The Poisoners

xxv

The next time I woke up, I was outdoors. Even before opening my eyes, I knew I was lying on the ground in broad daylight, breathing warm fresh air that was untainted with truck exhaust fumes but carried instead, strangely, a smell of fresh paint or lacquer. Somebody was hammering on metal not far away.

A shadow passed over my face. I opened my eyes and saw Mr. Soo leaning over me, whatever his real name might be. I probably couldn't have spelled it, or pronounced it correctly, even if I'd known it. Behind him stood Bobbie Prince, whatever her real name might be.

"You wake up now, Mr. Helm," said Mr. Soo, straightening up. As Jake had suggested, the unfamiliar moustache did make him look like Charlie Chan, or more accurately, like the movie actor-a non-Asiatic name as I recall-who used to play Charlie Chan. He said, "Very good. Now we talk."

My hands and feet were still tied. Nobody'd given me back my knife and gun. I managed to sit up awkwardly, feeling kind of doped and vague, which was no way to feel if I was going to match wits with the Chinaman.

Looking around, I saw that we were in a narrow canyon with sheer walls, the kind of abruptly eroded cleft that's fairly common in the dry southwest.

If I'd been a geologist, I could probably have made a fairly good guess at my location, using the exposed, colorful strata as a guide. If I'd been a botanist, I could have figured the approximate area by the cacti and stuff growing around us. As it was, I just had a feeling that I was somewhere in southern Arizona or New Mexico. My watch said that it was still early in the day; we hadn't had time enough to get to Texas. In any case, I was reasonably certain we weren't heading there, or back to California, either.

Willy's white Jeepster was parked nearby, along with Charlotte Devlin's big blue station wagon. The vehicle, and its trailer hitch, reminded me of the tall, tailored girl with the clipped chestnut hair who'd said she liked horses and riding. She'd also warned me not to louse up her operation for her, but apparently it had got loused up anyway, if Bobbie's information was correct. Well, we were sorry about that.

There was no sign of the six-wheeled van that had brought me here-me, and the science-fiction gadget dreamed up by Dr. Osbert Sorenson, deceased. I wondered what had happened to the crazy catalytic generator. Then, glancing in the direction from which the hammering noise was coming, I realized that I was looking straight at it.

It was another truck, a gleaming white job. A couple of men were working under it. Another man was waiting for them to stop pounding so he could continue lettering a name on the door. He'd already got it on the cylindrical, white-painted, horizontal tank that formed the afterbody of the vehicle: ARDOX BUTANE. Somehow the cylinder looked smaller like that, in daylight, than it had looked being wrestled ashore in the dark.

"Clever," I said.

Mr. Soo followed the direction of my glance. "You approve, Mr. Helm?"

I said, "Very slick. Anywhere it goes, out in the boon-docks, it'll just be another gas truck chasing out to fill some rancher's tank. It'll be practically invisible. Nobody'll look at it twice."

"That is my hope," the Chinaman said. "I am glad you agree. Mobility is essential, you understand."

"Sure," I said. "Because of the wind. A ship was ideal, you could move it anywhere there was water, but on land you've got to have wheels, and hope there's a lonely road somewhere upwind of the place you want to cover with your poison."

"Catalyst, please, Mr. Helm. You supply your own poison, we merely activate it. You'll be happy to know that the Los Angeles experiment was a great success, considering that this is merely a small pilot model of the generator."

"Sure," I said. "But just like a gas attack, you're at the mercy of the weather."

"That is true, of course. Even though we know generally prevailing wind direction, the most favorable location changes from day to day, so permanent installation is impossible. Of course, this also makes it less easy for your people to find us, even when they realize what they are looking for. But we do have permanent headquarters in general area to store necessary chemicals and fuels-but you know that, Mr. Helm."

"Do I?"

Mr. Soo shook his head impatiently. "To pretend ignorance is stupid. Refuse to speak, if you wish, but do not pretend, please! That is an insult to my intelligence."

I looked at him for a moment, and then I glanced at Bobbie Prince, now sitting on a nearby rock with her sneakered feet dangling. She'd combed the snarls out of her hair, but she still looked like a tall skinny blond kid after a dusty game of sandlot football. Well, it had been a rough night for everybody, and I fell somewhat short of sartorial perfection myself.

I said to Soo, "Just what makes your damn. intelligence think I know anything about your headquarters?"

He laughed. "Please, Mr. Helm, give us credit. When you made sudden appearance in Los Angeles… Well, sir, you have given trouble in the past. I have respect for your capabilities; once they saved my life. Naturally, I made investigation to learn what activities had preceded your visit to the Coast. It seemed at first as if your presence was coincidental, caused merely by stupid and unnecessary killing of one of your people…"

"What was stupid and unnecessary about it?" That was Willy's voice; the man seemed to make a habit of barging in on conversations. I heard his footsteps behind me. "That redheaded agent of his had us pegged, Beverly and me. She had to be silenced, didn't she?"

He came forward into my field of vision and stopped beside Bobbie. He was wearing the same gray work-shirt-and-pants outfit in which I'd first seen him; at least it was creased and grimy enough to be the same one. Except for Mr. Soo, who seemed to shed dust and wrinkles, we were not a prepossessing outfit. Willy needed a shave, and his small blue eyes were bloodshot in his lumpy, coarse-skinned face. He didn't look like a man who was a top agent, but then top agents aren't supposed to.

"Didn't she?" he repeated angrily. "What were we supposed to do with her, keep her for a pet?"

"Something could have been worked out, with a little thought," the Chinaman said smoothly. "When hunting the antelope, does one throw rocks at the tiger? We had simple scientific test to perform. Unfortunately, Mr. Warfel's connections involved us in syndicate displeasure, and Mr. Warfel was essential to the operation, so that could not be helped. But it was not essential to attract attention of government bureau specializing in violence by shooting personnel thereof. That could have been avoided."

"Tell me how. Anyway, I didn't shoot the girl; Beverly did."

"So you say, Mr. Hansen." Apparently the Chinaman was willing to use the cover name under which Nicholas had established himself locally; but I had not heard him refer to the code name assigned to the man by an agency of another country. I had a hunch that we'd have no more trouble with Santa Claus, which didn't mean that Willy wouldn't be a menace under other aliases, with Mr. Soo to guide him. "So you say," the Chinaman repeated. "But does Mr. Helm believe you?"

I said, "Oh, I believe him, all right. It took somebody two shots to put down Annette O'Leary-two shots at pointblank range with a.44 Magnum, for God's sake! Even then our girl almost survived. Obviously, neither bullet went where it should have. I give Willy credit for being a better marksman than that. That's the kind of nervous, flinchy shooting you'd expect of a little girl using a big pistol that scares hell out of her although she'd never admit it; a pistol she's carrying only because it's part of her cover as Nicholas. That's why Beverly took poison, because she had committed the murder; and that's why I let her. But I'm still under orders to find the man who set her up to take the rap, the man who gave her the murder orders so he could keep his own hands clean, technically speaking."

"Well, you've found him," Willy said harshly. "What are you going to do about it?"

Usually, there's nothing sillier than, when you're a prisoner, provoking your captors by telling them all the terrible things you're going to do to them, by way of retaliation, at some future date. That's the sort of gaudy rhetoric in which movie stars are made to indulge in order to show the audience what brave Hollywood heroes they are. In real life you generally try not to make your jailers any madder at you than they already are.

In this case, however, I had a reason for drawing Willy's ire down upon me, and I said bombastically, "Why, you murdering bastard, I'm going to kill you according to instructions, sooner or later."

Willy laughed and, stepping forward, swung an oversized hand at my face, knocking me fiat. Then he kicked me hard in the hip and laughed again.

"Well, you'd better make it sooner, Helm, because you won't be around much later!"

"That's enough, Willy." Mr. Soo stepped forward.

"All right, all right. I can wait. Just don't make me wait too long."

"You will wait as long as I say." The Chinaman's voice was quite soft. "You will wait forever if I say so."

"Maybe." Willy's voice was harsh. "And then again, maybe not. I'm doing a job for you, Soo. You need me. Okay, so throw the dog a bone for being a good doggie. That's the bone I want, right there. I want that interfering, lucky, creep who-"

"We'll talk about it later, Mr. Hansen. If we are to take advantage of this favorable weather system, we must hurry. You had better see what progress is being made with the truck." There was a brief pause. The Chinaman was looking steadily at Willy, who made a sudden, growling sound in his throat and turned away. When he had gone out of earshot, Mr. Soo gave a short laugh. "He is not really very good dog. But even bad dogs have their uses, if they are vicious enough. It is merely matter of establishing proper control, somewhat difficult when subject has been accustomed to independence. We are still somewhat lacking in discipline, as you see, but training is proceeding well. I am pleased to have acquired Mr. Hansen; I foresee much employment for him. I thank you for the present, Mr. Helm."

"De nada," I said. "Be my guest."

He studied me narrowly for a moment, and said, "Well, sir, will you be brave and stupid or will you tell me what I need to know without, shall we say, further persuasion?"

I looked back at him, making no attempt to check the blood that trickled down my chin from a split lip-not that there was much I could have done about it with my hands tied in back. I forced myself not even to glance at the blond girl sitting on a rock in the sunshine.

She was not a pro, not in my sense of the word. At least I sincerely hoped she wasn't. Of course she'd been trained to a certain extent: she'd been taught how to behave more or less like the kind of pretty, mildly talented, young American girl who might have been drawn to Hollywood from Yuma, Arizona. Maybe she'd also been taught a little about codes and ciphers, and instructed in the various data-transmitting techniques she might have to employ; but I was betting that she'd had no instruction or experience in the arts of violence. An agent in place seldom has. As Charlotte Devlin had once put it in a different connection: Bobbie was information people, not action people.

Anyway, I hoped this was the first time she'd seen a helplessly bound man slapped and kicked around-not to mention seeing him killed. Of course, she'd intimated that she'd been through some fairly unpleasant times as a kid, before the Chinese communists selected her for this work. Maybe she was tougher and more callous than I thought. If so, I was in real trouble.

But in my favor was the fact that the man who was being knocked around-the man scheduled to die before her eyes, if Willy had his way: me -was a man who'd made love to her and bought her a pleasant dinner; a man with whom she'd walked. hand-in-hand along the shore to watch the sun set into the Pacific. Certainly no gentleman would trade on such a tender relationship; but if Mac ever caught me being gentlemanly, he'd be justified in firing me on the spot. You play the cards you're dealt, all of them, and those were mine.

So, having already planted in her mind the treasonous-from her point of view-idea I wanted her to consider, I now refrained from looking at her, lest she suspect what a calculating louse I really was. I just let the stuff drip messily on my shirt while I endured my bruises bravely…

"Well, Mr. Helm?" the Chinaman said again.

"What was the subject under discussion?" I asked. "I kind of lost track."

Mr. Soo spoke deliberately: "When first notified of your presence in Los Angeles, I assumed it was coincidental, as I have said. However, investigation soon proved this assumption untenable, Mr. Helm."

"Untenable?" I said. "Why?"

"It was determined that you had spent several weeks in New Mexico before appearing on the coast," the China-man said. "You had rented a car there and driven several thousand miles. To be sure, you had carried along fishing tackle and even employed it upon occasion, but I do not really think you were after trouts or basses. You were seeking larger fish, were you not, Mr. Helm?"

The trouble with being a pro is that sometimes you get too smart and suspicious for your own good. No professional ever permits himself to believe in coincidence; it's against his principles.

Yet coincidences do occur, even in our business, and it was becoming fairly obvious that Mr. Soo had accidentally picked, for his second test with the Sorenson generator, the one state of the fifty in which I'd once made my home, to which I occasionally returned for rest and relaxation. However, I knew I'd never be able to convince him that this was wholly coincidental, particularly since I had a hunch that at least one of my casual fishing expeditions must have taken me into the actual area in which he was operating.

This was why he'd tried to have Beverly Blame attach herself to me a second time, hoping that she could wheedle out of me just how much I'd learned about the New Mexico end of his project. The late Mr. Tillery had been quite right in thinking that I was suspected of knowing something dangerous to the opposition; his only mistake had been in thinking that I knew what it was.

Mr. Soo was still talking. "… so you see, sir, it is essential for me to determine how much you discovered, and how much you reported to superiors. At present, generator is almost completely discharged from previous test. It will require additional catalyst and fuel before we can proceed…"

"What's this fuel bit?" I asked. "That's the second time you've mentioned it."

"You are stalling," the Chinaman said. "However, I will answer question. To call it generator is, perhaps, misleading. Actually, it does not generate catalyst; that has already been produced and purified elsewhere. What so called generator does is to project this rare metallic substance into atmosphere in finely divided form so it can be carried by air currents high above earth. To provide power for dispersion, fuel is required; kerosene-type liquid such as is employed by jet engines. Catalyst is mixed with fuel, and mixture is burned under controlled conditions. I hope that is satisfactory explanation."

"Sure," I said. "So what you want to know is whether it's safe for you to visit your secret hideaway for refueling, or whether I've arranged a nice little trap for you there."

"Precisely, Mr. Helm."

I said, "I suppose it's no use insisting that I was just relaxing with a fishing rod after a hard winter's work."

"None whatever," said Mr. Soo. He held out his hand to the side, and Bobbie put into it a hypodermic syringe, not mine. The girl, and the case, seemed to be just bristling with needles. Mr. Soo said to me, "You can guess what this is."

"The old babble-juice, otherwise known as truth serum?"

"That is correct. Quite effective, but not too pleasant for the subject."

I said, "I know. And I'm already feeling like a human pincushion. I don't really need any more shots of anything, thanks." I drew a long breath, and went on: "Okay. You win. Why waste time trying to fight your damn drug? There is a trap waiting for you, Mr. Soo, so you're going to have to get your kerosene and chemicals elsewhere."

The Chinaman returned the hypo to Bobbie without taking his eyes from me. His mental processes didn't resemble mine very closely, so I didn't even try to guess what he was thinking. I just hoped my quick surrender had made him very suspicious indeed. To sell somebody a bill of goods, you should start behind a cloud of suspicion, and dispel it convincingly as you go along, making them feel guilty and apologetic for misjudging you.

"Mr. Helm," said Mr. Soo gently, "Mr. Helm, you would not be bluffing, would you? You would not be trying to keep me away from my supplies to prevent me from causing disaster to one of your cities?"

This was, of course, exactly what I was trying to do. I grinned and said, "Sure. That's exactly what I'm doing. So drive along to your hidden base and replenish your goddamn catalyst. Don't mind me, Mr. Soo. Like you say, I'm just bluffing." He stared at me coldly, unconvinced. It was time to pull one out of the magic hat, long ears, fuzzy tail, twitching nose, and all. I said, "Not that I give a damn what happens to Albuquerque, you understand. I never did like that city much; all they do is take in tourists. Now, if it was my little old home town of Santa Fe, that would be something else."

The Chinaman's bland poker face showed just the tiniest crack, the faintest hint of an expression, to tell me I'd guessed right. So far, so good.

"Of course," Mr. Soo murmured, "there are not many cities in New Mexico suitable for experiment. In fact, there is only one that has sufficient population, sufficient pollution, and is located in a suitable, smog-retaining valley… I think you are very good guesser, Mr. Helm."

I said, "Sure. So let me guess a little more. It was a tough job at first, since I wasn't told what I was looking for. You know how they are, in Washington as well as- I suppose-in Peking. They never tell you anything you need to know. They just gave me some snapshots and descriptions and said these characters are up to something nasty, unspecified, in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and/or Texas. We've got the other states covered, they said; you know New Mexico, start looking. Those were my instructions."

"A big order. But you filled it successfully?"

"Not at first," I said. "All I could do at first was move around at random, pretending to fish and keeping my eyes open, looking for a familiar face from the photographs, or some off-color activities. It wasn't until I got a little more information, like a description of your smog machine and its purpose, that I realized I was wasting my time in the northern half of New Mexico. As you say, Albuquerque is the only really likely target in the state, and it's just about in the middle. The prevailing winds are from the southwest. That means you'd probably want to work your gadget somewhere down south in the Rio Grande valley, to have your stuff blow the right way." Mr. Soo's face gave me no help now. I gambled on the fact that there was only one place down the river that I'd done any fishing during those weeks; only one place south of Albuquerque where I could have been recognized by somebody alert for snoopers. I said, "Well, that narrowed it down some, but it still took a lot of scurrying around before I managed to spot one of your people and tail him out into the Jornada del Muerte country."

"What country?" The Chinaman laughed. He looked relieved. "Oh, Mr. Helm, you are very good, very good indeed, you almost had me convinced, but you are still guessing and guessing wrong. I do not know what this Hornada is, but I can assure you it is not the place-"

"Spelled with a 'J', amigo," I said calmly. "You may not have heard the area called that. It's not a name strangers generally know, unless they've studied some history or examined the fine print on the map. It's the old trail east of the Rio Grande past what is now Elephant Butte Reservoir and a town with the silly name of Truth or Consequences-they took the name of a radio show for some reason-formerly Hot Springs, New Mexico."

Something changed in Mr. Soo's eyes. He said softly, "Truth or Consequences. That is indeed an odd name for a town. Go on, Mr. Helm."

"The present highway runs west of the river and is easy driving," I said, "but the old trail through the desert to the east was a real hot and thirsty man-killer, which is why they called it the Journey of Death. As for your boy, the one I tailed-" I paused. This was where I really had to stick my neck out with some wild guesses, but the Chinaman gave me no help.

"Yes, Mr. Helm?"

I said confidently, I hoped: "I tailed him from T or C, as we New Mexicans call the town, across the dam, and east to a village called Engle where the pavement ends. There are some dirt roads going back into the boondocks where the old trail used to be. Otherwise there's nothing much on that side of the river except a government installation of some kind and a lot of empty, arid real estate. And there's no good way out of there except the one paved road through Engle. I figured I'd learned enough. I didn't want to be spotted snooping around those empty back roads. With that much to go on, the search planes and helicopters could pinpoint the location cautiously-and when I reached Los Angeles, later, I got word that they had."

It was, as I've said, a gamble, based on my knowledge of the area and the fact that somebody must have seen me hanging around the town or fishing the reservoir- else why would Mr. Soo suspect me, erroneously, of knowing so much? Well, if a man had seen me there, I could presumably have seen him, and followed him.

Of course, my logic wasn't airtight by any means. Maybe they'd avoided using the obvious route into the area; maybe they'd gone in across country by jeep. And maybe I'd even picked the wrong side of the river. There was plenty of rough, uninhabited country to the west in which you could also hide a few men and supplies. But if you really wanted privacy, you'd be apt to choose the spectacularly desolate region I'd described, even though it might not always be directly upwind of the chosen target area.

"Engle, New Mexico," Mr. Soo murmured.

"That's the place. Just a couple of shacks and some railroad cars. Am I getting warm?"

"Warm?"

"Sorry. It's a kid's game we play in this country."

"Ah, yes, I remember now." He sighed. "Yes, you are very warm, Mr. Helm. It is unfortunate. It will involve a drastic change of plan-"

"He's lying!" It was Bobbie Prince. She was on her feet glaring at me. "He's just guessing. He is bluffing, Mr. Soo!"

"What makes you think so?"

Bobbie licked her lips. "He says he figured out where to look after he learned about the Sorenson generator. He claims he was told about it several days ago, in plenty of time for him to snoop around this T or C place, but he's lying! He didn't know anything about the generator until last night!"

Mr. Soo was frowning. "Are you sure of that, Miss Prince?"

"Of course I'm sure! I was lying right beside him when they brought it ashore. He had no idea what it was until I told him. Even then he didn't know what it did, not until I explained it to him hours later. He'd never heard of such a thing before. in fact, he laughed at the idea at first. He wasn't acting, I know he wasn't!"

Well, it had been a good try; arid after all, while I'll make a stab at it if I have the chance, keeping the atmosphere of our cities pure isn't really my job. At least I'd learned where I stood with respect to Miss Roberta Prince.

At the moment, needing her help as badly as I did, I couldn't feel it was a very healthy place to be standing – particularly since Willy was coming back this way briskly, presumably to report that the truck was ready to roll.