The Intriguers

XVIII.

As I dragged the stocky, unconscious body from under the wheel and propped it up more or less securely in the front passenger seat, headlights pulled up behind us, a car door opened, and footsteps hurried towards me. I didn't bother to turn my head. I knew who it was even before I heard the indignant feminine gasp.

"You promised!" Martha Borden's voice said accusingly. "You gave me your word you'd do your best to save his life!"

I said, "He's alive. Put a stethoscope on him if you like. You'll find his heart beating like a metronome." I got him where I wanted him and closed the door, straightening up outside the car and turning to look at her. "You're a funny girl, Borden," I said. "You weep for the whole human race, but you seem to be just yearning to spend the rest of your days with the death of a ten-year-old boy on your conscience."

"What do you mean?"

"Carl has undoubtedly sworn to wipe his hostage off the face of the earth if his instructions aren't followed," I said, "meaning, among other things, if the sheriff doesn't proceed to, and arrive at, the rendezvous alone."

"Then what are you doing-"

"I don't count," I said. "He knows me. He knows I don't take orders from hick sheriffs. If he sees me, he'll know it's no plan of Rullington's. He'll know I'm there strictly on my own. He may talk to me or he may just shoot me, but he won't take it out on the kid because what would be the point? What happens to Ricky Rullington means very little to me; he's not my kid; and I don't weep for the whole human race."

"You don't have to tell me that!" she said sharply.

"I don't have to tell Carl that, either," I said. "I'm just pointing out the reasons I can move in without endangering the boy's life. But if strange cars are lurking in the shadows with strange people in them-he doesn't know you-he'll think Rullington is pulling a fast one. He'll use his wire noose on sonny, figuring he can't get at daddy safely, and he'll fade out and never set foot in Oklahoma again."

Martha shivered. Then she looked up sharply. "How do you always know exactly what Carl is going to do and feel?"

I said, "It's simple. I just figure out what I'd do and feel in his place, that's all."

She licked her lips. "But that makes you as crazy as he is!"

"Let's hope so," I said. "If I'm far off, some people are going to die tonight, maybe even us." 1 regarded her bleakly in the glare of the Chevy's headlights. "I can't trust you, can I? Nothing I say gets through. You still think this is amateur night on the prairie, don't you?"

She said stiffly, "The trouble is, Mr. Helm, that I can't trust you! You've used me to get you here. I'm involved. I rented the car. I did the driving. I've got to see that I haven't been made accessory to a murder, don't I?"

I said, "Of course, I've got just about one full dose left for my little needle. I could put you to sleep." I grinned as she took a step backwards. "Relax," I said. "I can't leave you here by the side of the road; I don't know who might find you. And I haven't got time to waste hiding you properly, so… okay."

"Okay, what?"

"We'll play it straight, and I mean straight. Don't try to be clever. Don't even think. Just get back in that heap and come along with me, but this time make no effort to be invisible. In fact, I want you riding my rear bumper all the way. Don't get more than a couple of car-lengths back under any circumstances. Headlights on at all times. When I stop, pull up alongside as if you had an engraved invitation to the party. Everything straightforward and out in the open, nothing sneaky or devious. Do you read me, I hope?"

"I… I don't understand, Matt. How are you going to catch him like that?"

"You don't catch a guy like Carl, doll. You don't even try, unless you like to see a lot of blood spilled in a hurry, maybe even your own. You either kill him, if you can, or you…

"Or you what?"

"Or you let him catch you. Let's go."

Budville was a larger town than the sheriff had indicated by about fifty percent. There were not only the filling station and the two-story general store-both dark at this hour-but there was also a big barn or shed off the road a little ways, a quarter-mile to the east. There was a gate in the barbed wire fence open. Whether or not it was the place specified for the rendezvous, it was the only place I could see that was suitable for the act I had to put on, so I turned in.

The sheriff had indicated that the approach had to be made in a certain manner, but I didn't worry about that. The whole performance was going to come off a little differently from the way Carl had planned it. I was counting on the fact that he wasn't an amateur who'd go off half-cocked. Of course, there was always the possibility that he'd really flipped his wig brooding about his dead daughter, which could make things awkward. He'd never been a particularly well-balanced character-as if any of us are in this business.

I drove the cop car, which worked like any other car, along the rutted track to the barn which was decorated with a tremendous faded advertisement for some kind of chewing tobacco. The other car followed me closely. I swung around behind the big building and parked among the weeds, headlights aimed at the weathered door. Martha pulled up beside me according to instructions. She got out, and I heard her draw an annoyed breath.

"Damn!"

"What's the matter?"

"I just ruined a perfectly good pair of pantyhose in these damned weeds."

"Jeez," I said, "that's terrible! A whole two dollars and ninety-nine cents or whatever it is, shot plumb to hell! Maybe we'd better just go home and let the boy die rather than make such dreadful sacrifices."

"You're not very funny," she said stiffly. "Where do you suppose he is?"

"Cart? Don't worry about Carl. He's around. Give me a hand here." I was dragging Rullington out of his car. "Grab the feet," I said as Martha came up.

"Where…

"Over against the barn door there, right in the limelight, so Carl can see what kind of a present we've brought him… That's fine. Let him down easy, and watch out for that cow turd unless you like wiping it off your shoes."

She sidestepped and glared at me accusingly. "You're going to let Carl have him! But you promised-"

"Sweetie," I said wearily, "I don't know why I bother to talk to you. You simply never listen. Sure I'm going to let Carl have him. I'm going to let Carl have all of us, just like I said… What's that? No, over there by the cars!"

She posed prettily, staring in the direction I'd indicated, and I clipped her neatly on the chin. It's not a procedure I recommend, except for the movies. It can lead to broken jaws and teeth, not to mention busted knuckles for the one who does the clipping. In this case, however, it worked fine. I didn't hurt my hand too much, and she wasn't seriously damaged, either, I determined after catching her and easing her down against the door beside the unconscious sheriff.

Then I pulled her dress down modestly, shook my head over the run in her stocking, and straightened up in the glare of the two sets of headlights. Deliberately, I took out my.38 Special, held it up, and placed it carefully on the sheriff's chest. 1 took out the folding knife I carry-Carl would remember that-displayed it the same way to whomever was lurking in the outside darkness, and laid it beside the gun. I sat down against the barn door on the far side of Martha, safely distant from the sheriff and the weapons, facing the painfully brilliant lights with my hands in plain sight on my knees. I waited. After a while he came.

"Can you hear me, Eric?" The origin of the whisper was the corner of the barn to my right.

"I hear you, Carl," I said.

"Why shouldn't I shoot you now? I warned Mac, when I resigned, what would happen if he sent anybody after me."

"No, you didn't."

"Listen, I told him plainly-"

"You told somebody plainly," I said. "You didn't tell Mac. You talked to a mimic, a fink working for a guy named Leonard, who's taken over the whole damned undercover works for sinister reasons still to be determined. The country's going to hell, the outfit you've spent most of your working life with is being blasted out of existence, the head man is in hiding if he isn't dead, and Super Secret Agent Carl is sneaking around Oklahoma with a silly wire noose playing The Mad Avenger! Nuts! Why don't you grow up and be a big boy for a change instead of moping around crying because somebody broke your pretty dolly."

There was a long, tight silence. "You take some awful chances, Eric."

"I have to deal with some awful people."

"Do you really think I'm going to believe that the guy I talked with wasn't Mac?"

"Did he say for you to 'contact' him if you changed your mind? Did he tell you things were 'presently' in a very critical state and he wished you'd reconsider? Hell, did you listen to him at all, or did you just listen to the bleeding of your lousy broken heart?"

"Damn you, Eric-"

"I've been telling people you're a pro," I sneered. "You're no goddamn pro, Carl. You're just a mushy sentimental slob who'll let your job and your country go to the dogs-well, to a bitch named Love-while you sacrifice a bunch of poor dumb country cops to the memory of your sainted offspring. Tell me just how many dead men do you think Emily would want you to pile on her grave?"

There was another long silence. "Love?" he said. It was a weight lifting, a shadow lightening. I knew I had him. "Love? Ellen Love, the she-senator from Wyoming? What's she got to do with-"

"What the hell do you care?" I was being real offensive tonight, to just about everybody. Well, it was working, wasn't it? I said harshly: "What do you care? You're Retribution, Inc. You're Vengeance, Ltd. You're the sword of destruction, the noose of Nemesis. Come on, come on. Here's victim number three, all set up and waiting for you. Break out your goddamned piano wire and do your stuff. I hear you're pretty good. You almost yanked one guy's head clean off. Give us a demonstration, Carl. I always wanted to see a top garotte-man in action…

Martha Borden stirred beside me and started to speak. I grabbed her wrist and dug my fingernails into the flesh to keep her quiet. I heard him coming. His body blocked the glare of the lights. There was something in his hands. He walked past us and stood over the unconscious form of Rullington.

"What did you give him?"

"You know what 1 gave him," I said. "He'll be out for four hours-well, say three and a half, now. You've got nothing to worry about. You've got all the time in the world."

"Shut up!"

There was still another long silence. I heard a funny little choked sound like a gasp or a sob, and a whispering metallic noise. He'd dropped the garotte into the lap of the seated sheriff, among the other weapons.

He stood there a moment longer, looking down. Then he turned without a word and strode away. Martha started to move, but I clamped down on her wrist once more, and we sat there waiting. He came back, carrying something bulky and, from the way he walked, fairly heavy. It was a child, tied and gagged. He set it down beside its father, studied the picture they made together, and leaned down and removed the gag.

"Okay, boy?"

"I… I think so."

"You'll have a bit of a wait. Your daddy's asleep. When he wakes up, he'll turn you loose and you can both go home. Don't try to get free by yourself. You can't do it, and you'll just lose a lot of skin… Eric."

"Right here."

"Grab your toys if you want them. Let's go somewhere and talk."