I realized now that it had never occurred to any of us that anybody else might listen in on our walkie-talkie conversations, even though we all knew they weren’t secure. From time to time, on the walkie-talkies, we’d heard construction crews, a street-paving crew, even a movie crew on location, as they passed through our territory, talking to one another. But the idea that Francois Figuer, inside his house, might have his own walkie-talkie, or even a scanner, and might listen to us had never crossed our minds. Not that we talked much, on duty, back and forth, except to complain about the assignment or arrange for our evening meal—
Our evening meal.
Who was Jim Henderson? What was he? I wished now I’d studied the picture of Francois Figuer more closely, but it had always been nighttime in that damn car. I’d never even read the material on the back of the picture. Who was Francois Figuer? Was he the kind of guy who would do... whatever this was?
Was all this — please, God — after all, just coincidence?
The customer at the counter got his sack of stuff and left. The math girl stood before the irritable Whopper girl and murmured her order, her voice too soft for me to hear — on purpose, I think. She didn’t want to share anything, that girl.
I didn’t have much more time to think, to plan, to decide. Soon it would be my turn at the counter. What did I have to base a suspicion on? Coincidence, that’s all. Odd phrases, nothing more. If coincidences didn’t happen, we wouldn’t need a word for them.
All right. I’m ahead of Jim Henderson. I’ll place my order, I’ll get my food, I’ll go outside, I’ll wait in the car. When he comes out, I’ll follow him. We’ll see for sure who he is and where he goes.
Relieved, I was smiling when the math girl turned with her sack. She saw me, saw my smile and gave me a contemptuous glare. But her good opinion was not as important as my knowing I now had a plan, I could now become easier in my mind.
I stepped up to the counter, fishing the list out of my pants pocket. Seven guys and we all wanted something different. I announced it all, while the irritable girl spiked the register as though wishing it were my eyes, and throughout the process I kept thinking.
Where did Jim Henderson live?
Could I find out by subtle interrogation techniques? Well, I would say to him, we’re almost done here. You got far to go?
I turned. “Well,” I said, and watched the mother whack one of the children across the top of the head, possibly in an effort to make him as stupid as she was. I saw this action very clearly because there was no one else in the way.
Henderson! Whoever! Where was he? All this time on line and just when he’s about to reach the counter, he leaves?
“That man!” I spluttered at the furious mother, and pointed this way and that way, more or less at random. “He— Where— He—”
The whole family gave me a look of utter, unalterable, treelike incomprehension. They were going to be no help at all.
Oh, hell, oh, damn, oh, goldarn it! Henderson, my eye! He’s, he’s, he’s either Figuer himself or somebody connected to him, and I let the damn man escape!
“Wenny-sen foyr-three.”
I started around the family, toward the distant door. The line of waiting people extended almost all the way down to the exit. Henderson was nowhere in sight.
“Hey!”
“Hey!”
The first “hey” was from the irritable Whopper girl, who’d also been the one who’d said “Wenny sen foyr-three,” and the second “hey” was from the furious mother. Neither of them wanted me to complicate the routine.
“You gah pay futhis.”
Oh, God, oh, God. Time is fleeting. Where’s he gotten to? I grabbed at my hip pocket for my wallet, and it wasn’t there.
He’d picked my pocket. Probably when I stepped on his foot. Son of a bitch! Money. ID.
“Cancel the order!” I cried, and ran for the door.
Many people behind me shouted that I couldn’t do what I was already doing. I ignored them, pelted out of the Burger Whopper, ran through the swirling fog toward my car, my face and hands already clammy when I got there, and unlocked my way in.
Local police backup, that’s what I needed. I slid behind the wheel, reached for the police-radio microphone and it wasn’t there. I scraped my knuckles on the housing, expecting the microphone to be there, and it wasn’t.
I switched on the interior light. The curly black cord from the mike to the radio was cut and dangling. He’d been in the car. Damn him. I slapped open the manila folder on the passenger seat and wasn’t at all surprised that the photo of Francois Figuer was gone.
Would my walkie-talkie reach from here to the neighborhood of the stakeout? I had no idea, but it was my last means of communication, so I grabbed it up from its leather holster dangling from the dashboard — at least he hadn’t taken that — thumbed the side down and said, “Tome here. Do you read me? Calling anybody. Tome here.”
And then I noticed, when I thumbed the side down to broadcast, the little red light didn’t come on.
Oh, that bastard. Oh, that French—
I slid open the panel on the back of the walkie-talkie, and of course the battery pack that was supposed to be in there was gone. But the space wasn’t empty, oh no. A piece of paper was crumpled up inside there, where the battery pack usually goes.
I took the paper out of the walkie-talkie and smoothed it on the passenger seat beside me. It was the Figuer photo. I gazed at it. Without the thick black eyeglasses, without the buckteeth, without the carroty hair sticking out all around from under the turned-around baseball cap, this was him. It was him.
I turned the paper over, and now I read the back, and the words popped out at me like neon: “reckless,” “daring,” “fluent, unaccented American English,” “strange sense of humor.”
And across the bottom, in block letters in blue ink, had very recently been written:
“THEY FORGOT TO MENTION ‘MASTER OF DISGUISE.’ ENJOY YOUR STEAK OUT. — FF”
Copyrights and Acknowledgments
“SINNER OR SAINT.” Copyright 1958, by Shelton Publishing Corp. Reprinted by permission of the author and Mystery Digest.
“ONE ON A DESERT ISLAND.” Copyright I960, by Donald E. Westlake. Originally appeared as “One Man on a Desert Island” in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.
“YOU PUT ON SOME WEIGHT.” Copyright 1960, by Crestwood Publishing Co., Inc. Originally appeared as “Fresh out of Prison” in Guilty Magazine.
“THE CURIOUS FACTS PRECEDING MY EXECUTION.” Copyright 1960, by Donald E. Westlake. Originally appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.
“GOOD NIGHT, GOOD NIGHT.” Copyright 1960, by Donald E. Westlake. Originally appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.
“THE RISK PROFESSION.” Copyright 1961, by Donald E. Westlake. Originally appeared in Amazing Science Fiction.
“NEVER SHAKE A FAMILY TREE.” Copyright 1961, by Donald E. Westlake. Originally appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.
“THE MOTHER OF INVENTION IS WORTH A POUND OF CURE.” Copyright 1965, by Donald E. Westlake. Originally appeared as “The Mother of Invention” in Dapper.