Donald Hamilton: The Intriguers

I threw my stuff into the wagon through the trick tailgate and started the thing by fighting the trick starter switch that locked the shift lever, locked the steering wheel, and bawled you out if you left your key behind-it did everything, in fact, except start the car easily. I drove to my hotel a mile away. It was an attractive, rambling collection of low buildings on a beautiful curving beach at the head of a spectacularly beautiful bay. Of course, I couldn't see it in the dark, and I wasn't really in the mood for scenic beauty, anyway.

I stopped by my room to make a quick change from my fishing clothes into something respectable. Then I went into the lounge-the place had no real bar as such-found a big chair near the fireplace in which nothing was burning this late in the spring, and took a grateful slug of the martini that was brought me promptly. Presently I was aware that somebody had sat down in the chair to my left. I looked and saw that it was the short-haired girl from the runabout I'd just seen docking.

She said softly, "So you couldn't leave it alone, Mr. Helm. You couldn't just give thanks for your escape and leave it at that. You had to go after him and drown him!"

The Posada San Carlos had only one drawback. The location was lovely, the rooms were comfortable, the food was good, the service was excellent, and the prices were reasonable; but at certain times of the day the noise in the lounge and adjoining dining room was almost unbearable due to an electronically amplified group of musicians who didn't seem to feel they were earning their pay unless the big windows facing seawards were rattling in their frames, and the silverware was dancing on the tablecloths. One thing no Mexican band really needs, anyway, is amplification.

They were playing now. I discovered that there was something to be said for them after all. They made conversation possible, if the other party was close enough, without any danger of being overheard by anyone else in the room.

I regarded the girl for a moment, and said, "Naturally, I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about."

She said, "You're Eric. I'm Nicki. The code is double negative."

I finished my drink and set my glass aside. "Double negative? What does that mean?" I shook my head. "Sorry, Nicki. You've got the wrong guy. My name is Matthew."

"Armageddon," she said.

I'd started to rise. I sank back into the big chair and lifted a finger to summon a waiter. "Another martini, please," I shouted to him over the noise. "Anything for you?" I asked the girl.

"Yes, I'd like a margarita."

My previous female companion had considered margaritas a corny tourist tipple, but then she'd had a lot of screwy ideas. I have no objections to that cactus-juice cocktail myself, although it's not, in my opinion, designed for serious drinking.

"And a margarita for the lady, por favor," I yelled, and watched the waiter move away, while the waves of sound from the band washed over me rhythmically. They weren't bad, you understand, they were just too damned loud.

I turned my attention to the girl beside me. She was a reasonably sized, well-proportioned, dark-haired, basically sound specimen of human female, but she was doing her best to hide the fact, at least the female fact. She had a boy's haircut, or what used to a boy's haircut before they all started letting it grow. She also had a boy's pants on, complete with fly-pretty soon nothing will be safe from women's lib, not even our jock-straps.

They were white cotton pants, slightly flaring, and quite dirty. Her horizontally striped blue-and-white jersey was pretty dirty, too, as were her frayed white sneakers, not to mention the visible areas of her ankles. She obviously had no brassiere on under the jersey, and it didn't make any difference, not because she wasn't endowed with the customary protuberances, but because she didn't give a damn, and if she didn't, who did?

She was, obviously, a product of years of television commercials, although she'd have hated anybody who told her so. But if enough stupid industrial magnates spend enough million dollars on tastelessly revolting advertising, telling kids that the thing to be is clean and sexy-using product A, of course-the brighter and more rebellious ones are bound to figure out that the only sensible response to make to all this nauseating propaganda is to be dirty amid sexless.

Actually, she wasn't a bad-looking girl. She had a nicely rounded young figure inside the grubby pirate costume, and a tanned, slightly snub-nosed face with clear gray eyes. The heavy, dark eyebrows were, of course, totally unplucked, just as the mouth was totally devoid of lipstick. It was a pretty good mouth, big enough, potentially sensitive, but rather firm and disapproving now. I watched it take a sip of the margarita magically produced by the waiter, as I tasted my own martini.

"You haven't given the countersign, or whatever you call it," the girl said.

"Gotterdдmnerung," I said, and went on casually: "He's getting doomsday as hell in his old age, isn't he?"

"Oh, he's not so old," the girl said quickly and rather defensively, as if she thought I was trying to trick her into betraying herself, and maybe I was. "Not really."

"So the code is double negative," I said.

"Yes, whatever that may mean."

"If you were supposed to know what it meant, he'd have told you, wouldn't he?" Actually, it was a warning that this young lady, while working for us, was not to be trusted too far; and that therefore any information she supplied should be corrected in certain ways before being used as a basis for action. "What's he called?" I asked.

"I've given you the word. What more do you want?"

" What do we call him?" I asked again, patiently. It was important for me to learn just how much of an outsider I had to deal with.

"He's known as Mac around the office. I never learned why."

"Nobody knows why," I said. "Maybe it's his name."

"Nobody there knows what his real name is." I said, "You're doing fine. Where's the ranch?"

"What?"

"The ranch, sweetheart. The place we go to have the wrinkles ironed out after a rough assignment. Where is it?"

"Just west of Tucson, Arizona."

"What's behind his desk?"

"A chair, of course. Oh, and a window. A bright window."

"Have I worked for him long?"

"Yes. You were out for a while some years ago but you came back in. You're one of his very senior people."

"Gee, thanks," I said. "I can feel one senior foot slipping into the grave as you say it."

"He has a lot of faith in you, Mr. Helm."

"And you wonder why, don't you?" I grinned as she didn't speak. I asked, "What did I do when I wasn't working for him?"

"You were a photographer; a photographer and journalist."

"Have I ever been married?"

"Once. Three children, two boys and a girl. Your wife's remarried and living on a ranch in Nevada with the kids. Well, the oldest boy is in college somewhere on the West Coast. UCLA, I think."

I hadn't known that. In the business, it's best to stay clear of people you love or somebody'll get the bright idea of using them against you.

"You've done a lot of homework," I said. "If you're Nicki when I'm Eric, who are you when I'm Matthew Helm?"

"Martha," she said. "Martha Borden. No relation to Lizzie with the ax. Do I gather that the inquisition is over, Mr. Helm?"

"For the time being."

"You're a suspicious man." She was silent for a little and went on: "And a vicious one. You didn't have to kill that man."

"That's right," I said. "I didn't have to. He could have lived a long, happy, fruitful life. The choice was his. He chose to shoot at me."

"So you dumped him overboard, towed his boat away, and left him out there to drown!"

I looked at her grimly. I couldn't get away from them, it seemed. Having just got rid of one who made fine distinctions between birds and birds, I'd acquired one who made fine distinctions between homicides and homicides: shooting was apparently okay but drowning was terrible. Or perhaps it was just unsuccessful shooting that was morally acceptable, while successful drowning wasn't.