The Poisoners

III

There seems to be only one taxi company operating in Los Angeles proper. The relationship between this lack of competition and the fact that it took me forty-five minutes to promote a cab may be wholly coincidental, but then again, it may not.

When he finally arrived, I had the driver transport me through the foggy streets to a restaurant recommended by the motel, which turned out to be only half a dozen blocks away. That was a long enough distance, however, for me to determine, with a certain sense of relief and triumph, that I'd aroused some interest somewhere. I was being followed.

It was a rather dilapidated Ford station wagon colored a sort of faded bronze: a repaint job that hadn't weathered well. The driver seemed to be alone in the vehicle. He tailed me as far as the restaurant and continued up the boulevard out of sight while I was paying off my taxi, but I didn't think he'd go far. I had a hunch that my time of loneliness was over and I'd better get used to having company, which suited me fine.

Inside, I found the place decorated in turn-of-the century bordello style, with red leather upholstery, red wallpaper, and red shades on the lamps, which didn't throw much light. As a result, I couldn't get a good look at the people who entered after me, but it didn't really matter, since I hadn't the slightest intention of eluding my escort, no matter how large it might be. I just settled down to a pleasant dinner. Despite the thick period atmosphere, often used as a substitute for good liquor, food, and service, the martinis were fast and acceptable, and the steak was slow but excellent.

When I came out, none of the elusive Los Angeles taxis were in sight. Having no way of knowing what the chances were of catching one cruising in this part of town, I decided that walking was better anyway. I palmed the snub-nosed revolver, slipped it into my coat pocket and, keeping my hand on it, set off.

The battered bronze station wagon was right on the job. It passed me once as I strode briskly through a little park with a pond full of ducks. Well, some of the birds floating out there could have been refugee seagulls from the nearby ocean-in the dark it was hard to tell – but the quacking ones along the shore were certainly ducks. The automotive relic passed me once more as I reached the big thoroughfare on which the motel was located, turned left, and started up the hill towards the illuminated sign still three blocks away.

Nobody sprayed me with buckshot from a sawed-off shotgun, or.45 caliber slugs from a Thompson submachine gun, or even.44 slugs from an overgrown Magnum revolver. I was disappointed. I'd hoped for some action before I got back to this well-lighted street. Nevertheless, it was a cool, misty, pleasant night for walking; and after spending the day riding in planes and automobiles, not to mention waiting in a hospital room for death to pay a visit, I was happy to be stretching my leg and lung muscles, even though the local air still wasn't anything I'd want to make a regular habit of breathing.

The station wagon made a final pass right in front of me as I waited for the traffic light at the intersection by the motel. I started to cross when it became legal to do so, noting that the vehicle had pulled to the curb half a block away. Changing my mind, I turned back to the sidewalk I'd just left and walked down there. The driver leaned over and shoved the door open for me.

"Get in," he said. "The Man wants to see you."

I sighed. There are so many of them: The Man, El Hombre. Every wide spot in the road has got one, and every damn one of them thinks he's Mr. Big himself. I wondered how the hell this particular bigshot had got involved with one of our people or vice versa. Of course, he didn't have to be a simple gangster or syndicate man just because a messenger boy had referred to him in that particular way.

"Get in," said the driver of the station wagon impatiently. "Hell, what does a guy have to do to attract your attention, Mister? I must have put fifty miles on this crummy heap trying to get you to look at me. Get in. He doesn't like to be kept waiting."

They never like to be kept waiting, none of the little underworld emperors, if that's what he really was. I looked into the wagon. It was empty except for the driver. I got in and pulled the door closed behind me. As we drove away, I couldn't help laughing.

The driver glanced at me with quick suspicion. "What's so funny, Mister?"

"Never mind," I said.

I was thinking of the elaborate scheming I'd done to attract trouble; and all the time trouble had been waiting impatiently to hand me an engraved invitation. I glanced at the man beside me. He was a large, heavy-set specimen with a big jaw, a lumpy nose, coarse skin, and curly brown hair. He was wearing grubby gray work pants and shirt, and a dark green windbreaker. I classified him, tentatively, as low-priced labor: bright enough for a simple job of open surveillance, but inadequate for anything more demanding, like homicide. Of course, I could be wrong.

He drove badly, never thinking far enough ahead to be in the proper lane when a turn was to be made. When other drivers objected to his sudden last-minute maneuvers, he became childishly indignant. Apparently it had never in his life occurred to him that the whole street wasn't his to do with as he pleased.

I didn't even try to figure out where he was taking me. I just memorized a few landmarks for later reference. Life's too short to spend any part of it committing to memory the whole sprawling geography of Los Angeles. At last we wound up in front of a big apartment house in a neighborhood of similar buildings.

My chauffeur said: "Just walk straight into the lobby and turn left to the elevators. The punk in the monkey-suit knows how high to take you."

I glanced at him. "No escort?"

"Hell, you want to see him, don't you? They said you did. And he wants to see you. So who needs muscle? I'll be waiting with the wheels to take you back."

"Some wheels," I said.

"It runs. But if you complain, maybe he'll send you home in a Cadillac."

I grinned and walked into the building, past the doorman, who asked me no questions, and across the carpeted lobby to the open elevator. The boy sent it up without speaking, to the seventh floor, where a big, jowly man in a neat dark suit was waiting in front of the doors when they opened.

"Mr. Helm?" he said, backing me into a little hall or foyer. "Turn around, please. Hands against the wall, high. Nothing personal, Mr. Helm. Just routine…"

"Never mind, Jake," said another voice. "We'll dispense with the frisk in Mr. Helm's case."

I looked around. Another big, jowly man stood in an open doorway across the hail. The difference was that he'd had a closer or more recent shave and used more lotions and powders, or had them used on him. He was wearing the West Coast uniform of the day: sports shirt and slacks.

The man called Jake said, "He's rodded and bladed, Mr. Warfel. At least I think that's a knife in his pants, and I know there's firepower in his coat."

He had sharp eyes, but of course that was his job. The man in the sports shirt waved him aside. "Never mind.

Come in, Mr. Helm.. I have a present for you." As I approached, he held out his hand. "I'm Frank Warfel. You may have heard of me."

They always think you must have heard of them. Shaking his hand, I said, without committing myself to a downright lie: "I may have. But why is Frank Warfel giving me presents months after Christmas?"

"Come on in," he said without answering my question; then he went on earnestly. "Mr. Helm, everybody makes mistakes. And sometimes in my business-like maybe in yours-mistakes are pretty hard to correct, if you know what I mean…

He stopped, because I wasn't looking at him any longer. I was looking at the blond girl in the ice-blue satin lounging pajamas who'd appeared in the doorway behind him. She was a tall girl, made taller by her piled-up silver-blond hair and the high-heeled pumps she was wearing. The obsolete hairdo and footgear told her story at a glance. She would know that her bird's-nest coiffure was a couple of years out of date, but if that's the way it pleased The Man, that's the way she'd wear it.

She would also know that the high, slim heels of her blue satin pumps were no longer in fashion. New York and Paris had decreed that women should now stand around on lower and chunkier foundations that were undoubtedly more comfortable, not to mention being easier on the floors and rugs. This woman was undoubtedly aware of it, but she would also be aware that to a lot of men, Frank Warfel presumably included, a woman isn't really sexy unless she's got on narrow heels at least four inches high and to hell with the dictates of fashion. Much as I hated to agree with a guy like Warfel about anything, I had to admit that I felt pretty much the same way on this particular subject.

"Aren't you going to introduce us, darling?" the girl said throatily to Warfel.

The wide satin pajamas rippled and gleamed as she came forward, swaying sinuously. It looked hard on the vertebrae. Her voice, like her movement, was straight Hollywood, just vibrating with artificial sex appeal. It had to be artificial, because in a sense she had no sex. I mean, she had no waist and hardly any hips, and she wasn't even particularly well endowed up above.

Please understand, I'm not saying this in a spirit of criticism. I never did go for the Jersey-cow ideal of feminine pulchritude. I think it's real nice that nowadays they're allowed to admit it when their udders aren't up to State Fair standards.

But the fact was that this willowy blonde was so slender as to be practically useless for bed warming or child bearing-at least that was the impression she gave. It had to be wrong. Warfel might not be interested in procreation, but it seemed unlikely that he'd keep a female around who was totally unemployable in bed. And rightly or wrongly the girl obviously considered herself the sexiest thing since Jean Harlow, or at least since Marilyn Monroe.

I glanced at Warfel and made a soft little noise of appreciation. "Some Christmas present," I said, deadpan. "Remind me to tell you when my birthday is, Mr. Warfel."

He didn't like that. I'd known he wouldn't; I guess I was just getting a cheap kick out of teasing the animals. Or maybe I was making a scientific test to determine how much his greasy affability would take; in other words, how important it was to him, for reasons yet unknown, to be nice to me. It must have been pretty important. They're all the same, those little hoodlum kings, and what's theirs is theirs and nobody poaches on their territory, not even in a joke.-but he took it from me and even managed a hollow laugh.

"Bobbie, this is Mr. Matthew Helm, who works for the U.S. government," he said. "Mr. Helm, Miss Roberta Prince."

"He's cute," Miss Prince said in her throaty voice. "I'm simply mad about tall men, particularly tall government men. Can I keep him for a pet?"

I wondered if she could be doing a little testing, too, because this was also against the house rules. No lady receiving Frank Warfel's favors should be foolish enough to indicate in any way that she might possibly be interested in lesser men, even just for laughs. But he took this, too, with only a faint narrowing of the eyes and sharpening of the voice.

"Run along, Bobbie. We've got business."

"Oh, you and your tiresome old business!" she said petulantly, but she turned away.

I watched her move out of sight in her exaggerated, undulating fashion. It was a good act, or rather, it was a lousy act that would have been laughed off the screen, but what did she care as long as Frank Warfel liked it. If rippling like a snake in high heels and ice-blue satin was what it took to keep the money-tree shedding its crisp green syndicate foliage all over her, and she could do it, more power to her. I just hoped that that was all she was after. I had trouble enough without blonde trouble.

"So I'm a government man," I said sourly to Warfel. It seemed just as well to clarify the situation, since he'd taken the first step. I went on: "I didn't know it showed. Or could you possibly have had my motel room wired for sound when I made a certain call to Washington a little while ago."

He grinned. The idea that he'd put one over on me, electronically, was making him feel better again. He said, "Maybe. Over this way, Mr. Helm. Follow me." He led me through the living room where the blonde, holding a magazine, had draped herself over a big chair in a position that could only have been assumed by a teenager or an acrobatic dancer. "Right through that door ahead of you," Warfel said. "There's your man."

It was a bedroom, but it wasn't being used for the purpose at the moment. I looked at the man tied to the chair at the foot of the bed. He was black, with bushy black hair standing up and out from his head the way it's worn nowadays-proudly. He wasn't as big as the man beside me, but he looked compact and powerful. His nose had been broken in times past, and one ear had been thickened. There was another man in the room to guard him, a nondescript individual with a wide, flat, pock-marked face.

I said, "I liked the first sample better. This one isn't so cute. Who is he?"

"Arthur Brown, known as Basher Brown, or simply The Basher," Warfel said. "You may take him with you if you like, Mr. Helm, but it might be more convenient if you dealt with him right here. Convenient for you, I mean. I'll be glad to have the boys clean up after you, inconspicuously. That's how your chief said it should be arranged, when you spoke to him on the phone just now, wasn't it? Inconspicuously. We're happy to oblige. It's part of the service."

I looked at the black man, who looked back at me with the careful expressionlessness of a member of another race who's damned if he's going to show fear before a bunch of alien tormentors.

I said, "I see. This is the guy I'm looking for?"

"That's your murderer," Warfel said. "I suggest you use the knife, if you want to take care of him here. I own the building, but I'd rather not have any gunshots, if you don't mind."

He was needling me in some way, deliberately challenging me to commit a cold-blooded killing in front of witnesses. I couldn't make out if his purpose was to heat me into it or cool me off it. Or maybe he was just sneering because it was his nature. Or maybe he was simply overacting a role, which brought up the interesting question: what role, in what play?

"What did he use?" I asked. "Where's the cannon?"

"The gun?" Warfel made a gesture at the guard. "Give The Basher's gun to Mr. Helm."

The man went around the bed and picked something off a chair that also held a jacket presumably belonging to Arthur Brown, who was in his shirtsleeves. The guard handed me a large Smith and Wesson double-action revolver with a six-and-a-half-inch barrel. Longer tubes are made, and for a powerhouse cartridge like the.44 they have some advantages, but they're even harder to hide.

I studied the weapon thoughtfully, pressed the cylinder latch on the left side of the frame, swung out the cylinder, and looked at the brass heads of the six cartridges. Two of the primers showed firing-pin indentations. Annette had been shot twice. It was very neat. I had no doubt the rifling would match the recovered bullets, if they were in condition to be matched, which doesn't always happen.

I closed the gun once more and walked up to the bound man in the chair. He looked up at me with steady brown eyes.

"This is your gun?" I asked.

"That's my gun." His voice was as expressionless as his face, flat and toneless.

I said, "Tell me what happened."

He said, "What's to tell, man? She looked like somebody else, red hair and all. I got the wrong girl."

"But you got her?"

"Me and nobody else. Like Mr. Warfel told you, everybody makes mistakes. I'm paying for mine, like you see."

"How did it happen?"

Warfel spoke behind me. "That doesn't really matter, does it, Mr. Helm? This is your man. He admits it."

I turned slowly to look at him. "If you overheard my telephone conversation at the motel, you know that my instructions cover the person or persons responsible. Somehow, I don't think Mr. Brown went out and killed a girl just for private kicks. Who gave the orders?"

There was a little silence in the room. I was aware that the big man who'd greeted me at the elevator-the official frisker called Jake-had taken up a station in the doorway.

Warfel said softly, "I wouldn't push it, Mr. Helm. We made a mistake, a bad mistake. We admit it. We don't want any trouble with you or your chief in Washington, so we're giving you the man who shot your agent. I suggest you leave it at that, Mr. Helm."

"And if I don't?"

Warfel sighed. "We don't want to buck Washington, not unless we have to. But if you try to push it we'll have to, won't we? I mean, you'll give us no choice. And it's not your line of work, is it, Mr. Helm? I don't know exactly what you are, but you're damn well not F.B.I. You're not pretty enough, for one thing, and for another, nobody ever told a G-man to go out and kill somebody, not in so many words. They've got scruples; they're gentlemen."

"And I'm no gentleman?"

"No offense, Mr. Helm, but you're a professional killer, aren't you? I've seen a lot of them, and I knew you the minute I saw you. An executioner, a rub-out man. The only difference being that you seem to be a government rub-out man. I'm guessing that you belong to some kind of high-powered secret espionage or counterespionage outfit that plays pretty rough. And now you've lost one of your people and you're mad. You're not used to having your agents knocked over by punks like Arthur, here, working for hoodlums like me, are you, Mr. Helm? And you're going to show us that no little private creeps can monkey with a big, bad government agency like yours!"

His voice had turned harsh. I said, "Easy, Mr. Warfel. You're saying it, not me. Don't work yourself into a coronary on my account."

He drew a long breath, and forced a grin. "Ah, hell, there I go, losing my temper. Excuse me, Mr. Helm. I'm just upset about losing Arthur, just for one lousy mistake. He's a good man… Okay, so the mistake was his and you can have him. But don't try taking it any farther. I'm not crazy enough to think I can buck the U.S. government and win, but I can sure as hell give you a lot of publicity while I'm losing. And I don't think you secret-agent hush-hush types would like that. Check with your chief and see if I'm not right. He said inconspicuously, remember? Well, you can settle for Arthur, inconspicuously, or you can have a fight that'll make you conspicuous as hell. Take your choice, Mr. Helm. Check with your boss and see if he really wants to go into the syndicate-busting business just because somebody made a mistake. Okay?"

I looked at Arthur Brown. "You worked her over before you shot her. Why?"

The black man looked up sharply, frowning. "What do you mean, man. I didn't…"

"Never mind, Arthur," Warfel said quickly. "Mr. Helm, it was a simple case of mistaken identity. And who your girl was mistaken for, and why, is none of your damn business."

"I guess not. May I make a phone call, collect, to Washington, D.C.?"

He gestured towards the other room, magnanimously. "Be my guest. Live it up. Charge it to me." He hesitated. "Just one thing, Mr. Helm. On the phone you reported that your girl had told you something before she died. What did she say?"

I laughed. "Hell, she didn't say anything. I figured somebody might be listening. That was just sugar to draw flies, Mr. Warfel."

The blonde looked up from her magazine and winked at me playfully as I went past. It was quite a wink, since her lashes were almost an inch long. I couldn't match it so I didn't try.