The Wrecking Crew

Chapter Twenty-nine

IN KIRUNA, we got snarled up in a running mile of red tape. When I finally had time and liberty to look for Lou, she was gone. Inquiry disclosed that, having answered all the questions and signed all the papers required of her, she'd grabbed the next plane south. I suppose I could have learned her destination, being a trained undercover man, but I didn't make the effort. If she'd wanted me to know, she'd have left a message for me. If she wanted to see me again, she knew I'd be in Stockholm presently. I wouldn't be hard to find.

I went hunting, instead. Somehow, after all the talk about Colonel Stjernhjelm and the family estate at Torsfiter, I felt obliged to go there and talk to the old gentleman. He was very pleasant. I never did discover how much of the story he knew-probably all of it. After all, he had a ntiltary title, and Sweden is a small country.

My hunting luck was in. On the second day a bull moose with a fine head wandered past my stand. I had a real gun in my hands, no little pipsqueak squirt gun, but somehow I never got around to pulling the trigger. I just watched the big beast saunter out of sight. He'd never done anything to me, and I wasn't under orders. Like most sentimental gestures, it didn't accomplish a thing. The fellow in the next stand knocked him over with a 9mm Mauser. The next day I was in Stockholm, where more red tape of various kinds awaited me.

Somehow, a couple of weeks got away from me there before, on a hunch, I wandered one evening into the restaurant to which I'd taken Lou the first day I'd met her. A good Stockholm restaurant, even one with music and dancing, is never noisy. I don't know how they manage it, but a roomful of Swedes can do their eating, drinking, talking, and laughing at a sound level several decibels lower than that of the same number of Americans. I don't say this as a reflection upon my native land. It's merely an observation of fact.

Sitting alone at a table for two by the wall, not really expecting much of anything to happen, I found it quiet enough to reread, with complete concentration, a letter I'd just received. So when someone spoke my name, I was startled. I recognized the strange, husky voice at once, of course. It wasn't a voice you forgot. I scrambled to my feet. She was standing there with the headwaiter who, on seeing that she was taken care of, bowed and retired.

"Hello, Matt," she said.

"Hi, Lou."

She hadn't changed much. She was still wearing her hair quite short. Well, it hadn't really had time to grow much. She had a new dress on, navy blue, with a full skirt and a kind of stiff, stand-up collar. It looked like the simple kind of button-up-the-front dress a girl might wear to work, done in a more glamorous material. The dress and supporting petticoats rustled nicely when she sat down. I sat down. We looked at each other for a while in silence.

Abruptly she said, "I just had to think things out, Matt. I had to get used to the idea that Hal was really dead."

"You didn't know?" I said.

"I… I wasn't quite sure," she said. "I suspected it, of course, or I'd never have risked approaching an American agent, but there were times… Like after Caselius was ax-rested and everything started going wrong. Suddenly I was quite sure Hal was alive and I'd gambled with his life and lost. Of course, I never told anybody, not even Wellington, that I thought Hal might be dead. If there had been a leak, if it had got to Caselius, he'd have known I was double-crossing him." This was ancient history. She made a gesture of dismissing it. "What's the letter, if I'm not prying?"

"From my wife," I said. "My ex-wife, I should say. It's now official, and she's met a wonderful man, a rancher, who just loves the kids. They love him, too. Or maybe they love his horses. The boys, at least, were always nuts about riding. I'm not to worry about the support money specified in the decree. Whenever I can pay it is all right, and she'll put it in a fund for their college educations. She didn't ask any alimony, you know. She's well. and hopes I am the same. Sincerely, Beth." I grimaced and put the letter away. "Sincerely. Well, she always was a sincere girl."

Lou shook her head. "Don't, Matt."

"I know. Why be bitter? She's being just as nice as she can. Actually, she's a damn nice person, and I'll clobber that damn rancher with one of his own saddles if he doesn't…

I broke off abruptly. After a little, I said, "I guess I'm not the guy to talk about clobbering people. Somebody might think I meant it."

She glanced down at her hands, not speaking. I looked around for the waiter, and he was right there. In that country, waiters really wait. I ordered drinks.

She said, "Martini for you? I warned you about their gin."

I shrugged. "If it kills me, I can't think of a nicer way to die." Then I stopped talking again. Somehow the subject of mayhem and death just seemed to keep cropping up.

Presently she asked, "What happened after I left Kiruna?"

I said, "It was Operation Cover-up, with bells on. Didn't you read the papers? You were a wealthy female American tourist who'd been kidnaped for money by wicked international gangsters. Elin was a brave Swedish girl who was acting as my guide, trying to save you. Who I was wasn't quite clear. The word espionage wasn't mentioned, the subject of photography never came up, and a certain great nation to the east never figured in the deal at all." I glanced at her. "I have a surprise for you. Your article is being published, with pictures."

Her eyes widened. "How did you manage that?"

"After the local authorities had developed the films and cut out everything that might be remotely interesting to a potential enemy, they let me have the scraps that were left. We'd shot quite a bit, you remember, and from time to time I'd picked up a few exposures on my own while you were champing at the bit. Well, going over the stuff, I found enough to work with. The piece will appear in a forthcoming issue, and the editor can't be too displeased with it, since he wrote asking if we'd be interested in working together on another article of a similar nature." I looked at her across the table. "Would we?"

"Why," she said, after the briefest hesitation, "why, it sounds wonderful, Matt…"

We had fish for dinner. They can't cook meat for shucks over here, perhaps because they haven't any worth eating, but they can take anything that swims and turn it into a gourmet's delight. Afterward, I put her in a taxi and took her to her hotel, which didn't happen to be the same as mine, for a change. She didn't hesitate when we reached her door. She just unlocked it and walked in, leaving it open for me to follow, which I did, closing the door behind me. She got rid of her purse and gloves.' Her full-skirted dress swished softly as she turned to face me.

"Nice," I said, indicating it with a gesture.

"It's about time you noticed," she said. Then a kind of spark came into her eyes, something spontaneous and mischievous that gave me hope. "It wasn't very expensive," she murmured. "You can rip it if you like."

"The great Kiruna rape scene," I said wryly. "I'm never going to live that down, am I?"

She was silent, smiling, waiting, and there wasn't anything more to say, and I stepped forward, and I didn't really know what the hell to do. I could have been a kid on his first heavy date. I began unfastening her dress buttons, starting at the top. Then, suddenly, she was in my arms, the way it was supposed to be, and everything was going to be all right, everything was going to be fine, and then everything stopped, and that was all there was to that.

She made a small sound in her throat. I let her go and stepped back.

"I'm sorry, Matt," she whispered. "I'm terribly sorry. That's why I… I thought if I went away for a while thought I could forget…"

"Sure, kid," I said.

"The man in the bushes with a broken neck," she whispered. "The one by the cabin with a bullet in the back. In the back, Matt!"

"Yeah," I said. "In the back. He happened to be facing that way."

She shook her head desperately. "And Caselius himself. I hated him more than I'd ever hated another human being. But he'd surrendered, Matti He had his hands in the air!"

I said, "As a boy, I knew a fellow who'd throw rocks at you and call you all kinds of dirty names, and the minute you landed a solid punch, he'd start yelling uncle. He escaped more lickings that way." She shook her head again, in that blind and unreasoning way. I said, "It was my job, Lou. I had to finish it, no matter where his damn hands were. I couldn't leave it for some other poor sap to have to do all over again."

"I know," she whispered. "I know, and I know he was going to kill me and you saved me, but-"

"Yeah," I said. I reached out and fastened the two buttons of her dress I'd undone. "There," I said. "Well, take it easy, doll. There's a guy named Wellington in town, whom you may remember. He's got a cast on and it itches and he'd like sympathy, I'm sure. Look him up. You two ought to have a lot in common. He thinks I'm a stinker, too."

"Matt!" she said. "Matt, I-"

I got out of there, and when I got to my own hotel room, some blocks away, the phone was ringing. I hesitated, but she'd know it was over; she'd have more sense than to call. I went over and picked up the instrument.

"Herr Helm," the desk clerk's voice said, "Herr Helm, you have a transatlantic telephone call, from a Mr. Martin Carrol, in Washington. I wifi try to get the connection for you. I will call you back."

I hung up. For a blank moment, all I could think of was that I didn't know anybody named Martin Carrol, in Washington or anywhere else. Then I thought of the initials, M.C. for Mac. Cute. I shivered, and wondered what the job would be this time. That was a silly thing to wonder about. I knew what it would be. The only questions were who and where.

The phone rang again. I picked it up. "We are getting your party in Washington, Herr Helm. Are you ready to take the call?"

I didn't answer at once. The funny part was, I couldn't feel a thing about Lou. What I was feeling was about another girl, a girl who'd been beautiful and young and kind of crazy. That was what I really needed, I thought, a girl who was a little crazy. But she was dead.

The clerk's voice held a note of impatience. "Herr Helm, are you ready?"

"Yes," I said. "Yes, I'm ready…"