Danger Is My Line Read online

  “Sure, that’s reasonable enough. But it’s the way things stack up against you. Your fingerprints on the car. Then we catch you running away from the bombing. Or chasing a girl you refuse to identify.”

  “You know who she is now.”

  “Not because of your help, brother. Then this morning we had a plant on you and you lost it. See the way it builds?”

  “He’d have to be blind,” Sam said, “not to.”

  “And tonight,” the small, dark guy went on. “Tonight Ted Huggins had some questions to ask Brandvik. He went up there. Someone was just leaving Brandvik’s room. The hall was dark. Whoever it was started running.”

  Huggins’ tone was wryly apologetic as he took it from there. “I ordered him to halt. When he didn’t, I pulled out my gun—but what the hell, I couldn’t just shoot someone for running down a hotel corridor, could I? He didn’t stop and I ran after him. He took off through the fire door. I went after him.” Huggins made a face. “Something tripped me up and I went down the stairs on my fat head. When I came to of course I was alone. I went back to the room. Where I found you and the Kolding girl—and a dead man.”

  “Where’s Maja Kolding now?” I asked.

  The gun-metal gray filing cabinets paid as much attention to my question as they did. Sam said, “Two killings. Brandvik and the guy writing him up for View magazine. And you’re on hand for both of them, Drum.”

  “You ready to co-operate?” Sam asked.

  I nodded. The steno looked at her pencil point and at the blank page of the pad in front of her. I started talking, and she filled it with my story. It didn’t take long, because no one interrupted me.

  When I finished, Sam passed a pack of cigarettes around and we all lit up. “Okay,” Sam asked, “so what’s in it for you?”

  Before I could answer, Huggins pointed out, “We just have your word for it it wasn’t you who ran out the fire-stairs and slugged me.”

  “You think I did it?”

  “I just want you to see what kind of hot water you’re in.”

  “You can check with Mr. Thwaite. He’s the desk clerk.”

  Huggins waved this objection aside. “Yeah? You could have gone in the service entrance, killed Brandvik, slugged me, gone back around the front and come in after me.”

  “I could have hired Martin J. MacArthur to do the job for me,” I said sarcastically. “I could have had a helicopter waiting at the window. I could have painted myself with invisible paint.”

  “Funny guy,” Huggins growled.

  “I just don’t see the point in all this,” I said. “If you’d like to scare me, I’m scared. I’d like to keep my license. But if that’s all you had in mind, you could have left me at District Homicide.”

  “Maybe we should have,” Huggins said.

  Sam looked at him. “We still want to know what’s in it for you, Drum.”

  I crushed my cigarette out. “I told Marianne Wilder I was going to find the people who killed her husband. I meant it.”

  “What can you do that District Homicide can’t?” Huggins asked sourly.

  “It was you who took me away from them,” I pointed out.

  “What can you do that the Bureau can’t? Who in hell you think you are?”

  “Ted, there’s no point in that,” Sam said.

  “Wise guy with a Robin Hood complex,” Huggins insisted.

  Sam said, “Ted.”

  The small dark one stood up. “Stick around, Dram,” he said. They all went out, not looking at me. I thought they wanted me to wait to sign the typed-up copies of my deposition, but in a little while the steno brought them back along with a pile of dog-eared magazines. I signed, four times, and looked at her.

  She smiled a little. “Big conference going on.” Her smile broadened. “Might as well do some reading.”

  “What kind of conference?”

  “You’ll find out, I guess. I’m supposed to keep my big mouth shut.” She leaned close to me suddenly. “You know something, mister? I see them come and go. You’re all right.”

  “Huggins doesn’t think so.”

  The smile made her look younger. “You’d be surprised about Ted Huggins. In your deposition you told how you took his gun away and gave it back to him. He resents it. Can you blame him?”

  “Guess not.”

  “You’ve got the brass out of bed in the middle of the night.”

  “What for?”

  “I’m still talking too much. I hope you find something you feel like reading. It may be a while.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “Good luck to you, mister.”

  She left me there. I thumbed through all the magazines and smoked the rest of my cigarettes. I watched the gun-metal gray filing cabinets watch me. It was midnight. I felt caged and restless. But it didn’t matter. I had no place to go and no one to worry whether I got there or not.

  He came in at one-thirty, a small, trim man in a lampblack suit. He had wise old eyes, sparkling eyes, behind round, gold-rimmed glasses that had gone out of style with the Model T.

  He said, “It’s so good to see you, Chet. But you look under the weather.”

  “I feel as if I got run over by a track,” I said. “How are you, Mr. Norstad?”

  The sparkling eyes twinkled at me. He grinned. “Would that be a truck called bureaucracy, young man? You’re the same Chet Drum, I see.”

  His name was Fielding Norstad, and he had been with the F.B.I. since its re-organization thirty-five years ago as its number two man. He had the appearance of a diplomat and a brain like a bear-trap.

  For some reason, when I had first started with the F.B.I. he had taken me under his wing. I’d been flattered, and I’d never been able to figure out why. He pumped my hand vigorously now and said, “Been tearing up the pea-patch again, I see.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, if—”

  “Sorry? Nonsense, my boy! Did I ever tell you that I follow your career like some people follow their favorite baseball players?”

  There was nothing I could say to that. I felt my face growing hot. The only one who was ever able to do that was Fielding Norstad.

  “Remember when you quit government work?” he said. “Remember what I told you?”

  “I thought you’d bite my ear off.”

  “Oh, I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it a bit. God knows the government needs men like you. But I’ll tell you what I said. I said, ‘Chet Drum, you’re a maverick. You’ll always be a maverick, so I won’t try to argue you out of it. And maybe in an organization such as ours mavericks are more trouble than they are worth. But I’ll tell you something, Chet: there aren’t enough mavericks left. There aren’t enough people left who understand what makes a maverick tick. Security from womb to tomb, that’s what everyone wants these days. It’s what everyone understands. So get the devil out of here, boy, and best of luck to you.’ That’s what I said, Chet.” He grinned at my discomfort.

  “Cut it out,” I said. “Anyhow, you didn’t come in here to pin any verbal medals on me.”

  “Well, I just want where I stand understood.” The small, lopsided grin pulled his mouth sideways again. “You think me a garrulous old man, I suppose. I talk too much.”

  “What kind of conference was it, Mr. Norstad?” I said.

  “Police brass. Bureau brass. And a man from the State Department. I won’t ask you how you knew there was a conference.” Norstad chuckled. “Instead, I’ll ask you another question. Chet, how soon can you leave for Iceland?”

  I just looked at him.

  “Don’t tell me you won’t go. I know you better than that. Besides, refuse and you’re in trouble. I suppose you know that.”

  I asked, “You did say Iceland, didn’t you?”

  “Now you’re stalling. Weighing what’s lined up against you, is that it?”

  “Why don’t you spell it out for me,” I said.

  “I believe Huggins, Dworkin and Smith outlined that pretty well for you. But I can add one point. We br
ought an Icelandic citizen named Maja Kolding in. She was suffering from shock, and our staff doctor inclined toward the view that she was a borderline hysteric. We sent for her next of kin, who is Gustaf Kolding.”

  “I know Kolding.”

  “I know you do. That’s the point I’m making. Kolding was mad. He left a few minutes ago, and since we showed him your, deposition there was nothing he had to hide. He told us how you had impersonated a Federal Agent.”

  “Ouch,” I said.

  “Just so you know. But there are some things you don’t know. For example, the Koldings are leaving for Iceland as soon as the Consul can straighten out his affairs. Early next week, I should say. You’re going to follow them there.”

  “Follow them why?”

  “We have pretty substantial proof that Brandvik didn’t kill Jorgen Kolding. Despite his magazine confession.”

  “Wally Baker knew that,” I said, “didn’t he?”

  “Mr. Baker didn’t know anything for sure. He wanted to find out. He got too uncomfortably close—and they killed him.”

  “You mean Brandvik just confessed for fifty thousand bucks?”

  “I mean, he wanted to kill Jorgen Kolding. He had a long-standing grudge. It possessed him utterly. It consumed him. A monomania. And of course, anybody can use fifty thousand dollars.”

  Fielding Norstad lit one of those thin, dappled cigars he always smoked. “But Brandvik, it seems, was a coward. It took him twenty years to screw up his courage, Chet. And ironically, when he was finally ready, someone else did the job for him.”

  “Why did he want to kill Kolding?”

  “It would have come out in View’s second installment, but the magazine has wisely decided to kill the story. Brandvik’s Norwegian by birth, you know, and—”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “He came here twenty years ago, after the girl he was engaged to marry committed suicide. You see, Jorgen Kolding was one of those dynamic international figures with the energy of a tycoon and the looks of a movie star. He seduced Brandvik’s sweetheart—and left her.”

  “And she killed herself?”

  Fielding Norstad nodded. “Brandvik was at that time in the Norwegian merchant marine. When he returned to Bergen, where he lived, the girl was already dead. He made one rash, ill-planned try on Kolding’s life twenty years ago. Whether it was with a gun or a knife, I don’t know. But Brandvik, in those days, thought he was pretty tough, and Jorgen Kolding disarmed him and beat him to a pulp. Brandvik never got over it, apparently. Something went out of him. What replaced the courage he had lost was monomania. I gather from Baker’s story that George Brandvik, in the years that followed, killed Kolding a hundred times in his dreams. When he finally got the chance here in Washington, he was too late.”

  I was beginning to get it. “But circumstantial evidence pointed to him, he went to trial, was acquitted and—still living in his dream world—decided to confess in print. For fifty thousand bucks.”

  “Yes, but don’t assume mistakenly that the money was very important to him. It was a secondary consideration.”

  “I’m not sure I see it that way. After all, he got the idea that money came to money; he decided to blackmail the real killer.”

  Norstad looked interested. “What makes you say that?”

  “Why else was he murdered tonight?”

  Norstad shook his head slowly. “Why else indeed? But consider this: if someone very close to Jorgen Kolding were the real killer and if Brandvik knew this, perhaps he wanted to make that someone, whoever it is, suffer too.”

  I whistled. “You sure as hell can’t mean Holding’s own son.”

  Norstad shrugged. “Gustaf Kolding hated his father.”

  “Maja Kolding didn’t.”

  “Maja Kolding,” Norstad said, “is a problem. Her brother and you claim she found Brandvik’s body—but that is mere hearsay on her brother’s part and supposition on yours. Maja Kolding could have killed Brandvik, you see. She tried once before, didn’t she? On the other, hand, as you say, she couldn’t have killed her father. And if she didn’t kill him, then why would she have killed Brandvik?”

  I said nothing. I wasn’t defending Maja Kolding.

  “Because she thought Brandvik killed her father? But we keep going in circles—because why, then, was Baker murdered? So let’s leave the personal relationships alone for now. Jorgen Kolding was here in Washington on a mission. Everyone in Washington wanted that mission to succeed, Chet—just as anyone opposed to NATO would have wanted it to fail.”

  “Such as the Commies?”

  “Of course. It was Jorgen Kolding’s job to get the representatives of Britain and Iceland together to find a modus vivendi in what the press refers to as their codfish war. Britain says she has the right to fish the codfish banks of Iceland; Iceland thinks otherwise, extends her offshore limit to twelve miles and tries to scare the British trawlers off with gunboats. Britain’s stand is justified, but so is Iceland’s. So NATO is caught in the middle. And Chet, if the key to world mastery, thanks to intercontinental missiles whose shortest route lies over the Pole, is the Arctic Ocean, then the key to the Arctic is Iceland. Now do you see where we stand?”

  He didn’t want an answer. He licked his lips and went on. “Kolding might have effected a compromise, for reasons that don’t matter to me and don’t matter to you. But Kolding was murdered. And every month a greater percentage of Iceland’s trade is with Russia. Can you draw the logical conclusion?”

  “Sure, the Reds had Kolding killed. But where does Brandvik come in?”

  “Brandvik was apparently in a position to prove it. The fact that his motive was personal—or perhaps, as you suggest, mercenary—is of no importance. The fact was, he knew. And had to be silenced.

  “All this is supposition. Pretty good supposition, but only that. For that reason, the Bureau can’t touch it. We could be wrong. Since that’s a possibility, we can’t afford to stick our necks out, because great powers have been hurt before, and will be hurt again, on the chopping block of world public opinion. But if it can be proved that the Reds killed Kolding, and if Iceland can be made to see this, and if the world—”

  “That’s where I come in, is that it?”

  “That’s where you come in.” Fielding Norstad grinned. “In a way it’s like extortion. Say no, and you’re in trouble. Say yes, and the trouble you’ve got now may seem like child’s play compared to what you’ll walk into. Because it will be dangerous, make no mistake about that.”

  “I saw Wally Baker die,” I said. “I was right there. I couldn’t lift a finger, to help him. I want to find his killer.”

  “His killer, and Brandvik’s, and Kolding’s. They could be the same person or persons.”

  “But nobody’s sure enough to go out on a limb about it?”

  “That’s true enough. But in you we’re fortunate enough to have a trained investigator who has no official ties. We’re willing to gamble on you. We’re willing to send you to Iceland and anywhere else that’s necessary. But with this understanding, Chet: you can have, no matter how tough the situation becomes,” no matter how untenable your position, no official help. You will not even be permitted the slight luxury of an official contact. It’s too dangerous, because there is always the possibility of something leaking out. You will go to Iceland and investigate, in your own way and on your own time. You can be paid nothing—officially.” Fielding Norstad grinned again. “You can, and will, receive an anonymous gift of money, a more than fair wage for your time, on your return. If you have a personal reason for going, and the death of Wally Baker is such a reason, all the better.”

  “Nice,” I said. “Very nice. The cops can’t touch it, the Bureau can’t touch it, NATO can’t touch it—so I get the assignment.”

  “Their reputations aren’t expendable. Yours is. And the mission is as vital as it is dangerous, Chet. Make no mistake about that.”

  “Or as dangerous as it is vital.”

  F
ielding Norstad had let the thin, dappled cigar go out. He relit it carefully. “It took me half the night to convince the police and the Bureau to give this a try—my way. If you say no, I’ll never be able to show my face again.” He grunted. “Maybe it’s time I retired anyway.”

  “You won’t retire, Mr. Norstad. They’ll carry you out of your office in a box—when you’re a hundred. You’re a maverick too.”

  “Then you’ll go? Of course, I would like to point out that we are not entirely helpless here despite the fact that we can’t do anything official overseas. You see, if someone close to Jorgen Kolding belonged to a Red apparatus that had him killed, that doesn’t mean the entire apparatus was close to him. We have some concrete things to work with—particularly the bombing of Wally Baker’s car. Parts of the mechanism that connected the bomb to the starter were not vaporized in the blast and … but you haven’t told me yet if you’ll go.”

  “How soon can you give me everything you have on the Koldings—and, while we’re at it, on a Swedish baroness about eight feet tall in her stocking feet named Margaretha Schroeder?”

  “She is a rather striking woman, isn’t she?” Norstad said, smiling. “A dossier is being prepared right now. Then your answer is yes?”

  “How soon can you get me an Icelandic visa?”

  “As soon as you’ll need it.”

  “Okay. I’ll need it as soon as you say I’ll need it.”

  “And you won’t have to worry about the, uh, trouble you’ve been having here. The slate will be wiped clean, as they say.”

  “Sure,” I said. “That’s exactly why I’m going.”

  Fielding Norstad scowled at his cigar. “That was very stupid of me. You don’t have to be sarcastic.”

  “I’m not sarcastic. Just plumb beat. I need some sleep.”

  Fielding Norstad’s thin small hand touched my shoulder, then he went to the door. “Chet,” he said, “we won’t detain you any longer now. We’ll contact you. And it’s always a pleasure talking to the last of the mavericks.”

  “Almost the last of them, Mr. Norstad,” I said.