Bill Granger - The November Man

But who had? And for what purpose?

There was so little of Hanley in the apartment with pearl-gray walls and mournful tall windows and dark furniture and large bare rooms.

Save a single sheet of paper found in a spring-locked false panel beneath the last drawer on the right side of his desk. Devereaux would have missed it. He had shifted his weight in the brown leather chair at the desk and accidentally kicked at the drawer and the panel had dropped. After it dropped, he began to dismantle the desk and the other furniture in the room. He did the job as quietly as he could. He broke apart the desk and the bureau in the bedroom.

But there was only the single sheet of paper.

It was standard 16-pound typing paper, white, 8½ by 11 inches.

In ink, at the top, was written a single word in block letters, as though Hanley decided on the word as a title for an essay. (He could not be sure it was Hanley’s handwriting; he had never seen it.)

NUTCRACKER

Below the single word were other words, lined up neatly flush left but in a slightly smaller handwriting:

January

New Moon

Equinox

June

August

Vernal

Winter

And below that, in a handwriting that might have been added later:

November?

The words fell out into his mind, formed patterns like falling leaves, fell wildly against the void of blackness. He waited for thought. He waited for the meaning of the words. He waited calmly in the light of a single lamp in the apartment. And after a time, he folded the paper, put it in his jacket. He turned out the lamp, closed the door, and left the building.

There were two approaches. They had been taught this at the training school in Maryland where he became an agent a long time before. The first approach is always best: To effect some sort of bluff of officialdom when approaching another for information. Most people are intimidated by those who appear to be officials or in charge, even if they are actually trained in the same business. No one wants unnecessary trouble.

The approach wasn’t going to work.

The young man in steel-rimmed glasses had a wise, mocking look to him and Devereaux waited while he read through the bona fides Devereaux had purchased in London. He wasn’t going to buy any of it.

The ambulance garage was on Sixth Street N.E., in a shabby section of Washington just east of Union Station. The garage was made of brick. It was one story high and the few windows carried bars on them. The windows were darkened by soot. The entrance of the garage was barred by a large Doberman pinscher, who set up a racket when Devereaux entered.

The man in the steel-rimmed glasses was not alone. He wore a white uniform and his shirt was open enough to reveal most of a pale, muscular chest. He had the easy grace of an athlete as he walked across the oil-stained floor. Devereaux waited in front of the barking dog.

“Come on, Tiger,” the young man said at last, waiting until the last moment to restrain the dog. “Go on over there, Tiger.”

Devereaux said who he was and why he had come. The young man looked at the papers and looked at Devereaux and looked at the dog. The second man, larger and softer, was in a sort of office at the back of the garage. There were sixteen bays in the garage, four occupied by ambulances, three by private cars, and one by a brand-new black Cadillac hearse.

“For the ones you don’t get to the hospital,” Devereaux said.

The young man looked up, annoyed, turned, saw the point of the joke. He grinned without pleasure. “Yeah. Something like that. You don’t leave anyone in the place where he dies.”

Devereaux was thinking about the dog. It was a shame. Because the kid wasn’t going to buy it the easy way. And Devereaux didn’t have all that much time.

Devereaux shifted on his feet and the dog sensed the shift and gurgled a growl. But the young man kept reading.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “So what do you want?”

“I want to see some of your records over the past two months. Delivery schedules, you might say.”

“I’m not sure I can do that,” the young man said.

“What’s your name?”

“Sellers,” he said. “What’s your name?”

Cocky.

“It’s on my identification.”

“I never heard of identification like this.”

“Maybe you’ve never had an insurance inspector come around before.”

“We have insurance guys—”

“We’re the guys who check up on insurance guys.” The line had worked in the apartment, of course, because the people there wanted to believe in him. But Sellers knew. And it was too bad.

“Come on back to the office,” said Sellers. “Let’s talk to Jerry.” Devereaux had not expected that.

It was late afternoon. Sunlight tried to fight its way through the dark windows but it was a losing battle. Caged lights hanging from the ceiling provided the only illumination.

The office was three stairs up at the back of the garage.

The walls were bright yellow and covered with graffiti and calendars. Miss National Hardware Convention held a wrench in one hand and showed her bottom.

The desks were butted into one wall and littered with bits of paper. There was grease on the chairs. Jerry was taller than Devereaux but his eyes looked a shade slower.

And the dog was outside. That was just as well. Not that it would have mattered.

Devereaux figured they would have made a call by now.

He walked into the room ahead of Sellers and when Sellers was nearly through the door, Devereaux turned suddenly and flung him at the second man.

But Sellers was braced. He only stumbled. Jerry pulled out a pistol.

Just a shade slow in the eyes.

Devereaux fired up and the bullet caught him flat in the throat. It was a small-caliber pistol—the Colt Python .357 Magnum was in the custody of the Swiss army captain named Boll—but it was good enough.

The dog was barking like mad and flinging itself against the door.

Sellers was deafened by the explosion. He turned and stared at Devereaux. His blue eyes were very wide. Jerry slid down the wall.

“I don’t have any time,” Devereaux said.

“We don’t keep the records here.”

“Sure you do.”

“I’m telling you—”

“When you do a job for an agency, you keep one copy of the records.” It was said like a dead man was not in the same room.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Devereaux said, “Take off your glasses.”

Sellers removed his wire-rims carefully.

“Give them to me.”

Sellers handed them to Devereaux, who stood with the pistol in hand.

Devereaux dropped them. He stepped on them and broke them.

“Glass,” Devereaux said. “I thought everyone used plastic.”

“I’ve got another pair,” Sellers said. He almost smirked. He was tough enough, Devereaux thought. No one was tough enough to stand up forever but the tough ones could wait you out. Especially if they had made a phone call and they were waiting for reinforcements.

Devereaux put the pistol in his pocket. There just wasn’t enough time.

“Come on,” he said.

“Tiger is waiting,” Sellers said.

“And I don’t want to kill the dog,” Devereaux said. “You see the way it is.”

The voice was reasoned and Sellers saw the way it was. He’d get this guy, there was no question of that. But there had to be a little room to do it. And the guy sure had dropped Jerry. Jesus Christ, he’d dropped Jerry without even thinking about it.

There are slums in Washington very nearly as bad as those in cities like New York or Chicago. They are the best places in the country to conduct business without interference from people in authority.

Or people who might be looking for you.