The Shadowers

IV

THE cocktail lounge of the Montclair Hotel featured a large circular bar built to resemble, vaguely, a circus carousel complete with canopy. For this reason, I guess, it was known as the Carnival Room. All visible seats under the canopy were occupied when I came in, which was fine. It made my choosing a table at the side of the room seem natural, whereas otherwise somebody might have wondered why a lone man would go off in a dark corner by himself instead of sitting at the bar. Somebody might even have wondered later, in the light of developments, if the guy hadn't been expecting company right along.

A waiter won my heart by unhesitatingly supplying a Martini complete with olive, instead of trying to sell me on the virtues of onions, lemon peels, and other garbage. Since the door and who came through it was supposed to hold no interest for me, I concentrated my attention on the assortment of posteriors lined up around the bar. With the evidence before me, I came to the conclusion that it takes a pretty good rump to appear well on a small stool. One female specimen in pink satin, young and unrestrained, was quite intriguing as behinds go, but the rest were no treat to the eye.

I took a drink to celebrate my return to civilian life. Getting off the ship had involved a ride in an old prop trainer that sounded like a bucket of bolts, from the cockpit of which the carrier's three-hundred-yard flight deck had suddenly looked very short. Catapults aren't used to get the propeller jobs airborne. They're supposed to be able to make it on their own, but there had been a moment or two, running out of deck with nothing but ocean left ahead, when I'd wondered if somebody hadn't miscalculated badly.

Braithwaite had lifted us off nicely, however, and set us down on a military field somewhere inland. There I'd inspected some interesting and moderately confidential facilities to make my officer act look good if anybody bothered to trace me this far. Then a car had run us into Pensacola where I changed back into slacks and sports coat, leaving my military identity in the empty apartment with my lieutenant commander's uniform. We'd come roaring back along the beaches in Braithwaite's low-slung Healey, reaching New Orleans a little after dusk.

It had been a complicated damn performance, worthy of the old OSS and similar glamorous organizations. If it had accomplished nothing else, I decided, it had made some service people feel they'd been in touch with great matters of international intrigue. Maybe that was the idea. I'd got out of the car a few blocks from the hotel.

"Just walk straight ahead, sir," Braithwaite said. "You'll see it on your left. You can't miss it."

"Sure," I said.

"I'm not supposed to ask questions, I know," he said. "But… Ah, hell. Good luck, sir." He held out his hand. It was the first sign of humanity that had peeked through the Naval Academy polish.

I shook his hand and looked down at him for a moment. The sports car in which he sat wasn't much more than knee high. I said, "If you're interested in more of the same, it can probably be arranged on a permanent basis. I'm just passing the word as it was given to me. Personally I'd stick to the Navy if I were you. But you're entitled to know somebody liked the way you handled this."

"Thank you, sir." It was hard to tell in the dark, but I thought his boyish face flushed a little with pleasure. "As for the offer..

"Don't kid yourself it's all a matter of fancy counter-signs and fast driving," I said. "And don't waste your answer on me. The recruiting office…" I told him the number in Washington to call, and gave him a kind of salute. "Happy landings, as we birdmen say."

Thinking of this now, I felt old and cynical. To cheer myself, I looked for the neat little fanny in pink, but it was gone. Presently I spotted the tight, shiny dress some twenty degrees farther along the curving bar than it had been. My first thought was that the kid had moved to another stool. Then I realized that the great circular contraption, occupying the whole center of the room, was actually rotating like a real merry-go-round, but much more slowly.

I'd been briefed on this earlier, of course, but it had slipped my memory for a moment. Being reminded of it, and seeing it in action, came as kind of a shock, particularly since it was something I wasn't supposed to forget. It was part of our plan. At the same time I became aware that a woman was being seated at the table to my left, only a few feet down the upholstered bench that ran along the wall.

"Waiter," I said, carefully ignoring her, "waiter, either I'm drunk on one Martini or that thing is moving."

There was a quick laugh from the. woman who'd just sat down. "It certainly is!" Olivia Mariassy said. "What a dreadful thing to put in a bar! I thought I was intoxicated, too, when I came in here this afternoon and saw it."

This was the approach that had been decided on. I guess Hollywood would have said we were meeting cute. The words were right, but she wasn't the greatest actress in the world, and I don't suppose she'd ever picked up

– or been picked up by-a man in a bar before. The laugh was strained and the voice was forced. It wasn't good.

I looked around the way a man might, addressed by a strange woman in a strange place-that is to say, hopefully. After all, I wasn't supposed to know it wasn't Brigitte Bardot who'd sat down beside me. I let my face go disconcerted for a moment before I covered up politely. Dr. Mariassy hadn't altered much since I'd last seen her. Of course, it had been only a few hours, but there are women who can manage a change of clothes and a light application of lipstick in that length of time.

Our scientist lady was still wearing her clumsy tweeds, however. The pulled-back straight hair, the lack of makeup, and the heavily rimmed glasses still gave her the look of a frustrated old-maid schoolteacher. She had made only one change: she'd put on high heels. The table, and the poor light, made it hard to estimate the extent of the improvement, but I got the impression that her legs weren't half bad.

Her smile was pretty awful, however. It obviously hurt her to have to smile at me. Maybe it would have hurt her to smile at anybody. I encouraged myself with that thought.

"Well, it is kind of a strange notion, ma'am," I said politely. "I wonder how long it takes to go around."

This was also part of the prepared dialogue. It gave her an opportunity, in line with her scientific character, to suggest breaking out the watches and doing some timing. As the circular bar actually took some fifteen minutes to complete one revolution, we'd be practically old friends by the time this research project was finished and checked-old enough friends, at any rate, for me to buy her a drink and, a few drinks later, ask her to take pity on a lonely Denver character who knew nothing about New Orleans, not even where to find a decent meal.

It was a good enough opening for a pickup romance, but we weren't putting it across. I hoped she could feel it. I hoped she'd have sense enough to stall a little with the cigarette bit, giving me a chance to play gentleman with-a-match, before she pitched into the act in earnest.

Then I remembered she didn't approve of smoking. I could see her gathering herself to deliver her next line, and I knew it would be about as convincing as a schoolboy's excuse for playing hooky-and a man was watching us from the door.

He made no bones about it. He just stood there regarding us thoughtfully, and I knew he was the one. I didn't have any doubt. I mean, you get so you can spot them, the trained ones, the pros, the men in the same line of work. I don't mean I recognized his face. He was new to me. We didn't have him in the high-priority file, not yet. But he was our man, he had to be. They aren't common. It wasn't likely there'd be two of that species around-besides me, I mean.

He was a big, middle-aged man with a bald head and protruding ears like the symmetrical handles of an ornamental vase, but he wasn't ornamental, far from it. I got an impression of almost spectacular ugliness in the glimpse I allowed myself. I didn't dare look longer. Maybe his instincts weren't as acute as mine. If so, there was a chance that he hadn't spotted me yet; that he was just making note of me in a routine way, as he'd have made note of anybody who made any kind of contact with his real subject, Olivia Mariassy.

There was still a chance, if not a good one. So far she hadn't given herself away hopelessly. A maiden lady intellectual was bound to be a little awkward, adventurously addressing a strange man in a bar. But we couldn't expose him to any more of her phony smiles and memorized dialogue or he'd know the meeting had been planned.

"Excuse me," I said abruptly, and turned away just as she started to speak. "Waiter!"

Rising, I was aware of Olivia's face kind of crumpling. After all, she'd nerved herself to go through with the repulsive performance, and now the horrible man was kicking the script out the door. Well, it could pass for the reaction of a shy woman away from home whose tentative advances had been rudely rejected. I hoped she'd know enough to buy a drink and drink it, as any woman would to cover her confusion, before she ran out. I also hoped she'd remember, then, to go straight to her room and stay there with the door locked as she'd been instructed to do if anything went wrong.

Walking away after paying my bill, I knew it still wasn't good enough. He'd sat down at a corner table; he didn't seem to be looking our way any more, but I knew he wasn't missing a thing. He'd naturally be watching for a plant, a ringer, anything to indicate that his subject was hep and a trap was being set, that a pro was being slipped into the game against him. He wouldn't be watching for it any harder tonight than last night, perhaps, or tomorrow night, but he'd be on his guard always to spot anything out of line. He had to be. His life and his job depended on it.

What was needed, I thought, was a convincing red herring-but maybe a pink one would do. It was a crazy move, but that was a point in its favor, and my luck was in. The kid with the pink satin dress and the nice little rear was still in sight at the revolving bar, and the stool beside her was vacant. She had the defensive look a pretty girl gets in public, waiting for her escort to return from the john. I marched over there, stepped aboard the carousel, sat down, and tossed some money on the bar.

"Martini," I said to the bartender. "Veddy, veddy dry, if you please. Better make it a double."

I threw a wry glance over my shoulder toward Olivia. She had a drink and was sipping it grimly, staring straight ahead, as if she thought everyone in the room was watching. Well, that was still in character. Maybe we'd get by without giving the show away. How we'd make contact again, more convincingly, was a matter I'd give thought to later.

I grinned at the girl beside me. "I have just escaped a fate worse than death," I said. "Heaven preserve me prom amorous lady schoolteachers on vacation."

She had black hair and slim bare shoulders and long white gloves. Her eyes were large and dark and framed by rather heavy black eyebrows. She was a nice-looking kid, but she didn't really belong in the bar of the ritzy Montclair, I realized, seeing her at close range. She wasn't exactly shabby, but the tight dress showed minute signs of strain and wear at the seams. The gloves and stockings were beyond reproach, but the pretty pink satin pumps had been walked in and danced in plenty of times before tonight. I wouldn't have been surprised to learn they were getting kind of thin underneath.

She was obviously a kid who had to count her pennies, squeezing just a little more wear out of last year's glamor. She'd got herself a well-heeled date, she'd promoted drinks at the Montclair, and maybe dinner at Antoine's was on the program, too. It would be if she had her way, I thought. She didn't like my butting in one little bit.

"Please," she said stiffly. "I'm sorry. This place is taken."

"Remember me?" I said. "Paul Corcoran, of Denver, Colorado. This is real great, doll! I checked into the hotel last night, knowing nobody in town, I thought. And tonight I drop in here for a drink and look who's sitting here! What about the creep you're with? Can you ditch him?"

She looked at me for a moment longer, long enough to know perfectly well she didn't remember me from anywhere. She looked quickly toward the door marked GENTLEMEN but it remained closed. She glanced toward the bartender.

"I wouldn't," I said softly. "Smile and look down, doll. Coy-like. Then look up again and laugh as if my being here was just about the funniest and nicest thing that ever happened in your young life."

She hesitated and glanced down. Her smile wavered terribly as she saw the little knife in my hand, open, concealed from everyone else by our bodies and the overhang of the bar. The barman put my Martini in front of me, picked up his money and went away, noticing nothing. I reached for the drink left-handed. The kid was still smiling fixedly at the knife.

"Look up at me and laugh now," I said over the rim of the glass. She looked up at me and laughed. Well, you could call it a laugh. "It's four inches long in the blade," I said. "It's very sharp. Take a drink and laugh." She took a drink and laughed. "Did you ever see anybody who'd been opened with a knife?" I asked. "It's very messy, doll. Somebody'll get me, sure, if you yell for help, but they'll be too late. You'll be sitting there holding your guts in place with those nice white gloves, feeling your life run out between your fingers, warm and wet and red. Like, you know, blood."

I was laying it on thick, real colorful stuff. The circular bar was still turning slowly. All around us people were talking and laughing. The kid touched her lips with the tip of her tongue.

"What… what do you want?"

"Look toward the john again and laugh. You're going to ditch your boy friend now and go with me. We're old friends, remember. Don't forget your purse. Pick it up now." She picked it up mechanically. I said, "The barman is coming this way. Give him the message. Say he's to tell the gentleman that you had to leave but you'll call him in the morning. First take my arm fondly and wink at me as you say it. Now."

It worked. It had happened too quickly for her to think up any tricks, and the barman dealt with drunks and oddballs all night long. He wasn't looking for nuances. Then we were moving out of there, chattering brightly- at least I was chattering brightly-while the slim girl in pink clung to my arm desperately and smiled and smiled with panic in her big dark eyes.

The bald man at the corner table didn't look at us once, all the way to the door. Neither did anyone else except perhaps Olivia Mariassy, and she'd naturally have some masochistic interest in watching the man who'd repulsed her awkward attempt at conversation leaving with a younger and prettier girl.