“I don’t much care what he prefers. I don’t kill people, it’s not my style. Any fool can kill people.”
“Maybe this time you haven’t got a choice. How else can you stop them publishing this stuff?”
We sat in a four-door Humber across the street from the shop-front office of Sydney Exposed. It was a shabby old part of the city — cheap flats, a boarded-up cinema, rubbish in the gutters. In the newspaper’s windows the lights burned late — tomorrow was this week’s publication day and Stenback was in there with his staff composing the late pages. “She never comes to the office personally?”
“Apparently not,” Myers said. “We’ve had it staked out for ten days. If she’s set foot in the place we’re not aware of it. Of course we’re not sure what she looks like. The last available photograph is from nine years ago when she was eighteen. Blonde hair, gorgeous face and figure — the beach-beauty type. You know these athletic Australian girls. But who knows. Maybe she’s gained weight, changed her hair, whatever. She could be any one of a dozen women who’ve wandered in and out of there.”
I said, “Assuming she doesn’t report in person to the office, it follows she must send her copy in. Not by the post; I think she’d be too paranoid to entrust her copy to government mails. Her articles would be hand-delivered.”
Myers began to smile. “Then—”
“It’ll take man-hours and legwork but let’s try to put surveillance on anyone who brings an envelope to this office...”
Through the wrap-around corner windows the sky was cheerful but Jaeger was glum. “Our security’s all right — I’m pretty sure we’ve plugged all possible leaks. But it’s a case of locking the barn door after the horse thieves have made their getaway. Probably they’ve got all the names already — they’re publishing one a week, holding back to keep the circulation up. It’s like a week-to-week cliffhanger serial. Every week the public clamor grows — they’re starting to call for blood in Adelaide and Melbourne. Our blood. If it keeps up we’ll all find ourselves deported. It’ll be done with man-to-man shrugs and smiles and abject apologies but they’ll do it all the same — they’ll have no option if the public pressure grows bad enough. You’ll have to move fast, Charlie.”
“I’m ready to,” I said. “We’ve found Beth Hilley.”
She was clever but all the same she was an amateur and it hadn’t occurred to her that a cut-out and blind-drop setup can be breached. For a week we had backtracked all the messengers who had delivered envelopes to Sydney Exposed. We doubted she would use a formal messenger service; we were right.
The drop was mundane but adequate: a luggage locker in a railway station. But the thing about lockers is that you have to transfer the locker key. Once we knew the system we broke it easily. Hilley would leave the envelope in the station locker and put the key in another envelope and leave that with the landlord of a pub she frequented near the waterfront. The kid — a bearded long-haired boy in frayed denims and a patchwork jacket — would collect the key from the bar, go to the locker, get the envelope, and carry it by hand to Sydney Exposed. The kid, like five others who made deliveries regularly to the newspaper, was shadowed for a week and when he picked up the key and opened the locker we knew we were onto Beth Hilley: we simply staked out the lockers until she arrived to deposit the next week’s copy.
She lived in a small flat on a suburban street near a shopping center. As it turned out she hadn’t resorted to any disguise. She was still blonde and gorgeous with a leggy showgirl look. Three nights in a row she emerged in evening dress, drove her white MG into the heart of Sydney, and rendezvoused with a man: each night a different man, each night a different posh waterhole. Each night she and the man — two politicians, one diplomat — would go to a luxury hotel afterward.
Myers laughed. “So that’s how she meets so many prominent guys. She’s a call girl!”
We requisitioned revolvers and special-effects equipment from Jaeger’s station. We were leaving when Jaeger met us in the corridor. He glanced at the revolvers as we fed them into our attaché cases. “Then you’re going to kill them after all.”
I shrugged.
“You want any help? I can give you a back-up squad.”
“Let’s keep it quiet,” I replied.
Myers said cheerily, “We’ll handle it, Bill.”
Jaeger was still dubious when we left.
When she answered the door I pushed the gun up under her nose and she backed away in alarm. I stepped inside and closed the door. “Stay loose, birdie. No screams, all right?”
A veil slid across her eyes. “What do you want?”
“Sit down and don’t talk. We’re waiting for somebody.”
“Who are you?”
“Does it matter?”
“You’re an American.”
“Really? I thought I was doing a fair ’Stryne accent there.”
She managed a snort of contemptuous laughter. She wore a white jumpsuit with a yellow scarf at the neck — crisp, very smart. She had a tan complexion as soft and smooth as Japanese silk; she’d have inspired desire even in a jaded centerfold photographer. I had no trouble with the notion that she would be able to extract information from men.
“Come on,” she said impatiently, “what is this?”
“Sit down.” I wiggled the gun. “It’s only a .32 but they’re hollowpoint bullets — they make a terrible mess of flesh and bone.” Making a face she took a seat on the divan and tucked her long legs under her. I crossed the room to close the drapes. It was a comfortable efficiency flat, not terribly big, the furniture a bit Bohemian: an old door on bricks served as a coffee table and the divan was one of those pull-out convertible beds. Apparently she spent most of her money on clothes.
“I suppose if I sit here long enough you’ll tell me what this is all about?”
“Count on it, Beth.”
“You’re the C.I.A., aren’t you? Which one? Cole? Ludlow? Fortescue?”
“What’s in a name?” I sat down and rested the revolver on my knee. “Be patient, Beth.”
With enviable aplomb she rested her head against the wall and closed her eyes, feigning boredom. A very tough young lady. I hoped we could crack her. It wouldn’t be easy.
Myers brought Iwan Stenback into the flat at gunpoint. The Swede was a short man with a beard and long hair tied back with a rubber band. His pale eyes took in the scene quickly. “So. The C.I.A. brings us together to murder us. I suppose you’ll give it the appearance of a lovers’ quarrel. Do you honestly think anyone will believe such a crude sham?”
“We like to think we’re a bit more sophisticated than that,” I said. “Sit down, Stenback.”
He moved to stand beside Beth Hilley. She touched his hand possessively and not without fear. I flicked the gun in his direction and he eased past the arm of the couch and sat down next to Beth Hilley. He wasn’t a bad-looking man. There was a jaded professorial cynicism about him — the kind of weltschmertz that sometimes appeals to women: they see immediately through the bitter veneer and convince themselves that beneath it is a sensitive being who needs coddling and protecting.