Captain Hardecker got there in his own car, skidding into the drive ahead of the police cruiser and the two fire trucks that followed them. There weren’t enough people around to give him trouble with crowd control and he cleared out all those who didn’t belong in the motel area. The fire crew was quick and efficient, sizing up the situation immediately and checking for any unexploded dynamite sticks, standing by with the equipment to douse any flame that might occur. But like so many blasts of this intensity, combustible materials were disintegrated and the concussion blew out anything ignited before it could catch hold. Nevertheless, they dampened down the bedding remains and wooden splinters still showing, raking through the debris trying to separate the parts of the thing that had once been human.
We held the conference in the motel office, the manager out of it for the time being, trying to settle his nerves with a strong bourbon on the rocks. Hardecker sat back easily in a wicker rocker, scanning me through the blue smoke of a cigar while I told him I had rented both rooms and the car and couldn’t explain why anybody would want to get rid of me.
When I finished he said, “Now that sounds like a reasonable story, all right, but between you and me, it doesn’t make sense. You know what it sounds like from my direction?”
“Tell me.”
“Like you deliberately parked that car there and took the rooms on both sides so nobody would get hurt if the car did get blown.”
I agreed with a deliberate nod. “Except for one thing.”
“Oh?” he said. “Now what could that be?”
“When somebody rigs a car to blow up they wire it so that they nail the occupant when he turns the key. I didn’t turn the key, so either one of two things happened. The car was rigged and somebody tried to steal it or the guy rigging it blew himself up in the process.”
“I can think of something else,” Hardecker said.
This time I said, “Oh?”
“You rigged the car and waited for somebody to get in it.”
“That wouldn’t be very smart, would it? I’m still here.”
“All these stunts aren’t pulled by smart people. Nope, I don’t like your story. Besides, there’s something else.”
“Now what?”
“You aren’t scared enough, mister. You should be all shook and you’re not even sweating. You act like it happens every day around you.”
“I’m not the nervous type.”
He grinned slowly, then looked up as the mailman came in, dropped a few letters on the desk and picked up what was in the receptacle. I watched my card folder go into his bag and felt better. “Fun this morning?” the mailman asked Hardecker without looking up from his work.
“Every day,” the Captain told him. “If it isn’t one thing it’s another.”
When he went out the uniformed cop outside the door spoke to one of the firemen holding a small basket in his hand, stuck his head inside and said, “Captain, they may have some identifiable parts here... a denture anyway. No clothes or labels yet.”
Hardecker nodded solemnly and puffed on the cigar again. “Get the teeth to the lab and process it. We’ll find out who he was.” He looked at me deliberately and tapped his cigar out and dropped the stub in his pocket. “And now for you. I think we’ll print you up and find out all about you, mister. Mind?”
“Not at all.”
“Unless you’d like to talk about it.”
“I’ve said it all, Captain.”
“Let’s go then,” he said and got up with a sigh to move to the door and wait on me.
It was the driver of the other squad car who recognized me. Before I could get in beside Hardecker, he came over and leaned on the window and tapped my shoulder. “You were with Mr. Boster when somebody shot at him, weren’t you?”
There wasn’t any sense denying it. “That’s right.”
“I think you got a live one, Captain.”
Hardecker looked at me slowly, his mouth twisting into a small smile. “That true, mister?”
“I was there.”
“Maybe we got plenty to talk about after all, wouldn’t you say?”
“Not especially.”
The Captain looked across me and said, “Follow us, Pete, then go pick up Boster. Maybe together they’ll have something to say. You find anything in this guy’s room?”
“Nope. Just clothes. He’s clean.”
Hardecker gave me another one of those funny smiles. “You don’t happen to have a weapon on you, do you?”
“It’s a hell of a time to ask, but I don’t.”
His voice rumbled in a deep chuckle. “Don’t worry, I could have told if you had. I can smell ’em.”
Just so he wouldn’t feel too sure of himself I chuckled back and said, “I don’t really need them.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, but he gave me a peculiar look as though he were seeing me for the first time and his smile faded completely away. He switched the key on, pulled the lever into gear and dug out into the street.
I let them put me through the entire procedure, mugging me for their files, printing me, taking me into the office that served as an interrogation room, then being offered a chair and cigarettes across the table from Hardecker. The patrolman he had called Pete came in to report that Claude Boster was not at home, nor did he say where he was going. Hardecker told him to make periodic checks until he found him and get him down as soon as possible.
Only then did he sit back comfortably, his hands resting in his lap. After a minute of steady watching he said, “Now I know something is screwy here, Mr. er...”
“Mann is my right name.” I grinned at him.
“By now,” he told me, “most people would be screaming for a lawyer or wanting to make a phone call or yelling that we were violating their rights. That sort of thing, you know?”
“I know.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“What for?”
“You might have something to hide.”
“Maybe I don’t.”
“It’s more than that, isn’t it?”
“Possibly.”
“You know,” he said, “you could have squawked and we never would’ve been able to print you.” He leaned on his elbows and cupped his chin in his hands. “That isn’t natural, is it?”
“I’ve been printed before.”
“No doubt. So you’re playing for time. I’d like to know why.”
“It’s easier this way than explaining,” I said.
“Would it be easier if I locked you up until I found out what this was all about?”
“It wouldn’t matter,” I said easily. “Do what you like.”
“Let’s give it a try,” he said.
The jail was clean and modern, the cell he gave me freshly scrubbed with a window facing the south that let in a fat rectangle of striped sunlight. “Any time you want to talk,” Hardecker reminded me, “I’ll be upstairs. I’m looking forward to some interesting conversation, Mr. Mann. The reporters are too. There hasn’t been this much excitement around here in a long time. All kinds of speculation going on.”
“I’ll let you know,” I said and sat down on the cot and lit up a butt. The door clanged shut and they left.
I had to wait it out. It was all I could do. One thing going for me was that they couldn’t locate Claude Boster. If he got picked up before I got to him and brought Louis Agrounsky’s name into the deal, then everything could go to hell all at once. I looked at my watch. It was about two o’clock and I was hungry.
Maybe Agrounsky was hungry too. Not for food. For something more potent. For something he had to shoot into his veins to give him that thing he needed so badly. The pattern was beginning to make sense now. Dr. Carlson had nailed it down without knowing it, putting the lid on the kind of temperament Louis Agrounsky really had. Agrounsky was an addict. He couldn’t stay away from the stuff, even after he was thought to be cured, and found himself a source of supply to take care of his needs.