The Shadowers

X

I WOKE UP to hear her crying in the darkness beside me. I didn't ask why. Presumably she was crying in a general way for lost innocence and shattered illusions. It's a common complaint. Presently she whispered, "Are you awake, Corcoran?"

"Yes."

"Did I wake you?"

"It doesn't matter."

"I'm sorry," she breathed. "I… it's just so cheap and dirty, that's all."

"Thanks," I said. "All testimonials gratefully accepted."

"I didn't mean you. I just meant, well, life in general."

"What you really meant was that for years you've been saving yourself for a great, sweet, tender passion like in the movies, and now you find yourself lying in a hotel bed in your underwear beside a strange man you don't particularly like."

She said, "Don't be sarcastic, damn you."

"Don't swear," I said. "I'll do the swearing around here. You're the intellectual type, remember?"

She laughed bitterly. "I don't feel very intellectual. I don't suppose I'd look very intellectual, either, if you could see me. The funny thing is, I don't think I even really know why I did it, why I badgered you into…well, into bed, damn it. And I'll swear all I want. To hell with you, Corcoran."

"For a girl who didn't know why she was doing it, you did it pretty well."

"I suppose I was really… I guess I was deliberately desecrating a shrine that had been sacred to a false god, if you know what I mean."

"Desecrating," I said. "Shrine. Such fancy words to use in bed at four in the morning… Ouch."

"What's the matter?"

"Your false god throws a mean punch. Do you feel like telling me? Just what did he do to bring the heavens crashing down?"

She started to speak sharply and checked herself. Then she was silent for a little. At last she laughed in the darkness and said, "You're being sarcastic again, but your description is pretty accurate, unfortunately. But when a woman is fool enough to wait until thirty to learn about sex and love, I guess she's asking for a major catastrophe. It was like a dream at first. I'd never experienced anything like it. I'd never experienced much of anything along those lines. He brought me flowers. He bought me little presents-perfume, stockings, lingerie. He… he made me feel like a woman, Corcoran. He even made me feel like a beautiful woman. It had never happened to me before."

Her frankness was a little embarrassing, even in the dark. I said, "Buy yourself a lipstick and it could happen again. You're not really nauseating, you know."

"Thanks," she murmured. "Thanks for the charming compliment, charmingly phrased. I'll treasure it always."

"No charge," I said. "Let's get to the point where he lowered the boom."

"It was a Friday, I think," she said. "Yes, I'm sure it was a Friday, the end of the week, at ten in the morning. I had an appointment. I was still seeing him, well, professionally too. They were laughing," she said in a flat Voice.

"Who was laughing?"

"I came into the office a little early. I really wanted to be late to show him… Well, I just wanted to stroll in casually a few minutes late. You know, so it wouldn't look as if seeing him was very important in my life. But when I got out of the elevator it was still a few minutes early. I just couldn't help myself. I'd seen him the night before but I still couldn't help myself. You know how it is."

"Sure," I said. "I know how it is. I guess."

"The reception room was empty. I started back there and heard them. They were talking about me in the examining room, Harold and the nurse, or receptionist, an obvious, well-developed little blonde in one of those white nylon uniforms, you know the kind I mean, the kind that are practically transparent, worn over something pink, always. Miss Darden was the way I knew her, the way he'd always referred to her, but now he was calling her Dottie. The way they were talking made the relationship between them absolutely clear. They'd come to an understanding long ago. You know. She was so sure of herself and of him that she wasn't even jealous; his extracurricular activities merely amused her. Do I have to tell you exactly what they said about me? What he said?"

"No," I said, "but in fairness you've got to remember that there aren't many things a man can say to one woman he's sleeping with when discussing another. He's practically got to make it sound as if the only reason he has anything to do with the second dame is for money, influence, or laughs."

"Laughs!" she breathed. "How did you know? It was a hilarious joke they shared. I was. Something to titter about together while waiting for me to arrive so they could greet me looking very sober and professional. I want to vomit when I think of it, Corcoran. I was such an idiot about him. It was as if I'd been hypnotized to do mad things and couldn't help myself… And then to hear them laughing! I wanted to kill myself."

"Instead of which," I said, "you marched right down and said you'd take the crazy assignment you'd refused earlier. The idea of having the U.S. government arrange a whirlwind love affair for you, and provide a husband you could get rid of after he'd served your purpose, suddenly looked real good. It was a way of telling Dr. Harold Mooney he hadn't hurt you a bit; it was a way of showing him he wasn't the only bird in the bush."

"Yes," she said. "Yes, of course."

"My chief kind of wondered what made you change your mind," I said. "I wondered myself, a bit. You didn't look like somebody who'd take on a job like this just for kicks. Well, now you'd better get out of here before the place wakes up."

I switched on the light and looked at her. She sat up and hastily pulled up a strap of the pretty slip she'd retained while shedding the rest of her clothes-a present from Mooney, the romantic flowers-and-lingerie dispenser, I guessed, now. I wondered if it had given her some kind of perverse satisfaction to wear his intimate gift to bed with another man. Her bare shoulders were square and strong-looking, but smooth and white.

"Well, you don't have to stare!" she protested, blushing,

I grinned. "Now she gets modest," I said. "Now what are you doing?"

"My hair-"

"What do you want to do, spoil the effect after we've gone to all this trouble to make it authentic?"

She glanced at me quickly. After a moment she smiled. "Oh, is that what we were doing? I didn't know."

I said, "Well, you don't want to look as if you'd been doing research in the Library of Congress, Doc. If Handsome Harold is lurking outside, you want to confirm his darkest suspicions, don't you? Just pull on your skirt and blouse, stick your feet into your shoes, make a bundle of everything else, and dash for the stairs. Call me the minute you reach your room, so I'll know you're okay. The coffee shop opens at six. I'll meet you there for breakfast."

A minute or so later she was standing at the door rather uncertainly, hesitating to show herself outside like that, disheveled and not completely dressed. The funny thing was, she looked kind of young and pretty with her severe hairdo tumbling about her face and the color of embarrassment in her cheeks.

"Corcoran?"

"Yes?"

"I want you to know it wasn't premeditated. I had every intention of keeping you at a very proper distance. Please believe me."

"Sure," I said.

If she wanted to lie for the sake of her self-respect, I wasn't going to argue; and maybe she'd just happened to be wearing pretty stuff under the tweed tonight, even though it did seem like kind of a coincidence.

"It was seeing him and hearing him trying to tell me about misunderstandings in that smooth, patronizing way. I just had to do something to erase, well, certain memories. I hope you're not disgusted or… or offended."

"Offended?" I said. "Don't be silly, Doc. lt. beats hell out of chess."

She looked startled and fled. Two minutes later the phone rang; she'd made it safely. I acknowledged her report and lay for a little while looking at the ceiling, while daylight stole into the room. She wasn't the only one with memories to erase. At last I grimaced at my thoughts and got up to shave. I had half my face lathered when the phone rang. I went back into the bedroom and picked it up.

"You're up early, friend," said the voice of the local man who'd given me instructions before, the one I'd never seen. "Or were you up?"

"Do you care?"

"If I'm not allowed to sleep, why should anyone else be? I'm supposed to transmit a report on a Harold Mooney, M.D. Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Well, nothing significant. Bachelor's, Hopkins. M.D., Hopkins. Internship, Chicago. Private practice, Pensacola since fifty-nine. Doing all right financially. Well, he should be. Apparently he's got the bedside looks and manner, and he's no worse a butcher than anybody else, I guess. But he's clean as new-fallen snow. At least on a preliminary check. They're still digging." There was a little pause. "That's as far as security is concerned. We're not interested in his morals. Or are we?"

"We might be."

"There are indications he's something of an all-around medical charm boy, or just very, very susceptible. His office nurses aren't picked entirely for their academic records, let's say, and there's a high turnover. And there have been whispers about the doctor-patient relationship in certain instances. Just whispers."

"I see," I said. "But there's no chance of his being offbeat in other ways, say politically? No chance of anybody's having got to him?"

"You supply the crystal ball, I'll read it," said the voice on the phone. "Chance? Sure there's a chance. There's always a chance. They may come up with something on thorough investigation. But this guy's just interested in money and women as far as I can see; he's not the kind to go haywire politically. And the material looks unpromising if you're hunting a potential killer."

I said, "After you've cut up enough dead bodies in medical school, I shouldn't think a live one would bother you much. And doctors have access to very convenient drugs, and ways of covering things up that aren't available to the layman. The man we're looking for doesn't necessarily have to be a pineapple and tommy-gun artist, you know."

"Still, there's better homicidal stuff around," the voice said.

"Kroch?"

"They finally found him for you. You were right, he's a pro all right, but they were checking the wrong lists. They were looking for someone Grandpa Taussig would be likely to recruit, someone from the regular herd, close at hand. This one is a stray from another ranch entirely."

I said, "Meaning what?"

"Hold onto your hat," said the voice on the phone. "Kroch used to be one of Reinhard Heydrich's Nazi strong-arm boys. An angry young man with a club, but his specialty was the pistol. He went in for small calibers, quiet and precise. Not what you'd expect from the crude physical characteristics, is it? Heydrich had great faith in young Kroch, it says here, and used him frequently. After the British elimination team got the Hangman, Kroch disappeared. Yours is the first report on him since the war. It was thought he was dead."

"Well, he isn't," I said. "So he's an ex-Gestapo bully-boy. Those former Nazis keep cropping up all over these days, don't they? I had to go down into Mexico after one just last summer, a gent named Von Sachs who was going to establish a Fourth Reich over here, or something. He was a regulation sonofabitch, fascist style, but he handled a machete real pretty for a while." I frowned. "Any theories on how Kroch comes to be working for the Communists, if he really is?"

"It's not unusual. A lot of those lads didn't care who they swung a blackjack for as long as they were paid. And Taussig would be needing a lot of manpower for a scheme as ambitious as this one. A trained goon like Kroch could set his own price, almost. Washington likes Kroch better than Mooney, friend. They want you to put the show on the road as soon as possible. If Kroch follows and the other one doesn't, nab him."

"Sure," I said. "And what if they both follow? Or neither does?"

"Don't borrow trouble. Start driving and use the mirror, first. See what comes along behind. But watch yourself. This boy's no rabbit; it'll take more than a figure-four trap to catch and hold him."

"It'll take more than a harsh word to make him talk, too," I said.

"That's not your worry unless you want it to be. You present the body, breathing, and experts will take it from there. They'll get it out of him. Any more questions?"

I hesitated. "One. Antoinette Vail. Is she being watched?"

"She's covered. She hasn't shown yet this morning. Why?"

"No reason," I said.

I didn't really know why I'd asked the question. Toni didn't belong in the case, except that I'd dragged her in for a diversion. Nobody would thank me for being concerned about a kid who was just an irrelevant nuisance, not even the kid herself.