The Wrecking Crew Read online

  It was getting pretty thick in the room from that cigar. I glanced toward the window, and changed my mind. I didn’t figure there was much danger any more, if there ever had been. By now Lou would have let Caselius know he couldn’t spare me quite yet. However, timing and communications are tricky in such matters, and there was no sense in taking unnecessary chances for a little fresh air.

  Wellington was waiting for me to ask a question. I fed him his line. “I still don’t quite see how Lou Taylor got into the act.”

  Wellington said, “Well, there was just one hitch in Caselius’ plans, fella. It seems that the machine gunner at that road block wasn’t quite as hot with his weapon as Caselius himself seems to be. When they got to the car, it was a shambles of course, blood all over the place, but underneath her husband’s body Mrs. Taylor was still very much alive.

  “And when they started hauling the body off her, they found that it wasn’t quite dead, either. It was pretty badly shot up, but some guys are tough. Hal Taylor stubbornly insisted on keeping right on living. He’s still over there, despite the urn of ashes and the neat little gravestone with his name on it, somewhere in France. Caselius is a thoughtful guy. He has somebody take a picture now and then for, him to show to Mrs. Taylor, so she can see how her husband’s coming along. Somehow, Hal Taylor’s progress toward recovery seems to depend largely upon how well his wife does what Caselius asks her to. Does that clear things up for you, fella?” After a moment, he said, “I’ve got a couple of the pictures. Here.”

  He took them from his pocket. They were dog-eared snapshots, apparently taken with a cheap box camera with a flash attachment, fairly lousy in quality. One showed a bandaged man in a white hospital bed, nice and clean, with a starched nurse standing by, smiling prettily. The other showed the same man in the same bed, but the bed hadn’t been made for a while and the dressings hadn’t been changed and no other attention had been paid to the patient, who was alone and obviously incapable of looking after himself. The flat flash lighting had washed out gradation and detail; nevertheless, it wasn’t what you’d call a pretty picture.

  I gave the prints back. “If that’s the best work Caselius can get done over there,” I said, “it’s no wonder he had to import a photographer from America.”

  Wellington said, “One’s the kind of picture Taylor gets when she’s cooperating nicely. If she balks, she starts getting the other kind. It worked for a while. She went along with Caselius, using her American citizenship and her husband’s old contacts and sources for the little man’s benefit. Then I guess she sat down and took stock of the situation and decided there was no future in it; and that maybe if she could nail Caselius for us we could do something about getting Hal Taylor back for her. So she came to us with her plan, which you’ve just finished shooting to hell. Now she’s out there somewhere trying to persuade Caselius that she had nothing to do with it, that I fooled her as much as I did him, so he won’t take it out on her husband, wherever he’s lying helpless.”

  “You don’t know where they went?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I wanted Grankvist to have them followed, but he wasn’t sticking his neck out any further on my say so. He’d had it, as far as I was concerned.”

  “You could have followed them yourself,” I said. “Instead of coming over here and making with the fists.”

  He said, “Don’t tell me what I could have done, fella. Have you got a drink around here somewhere? All this talking makes me dry.”

  I said, “You seem to know your way around my suitcase. Find it.”

  I went to the dresser and got my little plastic cup and my jar of powdered coffee and took them behind the bathroom curtain. I let the water run, waiting for it to turn hot, testing it from time to time with my finger. I thought of Lou Taylor in her tight black pants. I thought of Lou Taylor in her rusty skirt and sweater. I thought of Lou Taylor in her nice black dress, and stopped that line of thought. I heard the big guy in the other room take a couple of swigs out of my plastic flask. Well, the alcohol should kill any germs he might leave, but I still thought I’d wash it off later.

  “God, you keep it stuffy in here,” I heard him say.

  I called back, “If you wouldn’t smoke those ropes…”

  Then I stopped. He was moving to the window. I could have warned him, I suppose, but he was old enough to vote. He’d been in this business as long as I had. I didn’t owe him a thing except a sore jaw and a couple of bruised ribs. To hell with him. I heard the window open. The shot came almost instantly. I walked into the room. There wasn’t any hurry. The guy had either missed or he hadn’t.

  When I came in, Wellington was standing at the open window, his back to me, his hands to his face. I’ve said they don’t have screens, haven’t I? There was nothing to stop him when he pitched forward. The last I saw of him was the soles of his shoes. They looked tremendous. He was a big man, all right. It seemed quite a while before he hit the ground, two stories below.

  25

  As he’d said himself, some guys are tough. When we got to him—Grankvist had left some men on the premises, and being downstairs, they beat me to it—he was breathing and gave promise of continuing to do so for a reasonable length of time, barring further accidents. He was even, after a few minutes, conscious and cursing. The doctor who arrived shortly diagnosed a broken arm, a broken collarbone, an undetermined number of broken ribs, and a neat furrow along the bone above the left eye, caused by a bullet. There seemed to be no serious damage to skull or eye. They took him away to the hospital.

  I went back to my room and shaved. I was almost dressed when Grankvist arrived. I let him in, and finished tying my tie, watching him go to the window, look around, and discover for himself where the bullet had buried itself in the wall after glancing off Wellington’s cranium.

  He said, “You were in there, according to the report I have.” He jerked his head toward the curtain.

  I nodded. “I didn’t shoot him.”

  “Obviously,” Grankvist said. “As a matter of fact, we already have the would-be assassins. Their lorry— truck, I think you call it in America—broke down thirty kilometers east of town. The rifle was still in it. They were caught fleeing into the woods. We haven’t yet determined which of the two fired the shot, but it’s not a matter of great importance, except perhaps to the court that will try the case.” He glanced at me. “You wouldn’t want to hazard a guess as to why Herr Wellington should be shot?”

  “No,” I said, “but he’s an hombre who’d naturally have lots of enemies—I mean, of course, because of his business.”

  Grankvist nodded thoughtfully, and glanced at the window again. “It was still quite dark, was it not? And the light of the room was behind him, and you are both tall men, although he is heavier. And it is your hotel room, not his.”

  I looked shocked. “Why, son, nobody’d shoot at me!”

  “Maybe not,” Grankvist said, “but I find it strange how you attract violence and death, Herr Helm. There was a lady in Stockholm, was there not? Had we not thought it essential to our plans that you should be free to proceed to Kiruna with your cameras, you would have been questioned quite thoroughly about that murder, I assure you, although there was some evidence to indicate that you were not responsible. The Stockholm police would like a statement, upon your return. Then there was the man found dead in your hired car, outside this very hotel. Now this unfortunate incident. Somehow I do not think Herr Wellington has been quite frank with me in the matter of your identity. I received a distinct impression of—shall we say?—professional jealousy.”

  I said without expression, “Naturally, I don’t know what you’re talking about, Herr Grankvist.”

  “Naturally,” he said. “But please keep in mind, Herr Helm, that we Swedes feel very strongly about violence. We do not even allow our children to watch your American cowboy films. It is our belief that even known criminals and spies are entitled to a fair trial. To simply shoot them down, except in cases of dire n
ecessity, is a travesty of law enforcement. I hope I make myself quite clear.” He turned toward the door, and paused. “What is this?”

  He’d picked up my flask from the top of my suitcase, where Wellington had left it. “Just a flask with whisky,” I said. “It’s not illegal, I hope.”

  “Oh, no,” he said. “I was just interested. They make so many interesting things of plastic these days.”

  As soon as he’d gone I went to the suitcase. I didn’t have to look very far; I found it stuck down among my clean, rolled socks, cold and hard to the touch: my little five-shot Smith and Wesson, still fully loaded. I frowned at it for a moment. Grankvist had been cryptic, to say the least. I didn’t really know whether he was returning the gun for my protection—after what had happened to Wellington—and warning me sternly not to misuse it, or whether that fancy speech of his had been double-talk to cover up the fact that he was turning me loose with a loaded revolver and his blessing. It’s always a little hard to interpret these characters who deal in abstract concepts like law and justice.

  I checked the weapon over carefully, since it seemed that the time had come to start wearing it. Then I went over to the hospital to see how my compatriot was getting along. I had a lot of trouble getting through the outer defenses, but finally they let me into Wellington’s room. He’d been set and stitched and bandaged by this time. When I closed the door behind me, his eyes opened.

  “You sonofabitch,” he whispered.

  I felt a lot better. Apparently the experience hadn’t done a thing for him. He was just going to go right on being the same old objectionable loudmouth. I’d been afraid he might say something to make me feel remorseful.

  “You knew they were out there,” he whispered.

  I moved my shoulders. “It was a possibility,” I said. “You should have thought of it. What are you crying about? You’re the fellow who was damned if he was going to ask for help from me, remember? Have I got to take you by the hand and lead you around to keep you from targeting yourself at lighted windows?”

  We stared at each other for a long moment; then he grinned faintly. “All right,” he murmured. “All right, at least you’re a consistent bastard. If you’d come in here whining how sorry you were and how you’d have given anything, but anything, to keep me from getting hurt, I’d have spat in your eye.” He closed his eyes, and opened them again. “Find my coat, will you?”

  It took me a while to track it down, but they finally located it and gave it to me. I took it to the bed.

  “Is the door closed?” he whispered.

  “It’s closed.”

  “In the lining,” he said. “Front right. Use your knife. I guess the damn coat’s not worth much any more.”

  I got out my knife and cut the lining open and found a small spill of paper. I took it back to him.

  “Hell, it’s gibberish to me,” he said irritably. “Don’t wave it at me. If it means anything to you, you’re welcome to it.”

  I unrolled the paper and recognized the code. I looked at him, but his eyes were closed again. I took the paper to the table in the corner and worked it out. It had my code number and some transmission signals I didn’t recognize since it hadn’t come through Vance, who wasn’t transmitting messages any more. The station of origin was Washington. The text read:

  Original orders operative, changes canceled.

  Go get him. Mac.

  I got out a match and burned the paper. When I went back to the bed, Wellington was wrinkling his nose in distaste.

  “You might ask a guy before you stink up his room like that,” he whispered.

  “Look who’s talking,” I said.

  “Well, are you satisfied? Can you find him?”

  “I don’t have to find him,” I said. “He’ll find me. I’ve got something he wants.”

  Wellington grimaced under the bandages. “Yeah. I figured that, finally. It just came to me, lying here. You and your goddamn films. You couldn’t touch him; you didn’t have your orders; I had them. So you let him walk off with a bunch of phonies, fogged so nobody could tell the difference, and kept the real ones to use for bait when the time came.”

  I said, “I’m listening hard. I seem to recall being accused of doing it for spite. I’m waiting for an apology.”

  He said, “I ought to stick Grankvist on you again, you human calculating machine.”

  I looked down at him for a moment longer. Flat on his back, he wasn’t such a bad guy. “Anything I can get you?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Caselius. Get the hell out of here. I want to sleep.”

  When I got back to the hotel, there was a girl talking to the clerk at the desk. This time I recognized the narrow, gaudy pants. Having seen that plaid once, you couldn’t forget it. She was still, I saw, wearing her hair pulled smoothly back to the big knot at the neck, like last night. Her profile was wonderful, in the moment before she became aware of me and turned. I thought I’d have to dream up an excuse to photograph her, some time when I had leisure to concentrate on simple things like truth and beauty. At the moment she was just a distraction and a nuisance.

  “Good morning, Cousin Elin,” I said.

  “It was a good morning,” she said. “But it is afternoon now. I was asking for you. I was going for a walk, to take some colored pictures, the leaves are so lovely at this time of year, but my camera is stuck. It will not wind properly. I wondered if you could possibly—”

  It was hard to realize that, among some people, life was still going on normally, and pretty girls were still going out to take lousy color slides with which to bore their families and friends in the long winter evenings to come.

  “I’ll take a look at it,” I said. “Come on up to my room. I’ve got some tools and a changing bag up there.”

  She gave me the camera as we went up the stairs. It was a little 35mm Zeiss job in that kind of ever-ready case with a flap in front, kind of like the drop seat of grandpa’s drawers. When you see a guy packing a case like that, don’t bother to ask him what publication he’s working for. If he were a pro, he wouldn’t be cluttering up his camera with a lot of extraneous leather. I unlocked the door, let her in, followed her inside, closed the door, and went past her to the nearest table.

  “I think you’ve torn the perforations,” I said. “That means the sprocket has nothing to engage, so the film won’t advance when you wind it. I’ll get the changing bag…”

  I stopped talking. She’d come up behind me—to look over my shoulder, I thought—but the thing that poked me in the ribs was hard and unmistakable, if totally incredible.

  “Don’t move!” she said. Her voice was strained. “Don’t move or I will shoot. You know what we want. Where is it?”

  26

  Where I trained during the war, they had a subject called preparedness or alertness or some such title. They’ve toned it down since. I guess it was too rough for peacetime; people sometimes got hurt. When I took my refresher course recently, we just got a couple of inspirational lectures on the subject.

  The way it was done in wartime was this: you’d be walking innocently between buildings at the school, or having a beer at the canteen, and you’d be chatting with an off-duty instructor in a friendly manner. Suddenly, smiling, patting you on the back and telling you what a swell guy you were and how he’d never had a pupil like you, he’d produce an unloaded gun and shove it into your side. At least you hoped the gun was unloaded. At that place you were never quite sure. And it wasn’t just the instructors; it could be the guy you bunked with, or the pretty girl at the canteen. Your job was to react and react fast, even if it was Mac himself. If you wasted any time in conversation, you flunked the course…

  She’d made the usual two mistakes the inexperienced make with a gun: she’d got in too close—why use a gun at all if you’re going to work at knife range?—and she’d pointed a gun at a man she wasn’t ready to kill. After all, she wanted the films. Dead, I was going to be no use in helping her find them. I won’t say
I figured this out in detail. You just kind of sense if the climate is favorable, so to speak: have you got a chance or haven’t you?

  It took me no more time than required to let go the camera I was holding; then various articles of furniture, one camera, and one pistol, went in various directions. Elin von Hoffman doubled over abruptly, hugging herself where—after striking the gun aside—I’d driven four fingers into her, rigid and together, like the blade of a dagger. I checked myself barely in time to stop the chopping, edge-of-the-hand blow to the neck that was supposed to terminate this particular exercise.

  Then I stood there, watching her go to her knees, gagging for breath. I suppose disillusionment is the proper word for what I felt, now that I had time to do some feeling about it. Anger and incredulity were there, too, and a kind of grief. I’d never made a pass at this girl—hadn’t even thought of her in those terms—but in some way she’d been a bright and reassuring light in a dark business, something clean and lovely and innocent to remind me that somewhere there was a different kind of world where lived a different kind of people... But obviously there wasn’t. It was all the same world, and if you wanted to survive in it, you could damn well keep your guard up. If an angel came down from heaven with a genuine, certified halo, you were still a sucker to turn your back.

  I sighed, and set the furniture aright, and picked up and pocketed her gun—one of those little Spanish automatics—and came back to her.

  “Get up,” I said.

  She got up slowly and steadied herself against the table. Presently she smoothed down her gray sweater and reached up to tuck back an escaping wisp of hair. Strangely, she was still beautiful, if a little pale. She rubbed her midsection ruefully, and gave a small laugh.

  “That was quite a fine demonstration, Cousin Matthias,” she said. “I must say, I did not expect… now I really believe you are a dangerous man, as I have been told.”