The Threateners Read online

  “How is she?”

  “It looks messy, but there’s not enough external bleeding to worry about; they can patch up that ear later. I’d say what she needs is a bed, some X rays to determine if there’s a skull fracture, and in any case plenty of rest until it’s certain there’s no serious concussion or internal seepage. Let’s get her on her feet. . . ."

  As the three of them moved awkwardly toward the gate I said to the man before me: “Well, what’s it to be, Mr. Government Man?”

  His glance wavered briefly; he steadied it and said contemptuously, “You’re bluffing, Helm, but I haven’t got time to play macho games with you. You may keep your weapon if it means that much to you. ” He fixed me with a hard and intimidating stare that he’d undoubtedly practiced in the mirror. “But you will forget all this. You will also forget the code word we used, which should never have been given you. Is that understood?”

  I regarded him for a moment. He was slightly incredible, but they all are. "It’s understood and rejected," I said. “Pull in your horns, buster. You come onto my property and announce that you’re going to take this and I’m going to forget that, just because you’re carrying an ID you won’t even give me a good look at, that you probably found in a box of cornflakes. Well, you’ll take nothing except what you came for and I’ll forget nothing except what it pleases me to forget. Goodbye now.”

  He tried the stare again and, when I displayed no signs of terror, opened his mouth to speak, changed his mind, turned on his heel, and marched out, making no apology for bumping against Madeleine as she returned from the street alone. She glanced after him, shrugged, and watched me roll the gate closed and snap the padlock.

  “What was all that about?”

  “All what?”

  “You acted as if you wanted a gunfight or something.”

  I grinned. “The man who takes care of the yard, Juan, says we should get some manure for the compost heap to make it work right with all the leaves he’s raking this fall; apparently there’s some kind of chemical reaction in there that requires excremental stimulation. It occurred to me that Mr. No Name would do fine, full of shit as he is. But I guess we’ll just have to buy it, although I’m always reluctant to pay good money for it when there’s so much of it around, and more generated every minute.” I realized that I was talking too much. I hadn’t really thought the guy would go for it, but it’s always a strain. I took Madeleine’s arm. “Come on, I promised to feed you. I’ll let you pick the can. I’ll open it and warm it. How’s that for a deal?”

  She grimaced. “Damn, what happened to all the glamorous secret agents who dish up gourmet meals at the drop of a bullet-proof vest?”

  “You came to the wrong place for glamour, babe; around here all you get is Dinty Moore’s beef stew.”

  Actually, she settled for a plate of corned beef hash with a poached egg on top—Prairie Farms AA Extra Large, if it matters. Since they’re just about the only things I cook, aside from an occasional steak and a few potatoes, I’m particular about eggs. After cleaning up the kitchen, we took our coffee into the living room. Earlier, I’d touched a match to the firewood I keep laid and ready during the colder seasons of the year. Madeleine, in one of the massive wooden chairs before the flames, let her jean-clad legs sprawl apart in an unladylike manner.

  “Just what were you trying to accomplish, Matt, being so tough with that government character?” she asked lazily at last. “Not that he didn’t ask for it, but you were really pushing.”

  I shrugged. “I’m hoping his feelings are hurt enough that he’ll phone Big Papa in Washington to report that a nasty man was very rude to him.”

  “If he does call Washington, what will that accomplish?"

  "Then his chief will, we hope, check out a certain individual named Helm and, if he looks hard enough in the right places—it can be done, if you’re persistent and have good government connections—find out that I also work for the government. If the pushy character who just departed is professionally interested in the Steiners, he should have had me traced when I first got friendly with Mark last summer. Maybe that’s what made him so hostile; he realized that his sloppy operational habits were going to be exposed. Anyway, having identified me, his chief will lodge a protest with my chief in the name of interdepartmental cooperation. That way we’ll know what bureau or department we’ve come up against without going to the trouble of tracking down the only name we’ve got, Miguel Ortiz, which could be a lost cause. Hell, you’re a New Mexico girl, you know that in Spanishspeaking circles, there are almost as many Ortizes as there are Martinezes and Montoyas; and Miguel isn’t exactly uncommon, either. And neither name necessarily belongs to the man who was here.”

  “Kind of like looking for a phony John Smith, you mean?” When I nodded, she said, “But even if you do find out who nice little Mike and his tall, obnoxious colleague are working for, that still won’t tell us about the others, the ones who have both of us under surveillance and apparently the Steiners as well—”

  She was interrupted by a shrill, screeching sound; nobody will sell you an honest bell anymore. All they have to offer is these electronic screamers.

  I said, “That should be Mark Steiner now. Maybe he knows something about the Spookies we don’t.”

  The harsh screech that tells me somebody’s at the gate wanting in sounded again, impatiently. I tucked the little Spanish pistol into my waistband and went out there. It took me a moment to find the right key on the ring.

  “Come on, let me in, Matt. If you want the password, it’s Lapis. I caught hell for using that!”

  It was definitely Mark Steiner’s voice. I removed the padlock and stepped aside, letting him slide the gate back. He came inside and looked around for me, and smiled thinly when he saw me back against the fence with the little automatic ready in my hand. He was dressed as he had been at the rifle range, in well-worn khakis, and he had the same khaki cap, with a moderately long bill, on his head.

  "I recognize the pistol," he said.

  “I saved it for you,” I said. “One of those government freaks you sent wanted to liberate it. If I know my G-men, you’d never have seen it again. Here.”

  He took it and checked the chamber and safety the way any knowledgeable person does when handed a firearm. He stood looking down at the gun for a moment.

  “I always wondered why anybody would name a pistol after a South American beast of burden,” he said. “I didn’t know she’d taken it, but it’s the one she really learned to shoot with, after we’d done a little preliminary work with a twenty-two, so I guess she felt most comfortable with it.” He looked up sharply. “You haven’t asked how she is.”

  I spoke deliberately: “The health of folks who barge onto the premises with loaded firearms and homicidal intentions concerns me very little.”

  His lips tightened. “She was upset. She wasn’t . . . responsible.”

  I didn’t have to listen to that crap. I said, “Neither, I’m told, was the gent who shot President Reagan. But I’ve never understood why being an irresponsible loony should give an individual free shooting privileges not accorded to responsible, sane folks.”

  “Damn it, she’s not insane!”

  “A gal who blows her stack and runs off to kill somebody without even making sure she’s got the right guy and then practically goes into convulsions when a friendly pup licks her face isn’t exactly a well-balanced personality in my book." I looked at him hard. "And I’m damn well not going to apologize for giving her the gun-butt treatment, which is what you’re plugging for, isn’t it? I almost lost my dog to your well-balanced wife, and there was even a moment when I thought I might lose me. And I haven’t heard any apologies from you for turning a crazy lady with a gun loose on me.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “The hell you didn’t. She didn’t cook up the notion that I was one of the people who were hassling you, maybe even the main man, all by herself. . . . Yes, she talked a little before your federal friend
s arrived. From what she said, I know you must have told her all about me: that overfriendly Helm character with the affectionate pup you kept bumping into just a little too often at the rifle range. Well, I’ve kind of wondered about you, too, for exactly the same reasons. I guess it doesn’t pay to be friendly these days. However, I didn’t share my suspicions with a gal I’d taught to shoot whom I knew to be slightly off her rocker, and I didn’t leave a loaded gun where she could get her hands on it. So let’s just call it even, apology-wise, shall we?”

  We faced each other for a long moment; then he looked down at the pistol in his hand. He smiled thinly. “You’re a damn fool to talk to me like that after handing me a gun, Matt.”

  I shook my head. “I wouldn’t have talked to you like that if you hadn’t been holding a gun. You’d have slugged me. But we learn not to yield to our violent impulses when there are firearms involved, right?” I grinned. “And you’re covered from the comer of the house. . . . Miss Rustin, allow me to introduce Mr. Steiner, and vice versa.”

  He glanced that way and laughed shortly as Madeleine stepped into sight, holding her small revolver. Steiner checked the Llama pistol once more, opened a couple of the lower buttons of his khaki shirt, slipped the gun inside, and buttoned himself up again, moving forward to make the lady’s acquaintance.

  Madeleine offered her hand, frowning a bit as she looked at him. “It’s a dumb thing to say, but haven’t we met somewhere?”

  Mark bowed over her hand. “If I wasn’t happily married, Miss Rustin, I would certainly invent a very fine previous acquaintance between us, but I am afraid it is not the case."

  “I was sure . . . Well, never mind. How is your wife?”

  I turned away to lock the gate. When I returned, Mark was saying: “. . . a mild concussion but no fracture. They’re keeping her in the special rest home for a few days. Thank God the girls are old enough to stay by themselves for reasonable periods of time."

  “Your children?”

  “Andrea, thirteen, and Beatrice, eleven.” Mark glanced at me. “Andy said you sounded like a nice man over the phone.”

  “You’d better teach the kid better judgment,” I said. “Come on, let’s go inside.”

  I waved him ahead. As we made our way along the side of the house to the door I glanced at Madeleine. It was the second time she’d been right behind me with her little gun when things could have got sticky.

  “Thanks for the backup, babe,” I said.

  “Any time, buster,” she said. “Any time.”

  I remembered that we’d worked very well together five years ago. I remembered other things from five years ago, but it wasn’t the right time to compare nostalgias. After a moment she went on to follow Mark into the house. Happy greeted his friend exuberantly as we entered and got his ears scratched briefly before I put him out into the yard.

  I asked, “Have you had any lunch, Mark?”

  “No, I was just fixing something for the girls and me when you called. Ruth had gone to lie down with a headache. At least I thought that’s where she was.”

  Madeleine said, “I’ll get him something. . . . What do you want with it, Mr. Steiner? There’s coffee; and I think I saw some beer in the refrigerator."

  "Beer, please." When she’d disappeared into the kitchen, Mark looked at me. “Nice lady. But she holds a gun as if she’d seen one before.”

  “Never mind her,” I said. “Let’s talk about you.”

  He shook his head. “There’s nothing I can tell you.”

  “Bullshit,” I said. “What you mean is, you could tell me a lot but you’re not allowed to.”

  "If you want to put it that way.”

  He looked around as Madeleine returned to put a plate and a bottle on the table. Carta Blanca, if it matters.

  “Do you want a glass?” she asked.

  “No that’s fine, thanks, Miss Rustin.”

  “Let’s make it Madeleine and Mark. What about you, Matt? More coffee?”

  I said that would be great, and I told Mark to sit down and joined him at the table. It gave me an odd feeling to play host with a pretty lady playing hostess; I realized that it reminded me of my long-ago marriage. I wondered how Beth was getting along these days. The breakup hadn’t been my idea. I’d just been young enough to fall in love, and foolish enough to think I could dismiss the past and settle down to a nonviolent life with a nonviolent wife. I seemed to have spent my life with disapproving ladies. Maybe what I needed was one who’d played my game and knew the score. . . .

  “There you are,” Madeleine said, placing a steaming cup in front of me and sitting down beside me with another.

  “Real service,” I said. I looked at Mark Steiner. “If you can’t tell me anything, why are you here?”

  He swallowed a mouthful of hash and washed it down with Carta Blanca. “Officially, I am here to impress on you the fact that you are not going to be told anything and that you are not going to snoop around trying to find it out.”

  “And unofficially?”

  He grinned. ‘ ‘I am here to punch you in the nose for slugging my wife.”

  “Just how do your friends plan to stop me from snooping if I feel like snooping?”

  He said, “They have discovered, much to everyone’s surprise, that you also work for Uncle Sam in some mysterious capacity, and they are having their top man in Washington demand that your top man in Washington order you to keep your long nose out of their business. ” He laughed. “I don’t think Mr. Dennis Morton likes you very much. What did you do to make him so angry?”

  Madeleine said, “Need you ask? He made you angry, too, didn’t he? Earlier, he made me angry. He makes everybody angry. It’s the secret of his success.”

  I said, “Dennis Morton? Is that his real name or did he make it up for the occasion?” When Mark didn’t answer, I said, “Demand? That should lead to fun and games. My chief just loves other departments demanding that he run his agency to accommodate them; it gets his adrenaline flowing very nicely, thank you.”

  Steiner smiled thinly. “It seems that all governments operate in the same ridiculous fashion, each branch fighting with every other.”

  I studied him for a moment. “Under circumstances of such fearful security, I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what the hell Lapis is all about; why my chief, who’s pretty good at digging things out, could get only a hint of it in Washington, and why Morton blew his stack when you picked it for a password.”

  He started to say no, he wasn’t going to tell me. His intended refusal was quite obvious. Then he checked himself and looked at me more sharply, frowning.

  He spoke carefully: “The hair covers it now, but early in the summer . . . I would say you received a bullet crease along the head not too long ago. Although you are tall enough, I do not think you got that scar from cracking your head on a low doorway,” he said. “And from the cautious way you moved when we first met, I would not be surprised if you’d had another projectile taken out of you. Just what is it you do for the U.S. government, amigo, that gets you shot up like that?”

  I looked at him for a moment. I suppose I should have told him he had a hell of a nerve expecting me to answer his questions when he wouldn’t answer mine, but that kind of verbal sparring would only waste time. He was leading up to something and I needed to know what it was.

  “We call it counterassassination,” I said. “In other words, if a certain department of the government—say Dennis Morton’s gang—starts losing people to somebody or somebodies too tough for them to deal with, they call in the specialists. Us.”

  He studied me for a long moment. “So you have killed people?”

  I nodded and remembered my thoughts at the rifle range. “Haven’t you?”

  He shook his head quickly. “Shooting is a sport with me. I love firearms, yes, but I have never pointed one at a human being.”

  “Lucky you,” I said.

  “You do not believe me?”

  “You were a little to
o casual about winning this morning for a gent who’s never fired a gun in anger."

  He smiled thinly. “Matt, before I had to flee my country, I was national champion with the large-caliber rifle and the big silhouettes. That is real shooting, out to five hundred meters, where only a small wind will carry the bullet far off target. Should I clap my hands and jump with joy because I win a small-caliber match at no more than a hundred meters, against a few Sunday shooters who, if you will excuse me, are not really very good?”

  It was a fair enough answer. I said, “So you aren’t an American citizen?”

  “You flatter me. Is my English so beautiful, then? I have still some years before I can become a citizen here.”

  I said, “Hell, you communicate real good, and Spanish accents are a dime a dozen here in this great southwest of ours. I never thought about it one way or the other.”

  “You mean, to you I was just another goddamn greaser, hey?” He grinned and stopped grinning. “You ask what is Lapis.”

  “Yes.”

  He poked himself in the chest with his thumb. “Me,” he said. “I am Lapis.”

  Chapter 7

  One of those damn cedar logs exploded loudly and we all jumped. I got up, kicked back into the fireplace some coals that had been expelled, and returned to my chair, trying to make sense of what I’d heard.

  I remembered discussing with Mac the question of whether Lapis was a person, an organization, or an operation. It seemed that I’d found the answer: Lapis was an operation organized to protect a person, a foreign national, male, who’d married an American girl—there was nothing Latin about Ruth Steiner, either in appearance or accent—and lived elsewhere in wedded bliss for a while, but had been forced, with his family, to flee that happy home and hide out here in New Mexico where his wife hated everything. The big question was: what made Mark Steiner important enough that the U.S. government, at least Dennis Morton’s minor branch of it, would take the trouble of establishing a new identity for him out here—I assumed he’d changed name as well as residence—and watching over him?