The Intriguers

xvii.

Neither of us spoke for a minute or two. As I caught my breath, I was glad I'd decided to use the direct approach instead of playing devious games with beautiful female decoys. Fast as it had happened, the girl would have loused it up for certain; besides, this way I got to talk to him more or less as one public servant to another.

I noted that he had his big hat on once more, but that his revolver and cartridge belt were missing. As far as I could make out in the dark, even the car had been disarmed. There were brackets that might have held a rifle and a riot gun, but they were empty.

"What's your name, Mr. Federal Government?"

His voice carried less of a cornpone accent than I'd expected of an Oklahoma lawman. it reminded me that it's always a mistake to classify people into types before you know something about them.

I said, "Well, it isn't Janssen, if that's what you're thinking."

That could be a mistake, giving him information he didn't have, but I was gambling that he'd done his homework and already determined the names of his most probable suspects. Apparently he had. Carl's name seemed to cause him no surprise. He just laughed shortly.

"It did cross my mind just now that the murdering bastard could have told me to meet him in Budville just to see if I was playing it straight, while all the time he was planning to pick me up right across the road where I wouldn't be expecting him."

"Budville," I said, keeping the elation out of my voice. My gamble had paid off handsomely. The information I'd ventured had brought back information 1 needed, for which I would have paid much more. "Budville? Where's that?"

He looked as if he regretted letting the name slip. Then he shrugged. "Hell, it's on any road map," he said. "Thirty miles east. Just a store and a gas pump by the side of the road. And I didn't say where in Budville, C-man."

"By your description, there's not much choice."

"There's a way it's to be done. No other way will work, the voice said on the phone."

"Sure."

"And if your name isn't Janssen, you're no use to me. If you know so much, you know he's got my boy, Ricky. There isn't a damn thing you can do to help and I don't want you even trying."

"Ricky?" I said. "Eric?"

"That's right. Why?"

"Never mind," I said. I was neither superstitious nor sentimental, and the fact that the missing boy's name was the same as my code name had nothing to do with anything, I told myself. "Talking about names, how did you learn Janssen's?" I asked.

"There were three obvious candidates. Two could be checked on by their local authorities. They'd been right where they were supposed to be, all the time a couple of good men were dying with wires around their necks. The third was a mysterious Washington character with a government job that seemed to involve a lot of traveling. Nobody could find out just what it was. They hit an official security wail when they tried. This man was missing. Anders Janssen." Rullington glanced my way. "One of yours?"

I nodded. "One of ours. And we want him back."

"To hell with you, Mister. He's a murderer, a kidnaper, and probably a maniac. The law has first crack at him now."

I said, "You're heading out to make a deal with this murderer and maniac, aren't you?"

"He didn't leave me much choice. If I didn't come, he said, fingers and toes and ears and… and things would start arriving in the mail. But once I get Ricky back…" He gripped his steering wheel hard. "If I ever get my hands on that sadistic sonofabitch…"

I laughed. He turned to look at me, startled and angry. I said, in a superior and condescending way, "Cut out the melodrama, Sheriff. Settle down. As far as Janssen is concerned, we're not really too much concerned about his ultimate fate-agents are expendable-but we don't want you to make a public spectacle of him. We can't afford that."

He drew a long, ragged breath. "If the bastard is yours, you ought to keep him in a cage."

"Shit," I said. "Don't tell us what we ought or oughtn't, or we'll just tell you that you oughtn't to go around shooting people's kids, Sheriff. Sometimes it makes them real mad."

He glanced at me once more and started to speak hotly but checked himself. That told me something. He wasn't really happy about that campus affair, professionally speaking, which meant that, as an undercover big shot from Washington, 1 could lean on him a bit and get away with it.

After a pause, he said without expression, "The Janssen girl was an accident."

"Sure," I said. "An accident. You and your boys fired a couple of dozen rounds at a mob less than fifty yards away, if the newspaper reports are correct. Out of that whole barrage, you got one solid bulls-eye on a legitimate target-the Dubuque kid with a brick in his hand-you got a few scratch hits, and you sent so many wild bullets flying around that you killed two innocent bystanders seventy-five and a hundred yards behind the line of scrimmage. Now, really, Sheriff, what the hell kind of marksmanship do you call that? That's not an accident, that's just plain incompetence!" I grimaced. "Janssen's a pro. He knows that things happen and people get killed. What he can't face, what's sent him off his rocker a little, is having his daughter shot that way, quite unnecessarily, by a bunch of panicky uniformed jerks who were then patted on the back by a local jury instead of having their guns and badges taken away from them and shoved up their stupid incompetent asses."

He was close to exploding, but he still managed to control himself. He said sharply, "I suppose it would have been better if we'd got two dozen dead college kids to go with those two dozen bullets!"

I sighed. "If that's supposed to be sarcasm, Sheriff, you're not reading me at all. I'm trying to give you the professional viewpoint, Janssen's viewpoint, the viewpoint of a man who knows guns. Sure it would have been better."

"You and your friend have a damn funny way of looking at things!"

I said patiently, "If you'd had a dead body to show for every bullet fired, it would have proved, at least, that you and your people knew what you were doing, whether or not it was the right thing ~o do. it would have demonstrated that you didn't shoot until you knew where your shots were going; that you weren't all just banging way blindly without knowing or caring whom you might kill. And if you'd been picking your targets the way you should, Emily Janssen wouldn't have died, or the Hollingshead boy, either." I shook my head. "Well, if your boy dies tonight, you'll have one consolation, Rullington. You'll have the satisfaction of knowing he was killed because somebody had a reason for wanting him dead, not just because some trigger-happy cop or deputy couldn't be bothered to aim his pistol properly."

There was a little silence. The car kept rolling along the dark road at a reasonable speed.

"You push hard, Mister," the sheriff murmured at last.

"You started it," I said. "You wanted us to keep our wild animals in cages. My point is, you haven't done so well with yours. Now, shall we stop making faces at each other and see what we can do to get this particular man-eater back into the zoo? How much did he ask for?"

There was another silence; then the answer came reluctantly. "Fifty grand." I didn't say anything. Rullington felt obliged to explain the size of the figure: "I sold off a big piece of my land last year. Janssen must have learned about it."

I said, "He doesn't give a damn about your money. One grand or a hundred, it means the same to him: nothing. You know that."

The chunky man's shoulders moved almost imperceptibly under the khaki shirt. When he spoke, there was resignation in his voice. "What the hell can I do but play along with the gag?"

"Janssen will kill you," I said. "That's all he wants from you, your life."

"It's been tried before."

"If you've got a derringer up your sleeve or a knife under your shirt collar, forget it. Try to remember that you're dealing with a pro, not some kid who went joyriding in a stolen car." He said nothing, and gave nothing away. He was something of a pro himself. I said, "Suppose I could save you your money, your life, and your son's life; and give you an answer to your cop-killings…

He threw me a sharp glance. "I thought you wanted Janssen for yourself."

"I didn't say I'd give you the right answer, Sheriff."

There was another pause. I hoped I'd given it the right buildup: the arrogant, ruthless, unscrupulous government emissary prepared to stop at nothing to protect the reputation of his agency. Come to think of it, that wasn't so far off base.

Sheriff Rullington said, in a faintly wondering voice, "So you're going to frame some poor bastard-"

"This poor bastard I found on the ridge overlooking your house, with a loaded.300 Savage beside him. He's got motive and opportunity, what more do you want? His name's Hollingshead."

I didn't owe the old man anything. The fact that I'd kind of liked him meant nothing at all. I hadn't promised the colorful old character anything, not a thing.

"You're a liar," said Rullington.

I drew a long breath. I wanted to hit him. Well, I wanted to hit somebody, and the trouble was, the only really logical target was me.

"Oink, oink," I said.

Strangely, after all the heavy stuff I'd fired at him without effect, this childishness got to him. The car bucked as he hit the brakes hard.

"Now, listen, you federal sonofabitch-" I grinned. "You cops!" I said. "You can call anybody anything you want, but if somebody badmouths you it's a criminal offense. What the hell do you expect when you call a man a liar, kisses and flowers?"

After a moment, the car picked up speed once more. "Nevertheless, you're lying, Mister," Rullington said at last in more reasonable tones. "Or mistaken. I told you, I checked on all of them. Arnold Hollingshead works at a filling station in Sedgeville, Kentucky. He hasn't missed a day in the last three weeks. He's still there. My office would have been notified if he'd disappeared."

"Arnold. That must be the papa of the boy who got shot," I said. "Good enough as far as it goes, but you didn't go far enough, Sheriff. You didn't check on Grandpa, an old feuding type from the hills. Harvey Bascomb Hollingshead, 72, of Bascomb, Kentucky."

That shocked him more than anything I'd said. I saw his jaw tighten as if at a blow. "Jesus!" he breathed. "Christ, has the whole world gone crazy? Does every one of the goddamn brats have homicidal relatives? I suppose that brick-throwing Dubuque punk's got an uncle or a cousin sneaking around with a blowgun or tommyhawk or other crazy weapon!" He shook his head angrily. "If they'd just bring their kids up right, to respect law and order-"

"You tell them, Sheriff," I said. "You tell them. I don't know about Dubuque, but I do have Hollingshead. He'll make you a fine scapegoat. And once he's in jail, I guarantee, the mad strangler of Fort Adams will never strike again. You'll be a hero."

"Where are you holding the old coot?" When I grinned and didn't speak, Rullington said, "Damn it, I'm the law around here, Mister! I don't care how many federal badges you have, you can't come into my county and…

He was just making noise and he knew it. His voice trailed off. Presently he said, "Come to think of it, I didn't get a real good look at that badge. And you didn't tell me what your name was, just what it wasn't."

I passed him the fancy ID case. He switched on the dome light and examined it, slowing the car. Then he gave it back and switched off the light.

"Matthew L. Helm," he said. "What does the 'L' stand for? Never mind. I've seen better-looking credentials passed out free with breakfast cereal."

He could have been right about that. I said, "You're wasting time, Sheriff. You said thirty miles and we've come nineteen. Do you want the deal or don't you? If you do, you'd better get on your squawker and send somebody where I tell you-only first I want your word that you're going to cooperate."

He hesitated. "How are you going to pull it? How do you figure on catching Janssen without risking Ricky's life?"

I said, "Either you let me do it my way or you do it yours, which will certainly get you killed, and maybe your boy as well."

"Why should I trust you?"

"Because I want Janssen even worse than you do, and without any more dead bodies cluttering up his back trail."

He frowned thoughtfully. After a moment, he shrugged his shoulders and reached for the microphone. "Okay, it's a deal. Where do I send them?" When I told him, he made a face as if it was a joke on him that Hollingshead was hidden so close to his house, and maybe it was, but he got the message through to the other car, and hung up the mike. "Okay, now what His voice died. He was watching the rear view mirror.

"What's the matter?"

"We're being tailed. If it's Janssen, he's seen us together and we're in trouble. Ricky's in trouble."

"What kind of a car?"

"I can't… Wait a minute." We swung through a series of curves, and he said, "I can't make out for sure in the dark, but it looks like a white Chevy sedan with a woman driver."

I tried not to react, and I think I was successful, but I thought: The stupid, perverse, interfering little bitch..

"It's all right," I said easily. "She's one of ours. You didn't think I was handling this all by myself, did you?"

"Well, you'd better get ride of her before Janssen spots her. He said I was to come alone."

"Sure," I said. "Pull up and I'll go back and give her some instructions. Where the hell did those Detroit geniuses hide the door handle on this one?"

He made an impatient sound, and reached over to work the camouflaged handle that looked like an ashtray. The needle slipped through his khaki sleeve and into his forearm. I pushed the plunger home.