Donald Hamilton: The Shadowers

I went forward, trying not to let myself feel hope, and knelt beside Toni. I put my hand on her shoulder and she seemed to move in response, rolling over on her back sleepily to see who'd disturbed her. Then I saw the blank, wide-open eyes in the pale, bruised face-and the little bullet hole between the fine black eyebrows.

"Good evening, Eric," said Kroch's voice behind me.

I SUPPOSE it was a moment of triumph or something. I'd figured it right, hadn't 1? I'd figured everything absolutely right, with the exception of Mooney's survival. The old crystal ball had been working pretty well. The man I wanted was within reach and I wasn't dead.

Everything was working out for me, just as I'd told Olivia. Hell, outfiguring a clumsy crumb like Kroch was just child's play for the brilliant, scheming mind of that old maestro of the undercover services, Matthew Helm. Now all I had to do was take him.

"Get up," Kroch said. "Be very careful, Eric."

"Shut up," I said without turning my head.

"Ah, yes," he said. "A moment for sentiment. Very well, but no tricks."

I looked down at the kid. There was some white paper sticking out of a pocket of her dusty black pants. I pulled it out. It was a crumpled envelope with my name written on it, or the name I was wearing currently: Mr. Paul Corcoran, Montclair Hotel-please forward. I could feel Kroch watching me closely, but he didn't interfere as I opened the letter. It was not a letter, however. There was no writing inside. There were only three fifty-dollar bills.

There had never been any mysterious message, just the money I'd left in her studio, the money her pride and anger had forced her to try to return, preferably by finding me and throwing it in my face. And still at the end, I remembered, she'd tried to warn me off. Mr. Corcoran don't come, she'd cried into the phone, don't come, he'll kill you!

"That's long enough," Kroch said. "The period of mourning is over. It is too bad. She was quite pretty. You have very good taste, Eric. The one in Redondo Beach, she was extremely attractive. It hurt me to have to send her off the road to her death. Such a waste. But if they will associate with people like us, they must take the risks, hem?"

There was suddenly a funny roaring sound in my ears, as if the beach had moved closer so that I could hear the surf.

"Gail?" I said. "You killed Gail Hendricks, too?"

"Was that her name?" he asked casually. "Didn't you know? Let us say she helped kill herself. She was really driving much too fast for the amount of alcohol she had consumed. Her reflexes were, shall we say, ragged. When I pulled alongside in the curve, very close, and blew my horn loudly… well, at that speed it takes very little to send a car out of control." He paused. "Surely you didn't think it was an accident. Accidents do not happen to people like us, Eric. You should know that."

He was right, of course. I should have known it, but there had been no indication at the scene of the wreck and no motive that I could think of. As murder, Gail's death still didn't make sense as part of the case. He'd killed her before I'd even been given the assignment, be-fore anybody could know I was taking it, since I didn't even know it myself. I thought about this, or tried to think about it, but all that really came was the fact that he had killed her. That was two counts against Mr.

Kroch. It was going to be very hard to keep him alive when the time came.

His voice came, easy and confident: "Well, so it goes. So geit's im Leben. All right, stand up. Put your hands against the wall. So."

Standing there, I felt his hands go over me. They found nothing of significance except the little case in my coat pocket. I felt that taken away.

"No weapons, Eric?" He sounded puzzled and rather disappointed.

"I stashed them," I said. "There's a tommy-gun hidden every five paces between here and the car."

"You hid nothing," he said. "I was watching. And they would do you no good out there, anyway. You are not going out there again. Turn around, slowly."

I turned and looked at him for the first time that night. He was standing well back so I couldn't grab the gun. He'd got no handsomer since the last time I'd seen him. His clothes were rumpled and dirty and he needed a shave. The bald dome of his head looked startlingly smooth and shiny above the craggy, lined face with its rough chin.

The weapon in his hand looked like a Star, one of those Spanish automatics. It wasn't the smallest gun in the world-the shape of the cartridge, tiny though it is, makes it difficult for technical reasons to build a really small.22 automatic pistol-but it looked like a child's toy in his large fleshy hand.

He was a big man. It didn't worry me. The only thing that worried me, after seeing Toni's body and learning about Gail, was that when the time came I might accidentally break him or tear him apart. I kept reminding myself firmly that this was still a business matter and had nothing to do with love or hate.

"What's this?" he asked, holding out the little case he'd taken from my pocket.

"You've seen them before," I said. "It's a drug case."

"If you know, why ask?"

"Why did you bring that and nothing else?"

He was puzzled. It was a good way for him to be. He thought I had some elaborate plan, and he wanted to know what it was before he disposed of me. If I'd told him I'd just come there cold to take him and his silly little gun barehanded, he wouldn't have believed me. So I told him.

"What do I need," I asked, "to take a loudmouth like you, Kroch? An armored regiment? But I had to bring something along to keep you quiet after I'd taken that popgun away from you and rammed it down your throat or elsewhere. It was either that or a rope, and I didn't have a rope."

His eyes narrowed dangerously; then he laughed. "You are bluffing, Eric. No, you are taunting me deliberately to make me angry. Why? What clever scheme have you got in mind?"

Off in the corner, Dr. Harold Mooney wiggled uncomfortably against his bonds and tried to say something through his gag. We paid him no attention.

"Clever?" I said to Kroch. "They wanted me to be clever, but I said what the hell it's just Karl Kroch, isn't it? If you want him, I'll go get him for you. Alive? Sure, I'll take him alive, I said. A dangerous man I might have to shoot, but not old Kroch."

His hand tightened on the gun-tightened and relaxed. He laughed harshly. "Childish, Eric," he said. "Very childish. But I wish I knew what you had in mind. Then he frowned. "Why would your superiors want me alive? Why would they care?"

The truth was doing all right for me, so I stayed with it. "Well," I said, "they want to ask you some questions about a gentleman named Taussig, Emil Taussig. I said I was sure you'd be glad to cooperate after I'd worked you over a little."

He ignored the jab, still frowning. "Taussig?" he said. "The old man in Moscow? The white-haired old man who is so clever for the Communists? I only know what everyone in the business knows about Taussig. I have never even met him. Why would they want to question me about him, Eric?"

I laughed in his face. "Now who's bluffing, Karl? We have an odd notion you just might be working for that white-haired old man. As a kind of specialist, say. Not in Moscow, but right here."

He looked at me for a moment. He seemed displeased. He shook his head slowly. "But that is not so," he said, almost reproachfully. "You must know it is not so, Eric. You must know about me, by this time, enough. I gave you my name; you will have got a report by this time. You know who I am. You know where I came from. Why should you think such a thing of me?"

I had a sudden cold feeling that something was wrong, that everything was wrong. Gail had died before the case even started, as far as I was concerned; and now Kroch was being very sincere and earnest, and a little indignant, about something that shouldn't have bothered him a bit, if he was what we'd thought him. I remembered that I'd never been really satisfied with his behavior.