"Good idea," Cash replied. "Frank, you think it'd be worth the trouble to find out where the real pickle king is?"
"We'd better. Officer, you got that?"
"I think so. Tail him. And find out if he's the real magilla."
"Check."
"I'll go call it in."
"This man, he would be from St. Louis?" Fial asked.
"That's right, Pop," Segasture told him. "Seems to have what you'd call an abiding interest in you people."
Fial wheeled on Fiala. "You said you weren't followed. You swore…"
Cash laughed. "She wasn't. Not by me. I was here waiting for her."
Fial glared at him.
"You blew it when you changed your name. You kept your newspaper subscription under Groloch."
"I see. And then to Colonel Neulist you sold us."
"Never heard of him."
Cash exchanged glances with Segasture, said, "Looks like Malone might have been on to something." Then he frowned.
The name Neulist agitated Miss Groloch more than ever.
The patrolman returned. "They picked up your trunk. It's on its way to the morgue."
Cash's stomach flopped. "There was a body?"
"They're waiting for a warrant. But they said it's heavy enough. Oh. There's some spade out there who wants in."
"Might as well let him. He's the Washington interest."
Malone let himself in. "Sergeant Cash. Miss Tavares." He wore a broad grin. "They don't look so terrible." He circled the Grolochs. "You turned up anything?"
"Not much," Cash replied. "This one's calling himself Koppel. He's got a couple of Krauts working for him. And he's scared shitless that somebody named Colonel Neulist is going to catch up with them."
"Neulist? I don't know that one. Have to run it through Langley. Koppel, though… I think I've heard that one. In connection with the ODESSA. Fits having Germans working for him."
Cash nodded. "I'll make you a deal. We split. Down the middle. You take him, I take her. Oh. Did Smiley ever use the name Neulist?"
"It's not on the record. It might be a workname, though. We'll find out."
"Excuse me." The patrolman was back again. "They've lost the pickle guy."
"Already?" Cash demanded. "How the hell did they manage that?"
"He had a chopper there. He took off in it."
"A planner. It must be Smiley."
"Who?" Malone asked.
"A man who calls himself Augsberg but who, looks like Smiley. Maybe he's their Neulist."
Miss Groloch jerked as if slapped every time she heard that name. She was now spookier than Cash had ever seen. Something apocalyptic was going on inside her head.
"Interesting," Malone observed. "You. Fial, is it? Tell me about it."
The old man ignored him.
"Well, we'll find out later."
The officer outside shouted, "Hey, you guys. There was a body in that trunk."
Cash closed his eyes, silently counted while the earth dropped away. There it was. The death of his last hope.
The whickering sound of helicopter rotors grew in the distance.
"Officer! Get in here!" Malone yelled. To the others, "Let's make it a trap. Any reason he should be expecting one?"
"He had people here," Segasture replied. "Probably the ones who followed her. They might have noticed we were watching, too."
"He knows we're interested," Cash added. "He had somebody watching her back home. I'd say he's trying to beat us here. If we hadn't gotten the break with the newspaper subscription, he would have."
Malone parted a curtain. "That damned gumball parked out there. And your car and mine. The crowd will scare him off."
The whickering passed overhead, began a slow revolution around the house.
"Guess it isn't the real pickle king," said Segasture, ending with a nervous little laugh.
They waited in silence. The helicopter circled twice.
"He's landing in the garden," Tran called from the kitchen.
"Okay. Everybody out of sight," Malone ordered.
Cash rebelled. This was his show. Neither Malone nor Smiley were going to steal it from him. "I'm staying here. So are these two."
"Suit yourself."
Fiala sobbed. Fial held her, defying Cash. Norm let it go. "Got to meet nightmares toe to toe," he told Fial. His voice betrayed his own fear.
The helicopter's engines died.
Tran called, "They're armed. AK47s. They look professional."
"How many?" Malone asked.
"Five, plus the pilot and old man. The pilot isn't armed. He looks like a conscript."
"Okay. Everybody hang easy. Don't start anything. They've got a firepower advantage." Satisfied with everyone's hiding places, Malone slithered into the tight shadow behind a massive Victorian-style couch.
Cash was scared shitless. His pistol grip was slick. His face was pale. His stomach had become a tiny, aching knot. He ground his teeth to prevent chattering. He adjusted his chair so he could watch both the front door and the Grolochs.
It was his show, damn it! Fear wasn't going to rip it from his control.
For an instant he saw snowy brush where rosebushes stood. He heard the squeal of tank tracks, the footsteps and breathing of shadowless panzergrenadiers…
A real shadow splashed across the porch. Norm slipped his revolver beneath his leg, prayed he wouldn't do something stupid again.
Fial still held Fiala. She babbled continuously in Czech. Fial patted her head and murmured in the same tongue.
His eyes, on Norm, remained hate-filled, angry.
You would think, Cash reflected, that he was the wronged party.
He glanced toward the door. The shadow was gone.
Why were they taking so long?
Miss Groloch shuddered, groaned. Fial spoke to her in a hard, urgent tone, shifting to German when she did. Cash couldn't pick out one word in twenty. Most were nein or nicht something. Comprehension grew. Fial was telling herr over and over, to shut up.
Cash wished he could record them.
He glanced at the door. The shadow had returned.
They were playing a game of nerves out there.
Glass shattered in the kitchen. A door slammed. There was a shout, sounds of a scuffle.
Cash sweated, fearing he would have to carry bad news to Le Quyen, too.
Within a minute Tran steered a groggy, linebacker-sized gentleman into the room. He hit the man again, smiled Cash's way, started back.
And stopped, stared down the bore of an assault rifle.
Cash was tempted. Hitting the interloper wouldn't be difficult.
A cat yowled upstairs. A pair of the beasts hurtled downstairs, disappeared.
And Norm spotted a second man beyond the head of the stairs.
No point in gunplay, now. Too many automatic weapons around.
The shadow still stretched across the porch.
Where were the others? What were they up to?
Miss Groloch's shakes and moans took on the violence of a seizure. Fial's efforts calmed her not at all.