Donald Hamilton: The Poisoners

Of course, there was no reason anybody should be, yet. So far, I was just another tourist in the big city. Things might change when I made myself conspicuous by visiting a certain patient on the critical list in a certain medical institution. It depended on just what, or whom, our girl in Los Angeles had got herself involved with.

With this in mind, I took time to check in at the motel. It was the only reasonable-looking hostelry around, a logical place to keep under surveillance if you'd shot somebody who hadn't died as she was supposed to, if you had plenty of hired help to spread around, and if you wanted to learn who would come rushing to L.A. to see her. I even made a point of announcing where I was going next, for the benefit of a gent busily reading a newspaper in the nearby lounge.

"Room 37, eh?" I said clearly to the lady behind the desk, as I pocketed the key. "Thanks. I'll just leave my suitcase right here for a little, if you don't mind. I've got to get over to the hospital across the street."

I didn't look at the man with the paper as I went out. Of course, he could be just a guest tired of the four wails of his room, or a man waiting for his wife or someone who wasn't his wife, but I hoped not. If the wounded girl couldn't tell me who'd shot her and why, I'd have to work it out some other way; and a character with a guilty conscience-guilty enough to keep watch on her visitors – was a good starting place, assuming that such a character existed.

At the hospital, I found that the way had been cleared for me. After giving my name at the desk, I was taken straight up to the room. Annette O'Leary lay in the bed surrounded by enough equipment, it seemed, to synthesize a brand-new human female from the basic elements.

I picked the side on which the apparatus jungle seemed slightly less impenetrable, and stood looking down at her, remembering how we'd met. As Mac had indicated, she'd been involved, in an amateurish way, on the wrong side of a job I'd been doing down in Mexico. Afterwards, needing some female help on my next assignment, rd put her to work for us. Perhaps because I'd known her first by her real name, before there was any question of her joining the outfit, I'd never been able to think of her as Ruby, the corny code name she'd been given later, presumably because of her red hair. Ruby always sounds like a tart name to me, and she was no tart.

She was a bright kid with a lot of guts and a lot of spirit, but you'd never have guessed it now, looking at the pinched little face below the neat white cap of bandages. There seemed to be bandages under the hospital gown as well. Her eyes were closed. I couldn't help remembering that I had, after all, got her into this racket – all the way in, on a permanent, professional basis. Even if her alternative had been prison, it didn't seem, at the moment, like something of which I should be very proud.

I reached down for the nearest hand, first making sure it was connected to no vital wiring or plumbing. It was cold and limp and unresponsive in my grasp. Her eyes remained closed.

"Annette," I said softly, "Netta…"

She didn't move. I glanced at the doctor who'd brought me up here. He moved his shoulders very slightly, as if to say that nothing I could do-nothing anybody could do-would hurt her now.

"Hey, Carrots," I said, "snap out of it! This is Matt."

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the eyelids came up very slowly as if infinitely heavy, and her eyes looked straight at me. I felt a very slight pressure of the cold fingers, just enough to tell me she saw me and knew me and was glad I was there. A moment later the eyelids dropped once more. I stood there holding her hand as long as I figured there was still a chance that she was aware of my presence; then I laid it down gently and went over to the chair in the corner to wait.

Three hours later they declared her officially dead.

When I came out of the hospital, it was dark. A damp, chemical-smelling mist put haloes around the street lights and motel signs. I picked up my suitcase and a newspaper from the motel office and went up to my unit, located at the end of the second-story balcony.

I set down my burden outside the door and, hands free, checked the knife in my pocket, a folding Buck hunting knife that's a little bigger than I like for casual wear, but I'd had to leave my previous edged weapon behind on a job last fall, and this had been the only replacement available at the time. Having got it nicely sharpened and broken in, I was reluctant to change again.

I also checked the little five-shot,.38 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver reposing inside my belt forward of my left hip, butt to the right. The clean-cut boys of the F.B.I. carry them way over on the other side for a fast draw, and I understand they're real good at it, but I'm seldom in that much of a hurry, and I want my gun where I can reach it with either hand, to use it or ditch it as circumstances require.

Having given anyone waiting for me in the room plenty of time to get nervous, I made my entrance cautiously the way the book recommends in times of uncertainty. There was nobody inside. I retrieved my suitcase and closed and locked the door, frowning thoughtfully. I'd been playing it safe by assuming the worst: that Annette had run into somebody who was part of a dangerous organization, political or criminal, and that this organization was now, since I'd got to see her before she died, very much concerned about who I was, what I'd learned from her, and what I'd do next.

That was the only safe theory for me to act upon, but I had as yet no evidence that it was correct except a man reading a paper who might have been just what he seemed. My histrionics and precautions might be a total waste of time. Annette could have been shot by a jealous lover who subsequently went home and blew out his brains, or by a drunken thief who ran for the Mexican border a hundred-odd miles away. If so, I'd have a hell of a time getting a line on the solitary murderer unless the police turned him up for me.

If an illicit organization was involved, however, and if it could now be goaded into revealing itself by taking action against me, I was in business, if I survived. In any case, I had to make my plans on the basis of the toughest opposition possible: say, some kind of undercover outfit run by a gent with brains, an outfit familiar with firearms and, perhaps, with other gadgets as well.

I glanced around casually but made no search. I had no desire to find the bug if it was there, as I hoped it was. I'd certainly made it easy enough for them to plant one on me. I'd loudly announced the number of my room and given them over three hours to work on it. If they couldn't take advantage of their opportunities, to hell with them.

It was a big, pleasant room with two double beds, which seemed a waste. Under the circumstances, even one double bed would be fifty percent wasted unless something unexpected happened, and I wasn't in a mood to hope for it. She'd been a good kid. We'd once had a pretty good time together, not to mention doing a pretty good job together down in Mexico, never mind the top-secret details. I could spend a night alone by way of mourning.

I threw my suitcase on the nearest big bed, tossed the paper down beside it, picked up the phone, and had the office lady get the long-distance operator to put me through to Washington. It took a while. Waiting, I leafed through the paper on the bed, playing the fine old secret agent game of trying to guess what item or items in the news might possibly have a bearing on my mission here. You have to guess most of the time; they won't tell you. Security being what it is, you're seldom given the full background even if it's known. In this case, of course, it seemed likely that nobody knew the full background except the person who'd shot Annette, and he wasn't talking, at least not to anybody who'd talk to me.