Donald Hamilton: The Wrecking Crew

I broke off abruptly. After a little, I said, "I guess I'm not the guy to talk about clobbering people. Somebody might think I meant it."

She glanced down at her hands, not speaking. I looked around for the waiter, and he was right there. In that country, waiters really wait. I ordered drinks.

She said, "Martini for you? I warned you about their gin."

I shrugged. "If it kills me, I can't think of a nicer way to die." Then I stopped talking again. Somehow the subject of mayhem and death just seemed to keep cropping up.

Presently she asked, "What happened after I left Kiruna?"

I said, "It was Operation Cover-up, with bells on. Didn't you read the papers? You were a wealthy female American tourist who'd been kidnaped for money by wicked international gangsters. Elin was a brave Swedish girl who was acting as my guide, trying to save you. Who I was wasn't quite clear. The word espionage wasn't mentioned, the subject of photography never came up, and a certain great nation to the east never figured in the deal at all." I glanced at her. "I have a surprise for you. Your article is being published, with pictures."

Her eyes widened. "How did you manage that?"

"After the local authorities had developed the films and cut out everything that might be remotely interesting to a potential enemy, they let me have the scraps that were left. We'd shot quite a bit, you remember, and from time to time I'd picked up a few exposures on my own while you were champing at the bit. Well, going over the stuff, I found enough to work with. The piece will appear in a forthcoming issue, and the editor can't be too displeased with it, since he wrote asking if we'd be interested in working together on another article of a similar nature." I looked at her across the table. "Would we?"

"Why," she said, after the briefest hesitation, "why, it sounds wonderful, Matt…"

We had fish for dinner. They can't cook meat for shucks over here, perhaps because they haven't any worth eating, but they can take anything that swims and turn it into a gourmet's delight. Afterward, I put her in a taxi and took her to her hotel, which didn't happen to be the same as mine, for a change. She didn't hesitate when we reached her door. She just unlocked it and walked in, leaving it open for me to follow, which I did, closing the door behind me. She got rid of her purse and gloves.' Her full-skirted dress swished softly as she turned to face me.

"Nice," I said, indicating it with a gesture.

"It's about time you noticed," she said. Then a kind of spark came into her eyes, something spontaneous and mischievous that gave me hope. "It wasn't very expensive," she murmured. "You can rip it if you like."

"The great Kiruna rape scene," I said wryly. "I'm never going to live that down, am I?"

She was silent, smiling, waiting, and there wasn't anything more to say, and I stepped forward, and I didn't really know what the hell to do. I could have been a kid on his first heavy date. I began unfastening her dress buttons, starting at the top. Then, suddenly, she was in my arms, the way it was supposed to be, and everything was going to be all right, everything was going to be fine, and then everything stopped, and that was all there was to that.

She made a small sound in her throat. I let her go and stepped back.

"I'm sorry, Matt," she whispered. "I'm terribly sorry. That's why I… I thought if I went away for a while thought I could forget…"

"Sure, kid," I said.

"The man in the bushes with a broken neck," she whispered. "The one by the cabin with a bullet in the back. In the back, Matt!"

"Yeah," I said. "In the back. He happened to be facing that way."

She shook her head desperately. "And Caselius himself. I hated him more than I'd ever hated another human being. But he'd surrendered, Matti He had his hands in the air!"

I said, "As a boy, I knew a fellow who'd throw rocks at you and call you all kinds of dirty names, and the minute you landed a solid punch, he'd start yelling uncle. He escaped more lickings that way." She shook her head again, in that blind and unreasoning way. I said, "It was my job, Lou. I had to finish it, no matter where his damn hands were. I couldn't leave it for some other poor sap to have to do all over again."

"I know," she whispered. "I know, and I know he was going to kill me and you saved me, but-"

"Yeah," I said. I reached out and fastened the two buttons of her dress I'd undone. "There," I said. "Well, take it easy, doll. There's a guy named Wellington in town, whom you may remember. He's got a cast on and it itches and he'd like sympathy, I'm sure. Look him up. You two ought to have a lot in common. He thinks I'm a stinker, too."

"Matt!" she said. "Matt, I-"

I got out of there, and when I got to my own hotel room, some blocks away, the phone was ringing. I hesitated, but she'd know it was over; she'd have more sense than to call. I went over and picked up the instrument.

"Herr Helm," the desk clerk's voice said, "Herr Helm, you have a transatlantic telephone call, from a Mr. Martin Carrol, in Washington. I wifi try to get the connection for you. I will call you back."

I hung up. For a blank moment, all I could think of was that I didn't know anybody named Martin Carrol, in Washington or anywhere else. Then I thought of the initials, M.C. for Mac. Cute. I shivered, and wondered what the job would be this time. That was a silly thing to wonder about. I knew what it would be. The only questions were who and where.

The phone rang again. I picked it up. "We are getting your party in Washington, Herr Helm. Are you ready to take the call?"

I didn't answer at once. The funny part was, I couldn't feel a thing about Lou. What I was feeling was about another girl, a girl who'd been beautiful and young and kind of crazy. That was what I really needed, I thought, a girl who was a little crazy. But she was dead.

The clerk's voice held a note of impatience. "Herr Helm, are you ready?"

"Yes," I said. "Yes, I'm ready…"