Donald Hamilton: The Shadowers

SHE LIVED within walking distance of the restaurant, technically speaking, although I wouldn't have wanted to hike that far on a cool fall night in a thin dress and high heels.

But she was still young enough to feel that taxis were corny and walking was reckless and gay-or perhaps she just had some natural reservations about sharing a dark back seat with me and my knife.

Anyway, coming out of the restaurant, I took off my suit coat and put it around her to keep her from freezing, and we hoofed it gaily through narrow streets with shabby old buildings, some with ornamental ironwork on windows and balconies, very picturesque if you like old architecture. I was more interested in the question of whether or not we were being tailed. On foot, in that ancient neighborhood of twisty little lanes, it was hard to tell. If somebody was shadowing us, he was good-but then he would be. That was his business, shadowing. That was why he'd been assigned to Olivia Mariassy in the first place.

Toni's room, apartment, studio, or pad-whatever they called it locally-was up two flights of narrow dusty stairs right under the roof. I couldn't help thinking it would be an oven in a New Orleans summer. She stopped on the landing and gave me back my coat.

"Thanks," she said. She found a key in her purse, unlocked the door, and looked up with her hand on the knob. She spoke in a voice from which all expression had been carefully removed. "Would you like to come in?"

I said, getting into my coat, "That's no way to put it, doll. You're not really concerned with my likes and dislikes, only with my intentions. Sure I'd like to come in. What do you think I am, a eunuch or something? But I'm not coming, thanks just the same."

She smiled faintly, as if she'd proved something about me, and maybe she had. "Why not?" she murmured. "Why the amazing display of self-control?"

"Because if I come in, you'll start wondering if I'm not really figuring you for a sucker or a tramp or both. Hell, you're wondering now, that's why you offered the invitation, isn't it? To see what kind of a slob I really am? But if I treat you with great respect, and just kiss you chastely here at the door and tear myself away, maybe I can make you remember me kindly in spite of the way we met."

She said, watching me, "Just how kindly do you want to be remembered, Paul?"

I said, "To be perfectly honest, I'd rather not be remembered at all, publicly at least. The little man who wasn't ever here, that's me."

"All right," she said. "But hardly little. All right. If that's what you want. I've had a lovely evening after all, and in return I'll follow any instructions you give me. That was the deal. But let's pass up the chaste and respectful kisses, shall we? I don't… don't like playing games with it, if you know what I mean." Her voice wasn't quite even at the end.

I looked at her for a moment, and I had the feeling you sometimes get in the business, that if you'd met somebody at a different time under different circumstances something might have come of the encounter, something you'd rather not think about since it wasn't going to happen.

"Sure," I said. "Anything you say, Toni."

She said quietly, "You're a very clever guy, aren't you? The funny thing is, you've almost got me convinced you're a pretty nice guy." She smiled crookedly. "I'll hold that thought as you walk away, Paul Corcoran, or whatever your real name is." There was a little pause while I turned toward the stairs. "Paul?"

I looked back. "Yes, Toni?"

"Good luck," she said softly. "Good luck with whatever you're doing, whoever you are."

Outside I drew a long breath and started up the street thinking it would be swell if wars were fought only by professional soldiers, and undercover operations involved only tough and unscrupulous agents who'd volunteered for the work. I'd used the kid cold-bloodedly to cover my interest in Olivia Mariassy, and she'd repaid me by calling me a pretty nice guy and wishing me luck. She was a bright kid and kind of a brave kid; and she thought she was experienced and sophisticated but she didn't really know the score.

I hoped she'd never learn it through anything I'd done, but there was no way of being sure of that. It's kind of like rabies, except that you don't have to bite anybody to pass it along. Just being seen with them can sometimes be enough. I remembered a case in which a small boy died, never mind where, because he'd politely picked up and returned a small package a lady had dropped-quite accidentally, as it happened, but the people watching her hadn't known that. They'd had to make sure.

Nobody followed me back to the hotel. I was quite certain of that, but the significance didn't strike me until I was crossing the lobby toward the elevators. Then I stopped abruptly with a cold feeling in my stomach, remembering that I'd had no such confidence when we reached Toni's place.

I stood there trying to remember and analyze my reactions. All the way from Antoine's to Toni's the warning signals had been flashing red on the control board. I might not have consciously seen, heard, smelled, or felt anything wrong, but the night had been faintly wrong behind me. From Toni's to the Montclair there had been nothing of the sort. Logic provided the answer: if somebody had followed me to Toni's, he was still there.

It was time for a careful review of the possibilities and their meanings. If our man had really followed me tonight instead of sticking with Olivia, this meant that my red-herring stunt hadn't worked. He'd seen enough of our clumsy meeting to want to investigate me further. And if he'd stuck with Toni instead of tailing me back to the hotel, this meant… I didn't know what it meant.

It was time to think hard and move slowly; it was time for great caution and thorough planning to retrieve, if possible, what could turn out to be a fatal mistake very early in the operation.

It was no time to consider small girls with black hair and unplucked eyebrows. As far as the job was concerned-as far as my duty was concerned-Antoinette Vail had either served a purpose or failed to serve it. Either way, what happened to her now was quite irrelevant.

Still, I told myself, I might learn something by going back, and the man with the craggy face couldn't be two places at once. If he had business with Antoinette, whatever it might me, he was for the moment no threat to Olivia. I could indulge my sentiment or curiosity or sense of responsibility a little. I could at least find out what had happened back there, if anything.

The cabbie I got had trouble with one-way streets, and it seemed a long time before I was again standing on the sidewalk in front of the three-story building. There was a light behind the drawn blinds of one of the dormer windows high above. Well, she'd told me she painted. She could have had a midnight burst of artistic inspiration, but it would have been more reassuring if the window had been dark, as if she'd gone right to sleep, tired after an exciting evening.

I went up the stairs fast without taking any of the precautions in the manual except to keep my hand on the little knife in my pants pocket. When I reached the third-floor landing I saw that the door was ajar, and I knew I'd come too late. I drew a long breath, pushed the door aside and stepped into the brightly lighted room.

It was a big place under the slanting eaves. At least the floor space was sizable; the ceiling space was less so. A skylight and the window presumably gave illumination by day. Now the light came from a couple of dangling bulbs without shades. There was an easel, but it had been knocked over. There were paints, and some pots of brushes, one of which had been spilled on the floor. There were stacks of canvases on stretchers, several of which had got knocked around. There was a table, stove, refrigerator, and sink; and there were several wooden chairs, some overturned, that looked as if they'd been picked up secondhand like the rest of the furniture.