Curves Can Kill Page 3

  I puffed on the cigarette. “Well, that’s better than volunteering. But why me?”

  “There are two reasons. One, you’ve done this kind of work before. Two, you’re on friendly terms with a certain man.”

  “Who?”

  But the only answer I got from Dumbrille was a tight smile.

  “You’ve got me in a bind,” I said. “Kristo and his men damn near killed me. The way things look, his superiors will be anxious to finish the job Kristo and company botched. If I say no to your proposition, I’ll be walking around in the dark. That would be stupid of me. Don’t you agree, Mr. Dumbrille?”

  “Well, I would phrase it differently, perhaps; however, I agree in essence.”

  I moved my hands in a gesture of helplessness. “So I’m caught. All right, you’ve got me at three hundred a week.”

  “Thank you,” Dumbrille said softly.

  “No gratitude,” I said. “It boils down to a matter of survival. If I don’t know who wants me dead, then I’m as good as dead.” I grinned. “On top of that, I’m curious as hell about this nonexistent organization of yours. When was it formed?”

  “Almost two years ago. At the present time we have twenty-nine working agents—sixteen overseas, thirteen here in the United States. We have one computer analyst and two file clerks.”

  “No secretaries?”

  “None. We don’t need secretaries, being a nonexistent organization.”

  “What about the nurse?”

  “We had to take a slight chance on her. We told her nothing about Z Detail.”

  “But you tape-recorded some of the things I said in delirium. It follows that she must have heard me raving about Z Detail.”

  “We told her you were suffering from delusions.”

  “Thanks. By the way, you were right ...” I lit a new cigarette. “I’m still a chain smoker. Now tell me some more about Z Detail.”

  “We operate completely on our own. Our money comes from a trust fund left by an eccentric multi-millionaire, so there is no way for the CIA or the State Department or any other organization to find proof of our existence. Each member of Z Detail is paid by check from the trust fund. We answer to no one.”

  “Who gives the orders?”

  “I do.”

  “What are the duties of Z Detail?”

  “To protect the United States from enemies within and outside the country.”

  “What happens to the organization if you have an accident or something?”

  “When I die, the man who hired me will replace me with someone else.”

  “With someone who’s already in the organization?”

  “No.”

  “What if the man who selected you should die?”

  “He has left certain papers. His successor will take over.”

  “Does this mysterious great man ever give you orders?”

  “At times he makes suggestions.”

  “Do you always accept his suggestions?”

  “No.”

  “How do you hire your personnel?”

  “That, Larry, is my greatest responsibility—and problem. I read dozens of newspapers each day. Then there are scores of comprehensive reports from government and military branches. The kind of men I need are very rare in this world of ours. My first requirement is that they be unattached, loners. The other requirements are rather difficult to explain.”

  “Do it by example,” I said. “For instance, what was so rare about Bill Stuart?”

  “Until six months ago, Stuart was a second lieutenant in the army. In Vietnam, he took out three patrols that totaled twenty-six men excluding himself. Only one of the twenty-six men survived the patrols; he lost a leg. Stuart received the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star, the Bronze Medal and a Purple Heart with an oak leaf cluster for the three patrols alone.”

  “So he’s a hero,” I said. “The army is full of heroes.”

  “Some of his superior officers saw him as something less than a hero, Larry. There was even some talk of court-martialing him. You see, each of the patrols was a mere probe into enemy territory. It was Stuart’s job to get his men in without being observed, to radio back information on enemy positions, and then to get his men back. But Stuart didn’t see it that way. He radioed back the information in each case—and then he attacked.”

  “Attacked?”

  “Against orders.”

  “Why?”

  “In the opinion of an army psychiatrist, Stuart has a suicide compulsion. Stuart has another explanation: he says it’s a soldier’s job to destroy the enemy wherever and whenever he finds them. There was an informal hearing. The soldier who lost his leg gave evidence from a hospital bed. He said that Stuart gave the order to attack enemy positions, even though that particular patrol could have returned to the American lines without engaging the enemy. Stuart admitted that he had gone out of his way to attack. Ironically, the boy who lost his leg owed his life to Stuart; he carried him on his back for more than a mile.

  “Naturally, there was no court martial. How can a man be punished for displaying courage in the face of severe enemy fire? Even the boy who gave evidence against him testified that Stuart had taken more chances than anyone else. However, the army can’t afford to keep an officer who refuses to obey orders; so Stuart was returned to the United States and given a medical discharge for bits of shrapnel in his knee. He then tried to join the Marines and the Air Force, claiming that the shrapnel didn’t bother him in the least, which was the truth. When his enlistment bids failed, he wrote long, bitter letters to the government. It was through these letters that I learned about Stuart. We had a talk. I discovered that he hated communism with a passion that was frightening. As soon as I was reasonably certain he wouldn’t shoot the first communist he saw, I invited him to join Z Detail. He was a good man.”

  “Where did you get Grady?” I asked.

  “Grady was with the FBI, He was one of their toughest agents. However, he had no time for regulations and he refused to observe protocol. Even so, he was one of their top agents for about eight years before he made a fatal mistake: he told J. Edgar Hoover to go to hell. I hired him two weeks later.”

  “Fifty years ago,” I said, “men like that joined the Foreign Legion.”

  “Or became criminals. Speaking of criminals, there are some very good men who, because of a police record, are unable to gain government employment of any kind; even the armed services are barred to them.”

  “But Z Detail isn’t, eh?”

  “Some of my best men have police records.”

  “You must get some lemons.”

  “One or two, but they are weeded out within a few months. In the meantime, they learn nothing about Z Detail. It’s only when I’m sure of a man that he sits here at my desk and we have a heart-to-heart talk. Until then he’s on probation. He never meets me until he’s been accepted. Stuart was an exception to this rule.”

  “What happens to the lemons who aren’t discovered until they get past the big interview with you?”

  “There has been only one such incident.”

  “And?”

  “He passed away.”

  “Oh. Does it bother you when a man ... ‘passes away’?”

  Pale gray eyes held my gaze. “We always do our best to take care of our own, Larry. However, we try to maintain our equilibrium at all times. Mourning and revenge are luxuries we can’t afford. When a man is killed in the line of duty—”

  I finished it for him: “You put another chess piece on the board.”

  Dumbrille nodded. Nothing ever changes in the spy business. You can give a department a new name and change the rules of behavior, but the rules of the game itself are unalterable. No one wears a black band on his sleeve or even in his consciousness. The game is played with fragile pieces; when one falls from the board it smashes itself out of existence.

  “... one shortcoming,” I heard Dumbrille say.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I didn’t quite
hear that.”

  “I was saying that you were a good agent in spite of one major fault. Sentimentality.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “That’s why the CIA efficiency rating analyst put an asterisk beside my name. It means: This agent should not be selected for an assassination. Later on another asterisk was added; it means I don’t like killing women.”

  “That is an over-simplification, Larry.”

  “Maybe. I haven’t changed, by the way; I’m still a sentimentalist.”

  Dumbrille looked sad. “You’ve never understood us, have you?”

  “Never,” I admitted.

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Careful,” I needled. “You’re showing sentimental tendencies.”

  Dumbrille very nearly smiled, then he cleared his throat. “I understand you’re acquainted with a writer named Lee Howard.”

  “He’s one of my best friends.”

  “You’re going to have to take advantage of that friendship, Larry. You see, there’s a woman ...”

  Chapter 3 ... the woman ...

  Her name was Rita Duncan. She had jet-black hair and the kind of face you see on cameos made in Naples. She was full-busted, but she didn’t advertise the fact—her blouse was loose and there were no buttons to unfasten so she could present the beholder with an artistic display of cleavage. I couldn’t see what she was like from the waist down because she was seated behind a desk, but I guessed that she hour-glassed neatly at the hips and had long, muscular legs. A little later I discovered that my estimate sold her short; her legs were perfection and her perky derriere was a joyous sight worthy of a connoisseur’s long and serious contemplation.

  “Is there some way I can help you?” she asked.

  “I just dropped in to see Lee,” I said.

  “Do you have an appointment with Mr. Howard?”

  “An appointment? With Lee? He’s a writer. You don’t need appointments to see writers.”

  Her eyes turned to blue ice, and her voice came out chilled: “Mr. Howard is a very busy man, Mr.—”

  “Kent. Larry Kent. I guess you’ve heard Lee talk about me.”

  “Never, Mr. Kent.”

  “Then you can’t have been here very long. I know you weren’t here two months ago.” I let my eyes wander. “In fact, I’m absolutely sure you weren’t here. You see, Miss—”

  “Duncan.”

  “Ramona Duncan?”

  “No.”

  “Rhonda? Rachel? No? Well, I’ve got the initial right. Don’t be surprised. It’s really elementary, my dear Miss Duncan. Your purse is on the desk, and it bears the initials R.D. No applause, please. By this time, of course, you know I’m a detective.”

  “Oh, I knew that immediately,” she said.

  “As soon as I told you my name, eh?”

  “No, when I saw your feet.”

  “Fun-eee,” I said. “I’ll have to tell Lee that his new secretary has a crazy sense of humor. The last one was pretty straight-laced. Don’t bother to announce me. I’ll just drop in on him.”

  “He’s not in, Mr. Kent.”

  “Oh? Where’d he go?”

  “To lunch with a client.”

  “When do you expect him back?”

  “I have no idea when he’ll be back.”

  There was a chair level with her desk. I walked to it, sat down. “Don’t mind me, Miss Duncan. Just go ahead with whatever you’re doing; I won’t bother you.” I got up, moved the chair back a few feet so I could see her in profile. “That’s better,” I said. “Didn’t I hear you typing as I came in?”

  Her typewriter was on a metal table behind the desk. To use the machine, she would have to swing her legs around my way. She looked at me frostily for a moment before saying, “Mr. Howard may be quite a long time.”

  “Oh, that’s all right. I don’t mind waiting. It’s not Ruth, is it? No. Can’t be Ruth. It has to be more exotic. Something like Rona.”

  “If it makes you happy, Mr. Kent, my name is Rita.”

  “Rita.” I nodded. “It does make me happy.”

  “I’m glad. And now, if you don’t mind, I have an article to type.”

  “Please go right ahead.”

  She moved her legs from under the desk, swung the swivel chair around and tucked her legs under the typing table. I began to hum A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody as she attacked the typewriter keys, copying from a shorthand pad. She was very fast; at least a hundred words a minute, I figured. She finished the page quickly, pulled it from the typewriter, removed two sheets of carbon from the copies, prepared two more copies and an original sheet, inserted them in the machine, made sure the sheets were in straight, and then continued typing at the same high speed. I switched to Pretty Baby. She acted as though I wasn’t there, but she couldn’t miss noticing that I was admiring her dimpled knees. I put a cigarette in my mouth, dropped my Ronson, went down to retrieve it, glanced under the typing table.

  “Damn!” she said.

  “A mistake?” I said. “Too bad. And you were doing so well.”

  She placed Ko-rec-type oblongs over the mistake, typed to white out the paper, removed the oblongs and typed the correct letters in. Then she rose from the chair and walked across the room, and I got my first long look at her cute derriere, which jiggled in the most delightful manner—and she wasn’t even trying! She picked up a magazine from a table, brought it to me. It was Playboy. She opened it to the center gateway fold, placed the open magazine on my lap. I looked at the full-length photographic portrait of a pretty redhead in silhouette. She wore nothing except a quizzical smile, but she held a towel, folds of which artistically concealed a vital portion of her anatomy.

  “Miss Duncan,” I said, properly horrified, “this is shocking!”

  “I know,” she said sweetly, “but I’m afraid it’s the best I can do.”

  I laughed. “Touché! I bother you, do I? In that case ...” I went to the other end of the room, sat down, tossed the Playboy on a table, picked up a copy of New Statesman. “Type away, Miss Duncan.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Kent.”

  It was an act on my part, of course. Dumbrille and I had decided how I should behave when he briefed me in his Washington office. Introducing myself to Rita Duncan was the first planned move in the game. There would be one more outlined move. After that, the rules of the game were elastic.

  Lee Howard entered the office before I had time to select what I considered to be the least boring article in the New Statesman. He smiled broadly when he saw me, stuck out his hand.

  “Larry! You old bum!”

  “See?” I said, turning to Rita Duncan as Lee pumped my arm like he was trying to get water. “Did you notice the term of endearment? I told you we were old buddies.”

  Lee laughed, hit me on the shoulder. “Has this guy been giving you any trouble, Rita?”

  “Nothing I can’t handle,” was her answer.

  I shook my head like it was beyond my comprehension. “I didn’t get the usual reaction, Lee. I gave her every last ounce of the old Larry Kent charm, but she isn’t even dented.”

  He slapped me on the back. “That’s because you don’t know how to handle class, my boy.”

  “Personally, I think you’re overworking the poor girl. She’s suffering from fatigue. You ought to give her a few days off to—Hey, that reminds me of why I came to see you! Let’s go into your office and talk about it, eh? If we don’t give Miss Duncan some peace and quiet, she’ll never finish typing that lousy article of yours.”

  Lee playfully threw a left jab at my shoulder. Then the door of Lee’s office closed behind us and he gave me a funny look, and said, “You were never what I’d call an Old Sober-side, but aren’t you a little more exuberant than usual today?”

  “A little,” I said.

  He studied me. Lee Howard was a big bear of a man with a thick head of unruly blond hair, a pugnacious nose and a sun-seamed face. He was an inch or so taller than me and a lot heavier, most of it muscle and
bone. This was no sedentary writer. He played a few rounds of golf each week, worked out in a gym one night a week, did a lot of swimming the year round. And he was an expert scuba diver. He was my room-mate at college. and one of my best friends ever since. We made it a point to play a round of golf together as often as possible. We knew each other’s ways pretty well.

  “You haven’t been drinking, have you?” Lee asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Then why the byplay with Rita? And I don’t mean what you said in front of her. She was as cold as Nome in January when I walked in. Did you make a pass at her, by any chance?”

  “Something like that.”

  Lee scratched at an eyebrow. “You must have been pretty crude, pal.”

  “Well, I wasn’t smooth.”

  Lee squinted an eye, worked his tongue around the inside of his mouth thoughtfully. After a moment of looking at me, he said, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re acting very much like a fellow who’s got an angle.”

  “That’s right. Is she a good secretary?”

  “The best.”

  “I’ll bet you don’t know the name of her last employer.”

  “How much? Ten?”

  I took a ten dollar bill from my wallet, dropped it on Lee’s desk. He picked up the bill, transferred it to his wallet. “Professor Vincent Galek,” he said.

  “You win.”

  “I know damn well I win. She told me all about Galek.”

  “Did she? What did she say?”

  I heard Lee’s teeth grind together, a sure sign he was getting ready to be stubborn. “She’s not just a good secretary, Larry; I like her.”

  “Did she say why she stopped working for Galek?”

  “She didn’t stop working for him. He’s dead. He shot himself in front of ten witnesses at Yale University, three or four weeks ago. Rita had every intention of remaining in his employ.”

  “Did she say why he killed himself?”

  “She doesn’t know. She—look, Larry, what the hell is this all about? Are you investigating Rita?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, now it’s my turn to ask some questions. Who hired you?”

  “I can’t tell you.”