Assignment to Disaster (4 page)

He went to the local telephone office next and spoke to the manager, a gray-haired, lanky man with an Eastern Shore drawl. The phone in the gatehouse was still connected, the bills paid for by Deirdre Padgett. The manager had to wake up the night switchboard operator, and that took a little time. When Durell asked his question, he struck pay dirt.

Yes, the operator remembered a long-distance call last night to the Padgett place. Right spang at midnight.

"Where did the call originate?" Durell asked.

"New Mexico, someplace. Funny name."

"Las Tiengas?"

"Yes. That's it."

"At midnight?"

"Said so, didn't I? Right spang on the dot."

"Who called Miss Padgett, do you know?"

Flush of insult. "I didn't listen. I never listen to…"

"I wish you had," Durell said.

"Well, I didn't."

He was reasonably sure that the girl had come out here only to receive a prearranged telephone message from her missing brother. That placed Calvin Padgett still in Las Tiengas at midnight, twelve hours ago.

It was something. Not much, but something.

He got back into his car and returned to Washington.

The street was quiet, stifled under the pall of humid heat that had settled over the city. Durell nodded to the agent in the lobby of the apartment house and went up in the self-service elevator to the third floor. The corridor was empty. Lew Osbourn was not in sight.

Frowning, Durell walked first to the open window that overlooked the back courtyard. There was not much he could see through the thick foliage of the poplar trees. Somewhere a baby cried. A radio droned out the thick inflections of a soap opera. Peaceful. Hot. Where in hell was Lew7 Durell turned and walked back to the door of Deirdre Padgett's apartment.

Nothing came through to him from inside. No sound, no movement. Worry began to gnaw at him. His mind jumped over the points of the stake-out — the man in the lobby, another across the street, one on the roof, Lew here in the hallway. The girl was in a bottle, the bottle was corked. She couldn't get out, nobody could get in. Not without Lew's permission. Yet he had the feeling that something had happened.

When he tried the apartment door, he found it unlocked, but it opened inward only an inch or two before it met some obstacle behind it. He pushed harder at once, and at the same instant he heard a sudden scratching movement from inside. Alarm jangled. He put his shoulder against the panel and shoved hard. Somebody breathed, quickly, sharply. The shades inside were drawn, and the room beyond the foyer was in cool shadow. Movement flashed beyond the arched doorway, a blur of rust-red. It was Deirdre Padgett.

On the floor beyond the door was a man's sprawled body, blocking his way. Lew Osbourn. Durell looked at the dead man and then at the girl in shocked disbelief. The girl had Lew's gun in her hand and the gun pointed at him. Her face was white. Her mouth shook.

"Shut… shut the door," she whispered. "Be quiet."

He leaned back against the door and heard the latch click. His hand moved toward his inside pocket.

"Don't," the girl said.

He stood motionless.

"I didn't do it," she said.

He stood silent.

"Believe me," she said.

He stood waiting.

Her mouth shook again. There was a small rip in the shoulder of her suit. There were violet shadows under her eyes. Fear crawled over her, slimy and ugly. It was quiet in the apartment. The sun glared in long slivers of brilliance through the slats of the Venetian blinds.

"Give me the gun," he said.

She shook her head, red hair swinging. "No. No, I can't trust you."

"I'm going to take it from you," he said. "Go on, shoot."

He walked toward her. Her mouth was partly open. Her white teeth gleamed. The gun shook in her hand and he saw her knuckles go tight. He thought she was going to squeeze the trigger. At the last moment she dropped the gun and it bounced on the floor, clattering, as he grabbed at her wrist and twisted it hard. She gave a small, stifled scream. He threw her angrily aside, without mercy, away from him. She fell into the couch across the room. Her red hair swept across her face.

"Stay there," he said. He didn't recognize the sound of his own voice as he picked up Lew Osbourn's gun.

Lew Osbourn. The knife in his back. Not a gun, a knife. He saw it now, looking at the dead man from this angle. A switchblade, buried between the shoulders, not too far below the neck. Into the spinal cord. How far wrong could a guy get? Thinking of Sidonie Osbourn, the laughing twins, the little house in the development near Alexandria, he felt a taste of acid in the back of his throat. His stomach lurched and heaved. He swallowed. Thinking of Lew, with more hair in other years, in Cologne, reckless and laughing then, tough, eager to do the job right; but always checking, always alert. How could this have happened, so easily, so silently, so finally?

He felt hate and anger, remorse and pity. He felt a deep, irrevocable dedication to finding the man whose hand had done this thing.

His thoughts jumped back to the girl. Not her hand? But her fault. Because of misguided loyalty, a misguided sense of family duty. That's why Lew Osbourn was dead.

He looked at the apartment again. It had been neat and tidy before. Now he saw for the first time the quick, insane wreckage of it.

"All right," he said to Deirdre Padgett. "Tell me. Make it quick."

"There was a man in here. He came in…"

"How?"

She gestured. "The kitchen window. The fire escape."

He went to the kitchen door. The window over the sink was open. Red-painted iron stairs laddered up into hot sunlight to the roof. But Lew had left someone up there on watch.

"And?" he asked.

"He took me by surprise," the girl whispered. She rubbed her cheek, touched the rip in her suit. "He forced me to be silent. He had the knife. He began to search the place."

"Who was he?"

"I don't know."

"You never saw him before?"

"Never."

"Then?"

"I made a sound. I wanted help. And your friend — this man — came in. I tried to warn him. I don't know what happened. I think the man — the stranger — hit me. I don't remember. I just woke up, a few moments before you came in."

"Did this stranger speak to you at all?"

She nodded.

"What did he want?"

"My brother," she said. "He wanted to know where to find Calvin. But I didn't tell him."

"You're going to tell me," Durell said quietly.

She looked up at him, something sharp on her tongue, gray eyes angry for an instant, resenting him. Then her shoulders sagged. She nodded. She whispered, "I need help. I didn't expect any of this. I'm sorry."

"Come with me," Durell said.

He had made a decision.

She did not object when he told her to climb out onto the fire-escape platform beyond the kitchen sink, nor did she accept his help. Her movements were lithe and graceful. On the steel slats of the platform, she waited for him. Durell looked down at the back garden, but there was little to be seen. The foliage of the poplar trees made an effective screen, and the man on watch at the green-painted back gate was definitely cut off from view. The girl's eyes regarded him gravely.

"Up," he said.

He followed her to the roof, automatically noting the smooth limber movement of her hips, the length of her long, firm legs. The sun made a griddle of the tar-and-gravel rooftop. She paused again, and this time Durell went ahead, toward the housing of the elevator shaft at the far side. He found Tom Elderman there, in the sharp angle of shadow cast by the small structure. Elderman had been Lew Osbourn's working teammate. The agent was unconscious, with a nasty-looking wound on the back of his head, with blood covering one side of his narrow face. Durell felt for his pulse. It was steady enough. Elderman already showed signs of reviving.

He signaled to the girl to join him. Her face was white and her mouth shook again. But her voice was low and controlled.

"Do you believe me now? I didn't kill anybody."

He didn't think she had. Not now. He said, "Deirdre, you're in trouble. Bad trouble. None of this would have happened if you had trusted me before."

She whispered, "I don't know."

"Are you ready to tell me about Calvin now7"

"I… I can't decide."

"You and Calvin are mixed up in something much bigger than you think. Something big and dangerous. You know that now. You know I want to help you. You know that, don't you?"

Her eyes were level in the hot sunlight, studying him. "Yes. I think so. But I won't be bullied. Not even now. I've got to help Calvin, too. If you arrest me, I won't tell anything."

"But surely you can't…"

"I'm sorry. Calvin comes first."

"There is a fine man downstairs, and he's dead. Because of you. Because of this thing you've got about cops, about me…"

"Not about you," she said quickly.

"All right, then. Where is your brother?"

She was silent.

"Is he in trouble?"

She nodded. "He wants to see me and talk to me before he makes his decision about something. That's all I can tell you. I wouldn't even tell you that, but I've got to trust somebody. I can't — I guess I can't do any good for Calvin alone."

"Suppose I help you?" Durell offered. "Then will you tell me what I need to know?"

She bit her lip. "Yes. But how can you? There's been a murder. You've got to arrest me."

"Come on," Durell said.

She didn't understand. Her face closed against him, guarded, defensive. He said quickly, "Wait a minute. Look. If I help you get away from here, if I hold off the arrest, will you tell me where to find your brother? Or will you let me go with you? Just me. I promise you, no tricks. Just you and me, and we'll go to see your brother and talk all this out."

She regarded him with deep suspicion. "If this is a trick…"

"I told you, no trick," he said. "You'll never make it alone, you know that now. They'll stop you, whoever they are. Or we will. And then you won't be able to help Calvin at all. He'll lose out, either way."

"I have no choice, have I?"

He shook his head. "It's not like that. I'm offering you a deal. I give you my word. I'll help you get to your brother. But I've got to go with you. Nobody else. Will you trust me that far? When we see your brother, we'll both know better what to do next. You'll never get to him otherwise," he said again. "Surely you can see that."

"But suppose I — suppose I double-cross you? You're taking a big chance with your job, with everything."

He smiled tightly. "It's I who have to trust you on that."

"You're so very sure of yourself. You're so strong…"

"Come on," he said.

"I won't promise anything."

"All right. We'll let it go at that."

Nobody saw them and nobody stopped them as they made their way downstairs in the adjacent apartment house and reached the street There was no alarm from inside Deirdre Padgett's building. Knowing the way the stake-out was disposed, Durell led the girl to the next corner, waited until several cars crossing the intersection offered them a temporary screen, and went up the next street. Two blocks away he found a combination bar and restaurant. It was cool, air-conditioned, and dark inside. Durell found a booth in the rear and ordered a rum and Coke for the girl and Scotch over ice for himself. It was well after one o'clock.

"Tell me about the man who killed Lew Osbourn," he said bluntly. "Don't omit anything."

She spoke slowly. "I didn't hear him come in. I was taken by surprise. I was sitting there, knowing I couldn't leave the apartment without being followed, wondering what I could do next. Before I knew it, he was there, his hand over my mouth."

"What did he look like?"

She shuddered. "He was big. Ugly and big. He wore a yellow sport shirt and gray slacks. He was a man of about forty, but enormous. And very strong. He looked clumsy, but he moved like a cat, with absolutely no sound."

"Did he speak to you?"

"Oh, yes. He asked me where Calvin was. I didn't tell him, even though he…"

Durell said quickly, "All right. Why did he search your apartment? What was he looking for?"

"He had the knife in his hand. He made me sit absolutely still while he looked around. He was wild, but awfully fast. He thought I had a letter from Calvin, or something. I don't know."

"You'd recognize him again?"

Her mouth moved. "I'll never forget him."

"Did he say anything at all that might be useful?"

She hesitated.

"Go on," he urged. "You must tell me."

"He said something about Calvin, as if Calvin had double-crossed somebody. A man named Gustl Weederman."

Durell frowned. "Do you know that name?"

"I never heard of it before. The man — the killer, I mean — seemed angry when he let the name slip. I think he assumed I knew about it, and then he saw that he had made a mistake, because I obviously knew nothing about it. He kept insisting afterward that I must know about this so-called double cross Calvin pulled on Weederman. It was as if he was trying to convince himself. And because he was so angry, he was a bit careless, and that's when I tried to get away, through the door."

"And Lew Osbourn then heard you?"

"Yes. He came in so fast — it happened so quickly…"

The waiter came with their drinks. The girl took hers in both hands, shivering, and the waiter looked at her curiously, then at Durell. Durell stared at him and he went away. The girl was breathing in great, shuddering gasps. Her face was white. There were tiny beads of perspiration on her upper lip. She whispered, "This time I think I'm really going to be sick."