The By-Pass Control Page 15

  I jumped in the car, made a U turn and picked my way back toward Vincent Small’s house. The time-drag was beginning to get me. Impatience made me run through the pack of cigarettes and rip the top off a fresh deck, swearing softly at the inconvenience. The whole situation was like a huge bowl of Jell-o that was liquid-hot and you had to stand by until it set before it could be handled properly. And you knew there wouldn’t be that much time allotted you.

  It needed a catalyst. It needed an agent to cool it suddenly and shorten the time period. Somewhere in the night hundreds of personnel were on the hunt. A thousand technicians were running down the circuits of Agrounsky’s electronic installation looking for the bug. The night was crawling with faceless men, looking for one lone man who seemed to have removed himself from the world ... and in their midst was another loner, another faceless one who might be steps ahead in the game, getting closer all the time to Agrounsky who was holding the world in his hands, trying to decide just what to do with it.

  There was a light on in Vincent Small’s house, his car back in the garage. I nosed up the driveway, cut the engine and hopped out. Before I rang the bell I glanced in the window beside the door and saw him pacing the floor, talking heatedly to someone in a chair with his back to me. The figure shifted slightly and I saw the side of Claude Boster’s face, his mouth drawn tight with some fierce emotion.

  Vincent Small opened the door, nodded as though he were expecting me and stepped aside to let me in. “Ah, Mr. Mann. Please join us.” A worried expression creased his forehead and he couldn’t seem to keep his hands still.

  “I’ve been trying to reach you,” I said.

  “Yes, indeed. I have been ... out.” He waved with one hand. “This way, please.”

  Claude Boster made a noncommittal gesture with his head when I walked in, looking at me with that strange stare professionals have for someone not in their field, and picked up his drink. He fidgeted nervously, squirming in his chair, sipping at his drink every few seconds.

  Small said, “Can I get you anything?”

  “No thanks.”

  “May I ask a question then?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “That bombing affair at the motel ... did it have anything to do with—” he glanced around and added with a helpless note—“us?”

  “It was meant to take me out of the action,” I told him, “the same way those shots were supposed to remove Boster or me the other night. So, friend, it has a lot to do with you. The key factor is Louis Agrounsky and unless we turn him up soon you’d better get used to the sight of dead bodies.”

  “Mr. Mann ... please.”

  Vincent Small gave me a glance of pathetic hopelessness and sat down on the edge of a chair, staring at his hands in his lap. “We ... we’ve talked about it.” He looked up at Claude Boster who tried to shrink back into the overstuffed cushions. “It ... well, begins to make sense.”

  “How?”

  “Louis ... the way he acted. Something was wrong.”

  “Did you know he was a narcotics addict?”

  Once again there was that quick exchange of glances, the slight hesitation and the feeling of nervous tension in the air. This time Claude Boster wet his lips and said, “We ... thought it was something like that. Vince and I ... talked about it.”

  “Recently?”

  “No ... earlier, before Louis disappeared. He was developing some peculiar traits ... and we both noticed how quickly he could recover from a tense period by a trip to the bathroom. There were ... other things, too.”

  “For instance?” I asked them.

  Small said, “I laid his jacket on the bed one time and a packet fell out. There were ... well, he had a syringe and several capsules in there. At the time I assumed it was all prescribed by a physician following his accident and had no reason to believe otherwise until ... well, as Claude mentioned ... he began to act rather strange at times.”

  “I’ll tell you how strange he was,” I said. “This man has an unusual susceptibility to narcotics. He became an addict accidentally but immediately, and it’s distorted his entire personality.”

  Vincent Small’s face paled and his lips were held together tightly. “To ... what extent, Mr. Mann?”

  “Let me shock you ... but first let me remind you that if this goes any further you’ll both find yourselves in the cooler so fast your eyes’ll cross ... and you’ll be lucky because otherwise you might be dead.” I let it sink in a moment before saying, “Agrounsky holds something that can tumble this whole world. He gimmicked our ICBM system with a by-pass control that gives him the ability to activate or deactivate it. If we don’t get him before he makes his decision we’ve lost it, buddies. Either way we can all go down the drain.”

  Vincent Small swallowed hard, fumbling for words. Boster just sat there staring at his hands. Slowly Small raised his eyes to mine. “Louis used to talk ... about a place he had. He was very ... secretive about it.”

  And there it was. Close. I could feel my hands tighten and the muscles bunch up in my neck.

  “Where?”

  Vincent Small made a tiny negative with his head. He looked across at Boster, shoulders bent in a slump of defeat. “We ... talked about it. He mentioned a few things ... a fish store run by a man named Wax ... Louis liked fish. He said it was perfect for what he needed ... a place to think or to work out what he called ... his problems.”

  “And you found it?”

  “No. We asked the realtors in town and saw people Louis knew but they couldn’t tell us anything. We even tried locating the fish store and the man he called Wax, but that wasn’t any good either.”

  I could see everything going up in smoke. Here it was in my hands, right on top of me, yet a million miles away. But if Agrounsky had said one thing he might have said another they didn’t recall yet.

  “How often did he speak about this place?”

  Claude Boster said, “Just twice to me. Both times was when he was ... feeling sick.”

  “Like he needed a boost,” I suggested.

  “Yes.”

  I looked at Small. “And you?”

  “Several times. Casual remarks, but strange for him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he was used to big laboratories and the finest equipment. In his work he needed other technicians to perform minor time consuming tasks and it wasn’t like him to seek solitude.”

  “He was a loner, wasn’t he?”

  “Quite so, but only in regard to his personal association with people. Other people were a necessity in his profession.”

  “And you can’t think of anything else he might have said or done that could locate this place of his?”

  In a soft tone Boster said, “It wouldn’t have been up north.”

  “Why not?”

  “Louis had a touch of rheumatism. He couldn’t stand cold weather.”

  “So that narrows it down to half a continent,” I mused. “Nuts.”

  “We tried, Mr. Mann,” Small said apologetically.

  “The next time don’t try it alone. I’ll get some people on this and see what we can run down. My advice to you both is to stick close to your homes and stay locked in. There are others who know of your connection with Agrounsky and if they think you have anything that might locate him you’ll be a target. You’ve already seen an example of what they’ll do so don’t play it down.”

  “But ...”

  “I’ll arrange for police protection. You’re public property for a while and you’ll need it. What I want is for you to think. Go over every damn detail of your talks with Agrounsky and see what you come up with. If there is anything at all ... any little thing, you call me.” I wrote down the Sand Dunes number on separate slips of paper and handed it to them. “If I’m not there, contact the I.A.T.S. offices in New York or the local F.B.I. and they’ll have an agent here in a matter of minutes.”

  Both of them nodded silently.

  “You realize how critical this is?”

/>   They nodded again.

  “One of you might be holding the key to saving your own hides. You haven’t got much time. Maybe none at all.”

  I.A.T.S. was in emergency session when my call got through. Charlie Corbinet took the message and put Hal Randolph on the line. The edge was off the usual gruff tone and he sounded tired, and all he could say was, “Yeah, Randolph here.”

  “Tiger Mann. I have something.” I gave him the details of Agrounsky’s narcotic condition and the possibility of his having a hideout somewhere near a fish place run by a guy named Wax. “You’ll need a damn big team to run it down,” I said. “It could be a store near a river or a lake as well as the oceanside. That gives you a lot of country to cover, but it’s the only lead I have.”

  “Okay, Tiger. You sure that’s all?”

  “Push it from the narcotics end and you might get something.”

  “Don’t worry, we will.” He paused, then added, “You get off it now.”

  “Like hell I will.”

  “Orders, Mann.”

  “Shove ’em. I’m closer than you are and I’m staying on it.”

  “You were told you’d risk a court-martial,” he warned me.

  “You scare me, big daddy. You need every person you can get.”

  “Except you,” he said. “This is a matter of national concern. There can be no instability factor....”

  I hung up on him and grinned to myself. Hell, they weren’t worried about me. They didn’t want to risk putting the Martin Grady organization in a position of power if we broke through. They still wanted us destroyed and if they could keep us from gaining strength the odds were still going for them.

  My watch read ten after nine. Another hour and the men Hal Randolph would have assigned would be flooding the area, some with orders to hold me. Well, they’d have a time of it if they tried squeezing me out.

  I got back to my motel, paid two days in advance, took a few necessities out of my suitcase and drove over to the Sand Dunes Motel and registered in under T. Gerrity, getting a corner room on the northeast end of the building.

  When I finished putting my gear away I called Dave’s motel, left word for him to meet me outside the police station in twenty minutes, then ducked back through the rain and took the highway down to the precinct station and asked for Hardecker.

  The Captain opened the door himself, looked me over as if I were a bug of some kind and waved me in. “You’re a pain in the butt, Mann.”

  “So I’ve been told before.”

  “What’s it this time?”

  “A constant stakeout on Boster’s and Vincent Small’s places.”

  “Why?”

  “You could have a repetition of the other night. Cover all doors and keep a car ready to roll.”

  “Just like that, huh?”

  “Just like that.”

  The faintest grin showed around his mouth. “I don’t know why I like you,” he said. “You scare me, but you make life kind of exciting. Okay, I’ll get somebody there. I don’t suppose you can explain.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And nobody’s to know about it, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Son-of-a-gun,” he almost whispered. “I get the feeling I’m being made a sucker.”

  “You’re not.”

  “I know that too, but I can’t help the feeling.” He slid into his chair and rocked it back, picking up two report sheets from his desk in the same motion. “We’re not so stupid around here, Mr. Mann. I have a little news for you.”

  “Oh?”

  His fingers flicked the sheets. “Something on Agrounsky. We work pretty closely with personnel on the space project ... continuous surveillance on certain people engaged in classified work ... for their own protection as well as security reasons.”

  When I didn’t say anything he looked down at the sheets again. “This is confidential. Duplicates of these reports were never submitted to any agency because we checked every detail out thoroughly.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Louis Agrounsky was a bachelor with pretty sedate habits. He didn’t drink and he didn’t consort with women. That is ... not often. When he did it was with two professionals on six different occasions over a period of thirteen months. Now we don’t condone or protect prostitution, but we face the facts and know it exists. These two women were informers for us and notified us of the contact and we bugged the rooms to make sure Agrounsky didn’t talk out of turn and become a security risk.”

  “Did he?”

  “Nope. It was all very physical and very professional. And understandable,” he added. “He satisfied a need and left. In case you’re wondering, this situation has arisen before and ...”

  “I get the picture,” I interrupted. “It’s nothing new.”

  “Naturally, we kept a check going and on several occasions had the report that Agrounsky was seen with a woman. No identification. They met for supper twice and went to the picture show once. No further contact.”

  “No attempt was made to establish identification?”

  “There was no necessity for it. He was allowed to lead his own life. She wasn’t a known person and the association was casual. It wasn’t an overnight affair and the police officer seated nearby said the conversation was inconsequential.”

  “Description?”

  Hardecker shrugged. “Female, early thirties, well built but on the plain side. Their relationship seemed friendly. Nothing more.”

  “It doesn’t sound like him.”

  “Friend, if a man is a male, sooner or later he’s going to get that yen for a broad. In Agrounsky’s case it was on rare occasions, but enough to satisfy him even if it was only a matter of getting into a conversation.”

  “How far did you go in checking her out?”

  “She was registered at the Sinbad as Helen Lewis, giving an address in Sarasota. A call there verified it. The manager said she had lived in an apartment there the past two years.”

  I held out my hand and he dropped the reports in it. I scanned them quickly, picked up the address and phone numbers listed there and handed them back. “Could be okay,” I said.

  “We’re still asking questions. If there was anything irregular, we’ll dig it out.”

  “Mind if I drop back?”

  “With your connections I don’t mind at all.”

  “They may go sour,” I told him.

  “I run my own department,” Hardecker said.

  I looked around for Dave and didn’t see him outside anywhere. The rain had put a glaze over the street lights and hammered at my face as I walked into it toward my car. When I reached it I pulled the door open and slid into the seat.

  Behind me Dave said, “You’re getting careless, chum.”

  I grinned at his reflection in the mirror. “Not really. You ought to try squatting in the middle. All your weight was on the one side.”

  “Forget it.” He clambered over the seat and got beside me. “Anything new?”

  “Nothing in your department.”

  “Well, I have something. I had to use a little heat to get it and it cost Grady two grand, but a fairly big buy was made from a peddler in Savannah who palmed off a lot of low-grade stuff to a sucker for a bundle. The contact was a guy named Sonny Kipton who had a reputation for this sort of thing. The same sucker called back here to a friend to make the original connection for another contact and was steered to a man in Charleston.”

  “We’re working our way north into the Myrtle Beach area.”

  “Check, buddy. Remember me telling you about the guy Agrounsky took off the hook by selling him some of his supply?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So he talked some more. He used to be located up there and put Agrounsky on both of them.”

  “He made his deal?”

  “Yeah, and got the same old switcheroo. The guy’s contacts were lousy. The Kipton punk tried it a week later and got knocked off for his trouble by a hophead who’s being held f
or it. The other one can’t be located. They don’t stay put very long. Want me to scratch him up?”

  “No. I want Fish.”

  Dave shook his head. “Not a sign, and brother, I looked.”

  “Keep looking,” I said. I reached in my pocket and brought out the photo of Henri Frank, stared at it a moment, and held it out for Dave to see. “Here’s another one we’re after. This one’s dead, but he ties in someplace.”

  Dave took the picture from my hand, glanced at it, then frowned at me. “Hell, Tiger,” he said, “this is Fish. The description matches every damn detail.”

  CHAPTER 9

  The street that ended at the beach was deserted, flanked by two empty summer cottages with shuttered windows that accentuated the eerie feeling of desertion. Wind had blown the sand up into a soft roll at the edge of the concrete, partially covering the walks on either side. I cut the engine and sat there staring out into the rain toward the blackness of the ocean, occasionally taking a drag on the cigarette.

  Dave said, “Spell it out, Tiger.”

  “They had this going a long time, buddy. It was no sudden thing. The Soviets keep their people around all our hot spots looking for a weak link and somebody spotted it in Agrounsky.”

  “When he went back on the needle?”

  I nodded. “They ran their own supplier in and got him hooked but good, then cut his source off to put the squeeze on him. When an addict is cooking he’ll talk, rationally or not, and someplace he let the cat out of the bag about the by-pass control. That put the finger on him. Once he was on H strong enough they could control his supply and make him come across. They just didn’t figure on him doing a disappearing act, that’s all. He was important enough to call in their best man to run him down, so Vito Salvi got the job.”

  “Salvi was working in New York,” he reminded me.