Assignment — Stella Marni Read online

  His head struck Durell in the stomach and knocked the wind out of him and threw him back into the living room. A small rug skidded out from under his feet and he went down. The man made a small screaming sound and tried to kick Durell's head and Durell jerked aside and caught at the ankle and yanked hard. The man tumbled down on top of him. Durell caught his wrist, slammed a fist into the man's throat, heard a strangled wheeze of struggling breath, rolled out from under the other's weight. His reaction was quick and savage. He hauled the man upright, slapped his face hard, slapped him again, flung him back to the trim gray couch. The man bounced, started to come up in a crouch, big fists balled, knuckles shining white.

  "Don't," Durell said.

  The man paused. His eyes were wary and frightened.

  "You son of a bitch," the man said.

  "Who do you think I am, Frank?"

  "Where is she? What have you people done with Stella?"

  "She isn't here, Frank."

  "Where did you take her? To her father? You done the same to her as you did to him? Tell me! Tell me or I'll kill you."

  Durell said, "Sit down, Frank." He told him his name. "Your kid brother. Art, pulled me up here from Washington to try to help out"

  Muddy brown eyes stared up from under twisted brows. The man's mouth opened and shut He breathed hard. "Durell?"

  "Right."

  "The guy Art works for. calls the Cajun? Art won't talk about his work. You're his boss?"

  "Right."

  "Give me a cigarette."

  Durell tossed him a pack. He stood watching the heavy man breathe hard. Perspiration ran down Frank Greenwald's face. There was a faint resemblance; Frank was older, fatter, less alert than Art. He could not reconcile Frank Greenwald with the image of the cool goddess who lived here. They didn't go together. It was all wrong. Frank looked like the disheveled, small-time businessman that he was. There was no glamour, not much money, not much of anything in Frank Greenwald. He was just an ordinary guy, too excitable, too scared, too confused by being pulled out of his safe rut of business and bachelorhood and dropped into a whirlpool of intrigue and hatred and danger. His mouth was shaking. The hand that held the cigarette trembled and Durell touched his fingers and lit a match for him.

  "Thanks. Guess I blew up good, huh?"

  "No bones broken," Durell said.

  "None of mine, you mean. You could've killed me."

  "Perhaps if it had been someone else, he might have," Durell said. "Who did you think I was?"

  "One of them."

  "Who?"

  "Look, don't think I don't appreciate Art's getting you up here. But I didn't ask Art for help. The kid brother thinks he's big now, working for you, getting on the inside of all that Washington political stuff. He forgets how it used to be with us, when we were kids. He's still just a kid. He doesn't know what he's doing. Never any real sense. I'm all right I don't need any help. I'll work this out all right"

  "You're talking to the wind," Durell said. "Stop shaking."

  "Huh?"

  "You're as close to hysteria as a man can be without climbing the walls. Calm down. Sit still a minute. You don't have to talk."

  Durell turned his back on him and went to the window overlooking the crosstown street. It was dark now. The rain made the night blacker, and the street lamp cast slick rays of iridescence on the wet asphalt. Two cabs went by. A woman in a plaid slicker walked a black French poodle that also wore a plaid slicker. There was a shadow leaning in the doorway of the house diagonally across the street. It didn't seem to have moved a bit since Durell first entered the apartment.

  There was a sudden move behind him, a quick wrenching at the front door. Durell caught Frank Greenwald before he got out. He hauled the man around and flung him back again, not saying anything; he kicked the door shut and pushed Frank into the living room, shoved him into his chair again.

  "I'm not going to waste words with you," Durell said. "A lot of people are worried about what happens to you, God knows why. You aren't grateful and you want to kick in the ears of those who want to help. Like Art. He's sick with worry over you. You haven't helped the Senate subcommittee, you haven't helped the FBI, and you're not helping yourself. But you're going to tell me what this is all about and we'll begin with Stella Marni and what you know about her and what she told you about her plans."

  Frank Greenwald looked up with angry eyes that didn't match the anger in Durell's. He wiped the flat of his hand over his mouth and shrugged his coat straight. For a moment Durell thought he was going to come up in another bullheaded charge. Then Frank began to shake, quietly, clasping his hands together and leaning forward as if he had a cramp in his belly.

  "What are you afraid of?" Durell asked quietly.

  "I'm afraid for Stella *

  "Is she in any danger?"

  "Of course!"

  "From whom?"

  "I don't know! If I did, I'd know what to do about it. I want to help her. I want her to stay here. I know what she told the Senate subcommittee, but it isn't true! She doesn't want to go back to Budapest. She hated it there. Her father hated it, and she wants to stay here."

  "That isn't what she told Senator Hubert"

  "Yes, but what else could she do?"

  "Has she herself been threatened or coerced?"

  Greenwald said flatly, "She can't find her father. They've taken him somewhere and they're holding him as a hostage to ensure the way she'll testify."

  "Is that what Stella Marni told you?"

  Greenwald said bitterly, "She hasn't told me anything. Stella will hardly talk to me now. She's changed. We were in love. I'm still in love. I'd die for her. I know I sound like a schoolboy, but that's the way I feel. I've been lonely a long time, Mr. Durell, and then Stella came along. She worked for Mr. Krame — he's a photographer, you know, in the studio above my place of business. I used to see her now and then, when she'd step out of the elevator, or when she'd be waiting for it. It took me a long time to get up the courage to speak to her. But finally I did, and we liked each other — anyway, I thought she liked me — and I fell in love. At this late date." The man smiled wryly, and for a moment he looked more like Art. "I know what they say about the dangerous forties, Mr. Durell, how a man can lose his sense of perspective and act like a damned fool over a woman. But from the first time I saw Stella with her little model's hatbox, waiting there for the elevator just outside my office door, I knew this was the real thing for me."

  "You're a bit older than Stella, aren't you?"

  "She's twenty-six."

  "And wise for her years," Durell said dryly.

  His irony was missed. "Yes, she's a wonderful woman."

  "And all you know is that she's willing to sacrifice herself and go back to Europe because her father is missing and she's being threatened with his welfare unless she agrees to do as she's told?"

  "Yes."

  "Who are the men threatening her?"

  "I don't think even Stella knows." The man looked up at Durell's tall figure. Rain hissed and rattled against the casement windows. "You have no idea how well organized they are. That Mr. Blossom, from the FBI — when I told him about it, he just laughed. He said their organization wasn't possible, or he'd have known about it. He was damned sure of himself. He made some pretty nasty remarks about Stella. I guess he sort of antagonized me, because I didn't tell him anything more. He wasn't worried about Stella's safety, or Alberts. He called me an old fool. He said Stella was a tramp, a tart."

  Durell looked around the calm, cool, immaculate apartment. "Hardly that," he murmured.

  '"Stella and her father aren't the only ones." Greenwald spoke in short, blurting sentences. "Nobody knows how bad things are. With the people who came here for political asylum, like. They thought they'd be safe — and they were, until this 'come home' campaign got started. They use every trick in the bag, Mr. Durell. They coax and wheedle and hold up their system like a shining light. They try to get 'em back like a moth to a flame. And when they
go, they disappear — like a moth with burned wings. I met a lot of them, through Albert. There's a club, a sort of association, they formed. The New American Society. I've been there. They're all scared, sick people now. But it used to be fun. They'd make fine citizens over here. You can't imagine. But one by one they go back, they disappear as if a curtain had been dropped behind them. As if something swallowed them, Mr. Durell. Stella will be swallowed up." And nothing can be done about it."

  "Who contacts them? How do they get word to go back?"

  Greenwald kneaded his knuckles. "There's a ring here in New York, and so far I've figured there's about six in it, working with the UN delegations — but not officially, you understand. And you'll never tie 'em together. They're too smart for that."

  "What about this ring?"

  Greenwald said bitterly, "They're Americans."

  "You're sure of that?"

  "They're doing it for money. So much per head. It's a racket for them, an easy way to make some sugar, that's all."

  Durell's eyes darkened. "Who have you told about this, Frank."

  "I started to tell Mr. Blossom, but he shut me up. He got sore at me and insulted me about Stella and I wouldn't tell him any more. But I'm on the right track. I may be dumb and inexperienced about these things, but I've got somewhere. Four men and two women. That's who they are. I found out from Johnny Damion, at the New American Society. He told me. Johnny's in the accordion business — he used to have a little plant in Warsaw. His wife vanished two months ago. Do the cops care? Does the FBI do anything? Hell, they're not American citizens, they're only here on sufferance, so nobody thinks it matters."

  Durell said gently, "You're wrong, Frank, it does matter. We don't want to lose potentially good citizens. And we don't want the other side to win any more propaganda hands than we can help. It matters a lot."

  "That's what you say."

  "That's the way I feel."

  Greenwald's eyes were dark and brooding. His mouth was slack. "Art told me about you. He swears by you. He thinks you can do anything. But he also said you're out of your own pond when you fish in this thing. If I know Blossom, he'll clobber you if you interfere in his job."

  "I'll interfere," Durell said. "I'll help you."

  "And invite trouble for yourself?"

  "I'm used to trouble."

  "Not just from your own people, either. This crew is tough. They've killed and, tortured and pulled out all stops. They'll clobber you first, if Blossom doesn't get you transferred to the Aleutians."

  Durell touched his small, dark mustache. He was aware that something was being held back behind Frank's nervousness. The man was impatient to get out of here. He was afraid. When the elevator hummed and stopped at the floor below, he twisted his head and listened.

  Then the telephone rang again, muted in the foyer with its soft gold Chinese tea paper. Frank jumped.

  "Don't answer it," Durell said. "You're not here."

  "But it might be Stella!"

  "Leave it alone,"

  The telephone rang again and again. Rain tapped on the windows. A car beeped its horn, very gently and discreetly. The phone rang a fourth time. Frank jumped up, slid under Durell's restraining arm, and snatched at it.

  "Stella?"

  Durell stood watching him with troubled eyes. There was a long moment while a voice crackled unintelligibly in the receiver. Whatever was being said, Frank had no answer for it. Durell couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman speaking. He saw the muscles twist and knot on Frank's jaw, and there was a touch of white at the corners of the man's mouth.

  "Yes," he said hoarsely. "Yes. I'll be there."

  There was more crackling on the phone.

  "No, I'm alone. Yes, I swear it! Yes, all right. Please, don't do anything until I get there. I'll come alone. Of course. Yes."

  Frank Greenwald hung up, turned to face Durell. His eyes were suddenly dangerous. His breathing was ragged, and he pointed a finger. "You stay out of this. I've got to go somewhere, meet someone. It's important. I'm going alone. With some money. If I'm followed, Albert Marni will be killed. And worse things will happen to Stella."

  "Who was that on the phone?"

  "Nobody you know."

  "Frank, don't be a fool."

  "Leave me alone," Greenwald said. He was sweating suddenly. "I warn you. I know what I'm doing."

  There was a small Chinese ceramic pillow in yellow glaze beside the telephone. Frank Greenwald scooped it up and threw it at Durell with one swift motion. As Durell ducked, the other man spun through the hall doorway and plunged out. The pottery crashed against the wall. Durell yelled and sprang after him. Greenwald hadn't waited for the elevator. His clattering feet pounded on the stairway to the ground floor. Durell hit the treads fast, cursing the man's stubborn, frustrating fear. This was no game for amateurs to play.

  Greenwald's desperation lent him unsuspected speed. He was through the narrow lobby, yanking at the street door, before Durell turned on the last landing. Cold rain slashed at his face as he came up the steps to the pavement level. Greenwald was running diagonally across the street. A car stood there, motor idling. A man shouted something from it and Greenwald swerved, looked back at Durell with a white, frightened face, and yanked open the back door of the waiting car. The sedan lurched, pulled away from the curb as Durell started across the street for it. A taxi came around the corner, and he had to duck back.

  He stood motionless on the pavement, watching the sedan disappear. The license number registered hard on his mind, a New York plate. There was no point in giving further chase. Greenwald was gone.

  Chapter Three

  The shadow no longer stood in the doorway across from Stella Marni's apartment.

  The wind was cold, angling down the street from the East River. Traffic flickered and hissed by on Madison Avenue, Durell looked at his watch. It was a little after six. He started walking toward Madison, to get a cab to his hotel. Deirdre had said she might take the train up from Washington to have dinner with him, and he suddenly wanted to see her and look into her eyes and feel the anger purged from him.

  He was halfway to the corner when Blossom stepped from a doorway to intercept him. "Durell!"

  He halted and looked at the FBI man. Blossom was tall and thin, and his hunter's face was narrow and bloodless. Durell had run into him here and there, but not too often, since Blossom was attached to his New York district office. There had never been too much coordination between K Section and the FBI, except when their orbits of duty overlapped. Blossom's face was like the blade of a hatchet, steel-cold.

  "Was that Frank Greenwald in the car?" Blossom asked.

  "Weren't you watching?"

  "I got the number. What are you mixing into this for, Cajun?"

  "My own reasons."

  "You're out of step. This one is our baby."

  "And if I make it mine?" Durell asked.

  "Your throat gets cut."

  "That's official?"

  "Official and personal."

  Durell said, "What's eating you, Blossom? Why the hate on this job? You warned off Art Greenwald, you made a flap to Senator Hubert, you pulled wires all the way back to Washington, just because Art asked you a few questions. Art is only worried about his brother."

  "He's got good reason to be worried."

  "Well, what is it? I'd like to help."

  "Stay out of it, Cajun. This one is all mine." Blossom's narrow face was hard. His pale eyes glistened in the light from the street lamp. He grinned quickly and turned it off just as quickly. "I hate these people," he said. He had a high, grating voice. "These bastards who don't know enough to be grateful for the break we give 'em by letting them into our country."

  "That's a hell of an attitude."

  "It's mine. That's the way I feel."

  "Your boss know how much you love 'em?"

  "I haven't made any secret of it."

  Durell said, "Then maybe you don't belong on this job. These people need help. Not hate. N
ot bigotry. I'm surprised you stay with it."

  Blossom laughed. "Take it easy with me, boy. I've heard about you, and I never went for what I heard. McFee's fair-haired Cajun lad. You're tangling with something else when you tangle with me. This one, this bitch, this Stella Marni. You heard what she told the Senator today? Cold-blooded, icy-faced babe. Beautiful, so damned beautiful. I'm going to fix her. She'll wish she never came here and she'll wish she never chose to go back."

  Durell felt suddenly wary as he listened to Blossom's grating voice. He had known good men who went bad, for one reason or another. Usually it was a persona! reason. He sensed the change in Blossom's voice when he mentioned Stella Marni. Not good. Worry moved in him. Now and then, in spite of careful screening, in spite of everything administrative checks could do, a sour apple got into the barrel. There had been Swayney, in K Section, a traitor, a man beguiled by visions of power and money. For every sour apple, there were hundreds and thousands of hardworking, sincere, devoted men who gave up sleep and careers and even love to pursue their jobs. Durell felt as if he had put his foot into an evil-smelling quagmire when he listened to Blossom's voice.

  Blossom pushed a thin forefinger against Durell's chest.

  "So you stay out of it, Durell. Go back to Washington. Stay in your own backyard. This is a matter of internal security, and State doesn't have any say in how we handle these cases. So that leaves you out."

  "And if I don't stay out?"

  "I told you. Hang by your thumbs. You get no more from me."

  "Fair warning." Durell said. He tasted anger in his throat, pushed it down. "Take your hand off my chest."

  "Sure." Blossom stepped back. "You've had your chance. There won't be any rules next time."

  "Dealer's choice," Durell said. "You picked the game."

  He walked to the corner. He could feel Blossom's strange, pale eyes following him. He didn't turn around to look back.

  Deirdre was waiting for him in the lobby of his midtown hotel. He saw her at once, with that instinctive searching of eye that would always pick her out, no matter what the crowd. She sat alone, long legs crossed, sheathed in nylon, small red rain boots on her patrician feet, a small red felt hat aslant on the raven hair that curled with the rain about her ears. Her smile and the look in her eyes were just for him as he approached. They would always be just for him. He knew this with a warm certainty that made him grateful just to know her.