The Wrecking Crew

Chapter Four

WHEN I knocked on the door of Room 311, it was opened for me by a lean dark girl in tight black pants. She was also wearing a loose bulky black sweater and a long cigarette holder. Despite the beatnik get-up, or maybe because of it, she looked much too young to be the woman I'd spoken with on the phone, and I said:

"I'm Matthew Helm. Is Mrs. Taylor here?"

"I'm Lou Taylor," she said, and there was that deep, hoarse voice again. She held out her hand. "Glad to meet you, Helm." I'm always a bit taken aback when a woman shoves her mitt at me like a man, and I guess my face showed it, because the girl laughed huskily and said, "You'll be doing it, too, after you've been here a week. These damn Swedes shake hands at the drop of a hat, males and females both… Well, don't just stand there, come on in. What kind of a crossing did you have?"

"Smooth," I said. "A bit foggy in spots."

"You can count yourself lucky," she said. "The Atlantic can get pretty sloppy at this time of year."

She had closed the door. I followed her deeper into the room. It wasn't laid out quite like mine, but there was a family resemblance. A man was perched on the arm of the only comfortable chair in the place, a big, overstuffed piece by the window. He rose and came forward.

He was tall and big-shouldered and some years my junior, with a handsome boyish face and tightly curling chestnut hair cut quite close to his head as if he was ashamed of it. He was wearing narrow Ivy League gray flannels-coat and pants-a white shirt with a button-down collar, and a bow tie. The tie had been tied by him, not by a machine. I was told by my dad once that a man who tied his own ties was much more likely to be a gentleman than one who did not. Just what constitutes a gentleman in this day and

age, the old man didn't bother to say. To him, the distinction was clear. It must have been nice.

The man facing me, gentleman or not, was the kind of guy who makes you ponder instinctively if you can take him barehanded or if you'll need a club. I don't mean that he looked particularly objectionable. He merely oozed that aggressive masculinity that makes such thoughts come into other men's minds. The funny thing was, I'd met him somewhere before. Even if I hadn't vaguely remembered his features, I'd have known by the look of surprised recognition that showed for an instant in his yellowish eyes.

"Mr. Helm," the girl with the cigarette holder said, "I want you to meet Mr. Wellington. Jim, Matt Helm."

We shook hands. His grip was surprisingly gentle, the grip of a man who knows his own strength and guards it carefully. It was a point in his favor, to weigh against his virile good looks

"Lou tells me you're a photographer," he said.

"That's right," I said.

"Used to take pictures myself for a hobby," he said. "Won half a dozen prizes at our camera club back home in Baltimore, but I guess that's small stuff to you pros..

Well, I'll leave you to your business. See you, Lou."

He released my hand and wheeled toward the door, and in that moment I placed him. It had been during the war, at night. They'd brought this big kid up to me on the airfield saying that since I was lone-wolfing it this trip there was plenty of room, and if I didn't mind, it would save their making an extra run. He wasn't one of ours-he was OSS or something-and I wasn't crazy about having any outsiders knowing where I'd been dropped, but there wasn't much I could do about it.

Nobody bothered to introduce us. We didn't have names around that place, anyway; we were just cargo to be delivered. I shook hands with the boy, that was all. He'd been a knuckle grinder back in those days; apparently he'd learned better manners since. Then they called that the plane was ready and he wheeled toward it with that same aggressive football readiness of a big man who expects to be hit hard and intends to stay on his feet nevertheless..

I remembered the rest of that night clearly. We hadn't talked on the way across the Channel. We'd been just two young guys with different destinations, sharing a taxi for a few blocks, and I'd been wondering, as always, if this was the night my chute wouldn't open or I'd land in some hot wires and fry to death. He'd had his own thoughts, of a similar nature, probably. He didn't even wish me good luck when it was time for me to drop, but I didn't hold that against him. We had no sentimental traditions or customs in our organization, but in some outfits, I knew, just as among some hunters, it was considered bad form to wish anybody luck at parting.

"So long, fella," was all he said.

I never have liked people who call me fella, so I just gave him a nod as I went out. The hell with him. If you want to make buddies, join the infantry. The umbrella opened fine, and I landed in an open field, and I never saw the guy again until now.

He turned briefly at the door, waggled his hand in a half salute and looked at me casually, and I knew that he was double-checking, studying me from this new angle to make quite sure. After all, some time had passed. A horse born that night would be a pretty old nag by now. It was a wife and three kids ago for me. But he had a good eye, a trained eye, and he knew me, all right, and he went out without saying a word, which was the significant thing. He had recognized me, but he kept his mouth shut. It could mean a lot of things. After all, I wasn't joyously recalling auld lang syne, either.

"Who's he?" I asked, when he was gone.

"Jim?" Lou Taylor shrugged her shoulders. "Just a friend. He's kind of nice, actually. He's the Stockholm representative for a U.S. plastics firm, if it makes a difference..

Scotch or gin? I recommend the Scotch. The gin you get here isn't fit to drink."

"In that case, Scotch," I said. -

"I just want to get one thing straight, Helm," she said, turning to face me with the glass in her hand. "On the phone, you sounded as if you were planning to go up to Kiruna all alone. Well, don't kid yourself. This is my article, and I'm going to be right beside you when you shoot the pictures. I don't know much about photography, but I know the stuff I want, and I'm at least going to see that you get it down on film, whether or not it gets used later."