"I remember," Mac said. "What is your point?"
I said, "We broke up the conspiracy, all right, and got all the people immediately concerned, with the help of the Mexican authorities, but we didn't get the ones who'd pulled the strings from up here, north of the border. At least, if we did, I was never told about it."
"We didn't," Mac said.
"Afterwards, when I recruited Annette for that job working on our side-she was pretty disenchanted with the opposition by that time, and she had a Mexican prison staring her in the face-I didn't ask her too many questions. I was too busy telling her things she needed to know for the mission coming up. I just kept an eye on her until I was sure she could be trusted. Actually, knowing her low boiling point, I was careful not to antagonize her by probing into her past. I needed her cheerful and cooperative, and to hell with ancient history. But I presume that after our joint assignment was finished, and she was being considered for permanent employment, she was questioned pretty thoroughly-particularly about the people she'd known during her brief career as a subversive."
"That is correct," Mac said. "And you think she may have come across one of those people again?"
"Well, it would have given her a special reason for lone-wolfing it, sir. This was information only she had. This was a person only she could recognize. Even if she hadn't been mad at you, she'd have been reluctant to call in and let somebody else get the credit for nailing the guy. If you'd check her file-"
"I am checking it," Mac said. "I suppose I should have done it sooner, but I admit I was operating on a different theory… Here we are. She gave us two descriptions and a name. The name, she said, she'd heard only once, but she gathered it was that of the man in charge. You'll recognize it, Eric. We've come up against the gentleman before. The name she heard was Nicholas."
I grimaced. "That's nice. So we could be dealing with old man Santa Claus himself."
"Santa Claus?"
I said, "Just a joke, sir. He doesn't call himself that, as far as I know, but you know how some of our people tend to make up nicknames for members of the opposition, even those they haven't seen. Wait a minute. Nicholas is a man who likes heavy artillery, if I remember the dossier correctly. That fancy new computer should have given him to us by now, just from that angle."
"Unfortunately," Mac said dryly, "that fancy new computer has contracted some kind of electronic indigestion. I'm sending for Nicholas' file but I think you're quite right. As I recall, the lightest pistol he's on record as having used is a Browning 9mm High Power, no Magnum but still something of a handful. In another instance he left a.45 Colt Automatic beside a victim, that's no child's toy, either. Yes, a.44 would suit Nicholas very well, from what we know of his shooting habits."
"But Annette said she never saw him?"
"None of our people has seen him, or questioned anyone who has. So far, his cover has never been broken."
I said, "Then it couldn't have been Nicholas she spotted here in L.A. and tried to follow." I hesitated. "What about the two guys she actually met, the ones she described for you?"
"One was shot and killed by the Mexican police while resisting arrest after that Mazatlan affair. From what she said, I gather he was the one who recruited her in the first place. The other was just a man who drove a car in which she was transported to a rendezvous. He disappeared, like Nicholas himself-we've had no reports on either of them since. The description Annette gave us fits a small-time European motorcycle racer named Will Keim-Willi, with an 'i'-who got into some trouble with the law and now specializes in driving chores for the opposition…
"Willi!" I said. "Does he fit the description I just gave you, of the rock-jawed, potato-nosed character in the Ford wagon? Willy, with a 'y'?"
"I'm afraid I didn't monitor what you fed into the recorder. I planned to play it back later. Just a minute." I heard him find the right section of tape and run it through. "Yes. It could very well be the same man."
"My God!" I said. "I should have known nobody could drive that badly without working at it."
"Mr. Keim is apparently an expert at handling all kinds of wheeled machinery."
"And Annette would have recognized him. He's hard to miss. That could be our lead. Suppose Willi-Willy was still driving for Nicholas, either with or without Warfel's knowledge, probably with. Suppose Willy picked u~ Nicholas at the airport. Say Annette spotted a familiar face and watched to see who joined Willy and was caught doing it. Obviously, she had to be killed. She'd seen old Santa Claus in the flesh and she had enough of the background to know, or at least guess, what she'd seen. So Nicholas took care of the job, arranged for a syndicate cover-up, and had Willy on the spot to see how well it worked out."
"That could be the way it happened, certainly. If it should be Nicholas… Well, you know the standing orders. He is on the high-priority list. We've lost enough good men-and women-to Nicholas."
"Yes, sir."
"However, there's a lot of guesswork involved, Eric. Don't rely too heavily on this one theory."
"No, sir," I said, "but assuming we're on the right track, the big question now is: just what brings Nicholas back to these parts? It must be something fairly important or his superiors wouldn't take the risk of returning him to the scene of a job that flopped as badly as that Mexican operation of his. A lot of underlings were caught and they must know that one might put a finger on their boy somehow-as Annette did. Do we know of anything big brewing down here, big enough to call for a man of Nicholas' talents?"
"No," Mac said, "we don't know, and we don't really care, Eric. Don't let your curiosity get the better of you. Remember that intelligence is the business of other departments. Your job is Nicholas, and whoever killed Ruby, if they are not the same person. Take care of that. If you happen to learn anything interesting in the process, by all means pass it along, but don't let it distract you from your primary mission…
VIII
As a bodyguard, I was a bust. They took out the black man right under my nose.
I'd been waiting a little ways up the street outside the office when Devlin's people finally turned him loose with the Blame girl, the way we'd planned it. I'd watched him say good-bye to her politely and assist her into the first to arrive of the two taxis that had been ordered at their request. He'd taken the second, which came along, with standard L.A. punctuality, some fifteen minutes later. I'd tailed him in the rental sedan Charlie herself had promoted for me-apparently her newborn spirit of cooperation didn't extend to furnishing me with company wheels-but he'd stayed with the taxi less than half a dozen blocks.
I didn't think he'd reached his destination, when the cab swung to the curb. I figured he knew, or suspected, that he was being followed, and was about to play some tricks. I pulled into a parking space half a block away, cut my lights, and waited. It wasn't a subtle, high-class, invisible job of surveillance, but I had little hope of staying with him in any case, and none at all if I got cute. He knew me by sight; he probably knew I was there; and it was his city, not mine.
But it had seemed like something that should be tried, both for his sake and for mine. Watching over him, I might be able to save his life, although it wasn't likely- as a matter of fact, I didn't really think Warfel would be fool enough to strike at either McConnell or the girl, despite what I'd said for effect back in the office. Still, if he were attacked, and saved, McConnell might talk, if he had anything to talk about. And even if nobody made a hostile move towards him, he might lead me to something or somebody significant, although I didn't really have much hope of it.