The Removers

Chapter Eighteen

I DROVE away from there fast, taking the little Merc. If it were seen in my possession later, so much the better. It would let Fredericks know I hadn't been bluffing when I said I was holding its owner hostage for his good behavior in certain specified regards.

It took me two hours to find my way by back roads to the Double-L Ranch. When I got there, it was approaching the same time of afternoon as when I'd seen it previously, and the place looked about the same, except that there didn't seem to be anybody around. Beth's Buick station wagon was parked in front of the door, however, headed out. I pulled up behind it, making the swing in the yard very smartly with a quick down-shift and some fine sports-car exhaust noises. It's a subdued and polite little car, not one of your raging beasts, but you can make it snarl a bit if you try.

I switched off and got out, stretching my legs and looking as casual as I could with all my senses tuned for trouble. Then the front door slammed open and Beth ran out of the house looking very breathless. She came to a sudden stop, staring at me in a surprised way.

"Matt!" she said. "Oh! I thought…" She checked herself abruptly.

I didn't get it at once. But she was looking so confused and guilty there had to be a reason, and I looked around and glanced at the Merc and recalled the youthful, noisy flourish with which I'd announced my arrival. I looked over towards the carport. The Land Rover was missing. Well, young Peter Logan had taken that to transport the kids and their retinue back into the mountains. But the big green Jaguar roadster was missing, too.

Nobody who's consciously compared the two would ever mistake the polite burble of the little Mercedes for the roar of an XK-150S, but Beth hardly qualified as a sports-car expert. To her, a car was just something that ran until it stopped running, after which you got a man to fix it for you. I looked at her standing there, still in her lady-of-the-ranch costume, regarding the toes of her handsome saddle-leather pumps with downcast eyes, like a teen-ager in the principal's office.

"Where is he?" I asked.

She said, "Matt, I-"

I wanted to shake her. "Where's he gone?" I demanded. She didn't answer. I said, "Wherever it is, you obviously didn't expect him back so soon. Where'd you send him, Beth?"

She licked her lips. "I didn't…" She stopped. "It was just a… a stupid quarrel…" She stopped again. "I couldn't stop him!" she breathed.

"He went to town after Fredericks? The damn fool! What does he think this is, a Wild West movie? I told you to sit tight, both of you!"

She said breathlessly, "No, you're wrong! That isn't where…" She was silent again.

I studied her face for a moment. "I see. At least I think I see. Where's a phone?"

She gave me a brief glance, turned, and fled into the house. I followed her and picked up the instrument in the hail to which she led me, got long distance, and went through the usual silly routine with her standing right there. To hell with security. They could change the damn code words tomorrow. They probably would, anyway. Then I had Mac on the wire again.

"Eric here," I said.

"Where have you been? We've bee)1 trying to reach you.,'

"I'm reached. Shoot."

Mac said, "I have here a report to the effect that Lawrence alias Duke Logan is aimed approximately south by southeast in a green Jaguar roadster license number YU 2-1774. An Arizona state police cruiser, alerted by a patrol farther north that saw him pass, tried to run him down but barely got close enough to confirm the number. I have the verbatim report of one of the officers here, to Wit: Jeez, if that guy fires the third stage he'll be in orbit. Apparently they were doing well over a hundred and twenty when he pulled away from them. Comment?"

I looked at Beth, and suddenly I knew exactly how it had been. A stupid quarrel, she'd said. She was a hard girl to quarrel with, in the pots-and-pans-slinging sense, but that didn't mean she didn't have the ability to make a man so furious that he could hardly see. I'd lived with her; I knew her pretty well. I'd only met Logan once, but I knew him pretty well, too. He was the kind of man I understand easily.

"I think the newlyweds have had a spat, sir," I said into the phone, and I saw Beth cringe at the corny description. I went on: "If I'm correct, he's right on the ragged edge: he's driving sad and he's driving mad. When those cool, calm characters flip, they really flip. He's stomped out of the house, I figure, on an errand he doesn't care much for, and he's probably kind of hoping, subconsciously, that somebody'll arrest him before he has to go through with it, or that the Jag will flame out on him, or that he'll manage to kill himself, or something. But he'll be damned and blasted, old chap, if he'll stop of his own accord; and if he gets where he's going it'll be rawther tough, don't you know, on anybody who happens to get in his way. It should be something to see, if you've got a strong stomach."

Beth's eyes looked big and wounded. Mac's voice spoke in my ear: "The state police were considering a roadblock, but other agencies got wind of the situation and took a hand. At present he's merely being tracked, like a guided missile, but he'll be at the border presently. Advice has been requested, urgently."

I hesitated, and said, "They're damn fools if they stop him on the way down."

"That's the consensus here. And returning? Assuming that he does return? The previous man didn't, you remember."

I said, "My money's on the Duke. If that bomb he's driving doesn't kill him, in his present mood, no two-bit Mexican desperado will."

"And your advice?"

"It depends on whether they want some kilos of the white stuff or a guy named Sally."

Mac said, "That's all very well for them, Eric, but you're not forgetting that it isn't Fredericks we're after?"

"I'm not forgetting," I said. "But I don't relish the thought of trying to make a man like Martell talk by direct methods, even assuming I could get him alone, in a suitable place, alive, which is a lot of assuming. If he was using Rizzi; the chances are he's using Fredericks the same way. So let's take Fredericks out from under him and see what happens."

"If they let him come back through, with cargo, can you guarantee safe delivery eventually? It's a big shipment, and they don't want to take chances on its getting loose in the country."

I said, "Sir, do you want me to hang up on you?"

"Eric-"

"Guarantee! What kind of jackass talk is that, with all due apologies?"

He sighed, two thousand odd miles away. "I know. I was instructed to ask."

I said, "So there's a risk, and maybe everything will go wrong, and there'll be many happy dreams sold at a thousand per cent profit. All I can say is that if they stop Duke Logan with cargo, all they'll get is Duke Logan with cargo. If they let him through, there are intriguing possibilities, but the word is possibilities."

"You have a plan in mind?"

"How can I have? The Duke took off before I could talk him into doing for us what he's now doing on his own accord. I haven't had a chance to talk with him at all. I'm going to have to intercept him somehow, before he makes delivery at this end, and it's going to be tough, since I don't know anything about his arrangements. But he must have made some or he wouldn't know where to go, down there, or where to come, up here… Wait a minute."

I was still watching Beth. Her expression had changed slightly. She said quickly, "I know… something that may help. I heard him talking on the phone."

I nodded, and spoke to Mac: "We apparently have a lead of sorts. We'll see what can be done, if he gets back."

Mac said, "I'll see what I can do at this end. The rest is kind of up to Mr. Logan, don't you know?"

"Righto, sir."

There's something about that clipped, British-or phony-British-way of talking that's terribly contagious don't you know?