I put the key in the lock, turned it and shoved the door open as I stepped aside waiting for the muzzle blast that would locate my target.
Captain Hardecker laughed in the darkness and said, “Don’t be touchy, Mr. Mann. It’s only me.”
“Show a light.”
A lamp clicked and illuminated the room with an unreal reddish cast. Hardecker was propped up in a wooden chair tilted back against the wall, his feet on the side of the bed.
“That’s a good way to get yourself killed,” I said.
“We all take chances in this business.”
“How did you locate me?”
“No sweat. I’m local, remember. A few diligent calls, a few out of my jurisdiction like here, and we got complete cooperation. I further instructed my friend at the desk not to inform anyone else of your whereabouts.”
“Why?”
“I told you. I like you. You scare me. I want to know what’s happening in my own back yard. The city is full of Feds and I’m out in the cold. Nobody seems to want our services and I’m getting curiouser by the minute.”
“About what?”
“Let’s say a guy shot with a .22 Magnum nobody bothered to report.”
“Somebody did apparently.”
“A good citizen thought something funny was going on in a darkened house when three people came out, got in their automobiles, and drove away. A phone call brought a prowl car, then me. The dead man was a narcotic, addict. There were no prints on the door knobs, walls, light switches and any other normal places. Tracks on the floor had been wiped clean.”
“Who made the call?”
“Unidentified male who didn’t want to get involved. Most calls are like that when they mean anything.”
“Nice. Now what?”
“You’re not thinking fast, Mr. Mann. I said I was out of my jurisdiction. I’m just curious.”
“I didn’t see any cars outside.”
“My driver dropped me off. He’ll stop by later to pick me up. I don’t want to interfere with your program.”
“You’re bugging me, Captain.”
“I had hoped to.”
“So tell me the real reason for the visit.”
His smile was a hard thing that started at the comer of his mouth and gradually drifted across his face. “I checked on you,” he said. “The report was extremely interesting. The available information on you was pretty livid. I’m surprised you’re still alive and operating out in the open.”
“Maybe I don’t give a damn any more.”
“It isn’t that,” Hardecker said. “It’s the necessity, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps.”
“It excited me. I don’t usually get excited.”
“Never pays.”
Hardecker paused, looked at me, and let the smile stretch wider. It was damn near impossible to tell what he was thinking. “One of my men came up with something,” he said.
I waited.
“He has a photographic memory.”
“Good for him,” I said.
There was a dark depth behind his eyes watching for my reaction. “He remembered Helen Lewis. He had seen her twice with our piecemeal man named Henri Frank. Later he saw her with Louis Agrounsky. I thought you may find a connection.”
“I have.”
“So?”
“She’s a Soviet agent who rented a place in Sarasota and never used it except as a temporary address in case of a check.”
Hardecker let his smile drift away gradually. “They have a fine network, haven’t they?”
I didn’t say anything. He had put some of the pieces together himself and knew what he was talking about. He said, “You won’t find the Lewis woman. She’s one of the unidentifiables. Ordinary, medium, no outstanding characteristics, no record we know about. One in the crowd, the way they pick them. They can appear and disappear and nobody knows the difference. Just a person.”
“She’ll show,” I said. “They all do, eventually.”
“They’re smart.”
“Wrong, buddy. If they were, they wouldn’t be on that side.”
He rubbed his hands along his legs and stretched, the deep yawn filling his chest to barrel size. “But if they have the edge somehow it will be worth it to them, won’t it?”
I shook my head. “Never.”
Captain Hardecker got up as if he were tired, but it was only a pose that could trap you if you weren’t careful. He hitched the gun up at his belt and looked at his watch. “Maybe for... let’s say a day... we’ll keep the killing of Beezo McCauley a local affair. After that, well... we’ll see.”
He walked to the door and stood there beside me a few seconds. I said, “Why, Captain?”
“There are still some of us left,” he told me.
The words were very familiar.
I closed the door after him, switched out the light and watched him walk across the gravel to the street and stand there ignoring the rain until a car drove up, made a U turn on the road and stopped to let him get in. When the red of the taillights had disappeared in the distance I let the curtain fall back in place and went to the dresser.
Captain Hardecker hadn’t been that curious. Nothing there was out of place and I had left everything arranged to be able to discern any sign of a search. Hardecker had been playing it square. The only thing that bothered me was the quick way he ran me down. He was in the position to do it, but so was anybody else if they figured out the angles. Nobody is really hard to find if you wanted them badly enough and they were available.
I was available.
And Niger Hoppes was looking.
The faceless one was out there in the night with a .22 Magnum that had proved its point all over the world and now it was ready to do it again.
Thunder came in a slow drone that sounded tired and the lightning lost that quality of wild intensity it had had an hour ago. Even the rain seemed to have settled back into a period of waiting, knowing that what it came to see would be seen.
All it had to do was wait.
When you’ve been exposed enough you begin to sense things. Proximity with death makes you familiar with his aptitudes. Some conditions expedite his activities, like a spring thaw bringing out the snakes. It’s too early, but they respond to the stimuli of nature and poke a cautious head out of their lair, winter vicious, angry at the disturbance and ready to strike even if the time isn’t the time.
I could sense it. He was out there somewhere. It wouldn’t have been too hard at all. In the bad light at McCauley’s place he wouldn’t have chanced a long range shot, not with two of us there and the prize at stake. But he could have laid a tail on me with a set of cars operating by radio. I hadn’t been careless. The thought had always been there. I was a thorn that had to be plucked out, the one who wasn’t stymied by rules and regulations and could operate on a level with them, backed by an organization as coldly efficient and as deadly as any they ever possessed. I was letting myself stand in their sights and asking for it, hoping to get in just one return shot. Take out a key person and the structure would sway long enough to topple it from another direction.
I knew I was laughing without making any sound at all, enjoying the moment to the fullest, tasting the sense of that other one who was out there waiting, watching, planning how to eliminate me. I took the safety off the .45 and thumbed the hammer back, feeling the live weight of the piece in my hand. It was old and familiar, worn smooth by much handling, as much a part of me as my thumb and forefinger, a metallic monster that could say yes or no to life or death.