"Stop!" Fordamp called in a voice that was none too steady. "Stop instantly, or I'll push the button!"
By then I'd had enough time to untie the bundle of dynamite. I let go of Fordamp's belt, then brought the dynamite around and stuffed it into the bulge of his stomach, something like a quarterback trying to hand a football to a reluctant halfback. Fordamp looked down at his belly and gagged.
"You push that button and you end up jelly," I said with a smile.
Fordamp's lips moved; finally sound came. "You'll blow yourself up, too, you fool."
"Getting shot, getting blown up; it's all the same to me, buster. This gives me much more satisfaction." I paused a few moments to let his imagination ponder the problem, then I said, "It's all over, Fordamp. Put the transmitter down on the ground."
Fordamp swallowed hard, then carefully placed the transmitter at his feet. Now it was Petrocelli who thought he saw his ticket out. He let out a cry and leaped toward the box. The policeman's bullet caught him in mid-air, slicing in beneath his shoulder blade and puncturing his heart. I reached down and scooped up the transmitter before Petrocelli's body landed on the spot where it had been.
One of the policeman had cut Jandor's hands free. I walked over and handed the transmitter to him. "Why don't you get this to a safe place?"
"Will do, Mongo. I'm sorry I couldn't make it to-"
"Forget it." I turned to John. "Can you disarm this thing?"
John Marinello nodded. "I think so."
They started off toward the haven of the forest. I turned back toward the center of the field. Vaicona was still standing in the same spot, his shoulders slumped, staring at the ground. I suddenly felt sorry for him; he had only done what he felt was necessary to preserve his country's treasures. Others had disagreed, and now Vaicona had been made to look like a fool, if not a traitor.
I suspected his political career was over.
Big Nell was being attended to. The police had herded all of Fordamp's gorillas into a tight knot and were guarding them; two men were dragging Petrocelli's body away.
Fordamp was still staring at his belly, apparently dazed, which may have explained why he wasn't being guarded. But Fordamp wasn't through yet; his eyes rose and settled on me.
"You!" Fordamp screamed, his eyes seething. "I'll kill you!"
He reached into his vest and came up with a.38. The barrel came around and stopped in a line with my forehead. I stood still and stared.
I was too far away to do anything about it.
Jandor wasn't. He had turned at the sound of Fordamp's voice and sized up the situation in an instant. His hand flew up, disappeared for a moment behind his head, then came forward in a blur of speed.
Fordamp's eyes widened; the gun dropped from his fingers as he reached up and tried desperately to pull the knife out of his throat. A moment later he slumped to the ground, dead.
The valley was suddenly very still. An army of curious faces had begun to appear on the ridge. I stooped down and searched through Fordamp's pockets until I found a ring of keys. Then I turned and walked toward the castle on the hilltop in the distance.
Dark Hole on a Silent Planet
Dr. Peter Barnum's craggy, fifty-year-old face was slightly flushed, and I thought I knew why: Barnum didn't like moonlighting college professors or celebrities, and he felt I belonged in both categories. I didn't know how he felt about dwarfs and I didn't care, but I was curious as to what he was doing in my downtown office on a Saturday morning. I took the hand he extended. It felt moist.
"Dr. Frederickson," Barnum said, "do you have a few moments?"
My services not being that much in demand, I invited him to sit down. Barnum perched on the edge of the chair, as if he were waiting for someone to call him to a speaker's platform.
"I'd like to hire you, Dr. Frederickson," Barnum said, rushing. "I mean, as a private detective."
"You didn't have to come down here. You could have seen me at the university."
"I know," he said, waving his hand in the air as though I'd made a preposterous suggestion. "I prefer it this way. You see, what I have to say must remain in the strictest confidence."
For a change, the air conditioning in the building was working. Still, the few wisps of blond hair that ringed the bald dome of Barnum's head were damp with sweat. A vein throbbed under his ear. I decided to take a little umbrage at his attitude.
"Everything my clients tell me is taken in confidence. It's the way I work."
"But you haven't said whether or not you'll help me."
"You haven't said what it is you want me to help you with. Until you do, I can't commit myself." That wasn't exactly true, but I hoped it would force the issue.
The university president finally passed a hand over his eyes as if trying to erase a bad vision, then leaned back in the chair. "I'm sorry," he said after a few moments. "I've been rude. I didn't want to risk having us seen talking to each other at great length at the university. It might have seemed strange."
"Strange to whom?"
Slowly, Barnum raised his eyes to mine. "I would like you to investigate one of your colleagues, Dr. Vincent Smathers."
I let out a low, mental whistle. I was beginning to understand Barnum's penchant for secrecy. Vincent Smathers was the university's most recent prize catch, an experimental psychologist who was a Nobel Prize winner. University presidents don't normally make a habit of investigating their Nobel Prize winners. The usual procedure is to create a specially endowed $100,000 chair, which was what had been done for Smathers. "What's the problem?"
Barnum shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know," he said at last. "Perhaps I'm being overly suspicious."
"Suspicious about what?"
"Dr. Smathers brought with him an assistant, Dr. Chiang Kee. Dr. Kee, in turn, brought two assistants with him, also Chinese. Quite frankly, those two men don't look like people with university backgrounds."
"Neither do I."
Barnum flushed. "I suppose you're implying-"
"I'm not implying anything," I said. I was feeling a little abrasive. "I'm saying that you, better than anybody else, should know that you can't judge a man by his looks. I'm sure Smathers knows what he's doing. I just don't want you to waste the university's money."
Barnum thought about that for a moment. "I suppose I am on edge," he said distantly. "Ever since they found that man's body on the campus-"
"I have a brother who's a detective in the New York Police Department, so I'm able to keep track of these things. Nobody has accused anybody at the university of killing him, if that's what you're worried about. He was fresh off the Bowery."
"Yes, but there's still the question of what a Bowery derelict was doing on the campus."
"This is New York," I said, as if that explained everything. "Do you think there's some connection between Smathers and the killing?"
"Oh, no!" Barnum said quickly. "But the university has come under increasing scrutiny, simply because the body was found there. I have to make sure that everything. . appears as it should."
"Besides the Chinese, what else doesn't appear as it should?"
Barnum took a deep breath. "There is the matter of the hundred-thousand-dollar yearly endowment Dr. Smathers receives for the academic chair he holds. While it's true that a man of Dr. Smathers' proven administrative abilities is not normally expected to-"
He was filibustering against his own thoughts. I cut him short. "You don't know what's happening to the money."
Barnum looked relieved. "That's right," he said. The rest seemed to come easier. "I believe you know Mr. Haley in the English Department?"
I said I did. Fred Haley and I had shared a few cups of coffee together.
"Mr. Haley swears to me that he's seen Dr. Kee before, in Korea. As you probably know, Mr. Haley was a POW. He tells me that Dr. Kee-who was using a different name then-was an enemy interrogator, in charge of the brainwashing program to which all of the POWs were subjected. He had a reputation for brutality, psychological and physical."