The Interlopers

6

THE ADDRESS I'D BEEN GIVEN FOR the afternoon rendezvous, to be used if the morning contact should fail for any reason, was out at the edge of the town's business district, in the middle of an incompletely developed block containing several vacant lots. Diagonally down the street from a convenient corner drugstore- well, convenient for me-it stood by itself: a flat-roofed one-story building that wasn't very wide across the front, but ran back some distance from the street. There was a neat sign above the door:

PASCO ANIMAL CLINIC ARTHUR WATTS, D.V.M. OFFICE HOURS 9:00-5:00 (Weekdays) 8:30-12:00 (Saturdays)

I couldn't actually read the sign from the drugstore telephone booth in which I waited, but I'd got a good look at it, driving past. As I watched through the front window of the drugstore, a big yellow Cadillac convertible with California plates drew up in front of the building. A dark-haired woman with a figure that was youthful but not really young, if you know what I mean, got out deliberately.

It was quite a production. She was wearing a yellow silk pantsuit-tailored jacket and slim trousers-plus yellow sandals and a white blouse with a million ruffles. At least that was the impression I got from a distance. A white froth of lace encircled her neck, spilled down her bosom, and dripped from her wrists. It was quite a tourist costume to spring on a backward little town like Pasco; or any town for that matter.

She walked around to open the curb door of the Cadillac and brought out a big, gray poodle, clipped and brushed to perfection. They disappeared into the veterinarian's office together.

"Yes, sir," I said into the phone. "It was a big disappointment. No Holz."

"There was no reason for you to expect him, Eric." Mac's voice lost no crispness traveling three thousand miles from Washington, D. C. "Not yet. Who was the man you shot?"

"Just a fuzzy-faced punk with a fancy rifle. He's not in our files, I'm pretty sure. Oregon driver's license issued to Michael P. Bird."

"Bird?"

"Like with feathers." I said. "He was using a heavy Douglas barrel on one of the good Mauser actions with a custom stock. Mesquite or some such light wood with caps and inlays of horn or dark plastic. A three-to-nine power variable scope cranked up to maximum magnification. I guess he wanted to see which button of my shirt he was going to perforate."

Mac's voice was dry: "The young man seems to have gone to a lot of trouble with his murder weapon."

"I doubt that it was originally designed as a murder weapon, sir," I said. "With its small caliber and that big telescopic sight, it's the kind of outfit you'd have made up for varmint-shooting, as they call it: accurate long-range popping at nuisance rodents like groundhogs and prairie dogs. It's a hobby with some people, and most farmers and ranchers are all for getting rid of the little pests and the holes they dig. Our lad just switched to a heavy big-game bullet instead of the light varmint type. So loaded, he could take anything up to deer easily, not to mention man. Hell, a.243 is considered heavy artillery these days. They've been using a lousy little twenty-two in Vietnam."

"Very well, Eric. What about the girl?"

"You have the description and the name she's going under and the car she's driving. Mr. Smith's boys have been checking her out, but I should have known all about her from the start-all I needed to know, anyway. Any girl who has an automatic transmission handle masquerading as a sports-car gearshift lever, and stick-on hubcaps pretending to be instant wire wheels, is bound to be kind of a fake herself."

"Still, it seems her trap didn't catch you totally by surprise."

"I can't take the credit for that, sir," I admitted. "She had me pretty well convinced she was on the level; she's a very convincing young lady. If the pup hadn't tipped me off, I'd probably have walked right into it."

"You haven't made it clear just how he tipped you off."

I said, "Why, he's a retriever, sir. A good nose is part of the package. Also he's a male dog; a little young but very definitely masculine. And still he sat there calmly grinning at me within three feet of an enclosure that was supposed to have held a bitch in heat! Discipline or no discipline, if there'd recently been a receptive lady dog in that kennel, he'd have made some kind of an attempt to investigate those fascinating female smells, wouldn't he? When he took off with me into the brush without even a sniff in that direction, I knew our Pat was lying like hell."

Pausing, I grimaced at the Cadillac half a block away, wondering if it had anything to do with my problems. I hoped not. One woman in pants was plenty for one assignment.

When Mac didn't speak, I said into the phone: "Well, it's too bad the girl didn't return to the scene of her unsuccessful crime. I'd like to ask her a few questions, and doing it over her partner's dead body might have given me a certain psychological advantage. I waited up there to the last minute that would still let me down here with a little time to spare, but she didn't show."

"And the man? He said nothing useful before he died?"

"No, sir. The bullet got the spine; death was instantaneous. Just plain dumb luck with a pistol at that range.

Good or bad depending on the point of view. Something will have to be done about him fairly soon or I'll have cops coming out my ears."

"That is, of course, if we decide it's worth our while to have you stay and continue with the job according to plan-according to Mr. Smith's plan. But this girl and her marksman friend are turning into a serious complication. Apparently we're dealing with a gang of interlopers playing a game of their own; a gang that first shot the real Communist courier and then tried to murder you for taking his place. The question is

"Just a moment, sir," I interrupted. "Just one moment. I believe the answer to your question is coming up the street."

I stood in the booth, strategically located at the front of the drugstore, and looking slantingly out through the big window, I watched myself approach. Or maybe I should say I watched Grant Nystrom approach, complete with dog and whistle and cowboy boots. At least, a tall man, in high-heeled footgear that made him seem even taller, was heading for the animal clinic, accompanied by a black Labrador on a leash.

The man was younger than Grant Nystrom had been, by about the same amount that I was older, but he was the right, tanned, lanky outdoors type. The dog, I was interested to note, was a better impostor than my Hank in some respects. He was taller and rangier, more nearly the size and conformation of the dead dog.

On the other hand, he was not a very good Labrador. His coat was a little too rough and shaggy for one thing, and his tail was too pretty; a great, waving black plume. A good Lab should have a smooth coat and kind of an otter tail. Don't ask me why; that's what it says in the breed specifications. Furthermore, the stranger's dog wasn't particularly well trained. Even on leash, he didn't walk properly at heel, but surged ahead, half dragging his master along the sidewalk.

"Eric?"

"Yes, sir," I said softly. "A man calling himself Grant Nystrom is just going into the vet's office, sir, accompanied by a black Labrador retriever he calls Prince Hannibal of Holgate. At least I'd be very much surprised if those weren't the names he was using."

The telephone was silent for a second or two; then Mac spoke quietly: "Indeed. So now we know the game they're playing."

"Yes, sir. The same one that we're playing or trying to play. Obviously Mr. Smith wasn't the only one to think of having somebody take Nystrom's place. Only these kids, or somebody doing their thinking for them, thought of it first and killed the guy to do it. Mr. Smith's agent interrupted them before they could dispose of the bodies properly, human and canine. When there was no publicity about the murder, no public report of Nystrom's death, they gambled on being able to carry out their impersonation regardless. And then, when they found me here ahead of them-a second Grant Nystrom-they tried to put me out of the way, too, so that their Nystrom Number Three could move in to make the pickup."

I paused. Mac's voice said something in my ear, but I wasn't listening. A short, rather plump man in a business suit was approaching the clinic, carrying a brown glass screw-top jar. I recognized him at once, although he'd been dressed more roughly when I'd seen him last.

I spoke into the phone: "More fun and frolic, sir. Here comes the other party to the rendezvous. At least, it's one of the fisherman I saw on the beach this morning. It could be coincidence, his coming here at just this time, but it doesn't seem likely."

"No." Mac's voice was thoughtful. "If you saw him, he presumably saw you."

"Yes, sir."

"Then, when he sees the tall individual inside the clinic, he will know it's not the same man. Or the same dog. He will know there are two Grant Nystroms competing for the information he is about to deliver."

"Yes, sir."

"If your Miss Bellman is in charge of the independent operation that conflicts with ours, she should have anticipated this."

"Not necessarily," I said. "I didn't know those other fisherman had anything to do with the job; probably Pat Bellman didn't either. It's apparently a favorite fishing spot for a lot of local people. What probably happened is that Bellman and her impostor arrived at the river just a little late and found me there ahead of them. She had to think fast. Obviously there was no sense in putting two phony Nystroms on the beach; that way neither of us would get anything. The only thing she could do was pray that the other party to the morning contact simply wouldn't show up, giving her a chance to make friends with me and get rid of me before the afternoon appointment."

"It was a long gamble to take," Mac said.

"What else could she do?" I asked. "Sure, she knew the two guys with the station wagon might be the people for whom we were waiting, the people with the stolen information. In that case they'd seen me and my dog and she was out of luck. But as long as there was a faint possibility that they were just innocent fisherman, and that the real contact had overslept or had a flat tire, she had to act on it. Hell, her impostor and dog were ready, she'd come a long way to use them, she might as well shove them into the action and hope for the best. Even if it meant having me and Hank murdered to give them a clear field."

"I doubt that killing a dog is murder in the eyes of the law, Eric."

"Sure," I said. "Sometimes I get the impression that killing an agent is just a minor misdemeanor. But then, there's a theory to the effect that we're not quite human, either."

He ignored this. "Can you stop the man, Eric?" he asked.

"Are you sure I should, sir? Suppose he does go in and learns that there are two Grant Nystroms; he still won't know which is the right one. But he'll most likely assume that one of us is. It probably won't occur to him that both of us are phonies. With a little luck, I can work it for me instead of against me."

"What do you have in mind?"

I said, "Suppose I take a crack at selling myself as Nystrom Number One, the real thing, victimized by these other characters who're trying to impersonate me. We've got a little time. The guy isn't going to pass the stuff over yet, whatever it is; not until he gets us sorted out."

Mac thought it over for a moment. "Use your judgment. Maybe it's worth a try. But before you hang up: do you still want me to take care of the body and the rifle you left out at that ranch?"

"Not yet, sir. Hold off for a little. I may need that death scene, undisturbed, to corroborate the story I'm going to tell… Well, he's inside. Here I go. Eric, signing off."

I hung up and slipped out of the drugstore and around the corner. I made a circle of the block, back in the direction from which the last man had come. It didn't take me long to find what I was looking for: a white Plymouth station wagon that had seen better days. It seemed to be empty.

There was nothing to be gained by being tricky. I just walked up to the car, opened the right front door, and got in. I didn't have long to wait. A shadow moved at the edge of my field of vision, outside the car. A gun barrel touched the side of my head through the open window.

"Don't move," said a man's voice. That would be the second fisherman of the morning.

"Cut it out," I said without turning my head. "You know who I am. You saw me at the river less than ten hours ago."

"Maybe I saw you. That doesn't mean I know who you are." There was a pause. "If you are who you're supposed to be, you should be in that office down the block."

"Yes, sir," I said. "At four-thirty sharp. But the damn office was getting crowded. I figured two gents six-feet-four with black dogs would be overdoing it." The man with the gun didn't speak or move. I went on angrily: "What the hell is going on around this town of yours, anyway? I burn up the roads getting here to make contact on a certain hour of a certain day and nobody shows up with the right words, just a female making ga-ga noises about my pretty dog-a female who sets me up for murder. I manage to get out of that and head for the alternate rendezvous and damned if a double doesn't show up complete with pooch… I hope your pal has eyes in his head and doesn't slip anything to the wrong person just because the guy is towing a mutt behind him."

"Mr. Stottman knows what he's doing."

"Well, I'm glad somebody does, because by this time I sure as hell don't. And neither do you, or you wouldn't be waving guns at me. Do you have to keep massaging my scalp with that thing?"

"We'll wait," said the man, getting into the back seat cautiously. "We'll wait until Mr. Stottman gets back here. He'll know what to do with you."

Neither his voice and words, nor the gun at my head, were particularly reassuring. We waited. Presently the plump man came out of the clinic, carrying the same or another brown glass bottle containing, presumably, some kind of dog medicine. He looked our way, hesitated at the sight of two men in the car, dropped his right hand casually into his coat pocket, and walked deliberately toward us.