I should have guessed there was somebody else present, of course, somebody important, from the way they'd all seemed to be making speeches to the gallery instead of to each other, bringing each other up to date on stuff they should all have known without telling. He stood by the door, a solid, dark-haired man with a meaty, dark face. He was dressed like a big-city character from the east, complete with a big-city shirt and tie, a gabardine topcoat, a small felt hat, and big dark glasses to shield his eyes from our dangerous western sun. I knew at once that this was a different and tougher breed of predator from Butterball Tillery.
This man, I knew instinctively, represented the "corporation" to which Tillery had referred, the giant underworld organization to which Frank Warfel also belonged, which he now seemed to have embarrassed by his extracurricular activities. Apparently, it was the job of Tillery, the local troubleshooter, to terminate the embarrassment and, probably, the man who had caused it; but an eastern representative had been sent along as official observer for the board of directors, to make certain the corporation's interests were properly safeguarded.
"Mr. Helm." Tillery's voice drew my attention from the silent figure in the corner. "My apologies for the violent greeting, Mr. Helm, but we knew you to be armed and we didn't know how you'd react. Allow me to return your belongings. Please place the revolver, and the cartridges I have removed from it, in different pockets. You can reload when you leave here."
"And when," I asked, "will that be, Mr. Tillery?"
"That depends on you, Mr. Helm," he said smoothly. "All you have to do is answer a question and you're free to go. As you'll have gathered from what we let you overhear, we know all we need to about Frank Warfel's proposed heroin operation. We can take care of that, and will. But the corporation that employs me-you may know it by other names-cannot afford to become involved in treason, for exactly the same reason it no longer deals in drugs. When an activity becomes too unpopular, it also becomes unprofitable."
I said, "That's a nice, patriotic viewpoint."
"Let's not wave the flag. I believe we are both on the same side in this. Why quibble about motives? What we want from you is one single piece of information: just what kind of international monkey business has that little red-haired girl put Frankie up to, Mr. Helm?"
"I don't know," I said.
"Hit him, Jake."
The plump little man's voice didn't change as he said it. Jake yanked me off the bed and slugged me hard at diaphragm level, so I sat back down again, breathless.
"Let me remind you, Mr. Helm," Tillery said gently, "that being a U.S. agent gives you no privileges here, quite the contrary. You are not in the United States now. You are a sneaky grin go spy who has just committed a brutal murder on Mexican soil-" I said, "Hell, I didn't kill the girl. I might have, but she saved me the trouble. She was a pro; she was also a murderess. She knew that once she was caught, she was dead, whether I did the job myself or took her back across the border for trial. She preferred to get it over quickly; or maybe she had orders not to be taken alive. They often do. Anyway, as soon as she knew for sure I was onto her, she popped the kill-me capsule into her mouth and bit down hard. All I did was get rid of the body."
"Nevertheless, I don't think you'd like to have your activities called to the attention of the Mexican authorities, which is why you will not scream for help or do anything else to cause us trouble while we're questioning you. Let me ask you something else: just what were you doing in New Mexico recently that involved a lot of driving?"
"Fishing," I said truthfully.
I knew he wouldn't believe me, but I couldn't, at the moment, think up a lie he would believe. The truth was easier to work with.
"Fishing, Mr. Helm?" Tillery's tone was skeptical.
"I was on leave," I said. "I used to live in Santa Fe. I came back to visit some friends and catch some fish."
"And you covered over a thousand miles-"
"Navajo Lake and the San Juan River are way up north in the state; Elephant Butte Reservoir is pretty far to the south. Then there are Conchos Lake, and Miami Lake, and the Chama River and the Rio Grande, and Stone Lake out on the Jicarifia Apache reservation. Look at the map. A man can log a lot of miles in New Mexico, fishing practically every day for a couple of weeks."
Tillery smiled thinly. "I'm sure he can, Mr. Helm. I'm not so sure you did. I'm not so sure you were not carrying out a preliminary investigation around Albuquerque, say, that later led you to Los Angeles and Frank Warfel, or the girl calling herself Beverly Blame."
I said, "I was on leave. They called me up and told me one of our people had been shot in L.A. and I'd better grab my secret-agent hat and get out there."
"And of course you'd never heard of Frank Warfel before, and therefore you can't possibly tell us what he and the redhead were up to besides dope." Tillery's voice was sour.
"That's right."
"Hit him, Jake."
Jake went through the haul-me-up-and-knock-me-down routine once more.
Tillery said calmly, "You must have some information. It makes no sense otherwise. The Blaine girl was obviously under the impression that you were dangerous to her and Frankie and their mission in some way, otherwise why would she have taken the risk of trying to get close to you once more, as an innocent victim of gang vengeance? At the very least, we can figure that she stayed behind to find out how much you knew, which indicates that you must know something, enough to worry them all. What is it, Mr. Helm?"
I said truthfully, "If I have any information dangerous to them, I don't know what the hell it could be."
"Hit him, Jake."
We played variations on this theme for a while. It got a little rough, but there was nothing to do hut take it. I mean, if I'd thought they were planning to kill me, or work me over hard enough to cripple me, I might have tried something violent to break it up, but that would have involved noise and, probably, dead men on the floor, and Mexican policemen all over the place. As long as it was no more serious than a bunch of hoods demonstrating their touching faith in the power of knuckles, I could ride along with it, amusing myself in the usual way-under such circumstances-by thinking about the excruciating deaths they were all going to die when I caught up with them, later..
"Stop it!"
It was Roberta Prince, coming abruptly out of the chair from which she'd been watching the show. She darted across the room to grab Jake's arm, cocked to slug me once more.
"Oh, stop it, stop it, stop it!" she cried. "What are you trying to do, kill him? He's a government agent, you can't just… Mr. Tillery, you told me if I got him here there'd be no rough stuff. You promised-" Jake flung her off. When she started forward again, Tillery grabbed her. She fought him with sudden, hysterical desperation, kicking at him frantically and raking him with her long, silvery nails. He swore and let her go, clapping a hand to his face.
Then the big man with the sunglasses, the silent observer, stepped forward quickly and seized her by the arm, swung her around, and sent her reeling back against the wall with a full-armed slap. He moved in and kept slapping her, right hand and left, until her knees buckled and she sank to the floor, sobbing weakly. The big man regarded her for a moment, rubbing his hands together in an absent way.
"Tillery."
"Yes," said Tillery quickly, "yes, Mr. Sapio."
"This isn't getting us anywhere. Let's blow."
"Yes, Mr. Sapio. Come on Jake. Mr. Sapio thinks we'd better leave now."
As they started for the door. Roberta Prince looked up quickly, pushing the tangled pale hair out of her eyes. She had stopped crying.