so close and people can see my hands. I forgot that you might consider such a suggestion a little bold.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said quickly. “I’d love it. I hate being nudged by the elbows of the people at the next table.”

Charlebois was back in a few moments. He nodded to Dalquist and said, “One of the private rooms has not been reserved, monsieur. And I can serve you if you wish. Please follow me.”

They followed him through the curtains and up the narrow stairway to the second floor. With a flourish, he opened the door to a small room. It overlooked the courtyard. The moon — newly risen — shone through the open french doors and silvered a table for two set just inside the room. An ornate balcony overhung the court. When they were both in the room, Charlebois shut the door, hurried over to the table and lighted the two tall white candles. He held the chair for Jerry.

Jan said, “May I order for you?”

“Please do.”

Charlebois departed with the order, and as soon as he had shut the door silently behind him, Jerry began to laugh. She said, “Look at this den of wickedness! I had no idea they had these rooms up here. Moonlight. Candlelight. Huge divan. Draperies. It looks like a set I’ve seen in about six movies. My husband, if I had a husband, breaks in while we’re drinking a toast in champagne to the evening. I scream and you leap off the balcony. Or you shoot him. Or I shoot him. Or you shoot the waiter by mistake and I jump off the balcony. Why is it that there is so much less drama in real life?”

Dalquist was acutely conscious of the weight of the gun in the shoulder holster. He said, “As a matter of fact, I did order champagne. Now, accuse me of having delusions of drama.”

“I accuse you of being a man who never did a dramatic thing in his life, Jan. That’s why I like you. I’m desperately tired of dramatic people.”

Due to Charlebois’s downstairs responsibilities, the service was slow, but neither of them minded it. The candles flickered in the warm, fresh breeze. They talked of her painting, and she told him her only talent was good draftsmanship, that she couldn’t translate her emotions onto the canvas. At best, she could become only an adequate illustrator.

Jan told her of his life in prewar Paris, of the great automotive plant in which he had been a very junior engineer. How, somehow, the war, the destruction of men and machines through the application of very expert and very deadly mechanical engineering techniques, had soured him on his chosen profession.

When she asked him what he was doing, he said, “I’m an investigator for French capitalists who wish to build up foreign investments. I’m down here bloodhounding a deal for them. When it’s over, I’ll be through.”

“Then what?”

He shrugged. “Probably become a bloodhound for somebody else. I don’t know. I daydream a bit now and then. Always seem to picture myself as some sort of farmer. Green stuff growing all around me. Silly idea. Never tried to grow anything in my life.”

“I’m a farm gal,” she said. “Take me along with you to pick out the land, and I’ll give you a short course.”

She said it lightly, but their eyes met as she said it and something passed between the two of them — something frightening in its momentary intensity.

At that instant, Charlebois knocked on the door and entered on command.

Dalquist said rapidly, in French, “Bring us some brandy. Good brandy. And I suspect that the lady will leave me for a few moments. When she does, I wish to speak with you privately.”

“Oui, monsieur.” He brought back a tray with two glasses and a dusty, unopened bottle. He showed Dalquist the label, opened the bottle and poured the two glasses.

Jerry said, “Would you excuse me, please?”

Charlebois held the door for her and then came back into the room. He stood by the table and said, “Monsieur?”

Dalquist noticed the man staring at his hands. He moved them below the table level. “You have been very helpful. What is your name?”

“Pierre Duval, monsieur.”

“The young lady and I are very pleased. You impress me as being a man of tact and intelligence.” Charlebois made a small, self-effacing gesture. “I am unacquainted with New Orleans, Duval, and I desire to visit many interesting places with the young lady. You are doubtless well acquainted with the French Quarter. The young lady is a new acquaintance. You understand how such things are.” Dalquist chuckled in a man-to-man fashion. Charlebois laughed dutifully.

Dalquist continued. “At what time are you off duty here?”

“In two hours, monsieur. Eleven-thirty. Rather late, possibly.”

“If I were to come for you at that time, Duval, would you consent to guide us to some interesting places?” As Charlebois hesitated, Dalquist added, “I will pay you well.”

“If Monsieur will come to the top of these stairs, to the first room on the left in the outside hallway, anytime after eleven-thirty, I will be ready.” At that moment a sudden gust of wind blew out one of the candles. Charlebois hastened around the table to relight it. He stumbled on the rug and had to place his hand against Dalquist’s chest to keep from falling upon him. He backed off and apologized profusely. There was something in his eyes that vaguely alarmed Dalquist. He relighted the candle as Jerry Ellis came back into the room.

They lingered a half hour over the brandy, and at last Jan paid the check, leaving a liberal tip for Charlebois. They walked down the stairs and out onto the street, with Dalquist fighting against the spell of the night, the warmth of her laughter, the faint, clean scent of her hair. And that odd look in Charlebois’s eyes troubled him.

They went to three different places, listening to the music, the poor present-day ghost of the New Orleans jazz heritage. Dalquist arranged it so that they entered the third place a little after eleven. He also made certain that it was only a few hundred feet from the Ancient Door.

They sat, side by side, on a low bench along one wall of a large room. With practiced stealth, he unclasped her purse and dropped his silver lighter into it, forcing it down into a corner. At twenty-five after eleven he began to slap at his pockets and look worried.

Jerry said, “What’s the matter, Jan?”

“My lighter. Seems to be gone. I bet you I left it at that last place. If I go back right now, I may stand a chance of getting it back. You don’t mind waiting for me, do you? It’s only two blocks. If it isn’t there, I’ll try the first place. Just sit tight and order me a drink.”

The hunter acquires the habit of melting into the terrain, of blending himself with the brush and the movement of his passage is as unnoticeable as the stirring of a light breeze. His every step is sure, his movements deft. He is gone before you become conscious of his presence.

So it was with Dalquist. One couple sat in a far corner of the dining room of the Ancient Door. No waiter was about. He crossed the floor in his dull gray suit with his noiseless tread. They didn’t look up. He went up the stairs and knocked at the first door on the left of the passageway.

“Duval?” he called.

“Come in, monsieur.”

Dalquist walked into the room. Charlebois stood on the far side of the room. It was a small room, obviously used as a dressing room by the help. A row of hooks held wrinkled uniforms. Dalquist’s automatic was equipped with what is called a one-shot silencer, a small cartridge of metal containing compressed sponge rubber. It was screwed onto the threaded end of the barrel. Such a device is only effective for the first shot, muting it to about the decibel rating of a loud cough.

With the sixth sense of the hunter, Dalquist, as his hand flashed up toward the shoulder, felt the presence of someone else close behind him. He tried to dodge and turn, but as his fingertips touched the rough grip of the automatic, a stunning blow hit him just under the ear, dropping him heavily to his hands and knees. He shook his head and tried to fight away as he felt a hand slipping under his coat, snatching away the automatic. In a fog of semi-consciousness, he cursed himself for not entering with the weapon in his hand.

He was kicked heavily in the side and he fell over onto the floor, gasping for breath. The room swam around him as he sat up, narrowing his eyes to hasten focus. The door was kicked shut. A stranger, a bandy-legged man with a potbelly, small eyes and cropped black hair, stood grinning down at Dalquist, covering him with his own weapon.

Charlebois stood slightly behind him, also smiling, a slim knife in his right hand. He held it in the traditional knife fighter’s manner, the end of the handle against the heel of his hand, his thumb resting lightly on the cutting edge.

Charlebois said, “Crawl slowly over to that chair, monsieur, and sit. Cross your arms tightly and keep them crossed. René, lock the door.”

Dalquist did as he was told. He had learned, in the most difficult conceivable manner, that it is best not to speak when at a disadvantage.

After Dalquist was in the chair and René had locked the door, Charlebois said, “René, this is the cow I spoke about. An ex-member of the Gestapo. A man who betrayed hundreds of the brave patriots of France. It is up to us to kill him in the name of France.”

René’s stupid face twisted with hate. He said thickly, “My brother was one of those betrayed by such a man!”

Dalquist weighed the chances. He said quickly, “René, you are listening to one who is a traitor himself. Look at my hands. Would the Gestapo torture one of their own? Would any group other than the Gestapo do such a thing?”

He extended his hands, ignoring the hoarse exclamation of Charlebois. As René stared at the mutilated fingers, Dalquist said quickly, “And the man behind you is an infamous one named Jean Charlebois, who betrayed the Maquis. I was hired by the patriots of France to track him down.”

As René, confused, turned toward Charlebois, the traitor said, “Do not believe this pig, René! He is lying—”

“I want to know why this man you call a member of the Gestapo should come here for you, Duval,” René said heavily.

Dalquist felt his heart leap as he read the indecision in René’s face. The small eyes looked swiftly toward Dalquist’s hands and then into Dalquist’s eyes.

There was a sudden loud banging at the door. Charlebois hissed, “Shoot him quickly, fool!”

Wheeling ponderously, René said, “Maybe it is you that I should—”

With a grunting curse, Jean Charlebois took a quick step toward René and drove the ready knife into the man’s body. René staggered with the force of the blow and the gun hand sagged. As he tried to lift the gun, Charlebois chopped down with the edge of his hand on René’s wrist, snatching up the gun as it fell to the floor.

René did not fall. He hugged his belly and moaned hoarsely. His eyes were shut with the pain in his body. The flat metal handle of the knife glinted, protruding from between his hands. Dalquist sank back into the chair under the threat of the muzzle of his own gun, pointed at him once more.

With another curse, Charlebois snatched the handle of the knife and yanked it out of René’s middle. René’s life seemed to flow out with the blood that made a widening splotch on his clothes. He dropped to his knees, chin on chest, and then went over onto his face with a damp noise in his throat that sickened Dalquist.

The pounding at the door continued. Charlebois called out, in accented English, “One moment, please.” The pounding ceased.

Charlebois said quickly, “Monsieur, you are of a stupidity most amazing. True, you were clever to find me, but before I left Mexico City, I told Pepita that she should unseal each letter from me with great care. I told her that she would find, stuck under the flap, a short single bit of my hair. If it was missing, she should tell me by telegraph immediately. It was missing on the last letter. The letter had been unsealed and read. Thus I knew someone was coming for me.

“I have used great care. You are the first one to have paid any attention to me. I saw your hands, monsieur. I am familiar with the work of the Gestapo. I stumbled against you, monsieur, and felt the bulk of your gun under my palm. You asked me to go out into the night with you, monsieur.

“It is indeed regrettable that you plunged a knife into René. He is indeed dead. I will open the door now, and your gun will be in this pocket. Do not speak.”

Charlebois held the knife delicately and rubbed the thin metal handle against the side of his trousers, careful not to spot himself with the blood that colored the blade. He stepped closer to Dalquist and flicked a few drops of blood from the wet blade. They spattered on the dull gray fabric of Dalquist’s suit.

He stepped to the door, unlocked it and swung it open. Jerry Ellis walked hesitantly in, her eyes wide, her underlip caught behind her teeth. Charlebois took a quick look into the hall and shut the door again.

He bowed to Jerry and said, “Mademoiselle, this is most regrettable, but this man — who was here with you earlier tonight — appears to be quite mad. That knife on the floor. With it he...” Charlebois waved a nervous hand toward the body of René.

Dalquist knew he could quickly protest his innocence to Jerry, and Charlebois would not dare use the gun. He needed Dalquist, alive, on whom he could pin the suspicions of the police so as to provide him sufficient time to get back across the border into Mexico before Dalquist could make his credentials known. It was a clever and daring plan. But some perverse instinct in Dalquist made him keep silent. He stared woodenly at Jerry, saw her features pale, saw her take a step backward away from the silent body.

Charlebois said quickly, “Mademoiselle, I have a gun in my pocket and I shall watch this murderer. Will you please go downstairs and phone the police.”

She looked at Jan Dalquist, hurt and questioning in her eyes. He stared at her without expression. Charlebois opened the door and Dalquist heard the quick tapping of her feet as she went down the stairs.

Dalquist said, “You won’t get away with this, Jean Charlebois.” But even as he said it, he knew the scheme would work — that by the time he could divert the attention of the police away from himself, Charlebois would be out of reach. He felt ill as he thought of the additional weary months of search that would be necessary.

He said, “And even if this does work long enough for you to get away, Charlebois, I will soon be after you again.” It was not said with defiance. It was said with a tired resignation. It expressed the soul-sickness of him, the cumulative exhaustion of killing and seeing death, the internal, pervading nausea that had been with him for two and a half years.

Charlebois said, “You forget, monsieur. I know you now. I know your face. You will never kill me. Even if you find me, it is you who will die. In this game, once the hunter is known, the advantage is with the hunted. I will seek a place where you cannot approach me without my knowledge. And there I will kill you.”

There was a quiet confidence in the ring of his words. To Dalquist, it was like a sentence of death. Somehow, he knew that it would end in precisely that way. For he was too weary with the game to continue much longer. He would walk blindly into a death that would be but a continuation of his present, purposeless existence.

Charlebois chuckled. He said, “I did not believe that the young lady was in league with you. Had her reactions been different, I would have killed the both of you and escaped immediately. In a way you are lucky. But it will be more pleasant to deal with you at some future time in circumstances that are more to my liking.”

“You are an egocentric animal, Jean Charlebois.”

“Possibly, monsieur, but of an effectiveness truly surprising.”

Dalquist heard the heavy steps on the stairs and tensed himself to spring as Charlebois glanced toward the door. But the slim man looked back too quickly.

They walked in the door, with Jerry Ellis following them, two lean uniformed men. One crossed over and knelt by René’s body. He stood up and shrugged.

The other said, “While we wait for Homicide, suppose you give me a quick reading.” He stepped over to Charlebois and held out his hand. Charlebois laid the automatic carefully in the outstretched hand.

“Sir, the dead man is my employer and the manager of the Ancient Door, René Despard. That man in the chair came in here earlier in the evening, and we made arrangements for me to be his guide starting at eleven-thirty. He was with that young lady who called you. At eleven-thirty, René and I were in this room. That gentleman came in, quite drunk, and began to call us both foul names. René tried to quiet him. The gentleman pulled out that gun I just gave you and threatened us.

“I circled him and struck him behind the ear. You will find the mark. He fell and dropped the gun. René took out that knife you see on the floor. As I picked up the gun, the gentleman jumped up and rushed at René, striking him violently on the arm. René dropped the knife. The man picked it up and drove it into René Despard.

“The violence of his act seemed to sober him. I threatened him with the gun and he sat in that chair where he now is. You can see the marks of blood on his trousers. The woman came and knocked at the door. I admitted her and told her to call the police. Truly, it seems to me the act of a madman.” His voice broke. “René was — was my friend. A harmless man and a good man.”

The first policeman said, “Made him drop the knife, picked it up and killed him with it.” He glanced at Dalquist.

Dalquist said, “This is a fabric of lies. That man killed René. I saw him.”

Charlebois grunted contemptuously. “Kill a man who was my friend and my employer? Any other employee will testify as to our great friendship.”

The policeman turned to Dalquist and said, “Mister, you just keep your mouth shut. We’re damn tired of people getting crazy drunk in this town.”

Dalquist knew that it would be that way. Charlebois was too convincing, too sincere in his expressions of bewilderment and sorrow. He avoided the pitfalls of retelling his story, of showing too much emotion or giving too much detail.

Dalquist was surprised to see, out of the corner of his eye, that Jerry was moving closer to his chair. The room was very silent. One policeman leaned against the doorframe and picked his teeth with a fragment of matchstick. Charlebois stared numbly at the floor. Dalquist pleaded with the Fates for a man of perception among those they were awaiting.

They all started when Jerry said loudly, “You say that the dead man dropped the knife and Mr. Dalquist picked it up off the floor?”

The policeman by the door said, “Stay out of this, lady. We’ll ask any questions that need to be asked.”

She fumbled with her purse, and her very thin cigarette case dropped to the floor. It landed by Dalquist’s feet. Instinctively he bent over for it.

As he fumbled at it, he heard Jerry say loudly, “You’re fools to listen to that waiter! Look at this man! Do you believe he could pick a knife that thin off the floor when he can’t even pick up my cigarette case, which is twice as thick as the knife? Look at his hands!”

It was true. With the numb ends of his manufactured fingers, with the absence of fingernails, Jan Dalquist could only fumble at the case. He couldn’t get a grasp on it. The policeman by the door stepped over. Dalquist straightened up and held out his hands. The policeman’s mouth twisted as he looked at them.

There was a flash of movement and the other policeman yelled, “Hey! Stop, you!” Charlebois had melted out of the room. Dalquist heard his feet pounding along the corridor. It was obvious that it had been Charlebois’s only possible move. Once Jerry had cast sufficient doubt on Charlebois’s story so as to make it essential to hold him, he couldn’t risk staying.

Dalquist said, “Stay in this room!” as he ran out into the corridor. He realized that Charlebois hadn’t wanted to take the risk of running into the men who would soon be coming up the stairs. He would duck in somewhere.

A gun boomed in the corridor. The policemen disappeared into the small room where they had had dinner. Dalquist followed them. He found them leaning out from the balcony, looking up. One said, “Went up the face of the building on those vines. The leaves are shaking... There he is. Wing him, Joe!”

The shot cracked more flatly in the open air. The policeman said, “Got him. Look out!”

They ducked back away from the railing as a screaming figure fell down through the night. It struck the iron balcony railing, and as it clanged like a bell in a minor key, the scream stopped abruptly. There was a noise in the court a second later. A noise that might be made by a soaked rag slammed down onto a basement floor. A woman in the court screamed. A man cursed softly and fluently. The policeman who had fired the shot said, “Al, I feel kinda sick.”

She was waiting in the shadow of the building when he walked out of Police Headquarters with orders to return and sign statements at ten the following morning.

He glanced at his watch as he walked up to her. Three-fifteen in the morning.

She said, “Mister, where were we when we were so rudely interrupted? I know a place where you can buy a short girl a small beer.”

She began to walk and he fell in step beside her, grinning. Somehow a weight had been lifted off his heart.

He asked, “Why did you follow me?”

She said, “Lipstick is a fine thing. Just as you left I looked in my purse for mine and found your lighter. At first I thought I had picked it up by accident. Then I realized that you must have put it there for a reason. I hurried after you, not certain of what to do. I saw you turn in here. You weren’t in the bar or in the dining room. I tried upstairs and heard some sort of thumping behind that first door. I listened and couldn’t hear you. Maybe the brandy got me. After a while I started to kick the door. You know the rest.”

“I suppose you’ve got a million questions to ask me?”

“Have I asked you any?”

“Not a one.”

“Jan, two people have to have some sort of a code. Let’s make ours a code of no questions. When either of us wants the other to know something, we’ll tell it without waiting for questions. Okay?”

She put her hand on his arm, stopped him. She held her hand out. “Shake on it, mister.”

He took her hand quickly. Her clasp was firm and warm.

“No questions?” she asked.

“No questions,” he said, smiling down at her.

“And no regrets?”

“No regrets, Jerry,” he said.

“Mister, right there is where you buy me that beer.”