Fallen Sparrow (17 page)

His anger went. He didn’t care about the answer now. He said quietly, “You’d better pack your things and go.”

He didn’t expect the reaction. She broke into racked weeping. He could not help his pity as she tried wildly to control it, to speak. He wouldn’t leave her like this; he waited until she had words.

“No. Please do not make me go. I will be unable to get me another job. I have to work. Please, Mr. McKittrick. Do not make me leave.”

She was shaken. It wasn’t from anything as comparatively trivial as being out of work; the fear went back to the ones who had placed her here. If she had to confess to them her ultimate failure, her ejection from the post, her usefulness would be at an end. They did not waste resources on the useless; she would be put out of the way.

He couldn’t stem her. The gasping torrent of her words rushed against him. She was actually beginning to go on her knees. He stopped her brusquely. “All right. Stay. But watch yourself. Any more difficulties and there won’t be another chance.”

He turned on his heel. He was on the downtown express before he realized that despite her distress she’d offered no defense for what she had done. It was as if now that he knew her status in the apartment, he should reasonably expect some inconvenience. He was a fool not to have kicked her out when he first caught on. No one else could be planted on him, not with Lotte there. On the other hand she couldn’t do him any harm now. Remaining, she could give them a yarn of no letter or of his getting it first. She wouldn’t pull any more tricks. He was saving her from death or concentration.

He left the subway at 59th, took a cab from there to Jake’s place. It was as drab as it was empty by daylight, and the porter who wore a shoulder holster on his shirt didn’t know if he could see the boss. Kit wasted more time waiting; he didn’t dare open the letter even here; he didn’t think he had been followed or that there would be disloyalists in Jake’s inner sanctum but he couldn’t be certain. Not with José working at the club. He waited and he was taken to Jake, a tycoon’s bedroom with the boss propped under wine silk against the mahogany headboard.

“What’s on your mind, Kit?”

“I want a taxi driver who can’t be followed or bribed.”

“One of my men do?”

Kit said, “You don’t have to go that far. If you can vouch for a regular, I’ll take him.”

“You want him steady?”

“For a few days. He can cruise on Park but I’m the only fare.”

Jake said, “I’ll give you Duck. Bodyguard too?”

Kit said, “No.” He wouldn’t take on a bodyguard; he wouldn’t give in to himself to that extent. He only wanted to stop wasting time. He only wanted to know that when he stepped into a cab he’d arrive at the destination he chose. They’d close in soon. He’d force them to. They had trigger fingers now; they wouldn’t have wasted a bullet on Ab otherwise. “I just want a safe cab.”

Jake spoke into the phone. “He’ll be around in a minute.”

“I want something else, Jake. lf you had to get to Washington fast and without publicity, how would you go about it?”

“I’d fly. With Shannon. I’ll make the arrangements while Duck’s driving you to the airport.”

He hadn’t heard the gorilla come in. Jake said, “Kit, this is Duck. Duck, this is Kit. You’re going to take him out to Shannon, then report in and I’ll give you the rest of it.”

“Sure,” Duck said. He had a voice like a Congo drum.

Jake held the phone. “You wish to return the same way, Kit?”

He nodded.

“When?”

“Tonight. I may have to make another trip down but I’m not sleeping in Washington.”

Jake understood. “I’ll tell Shannon. And the drinks are on me.”

Kit began, “Not that way. I’ve enough to see this through—”

Jake said, “Don’t be noble. I can afford it better than you.” His face had no expression. “Louie was my kid brother.”

Kit said, “Thanks.” There wasn’t anything else he could say. He started to the door, remembered. “Wonder if you could do one more job.” He took the moonstone from his pocket.

Duck peered, said, “Jeeze, that’s purty.”

“I’d like this set as a pendant with a gold chain and ready by tonight. Know anyone who could do a good job?”

Jake smoothed it with his thumb. He said, “Sure. And I’ll get you a Tiffany box.”

Kit said, “Ask me to cut off my right arm for you sometime, Jake.”

“Sure.” He was already speaking into the mouthpiece.

Kit followed Duck. He rode behind Duck through cowed traffic to La Guardia Field. The driver pointed. “That one’s Shannon.”

The pilot had a cherub face, a canary-colored marcel and a green silk polo shirt. He wasn’t any bigger than a jockey. He said, “I ran out the cabin plane. Jake, he don’t like being blowed around.”

In the sky, Kit opened the letter; the warning from the dead.

Dear Kit—

I tried to reach you but you were out. A fellow in the department called me tonight that he has definite proof that our friends are here on false passports. He is bringing some intercepted cables of Andrassy’s to me; he says one deals with you. He didn’t explain that but I wonder if it could be connected with Spain and if perhaps you might be again in danger. This fellow—his name is Prester, I met him this afternoon but I don’t recall which one of Dantone’s clerks he was—stressed the importance of secrecy. You understand that. I wanted to let you know as I may be away longer than I planned. I’ll try to ring you up again later but if that draws a blank, I thought you’d better know this much.

Yours,     

Ab.

Kit read, reread until it was mimeographed on his mind. Proof of murder. Here safe in the grandeur of night and space he had time for understanding. Ab had died to let him live. Ab had accepted murder that Kit might be kept safe. He should have been beside Ab, have saved him from this. He, the strong, had left the weak unguarded, even as he had failed Louie before him. Pride in his role of the lone avenger had given Ab into their hands.

With this letter in his hand, he was without a vestige of pride. Because he realized Ab had not done this for him alone; he had been no more than a symbol. Ab had, without physical courage, dared to go up against them that there might be less viciousness in this world, that the brutal new order should not scar that in which he believed and cherished.

Too many blood sacrifices to the little man had gone unavenged. This one should not. Kit’s own part was the more difficult but it should not be shirked. He had imported danger because he had been young and heedless and foolhardy. Let him admit that. He had been a wild young ass who in unthinking recklessness had carried off a token which the little man had coveted. It hadn’t been for any of the high-thinking idealistic reasons in which he’d subsequently cloaked it. Let him admit that too. It had been a stunt.

He had not known it would create death for his friends. He hadn’t thought that far ahead. Even after he’d learned reality in Spain, he hadn’t realized that his act threatened anyone but himself. He knew better now.

The Wobblefoot must die. That was Kit’s appointment. He didn’t want to kill out of hate now; that emotion of yesterday was too decimal to count in this greater pattern. That hate had been engendered by what had been done to him. He knew now that personal suffering could be endured, could be solved outside the realm of murder. But the threat to that for which Louie and Ab had died must be crushed. His friends had taught him. They had suffered for others; to insure, not the negative qualities of freedom, of safety; to insure that a way of life which produced a Content would not go under to that which had broken a Toni. That their sacrifice should not go unnoted, he would kill.

It would solve but a small part of the danger threatened by the little man and his hosts, but that small part would be rendered null. It would be a beginning. It would remove one of the threats to the right by the wrong. He knew something else then; something he hadn’t known in his anger to Tobin. Sometimes it was necessary to do wrong for the sake of a greater right.

Old Chris hadn’t been honest. He admitted it now. But his dishonesty had been for what he considered the greater right, to help those who were too small to help themselves. Chris had chosen. And there was, to Kit, greater courage in that choice than if he had remained true to the ideals of honesty he had held as a cop and had always preached to a small son. For his penance, he had not defended himself against the slurs on his name.

The stigma of murder was greater than that of thief. There were rightful divine and man-made laws against murder. Yet he must kill. He too had chosen. He wasn’t afraid to commit murder. It was a vested privilege handed him by his friends.

He could kill. In cold blood he could kill. The power was in his hand, the greater power was in his spirit. Let him not confuse the issue with regrets for other men who died. His ideals had been left behind in a prison in Spain. They were buried there with the idiot youth who believed he could conquer windmills because his heart was high.

He could kill because he had learned well the credo of the little man and his apostles. He had learned the unimportance of a life that stood in your way. Might was right; by the strong alone was victory deserved. Only by accepting the validity of the methods of the new order could the prophets of the new order be conquered. In his own small way, he could conquer them because he accepted whole their ways. It was from what they had taught him that they would take hold of the cold stone of death. He wanted to kill.

His fingers uncrumpled the letter. It was too valuable as evidence to destroy; it was dynamite to retain on his person. He didn’t know exactly what to do with it; he could enclose it in an envelope on arrival, post it to Tobin. On the other hand he should have it to present when he called on Dantone. He could not risk that; for the present Sidney would have to accept his rendition of the contents. But not to Tobin. Not have Ab’s final work lost in the maw of police indifference and general skepticism. He’d send it to Jake.

Shannon was circling the airport preparatory to descent. It wasn’t quite one-thirty. Kit buttoned the letter into his vest pocket. No one knew he was on his way but someone could dream it up. And if Elise had managed a report, it might not be considered an idle dream.

Shannon asked, “How long you gonna be here?”

“I’ll try to make it by six.”

Not long, not long enough, but he could return again. He wasn’t sleeping in a hotel bed. “Why don’t you meet me at the Wardman Park bar about then? Have one before we set out.” It wasn’t that he wanted a bodyguard; there wasn’t a false nerve in his body and he carried his best defense. It was only a way to get together without wasting time on calls. It was a friendly gesture.

They stretched in the damp cold. Kit said, “Wonder if you could bum me an envelope in there?” Together they walked towards the terminal. It wasn’t that he wanted company until the sheets were off his person; an airport wasn’t a stationer’s; Shannon would have better luck than he. “I want to get an airmail off to Jake.”

“Well, f’gossakes what for?” Shannon’s angel mug spat. “We can fly that mail quicker ourselves.”

It hadn’t occurred to him. He laughed. “I don’t want it to go that fast.”

It didn’t make sense but Shannon performed. He wangled the envelope. “See you’t six.”

Kit halted him. “Wait a second. You might as well share my cab going in.” He wasn’t afraid but he’d said it, and the kid agreed, “Sure, Mike.”

He stood there, careless as a squirrel, while Kit addressed the envelope, sealed and thumped it, coined the stamp machine, and with sure heavy footsteps clanked it into the mailbox. More than one watched him. A navy blue mother-and-daughter team, two tweed men, a crew-cropped youth—once it had been called a German haircut. They could watch; they couldn’t rob the U.S. mail.

He wore his shoulders jauntily again. “Come on, Shannon. Know any of the cabbies?”

Shannon might have caught on. Maybe he himself realized that Washington was webbed with spies. He didn’t wait for the question before yelling, “Hi, Joe. Give us a lift wi’you?”

Joe wasn’t first in the ranks.

A blank. A miserable empty ticket. Dantone, tempered to grayness not alone from years; the gravity of the alien world pressing him. Regretful of Ab Hamilton’s suicide; determined it was a suicide.

He said, “I don’t doubt the letter, Kit. But I doubt its genuineness. If Hamilton mailed it Wednesday night, why didn’t you have it Thursday morning?”

He didn’t know. He hadn’t even wondered.

“Could it not be the cheese to bait you to Washington?”

It could be; the marrow in his bones trickled. Maybe it had been a lucky hunch he’d detained Shannon, that Joe would cruise and return for him.

There was a Prester in the office, owl-eyed, blue-serged, beyond suspicion. Dantone was willing to check. Prester was in command of a Home Guard detachment from seven to ten on the night in question. His superior officers and members of his company approached, all vouched that he was never out of sight of fifty and more men. Not long enough to phone Ab.

There was a leak somewhere. Ab’s purpose at the office had been known. Prester’s name borrowed.

Dantone said, “Possibly. We can never be certain in these times. But I doubt it. My inner force isn’t large; I know my men rather well personally. They have all been with me long before Munich. But possibly.” His face was graven. “More likely a friend of a friend. If we were able to trace it that far, through casual remarks.” His eyes studied Kit’s height and breadth. “You’d get further inside the service than out. We could use a man like you in our intelligence. As you say, you possibly know more of the new order’s technique than most. Why don’t you join us, Kit?”

Kit decided, “I will.” He wasn’t fit for service requirements; some playful things that had been done to him betrayed his nerves. Perhaps the intelligence would not be so physically adamant, not with Dantone, and Geoffrey’s intimates in Cabinet, Senate and O.P.M., vouching. He said, “Get me an application, Sidney. But you’ll have to delay action on it—for perhaps a week or so.”