The Poisoners

VIII

As a bodyguard, I was a bust. They took out the black man right under my nose.

I'd been waiting a little ways up the street outside the office when Devlin's people finally turned him loose with the Blame girl, the way we'd planned it. I'd watched him say good-bye to her politely and assist her into the first to arrive of the two taxis that had been ordered at their request. He'd taken the second, which came along, with standard L.A. punctuality, some fifteen minutes later. I'd tailed him in the rental sedan Charlie herself had promoted for me-apparently her newborn spirit of cooperation didn't extend to furnishing me with company wheels-but he'd stayed with the taxi less than half a dozen blocks.

I didn't think he'd reached his destination, when the cab swung to the curb. I figured he knew, or suspected, that he was being followed, and was about to play some tricks. I pulled into a parking space half a block away, cut my lights, and waited. It wasn't a subtle, high-class, invisible job of surveillance, but I had little hope of staying with him in any case, and none at all if I got cute. He knew me by sight; he probably knew I was there; and it was his city, not mine.

But it had seemed like something that should be tried, both for his sake and for mine. Watching over him, I might be able to save his life, although it wasn't likely- as a matter of fact, I didn't really think Warfel would be fool enough to strike at either McConnell or the girl, despite what I'd said for effect back in the office. Still, if he were attacked, and saved, McConnell might talk, if he had anything to talk about. And even if nobody made a hostile move towards him, he might lead me to something or somebody significant, although I didn't really have much hope of it.

But it was a possible opening, and I didn't have so many I could ignore one, and the others were being covered. I watched the cab pull away. McConnell stood for a moment at the curb, at last putting on the jacket he'd carried around with him all night. He turned and walked straight at me.

There had been, of course, a certain probability that he'd proceed in my direction rather than moving away from me, or ducking into a nearby building, or darting across the street. There were only so many ways he could go. However, I saw from his manner that this had nothing to do with statistical probabilities. He knew where I was parked and he was coming to me, maybe to tell me something important, maybe just to give me hell for shadowing him, probably the latter.

Abruptly he stopped, looking beyond me. There were headlights in my mirrors, coming up fast. McConnell turned to run. I reached over, hit the door handle on the curb side, dove to the sidewalk, rolled, and came up with a gun in my hand, but it was too late.

There were two of them, in one of those fat-tired, souped-up, fast-back little sport coupes, complete with fake racing stripes, that are America's current answer to the true European sports car. You may like them or you may not-I don't, particularly-but you've got to admit that not much can beat them for sheer acceleration. Some of them even have pretty good brakes nowadays, a real innovation for Detroit.

The coupe shot past as I was picking myself off the sidewalk, and slowed sharply beyond me. I saw a short shotgun barrel thrust out the right-hand window. It flamed twice in the night and McConnell fell; then the rub-out men were getting out of there with shrieking tires and snarling exhausts, and I still hadn't had a clear shot at them.

Punching holes in automobiles isn't exactly what the standard short-barreled.38 Special does best. There's something to be said for the big guns after all, and I'd pulled out the.44 I was still lugging around since nobody else seemed to want it. The coupe was receding fast. I cocked the massive revolver as I thrust it out two-handed, and I let it fire when the front sight blade steadied on the left half of the slanting rear window.

Even with two hands gripping it hard, the cannon kicked so hard you wouldn't believe it. The coupe swerved violently across the street and plowed into the parked cars there. After a moment, the right-hand door opened and the shotgunner staggered out, still clutching his weapon, a semi-automatic job that would hold at least three shells, probably more. What I mean is, even if he hadn't managed to reload, he probably had ammunition left.

I saw no reason why he should get any breaks from me, and shotguns scare hell out of me anyway, so I didn't wait for him to swing the weapon towards me. I just knocked him over while he was still looking for a target. The heavy.44 slug chopped him down like a tree. I waited, but he didn't move, and neither did the driver of the car, as far as I could make out through the damaged rear glass.

My hands were tingling from the kick of the Magnum, and my ears were ringing from the noise, but part of my mind, aloof from the uproar and excitement, reminded me gently that people had been firing that gun, off and on, for a couple of days now, and there couldn't be much left in it-just one live round, if my count was correct. I drew out the fully loaded.38 as reserve artillery and moved up to McConnell, feeling stupid and frustrated standing there, with a pistol in each hand, and the man I was supposed to protect bleeding on the sidewalk at my feet.

The only excuse I could think of was that protection isn't really my racket, quite the contrary. Besides, I hadn't really believed protection would be required here, which only proved that when you tried to second-guess the opposition you generally wound up guessing wrong. I knelt beside the man on the sidewalk, putting my hand on his shoulder. He stirred almost imperceptibly.

"Easy there," he breathed, face down on the concrete. "Don't move me or I'll fall apart. Who…

"It's the honkie bastard," I said.

He was silent for a moment; then he whispered, "Jeez, a sensitive whitey! What do you want, apologies? Did I hear some more shooting? If you got them, I'll apologize."

"I got them. A little late, but I got them."

"In that case, I'm extremely sorry I used a bad word on you, Mr. Helm, sir. Can you ever forgive me?"

"Go to hell," I said. "I'm going to stick the gun in your hand, if you don't mind. Save me a lot of trouble with the police. Unless you have objections. Tell me if you have. They'll also pin the O'Leary murder on you when they check out the rifling in ballistics, but you don't mind that, since you've already put your brand on that one. Do you?"

"Hell, no. Any homicides you got lying around. Proud to take the credit, posthumously. Fine word, posthumously. Didn't know I knew words like that, did you?" After a moment, when I didn't speak, he went on chidingly: "You're supposed to tell me I'm going to be all right, man. Aren't you going to lie and tell me I'm going to be all right?"

I said, "If I thought you were going to be all right, I wouldn't leave you holding the baby."

He gave a little sound that was half a sigh, half a cautious chuckle. "Yeah, we both know buckshot, don't we? From the way it feels, he must have put almost the whole load of shot into me, both times… Okay, give it to me."

I wiped off the.44 Magnum and put it where he could grasp it. His hand closed on it, sprained thumb and all. We still had the sidewalk, and even the street, to ourselves. Shots had been fired, a car had crashed, but nobody in Los Angeles gave a damn. Well, that was all right with me.

"Do you know anything I ought to know, McConnell?" I asked.

"I don't know anything. That's what I was coming back to tell you, that you were wasting your time tailing me. You know how it is. You know how they are. You get mixed up with them, you do what they tell you. You don't ask questions."

"How did Warfel persuade you to take the rap for Annette O'Leary's murder?"

"Persuade!" he breathed. "Well, you can call it that. There's my wife, Lorraine. There are our two boys, four and six. Hostages to fortune, somebody once said. Fortune, hell. Hostages to Frank Warfel. Of course, he promised to have a good lawyer on the job, when I came to trial." There was a little silence; then McConnell said, "See what you can do for Lorraine and the kids, will you?"

"Where do I find them?" I memorized the address he gave me, and asked, "What about the girl, Beverly Blaine. What did he have on her?"

"Look at her left arm. Warfel gave her a little taste of acid, and I don't mean LSD. He told her, if a couple of drops will do that to your arm, just think what a pint of it will do to your pretty face…" McConnell's voice trailed off. He was silent, breathing shallowly. "You'd better beat it, Helm," he whispered at last. "Don't hang around on my account. Doesn't feel like I'll be around much longer, myself."

I looked down at him for a moment longer. It still seemed like a peculiar thing to do to your hair, for peculiar reasons. I mean, I've never felt any particular urge to assume the shoulder-length locks, horned helmet, chain mail shirt, and battle ax of my Viking ancestors. Well, it was his hair, and his business.

"Okay," I said. "Sorry I wasn't more help."

"So long, secret-agent-man. Don't forget about Lorraine and the boys."

"I won't forget."

There were sirens in the distance now. Apparently, some Los Angeleno had overcome his distaste for involvement long enough to pick up a telephone. Well, it saved me from having to call the police and ambulance, not that I thought an ambulance would do much good. Buckshot is generally for keeps.

I hurried back to the rental car and drove off, passing the wreck and the man with the shotgun lying face up beside it. He was, I saw, the nameless man who'd been standing guard in the room with McConnell up in Warfel's apartment, one of those I'd asked Mac to check on. Well, it still wouldn't hurt to identify him, as well as the one behind the wheel. You hate to get so casual you go around shooting people without bothering to learn their names.

I made it out of sight before the police arrived, and kept going until I was well away from the area. Then I ditched the car and walked half a dozen blocks until I found a phone booth near a filling station that was closed for the night-well, booth is too strong a word for it. The phone company no longer provides its clientele with shelter and privacy. You stand out in the smog and fog and tell your business to anybody hanging around. There's a little plastic box to protect the instrument; the customers can damn well protect themselves.

As you will gather, the weather had closed in once more. The heavy, damp air had a nasty, chemical, ozony tang to it that made my nose run and my eyes water. I called the number Charlie Devlin had given me and asked to be put in touch with her, if possible. This led to all kinds of security-oriented complications, but finally I got a guy who seemed to know something. At least he seemed to know who I was and who Miss Devlin was. He was even willing to stick his neck way out and admit it.

I said, "I just lost my subject, permanently. Two men in a hopped-up Camaro. Twelve-gauge auto-loading shotgun stuffed full of buck, very effective."

"What color car? Did you get the license number? Can you describe either of the men?"

I said, "Cut it out. I'm slow but not that slow. Check with the cops. They were heading that way as I pulled out. I'm sure they'll let you look at the wreck and view the remains in the morgue and make up your own descriptions. One of the men was taking orders from Frank Warfel when I saw him previously, if it matters. I set it up more or less to look as if the black man avenged himself before he keeled over. If you've got any local influence, you might pass a hint to the authorities to let it stand that way, officially, and save us all a lot of trouble. And I made the guy a kind of promise, so would you please put a guard on his family, or take them into protective custody, or something, until the smoke clears. Mrs. Lorraine McConnell…"

"I'm afraid we're not authorized… Oh, to hell with it. Have you got the address?"

I gave it to him. "But first you'd better get in touch with Charlie Devlin, if you can, and tell her what's happened. I don't see what Warfel's so worried about, sending his boys rushing out to silence them, but if he was after McConnell he's almost bound to be after Blame. At least we'd better operate on that assumption. Charlie'd better keep her eyes open wider than I did, if she wants to keep our phony redhead alive a little longer." The man at the other end of the line didn't respond immediately. I asked, "What's the matter? Don't tell me they've already taken care of Blaine."

"No," he said slowly, "not as far as we know, but we just got a call from Charlie. She's at an all-night garage south of town. A guy in a jeep ran her off the freeway about half an hour ago, while she was tailing Miss Blaine. It must have been just about the time you were having your troubles. I would say their timing was pretty good, wouldn't you, Mr. Helm?"