Donald Hamilton - Murders' Row

”You’ll do it, won’t you?“ she breathed at last. ”You’ll get rid of him for me?“ She laughed, her breath warm on my ear. ”I’m rather bored with Louis, anyway, and divorces are so messy and expensive.“

I found myself thinking, vaguely, that I’d never come across such a murderous bunch of citizens in my long and bloody career; but to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t paying all the attention I might have. Only so much can be accomplished standing up; and I had a certain leather sofa rather strongly in mind.

”Sure, baby,“ I said thickly. ”Anybody. Just name him and he’s dead.“

That was Lash Petroni speaking, but his voice seemed to come from far away. I drew a long breath and straightened up and looked into Robin Rosten’s face. It wouldn’t focus clearly; it seemed to waver before me; but I could see that she was smiling oddly. I glanced quickly toward the glasses on the coffee table.

”You bitch,“ Petroni said, a long ways off.

She laughed, watching me with speculative interest. I had a choice to make; and I reached out and took her by the throat before she could step back. I saw her eyes go shocked and wide.

”Too bad, lady,“ Petroni said. ”Too bad. You shouldn’t have tried-“

I made the voice trail off incoherently. The apprehension went out of her eyes as my fingers relaxed. I went to my knees and pitched forward, grasping at her skirt. After a little, I felt her bend over me and free the filmy nylon, tougher and more elastic than it looked.

”Good night,“ she murmured. ”Good night, Matthew Helm-or should I call you Eric?“

As I closed my eyes, I knew I found what I’d been looking for: the muffled voice on the telephone, Jean’s contact, the person who’d known all along I wasn’t a gangster named Petroni…

I AWOKE ON a boat. I knew this much about my surroundings before I opened my eyes. There were small, distant wave noises, and there was a certain amount of nautical creaking and groaning-the really big ships don’t talk much in ordinary weather, but the smaller ones do, and once you’ve heard the sound, even if it was a long time ago, you don’t forget it. I could hear footsteps on the deck over my head. There was some motion: the limited, rather jerky motion of a vessel lying at a dock and bumping up against it once in a while.

I knew all this, and I knew there was someone in the room, or cabin, with me. He wasn’t noisy, but he breathed and, now and then, shifted position slightly. I opened my eyes and looked at him where he stood leaning against the door because the cabin offered no facilities for sitting except the bunk on which I lay.

He was one of the biggest men I’d ever seen, very black, with a bony shaved head adorned with a curving white scar that looked as if someone had tried to split his skull with a meat cleaver but had failed simply because the tool wasn’t up to the job. It would take an ax. He had broad nostrils and a broad, thick-lipped mouth. I suppose you’d call him ugly. He certainly wasn’t pretty, but there was a kind of magnificence about him, even in faded denim shirt and pants, that reminded me, somehow, of his mistress-who was also pretty magnificent, I recalled ruefully, if in a different way.

”Hi, Nick,“ I said.

He leaned there lazily, unmoving. ”You know me, man?“

”Nicodemus Jackson,“ I said, repeating information I’d got from Washington over the phone. ”Six-five, two hundred and sixty pounds.“

”Two hundred and sixty-five,“ he said. ”I put on a little weight, loafing around up the creek there with nothing to do but polish the brass. I’ll go tell Miz Rosten you’re awake. She figured you’d be coming around about now.“ He straightened up, towering above me in the little cabin, and grinned, showing large white teeth. ”She’s a welded steel schooner, man. Built in Germany before World War II, but still sound as the day she was launched. The hull’s steel. The bulkheads are steel. Even this here door-“ he gave it a blow that made it ring dully, ”is steel, and it’s got a powerful strong bolt. The porthole’s dogged down tight; you couldn’t budge it without a two-foot wrench.

You catch my drift? I’d sure hate to see you waste your time and scratch up my paintwork.“

”I catch your drift,“ I said. ”What’s a bulkhead? Oh, you mean the partitions?“ I regarded him for a moment. ”You know I’m a government man, Nick? You could get in trouble, keeping me locked up in here.“

I had to say it, if only to give him a break if he didn’t know, but I didn’t expect it to impress him greatly. It didn’t. He merely grinned again.

”I don’t know nothing,“ he said. ”Miz Rosten, she does the knowing. I just does the doing, if you catch my drift. Miz Rosten takes care of the trouble, if it comes.“

Well, that took care of my responsibility towards Big Nick, and I could clobber him with good conscience if I ever had the chance, the strength and a heavy instrument, blunt or edged. With a man that size, it doesn’t pay to be particular.

”That program could keep you both pretty busy,“ I said.

He grinned more broadly. ”Man, you don’t look like much trouble to me, a skinny gentleman like you.“ He gestured towards a narrow door. ”The head’s in there.“

”What’s a head?“ I asked. ”Oh, you mean the plumbing?“

”That’s right, the plumbing,“ he said. ”Open the sea-cocks before you pump. I’ll go tell Miz Rosten.“

He went out silently. I noticed that his feet were bare. The door closed and I heard the bolt go home. It sounded powerful strong, just as he’d said. I was left alone in my quarters, if that’s the proper seagoing term for accommodations. It had been a long time since I’d had to remember port from starboard, and I had no intention of revealing the little nautical information I retained. A show of ignorance can be a useful weapon.

Aside from a trick belt buckle-standard equipment

– designed primarily for cutting the hands free in an emergency, it was the only weapon I had, unless you included the do-it-yourself suicide kit from my discarded drug supply. Since there was no rope on my wrists, and nothing else around to cut, the buckle wasn’t much use at the moment, although it might come in handy later. As for the death pill, concealed never mind where, it might come in handy, too, but I might be forgiven for hoping it wouldn’t.

I sat up and looked around. My bunk could be called a tight double or a roomy single. It was equipped with a hinged board at the side which could be raised and locked in place to keep the occupants from being tossed out in rough weather. The cabin was exactly as long as the bunk. It was as wide as the bunk plus a built-in three-drawer dresser. This, at the foot end, took up some of the floor space, leaving only an area of about two feet by four for standing, opening the doors, and pulling on your pants in the morning. Everything was painted white except the woodwork, which was rich mahogany, beautifully varnished, and the floor, which was smooth, unfinished teakwood.

I already had my pants on, as well as the rest of my number two Petroni outfit, somewhat the worse for being slept in. I tried using the handsome teak floor for standing purposes, therefore, and it worked. Whatever my dark sea-goddess had given me last night, it had practically worn off. I felt pretty good, physically speaking.

Mentally speaking, of course, I felt pretty foolish. I mean, as a man, I couldn’t very well help thinking of the silent laughs Robin Rosten must have had, last night, playing up to my tough gangster act in her best boudoir regalia, knowing all the time that I was a phony and that she was going to slip me a mickey at the first convenient opportunity. Well, it’s always nice to know you’ve brought a bit of gaiety into somebody’s life; and I’d been at this work too long to be sensitive about making myself ridiculous. The sensitive agents, full of pride and dignity, die very young.