The Betrayers

Chapter Nine

WHEN I REACHED THE beach a few minutes behind her, I saw that the sleepy-eyed girls in bikinis were thinking I must be a terrible fellow to send the poor kid off in tears. The boys with the dog tags, on the other hand, were thinking-and saying rather loudly-that I must be a dope from Dopesville to let a chick like that get away from me.

I saw that Jill had left her board on a rack by the seawall, and I hauled mine over there. I paused briefly to look down at the gaudy red-and-white board, wondering if I'd ever see the owner again alive. She'd have to come up with some very convincing histrionics to fool the Monk. I hoped she was up to them.

Maybe I should have left her in the happy anonymity she'd desired, taking a minimum of risks and doing a minimum of good. But I couldn't help remembering a girl called Claire, who had made no deals with Washington, but had simply gone out and died when the situation called for it…

A thin, dark, hook-nosed man, who'd been sitting at one of the terrace tables watching the view, got up and moved off casually as I approached. He was wearing dark trousers and one of those short-sleeved white summer dress shirts that, worn with a coat and tie, look very respectable indeed. Without the coat, as he was wearing his, they make the most dignified businessman look like an aging Peter Pan. He had a pair of binoculars hanging around his neck. By the size, they probably weren't as strong as ten-power, more likely seven or eight; I didn't think he could have done much lip-reading through them. He wasn't anybody whose dossier I'd seen. Apparently the Monk had some reserves he hadn't let Washington know about.

As I crossed the terrace and passed the cocktail pavilion, shuttered at this hour, I met the hotel hostess who'd been working so hard to get us all acquainted the night before. She was a graceful woman of about thirty, quite good-looking in the brown-skinned, black-haired way of the Islands, although the almond shape of her eyes hinted that her ancestry was probably at least as much Oriental as Polynesian. Well, that's Hawaii.

"Good morning, Mr. Helm," she said. "I see you still like your early-morning swim. I hope you're enjoying your stay with us."

"Very much," I said. "Er, I wonder if you could help me out. I didn't quite catch the name of the lady you introduced me to last night, and I'm having lunch with her today, and, well, it's kind of embarrassing to have to ask…

"Yes, of course. Do you mean Miss Darnley?" She smiled. "I saw the two of you leaving the party together."

"No, the first one. The older one, in the black dress."

"Ah, Mr. Helm, do be careful," the hostess said playfully. "You'll have us thinking you're quite a ladykiller. That was Mrs. McLain, Mrs. Isobel McLain, from your hometown, Washington, D.C. As a matter of fact, she asked to meet you. She said a mutual acquaintance had told her to look you up when she got to Honolulu."

I grinned. "I know, that's why I didn't want to have to ask her what her name was. You know how these mutual-acquaintance deals go. She assumed I knew all about her, and of course I couldn't say I didn't. McLain, eh? Thank you very much."

"Not at all, Mr. Helm."

I watched her move away. She was wearing a long, straight, blue-flowered garment, slit to the knee. The intermittent display of leg was quite effective. I was getting this muu-muu business sorted out now. There was the shapeless, Yankee Mother-Hubbard style originally imposed on the natives in the name of modesty; and then there was the slim oriental cheongsam style, which was a different proposition entirely. It had not been invented to keep susceptible missionaries from being aroused beyond endurance by the naked charms of uninhibited young native girls. On the contrary, it had been designed to make Chinese women attractive to Chinese men. It worked pretty well on other races, too, I decided, watching the hostess walk gracefully out of sight.

Of course, that was quite beside the point. What really mattered was that Jill had apparently not been lying when she suggested that Isobel McLain had known about me before we met. Now it appeared that the woman had even arranged the meeting, in spite of the cool and remote attitude she'd exhibited at the time.

Going toward my room, I rubbed my head hard with my towel, frowning, but it didn't help my cerebral processes in the least. I still couldn't see how this piece fitted into the puzzle itself. It wasn't really surprising, I reflected, since I didn't yet have a very clear view of the puzzle itself…

I smelled cigarette smoke in the hall outside my room. It was drifting out through the slat door. I decided that anybody who intended to murder me wouldn't set fire to a lot of tobacco to warn me, opened the door, and stopped, looking at the man inside. Then I sighed, stepped in, and closed the door behind me.

"Well, it's about time you made a personal appearance," I said. "I was getting a bit fed up with secondhand reports and mysterious telephone calls."

The Monk rose from the armchair in which he'd been sitting and stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. I remembered that he had always smoked like a sooty chimney. Apparently it hadn't killed him yet, which was a pity.

"I don't know how you do it," he said admiringly. "I just don't know how you do it, Eric. There must be something about you invisible to the male eye that just bowls them over, old and young."

I said, "Oh, you mean that crazy kid you sicced on me. Has she been phoning in her woes already?"

Monk shook his head enviously. "I just don't know how you do it," he repeated. "Kick them out of bed, give them some corny song-and-dance about a broken heart, and damned if they don't come crawling back asking you to wipe your feet on them. Do you know you've practically ruined a potentially good agent for me?"

I said, "You've got it backwards, haven't you? I didn't ruin her; that's just what she's griping about." I laughed shortly. "You mean the little screwball actually meant all that love-guff she was handing me out there in the surf? Hell, if I'd known that, I'd have played Romeo to her Juliet just to spite you. I thought she was feeding me a line, and a pretty corny one at that."

"I know. She told me. Well, I should have known better than to use a female on you, particularly a young and impressionable one. She won't bother you again."

"That just leaves the older one," I said. "I guess she'll be harder to impress, but I'll give it a whirl."

He was frowning. "The older… oh, you mean the McLain?"

I grinned. "Monk, this is Eric, old pal, old pal. Don't pull that blank-faced act on me. Hell, I know the routine as well as you do. You put a tail on me I'm supposed to spot. Then you have a pretty girl make a play for me. When I see through her, too, I get to feeling real smart; I think I've got you all figured out. I accept agent number three as a genuine lady tourist, particularly when she acts as if she doesn't give a damn about me. And most particularly after your boys work her over a bit on some feeble excuse and give her a nice little careful nick in the scalp that bleeds very convincingly. Obviously no attractive woman would allow herself to be messily wounded just to prove she's got nothing to do with you. Obviously. It's only been done a couple of hundred times that I know about."

Monk shrugged. "Think what you please. As a matter of fact, I know nothing about the woman, but if you want to think she's mine, go right ahead."

"Sure," I said, wondering if he could possibly be telling the truth. "Sure."

Monk said in a different tone, "Well, it's been a long time, Eric. Remember the Hofbaden job?"

"I remember," I said.

We stood there facing each other. He had me at a slight disadvantage: he had shoes on. My beach sandals were useless for offense or defense, and bare toes are very vulnerable. In addition to the shoes, he was wearing the usual Hawaiian costume of light pants and a bright, short-sleeved sport shirt. I couldn't spot any weapons, but there undoubtedly were some.

I'd forgotten how massive his shoulders were, and I'd forgotten just how oddly his rather squat, powerful body went with his long, sensitive face, crisp dark hair, and brilliant blue eyes. There was nothing wrong with him physically, I knew, but he gave an impression of deformity nevertheless. He seemed to have been made of parts in-tended for several different men.

"You're in good shape, Eric," he said softly. "Got a nice tan."

"Thanks. You don't seem to be falling apart much yourself."

"So you're here to take care of me." He said it very casually.

I let myself look mildly surprised. "Hell, I'm here on leave, you know that. Well, let's be polite and call it leave. Disciplinary leave. Suspension is the official term. And if I'd known you were here, I'd have picked somewhere else to sweat it out. But now I'm here, if I have to take care of you to get a little peace and quiet, I guess I can spare the time. You're starting to bother me, anugo. Lay off."

Monk smiled thinly. "And if I don't?"

I grinned at him cheerfully. "Go to hell. What do you want me to do, flex my muscles at you? I'm giving you fair warning. If you want to have your creeps follow me around at a discreet distance to comply with the official directives, okay. But keep them out of my hair."

He said, "You talk too much. Here, and in Washington, too, apparently. You didn't use to run off at the mouth, Eric."

"Make up your mind," I said. "Last time we conversed, over the phone, you said I always talked too much. I saw a piece about a guy named Naguki in the papers the next day. Yesterday. Seems he fell off a cliff in his.car. Or was pushed. What was that all about?"

He shook his head. "Never mind. Maybe I made a mistake calling you on it. Maybe."

I said, "As for Washington, I made my mistake there, as you know, but it won't happen again. You're not going to get a damn thing on me, Monk, much as you'd love to. So just don't waste time trying."

"I think you're faking," he said. "You always were teacher's pet. He wouldn't really slap down his prize pupil like this, not unless he were trying to fool somebody. It smells phony to me."

"For whom am I faking what?" I asked. "For you? What's the matter, have you got a guilty conscience? This mysterious Naguki business and all?" I studied him thoughtfully. "By God, you have! You really think I might have been sent to check up on you! Why? What have you been doing out here you shouldn't?" I laughed aloud. "Well, that makes us even, amigo. You lay off me, or I will get to work and find out why you're running scared. Now get the hell out of here and let me rinse the salt off the body."

His blue eyes regarded me coldly. "You don't fool me, Enc. You don't fool me at all. You never did."

I grinned. "Friend, I never tried to. I merely told you what I wanted and made you like it. And now I'm telling you again. You know and I know and Washington knows that I'm clean. What difference does it make whether or not I approve of what's going on in Asia or anywhere else? Hell, I've killed men for policies I didn't like before now, and I probably will again. That's the way this business works, and everybody knows it. So I tell you again, don't waste everybody's time trying to pin something on me, because there's nothing to pin and because you don't want to annoy me. Do you, Monk? I get awfully damn peevish when I'm annoyed by people who don't do what I tell them. Remember, Monk?"

He remembered, all right. I'd managed to break through to him at last, although I'd had to talk like a boastful jerk to do it. I saw his eyes narrow and his muscles tense, and I figured the first thing I'd better do was kick off those damn sandals as he came for me. But he was older than he had been the last time. He'd learned some things about control that he hadn't known then.

He just wheeled and marched out of the room, closing the door very gently behind him. But I'd got to him. If there had ever been a chance of his leaving me alone, there was none now. I had him sewed up. Well, in a manner of speaking, like the cowboy who lassoed the bear.

I glanced at my watch. It was still early, and I had nothing to do until lunch, which reminded me of Isobel McLain, who'd been asking questions about me, who'd wanted to meet me, and who'd asked me to be sure to bring my gun along on our date because she'd never had lunch with a man with a gun.

I got the weapon out and looked at it. Normally I don't believe in playing games with firearms. Guns are for shooting people or animals, or targets if you have nothing better to do and need the practice. They should be reserved for those purposes only. Play games with knives, if you like, play them with swords or spears or clubs, but leave the damn firearms strictly to the uses for which they were designed, because if you try to be tricky they'll louse you up every time, and somebody'll wind up dead regardless. It might even be you.

That's the principle as it's drilled into us in training, and it's a good one. On the other hand, the woman had given me a clear warning and I'd have been a fool to ignore it. I therefore got out my little tool kit and, being very careful not to leave marks, pulled the bullets out of five cartridges, poured the powder into the john, and flushed it out of sight. Then I stuck the lead bullets back into the empty brass cartridge cases, and reloaded the snub-nosed revolver, now relatively harmless.

I say relatively, because the cases were still primed, and I didn't know how far the explosion of a primer alone, in a powderless case, would kick a pistol bullet. In a long-barreled weapon I'd have been fairly sure the projectile wouldn't even make it all the way to the muzzle against the friction of the rifling, but with a short-barreled gun like this I wasn't sure.

However, if it were now turned against me somehow, it probably wouldn't kill me. And probably I was doing a lovely lady a terrible injustice, and maybe I'd wind up needing the gun with real loads in it and die because, on suspicion, I'd got too clever and armed myself with a weapon that wouldn't shoot…

After getting showered, shaved, dressed, and breakfasted, I spent the rest of the morning studying maps and thinking hard and telling myself firmly I wasn't really responsible for the safety of a girl called Jill, who looked just a little like a girl called Claire, whose safety I hadn't been responsible for either.