The By-Pass Control Page 13

  But I was wrong.

  Somebody had waited too long and couldn’t understand why the expected hadn’t happened. He didn’t want to have to make excuses and be responsible for a bungled job and he checked to make sure. He must have found the oscillator and taped it back thinking it had fallen off from the heat and the vibration, then looked again to make sure the dynamite sticks were in place where they should be and when he wiggled the wires he had so carefully installed the night before they all seemed secure until the final wiggle touched off the cross wiring I had rigged and he blew up into a gory mess of parts and liquid slop and was plastered all over the remnants of the rooms I had rented on either side of the car.

  The noise of the explosion was a terrible, flat, roaring sound that spread light and heat into the compound like the midday sun for one instant, then died away without leaving a trace of an echo. Only little noises came then—things falling back to earth ... other things slowly giving way to fall from the impact of the blast. The silence was a stunned hush, then a woman’s voice screamed incoherently, gaining in intensity until it was quieted from a lack of breath.

  I was out of the door and on the scene before anyone else, standing there looking at the twisted wreckage when the manager came up, the expression on his face one of complete disbelief. “What ... what happened?”

  “Go call the cops. Shake it. Then come back and keep everybody away from here.”

  He gaped at me absently, swallowed hard and shuffled off, glancing back nervously over his shoulder. But somebody had beaten him to it. The wail of a siren tickled the air, coming from the east side of town, then another joined it from another direction. Already, the curious had started forward at a half-run, converging on the scene while the dust and fumes still hung overhead like a small cloud.

  There was little left of the car at all and practically nothing of the buildings that had squeezed it in and softened the blast from tearing up the rest of the place. Blood-wet fragments of flesh glistened on metallic parts and larger pieces of the body were scattered in the rubble to the left.

  One piece was intact ... a hand. It lay there palm upward, expressing a peculiar bewilderment as if it still had life and could think and wonder. A section of plate glass lay on the ground and I picked it up, polished it with a handkerchief, pressed it against the fingertips, slipped it into my pocket. Then I flipped the hand as far as I could into the bushes.

  The manager was still incoherent, still fumbling with the phone when I got in the office. He never even saw me poke around behind the desk until I found a heavy packet of fold-out cards that gave a picturesque view of the Cape Kennedy area, slip the glass into the middle where I held it in place with tape, then address it to Ernie Bentley and stamp it to go out in the morning airmail.

  He’d know what it meant.

  I only had a minute to do what I had to do, but it was enough time. I got back to my original room, stripped off the .45 and the speed rig, got the extra box of shells and the two clips out of my suitcase and stuck them behind the air-conditioner grill vent at the top of the room. No matter what happened, I didn’t want anybody impounding my equipment for any reason.

  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 l
ook 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.

  That was as much as it took. Under the influence of the big H all his fears and frustrations came out of the shadows and he thought he was big enough to wipe them out by himself. But somewhere along the line he talked to somebody, or was recognized, and his addiction was stored away in the memory bank of a Soviet dossier until it was needed. To satisfy his need for the stuff he wiped himself out financially, selling everything, until he had nothing left to sell ... except one thing.

  And the Soviets had the payoff means. One kilo of H properly cut could serve an addict for a long, long time. It was a very tempting arrangement. Now the big question—was it planned or did it happen accidentally?

  They brought the evening paper with my supper and I had a chance to see pictures of the devastation at the motel and my name in the papers as T. Marvin, the one I had registered with. I grinned at that, because whatever Hardecker thought, he was too wary to play with something that didn’t smell right. There was always time later to correct a mistake like that ... unless some reporter didn’t take it at face value and checked the police blotter. The story was descriptive rather than informative and gave out few pertinent details. The identity of the dead man hadn’t been established yet, nor his motive, and I was mentioned as simply being held for questioning.

  At ten P.M. the guard came down the hall, turned the key in the lock and opened the door. “You got a visitor, Mann.”

  “Who?”

  “Says he’s a friend of yours. Dave Elroy.”

  “Sure.” I got up and followed him down the corridor and up into the main building where I was waved into a room where Dave was sitting, a fat grin on his face. The guard left the door open and stood there unconcernedly, but taking it all in.

  “Hi, Dave.”

  “Wait till the boys at the plant hear about this. How you doing?”

  “Great. Nice suite facing the water.” I looked around the room and spotted the two bugs without any trouble, letting my eyes deliberately point out the microphones. Dave nodded, having already seen them himself, and offered me a cigarette. I said, “What’re you doing here?”

  “What’s a friend for? Want out?”

  “Nope. I could have put up bail myself.”

  “Only you’re the stubborn type. Who blew the car?”

  “Beats me. Some nut.”

  “World’s full of ’em. Anything you need?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “No sense sticking around then.”

  “How you making out, Dave?” I asked casually.

  “Fine. My old customers came through with some new contacts and it’s paid off. This is virgin territory for a good salesman. Half the time you don’t even have to sell ... they look for you to buy from you. One guy was such a good customer he wiped out a stockpile in no time at all. Had to move on because he couldn’t get goods any more. Business squeeze that was ... one of the big companies put the pressure on the little guys so he was cut off and had to deal with them, only they cut their own throats because he skipped and got his material from someplace else. Business is rough, sometimes. Even with the anti-trust and monopoly laws they still pull that stuff.”

  I nodded. “Well, it doesn’t pay to grow too big,” I said.

  Dave got up and stretched. “I’ll stop around again if you need anything. Give me a call sometime. I’ll speak to the Captain on the way out. He doesn’t seem too unfriendly.”

  “Nice guy. Very patient.”

  “He can afford to be,” Dave told me.

  “So can I.”

  When Dave left, the guard took me back to the cell, locked me in and ten minutes later the lights went out automatically. An hour later a couple of boisterous drunks were brought in, locked up several cells down, and before dawn a pair of bearded teenagers staging some kind of a demonstration outside the project area were hustled in and tossed half crying into the can. What those guys needed was a tour of duty in some damn jungle.

  Breakfast came at six and Hardecker at eight. He came down alone, opened the cell himself and nodded me out. I picked up my coat and hat, automatically went to the desk to collect my belongings that were held in a brown manila envelope and signed the receipt for them.

  Hardecker let me put everything back in my pocket before saying, “Let’s go into the office a minute.”

  “Sure.”

  He closed the door and sat down, his face tight and a wariness in his eyes. “You could have told me, Mann.”

  “Told you what?”

  “Just who you were. I could have checked instead of sticking my neck into a goddamn noose.”

  “So?”

  “There was a delay in getting a report back on your prints. Then the teletype started and I had to get on the phone to Washington. I had people crawling up my back wanting to know what the hell was going on and all I could give them was the details and that was enough. I got orders to la
y off you and keep my big mouth shut and to play this your way no matter how you wanted it played.” He paused and pursed his lips. “Who the hell are you, buddy?”

  “Just a citizen, Captain.”

  “How big?”

  “Big.”

  “Why?” he asked me seriously.

  “If I told you you’d never believe it.”

  “And supposing I did?”

  “Then you’d wish I had never told you so you could sleep at night without wondering when it was all going to end.”

  “What end?”

  I looked at the sunshine coming in the window. “That,” I said.

  He waited a few seconds, tight lines drawing in around his eyes, before he said, “Crazy!” almost under his breath. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Kill that story. As far as the press is concerned, the guy who pulled it was a mental case who had done the same thing before. He didn’t need a motive ... something like a firebug.”

  Hardecker looked down into his hands and nodded. “Okay, that’s easy as long as a real ID doesn’t show and the reporters don’t get it if it does. Do you know who he was?”

  “No.”

  “What else?”

  “Forget Claude Boster. Don’t tie us together. They were not related affairs.”

  “For my own information, were they?”

  “I don’t know. My guess is that they were but I’m not sure.”

  “Damn it,” he said, “what kind of a lash-up is this anyway?”

  “An international one, Captain. Nothing’s being taken out of your hands. We’re just requesting your help. That’s why I preferred to spend the night in the cooler rather than spread the news around. Like I said, it’s easier that way.”

  “Not on my nerves, Mann. Where will you be staying? ... as long as you’re here ... and not that I expect you to be around long the way people are going after your skin.”