Danger Is My Line Page 8

  11

  GOOD AFTERNOON, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,” the girl’s voice said over the plane’s P.A. system. “I am Freya Fridjonsson, one of your stewardesses. On behalf of the Captain and the crew, welcome aboard Icelandic Airlines’ airship Edda. In a few moments we will take off from Idlewild Airport here in New York on the first stage of our journey to Glasgow and Stavanger. We estimate our flying time to Reykjavik, capital of Iceland, at thirteen hours. Fasten your seat belts and no smoking, please. We hope you have a pleasant journey. Thank you.”

  She passed out gum to keep our ears from popping on the way up. Here in mid-summer, with the eastbound rush of the tourist season over, the plane wasn’t full. The pilot revved his four big engines. You could feel the plane straining and surging against its brakes. Then the engines slackened off. In a moment they were roaring again under full throttle, and suddenly the pilot released his brakes and we went thrusting forward along the runway.

  Half a minute later we were airborne, the bump of the wheels on the runway gone, the airport and then Jamaica Bay and the green fields and neat rectangular housing developments of Long Island dropping away as we climbed and banked east.

  I lit a cigarette and looked at the other passengers. Chances were I’d be the only one to get off at Reykjavik, a re-fueling stop on the run to Scotland and Norway. I had a double seat toward the rear to myself. I had a canvas B-4 bag in the plane’s luggage bay, a couple of spare packs of cigarettes, and my Magnum .357 in its shoulder holster. I had an unofficial job to do for the government and the same job to do for myself and Marianne Baker.

  I had seen Marianne at the hospital once before leaving Washington. There was nothing she could tell me that I didn’t know. She was still waiting for the baby to be born. She looked tired and resigned and had said, “Be careful, Chet,” and had kissed me on the cheek.

  Fielding Norstad had visited me the night before I took off from Washington to catch Icelandic’s overseas flight from New York the next day. I read the dossier he brought, stored away the facts it gave me on the Koldings and Baroness Margaretha, and destroyed the dossier in Norstad’s presence.

  “The Koldings left for Iceland three days ago,” Norstad had said. “A New York agent told us that when she boarded the plane at International Airport, Maja Kolding looked sick.”

  “Sick?”

  “Well, confused and agitated, but drowsy. Possibly even under the influence of drugs.”

  “Like someone doesn’t want her able to think—or to talk?”

  “Yes, like that,” Fielding Norstad said.

  We talked a while longer, and he left me. I caught an early-morning flight for New York in time to catch Icelandic’s two o’clock flight. It left on time, which meant we would land at Reykjavik early in the morning Icelandic time.

  Now, aboard the Edda, we reached cruising altitude in a high haze over Long Island. The stewardess parted the curtain up front and came down the narrow aisle of the cabin. She had a trim figure under the dark blue tailored suit and a pretty, high-cheekboned face. She was fine-boned, almost delicate. She smiled at some of the passengers. She was a brunette. As an Icelandic stewardess she would have known Maja Kolding, of course.

  “I didn’t know there were any brunettes in Iceland,” I said.

  “There are brunettes everywhere, sir,” she said. She spoke English quite well but with that pronounced lilt that all Icelanders, if they have spent most of their lives on the island, have.

  “The last Icelander I knew,” I said, “was a little blonde named Maja.”

  Freya Fridjonsson’s blue eyes narrowed. “Maja is not a common name. Would that be—Maja Kolding?”

  “Right. Maja Kolding.”

  The girl sat down in the empty seat next to mine. This time she surprised me. She said, “Then you must be Mr. Drum.”

  “Right again. How’d you know?”

  “That’s easy. If you knew Maja Kolding then you are probably getting off in Iceland. We only have two passengers leaving the flight there. One is an Icelander named Einar Laxness, the other an American named Chester Drum. That makes you Mr. Drum.”

  I offered her a cigarette. “I can’t smoke now, but thank you.”

  “You must have known Maja pretty well,” I said.

  “Of course. I.A.L. doesn’t have a very large organization. All of the stewardesses are friends.”

  “Your friend Maja is a pretty sick girl just now,” I said.

  Freya Fridjonsson looked at me, opened her mouth to say something, then changed her mind. A call light went on above one of the seats forward in the cabin. The stewardess got up, moving in that fluid, graceful way they all have. After that she was pretty busy. We flew northeast along the New England coast and picked up land at Nova Scotia. We flew over Halifax and then in a little while out over the water again. Then we picked up Newfoundland. It was wild country, folded and twisted into hills, dotted with lakes, covered with forest. We flew northeast from Newfoundland out over the Atlantic. A blonde, busty stewardess came out into the cabin to spell Freya Fridjonsson, but the brunette didn’t disappear on the other side of the crew curtain. Instead, she came and sat down next to me again. Her face was troubled. “Now we can talk,” she said. “I’m off-duty.”

  I lit a cigarette. “Maja and I were pretty close friends,” she said. “All of us stewardesses are. It so happens I was aboard the flight Maja flew home on. She was sick, all right.”

  “Her brother seemed concerned?”

  “Of course he did. And so did the others—the Swedish woman and the little American, Mr.—”

  “Meer?”

  “Meer, that’s right.”

  “Did you get a chance to talk to Maja?”

  “I—I wanted to. They said she had to rest.” Worry pursed her lips and put two little vertical grooves on her forehead. “She slept most of the time. We had unfavorable winds and had to re-fuel at Gander. When we got off the plane she looked right at me without recognizing me. Her eyes looked all—dreamy. It was the same in Reykjavik. What happened to her, Mr. Drum? Do you know what happened?”

  “I want to find out,” I said.

  “Who are you?”

  “What difference does it make? Maja could be in a lot of trouble. Would you want to help her?”

  “I said we were friends, but how do I know who you are?”

  “You already know. I’m an American. My name is Drum.”

  “That doesn’t tell me anything.” She frowned at me. “May I see your passport?” she asked quickly.

  “Okay.” I gave it to her. She opened it and saw all the entry and departure stamps, all the visas.

  “You do a lot of traveling, Mr. Drum.” Then she opened it to the identification page. “Why—you’re a detective. Did Maja do something—bad?”

  She returned the green book to me and I put it away. “A private detective,” I said. “Maja was in trouble with the authorities, yes.”

  Freya Fridjonsson’s lips narrowed to a tight line. She started to get up.

  “I’m not after Maja. Nobody can touch her, anyway, not in the States. She has diplomatic immunity.”

  “What kind of trouble did she have?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Do you want to help her or don’t you, Freya?”

  “She’s going home now. She’s already home. She doesn’t need any help. It was a mistake talking to you. Please, I’d better go forward. If Maja needed help she would have told me. I’m her friend. Please, I have to go now.”

  I was holding her arm. “She couldn’t have told you, Freya. She might have been drugged.”

  “Drugged? What are you talking about?” Her voice rose in alarm. A passenger ahead of us turned around to stare.

  I lowered my voice. “Maja may know who murdered her father.”

  “Everyone knows who murdered Jorgen Kolding. His name was Brandvik. He wrote about it in a magazine.”

  “George Brandvik was stabbed to death,” I said. “Maja was there when it happened—or right after it h
appened.”

  Freya’s knuckles touched her red lips.

  “Where in Iceland can I find Maja?” I asked her.

  “Her mother lives in Reykjavik,” Freya said. “She still uses the name of Kolding. You can find the address in the telephone directory at the airport.” Her eyes were big and very close to mine as she turned toward me. “We change crews at Reykjavik,” she said. “If you want to help Maja, I—I’d like to help you. Is that all right, Mr. Drum?”

  “Chet. Thanks, Freya, but I don’t need any help—just information. Like—who’s Einar Laxness?”

  “Why, Mr. Laxness is just an Icelandic businessman returning home, Mr.—Chet.” She seemed surprised at the question.

  “Point him out to me.”

  Laxness had an aisle seat five rows up on the other side of the plane. He was thin and wiry-looking with a gaunt face, long, darkish-blond hair and a scar on his left cheek running back toward the ear. He wore a brown suit. Along with three or four other passengers, he had been aboard the Eastern flight from Washington to New York.

  “He have a reservation?” I said.

  Freya shook her head. “I was at the flight desk when he came in. He asked for a no-show, but it wasn’t necessary because we’re not filled up anyway. But that’s not unusual. A businessman often doesn’t know when his business will be finished.”

  “What kind of business is he in?”

  “I don’t know. We don’t ask them that. Import-export is a good guess.”

  It might have been a good guess or a very bad guess. But I would remember Einar Laxness. Hell, I thought, now you’re getting cloak-and-dagger about it. He’s a businessman going home. Relax while you can.

  It was easy to relax with Freya. She was a warm girl but had an under-the-surface Nordic reserve that I found attractive. She sat with me until it was time for her to go back on duty and help the other stewardess serve our second airborne meal. By the time she got up and started handing out the trays we were friends.

  I watched Einar Laxness eat. His movements were very methodical. He ate quickly and mechanically, with a minimum of effort. He didn’t seem to enjoy the food. He just ate it, neatly and efficiently. He didn’t return Freya’s smile when she served the tray or when she collected it. Since it was growing dark outside, she asked him if he wanted a blanket. He shook his head. She passed blankets out to some of the other passengers.

  Twilight lingered a long time, I dozed off, lulled by the droning of the engines and the throb and vibration of the seat under me.

  Three hours later we started to go down. I heard Freya’s voice, sounding fresh and cheerful, over the P.A.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, in a few minutes we will land at Reykjavik Airport in Iceland. Through passengers to Scotland and Norway will have a forty-five minute, stopover for breakfast. Please be sure to collect your boarding cards at the ramp. Fasten your seat belts now and no smoking, please.”

  The pitch of the engines changed. I swallowed hard to get rid of the pressure building in my ears. We banked out over the water and came back in toward Reykjavik. It was a small city curving around its bay and backed by rugged brown mountains. We came in low and the bright-colored buildings flashed by on either side of the plane and then, suddenly, the asphalt of the airport runway.

  We touched down and stopped finally near the low terminal building.

  I remained in my seat while most of the passengers crowded toward the door. Einar Laxness remained seated too.

  I was the next to the last to leave the plane. He was the last.

  12

  I UNZIPPED THE MIDDLE SECTION of my B-4 bag on the customs counter. A plump, bored customs officer poked a casual hand in it. Einar Laxness was waiting next to me at the small counter.

  “Do you have anything to declare?” the plump customs officer asked.

  Through the glass pane of the door that led outside I could see Freya waiting. She had phoned Mrs. Kolding to ask if she and an American who knew Maja could see her. Mrs. Kolding had agreed at once, inviting us for breakfast. Freya said she had sounded worried about her daughter.

  “Anything to declare?” the customs officer asked again.

  Ordinarily I’d have declared my revolver. But ordinarily I’d have registered it with customs back in the States before leaving for a foreign country. That meant attracting a certain amount of attention, though, and while my official status on a foreign mission was usually zero, this time it was less than zero. This time I had to be as inconspicuous as possible.

  “No,” I said. “Nothing to declare.”

  “And the nature of your visit to Iceland?”

  “Just travel,” I said.

  The plump man smiled. “Welcome to Iceland, then. We don’t get many American tourists, except those passing through.”

  I zipped my B-4 bag and slid it down the counter to where the immigration officer was waiting. Einar Laxness opened a composition-board suitcase for the customs officer.

  “Your passport, sir,” the immigration man told me.

  I put the little green book on the counter. The immigration man opened it. The polite smile dropped off his face.

  “It says here you are a private detective.”

  “Even private detectives take vacations.”

  “Then the nature of your business in Iceland is pleasure?”

  “Nobody hired me to come here,” I said. Stretching a point, that was true enough.

  Nodding, he initialed and dated the visa stamp in my passport. On the other side of the glass-paned door, Freya waved.

  As I moved away from the counter, someone jostled me. It was Einar Laxness. The room on this side of the counter was narrow. We did one of those unintentional slapstick routines, each trying to get out of the other’s way without success. Laxness smiled apologetically. His hand struck mine. It looked like an accident. I dropped my passport. We both stooped to pick it up.

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” Laxness said in a cold, flat voice. I got the passport. He bumped against me again on the way up. He was very good at it.

  My Magnum .357, which he had deftly managed to release from its spring holster, fell on the floorboards with a thud.

  “I’m terribly sorry, sir,” Laxness said. “How clumsy of me.” I bent again for the Magnum, taking a deep breath. The counter hid it from the customs and immigration officers. The thud hadn’t meant anything special to them. Einar Laxness realized that. He said, flat-voiced and innocently, “Is that an automatic or a revolver you dropped?”

  The plump customs officer came around the counter. “May I see that, please?” he said coldly.

  I gave him the gun. While he swung the gate and saw that the Magnum was loaded except for the chamber under the hammer, Einar Laxness finished his business at immigration and went outside. Since all the Icelandic through passengers were eating breakfast, Freya stood out there alone. Laxness went up to her. Just then the engines of an Icelandair jet-prop Viscount started up with a whine across the tarmac. Laxness took Freya’s arm. She said something. Her face contorted. She was shouting, but the Viscount’s whine and roar drowned it out. Laxness tightened his grip on her arm above the elbow. They walked away from the door. Freya stumbled. Laxness pulled her after him and out of sight.

  I ran to the door. It couldn’t have looked worse if I had put on a mask and held up the money-exchange office at the airport. The customs officer’s plump, soft hand fell on my shoulder.

  “I’ll pay the fine,” I said quickly. “Whatever it is.”

  “The bringing of undeclared firearms into Iceland,” he said icily, “is a misdemeanor punishable by cancellation of visa.”

  Outside, the Viscount whined and roared. I could barely hear him. The big four-engined plane moved slowly down the tarmac. By the time it passed the Icelandic plane it was moving very fast. It whined and lifted and soared up over the brown mountains and away. Then I heard a car. That would be Laxness and Freya. Then it was very quiet.

  “Look,” I said lamely. “This
is all a mistake and—”

  “Precisely. A mistake. You have made it. Gudmundur,” he said, “call the police in Reykjavik.” Gudmundur was the immigration officer. He picked up a phone and said something into it in Icelandic.

  Laxness and Freya, I thought. He was very cold, very efficient—deadly. I had seen the way he could operate.

  I pushed the plump customs officer away from me, shouldered through the door and ran.

  Sprinting, I went by the doorway of the restaurant. A tall ground hostess in a blue uniform and a peaked cap stood there, her blonde hair blowing in the wind. I heard shouting behind me. The ground hostess looked at me in surprise, came toward me. I went around her like a broken-field runner, not touching her. Turned the corner of the building and kept going. Ahead of me was a meadow with sheep grazing on it peacefully. To the left, a hangar for small, single-engine planes. It had a high, corrugated overhead door. The doorway was barely wide enough to admit a small plane wheeled in carefully. I ducked in there and flattened myself against the wall.

  In a few seconds I heard running footsteps. Voices shouted in Icelandic. Panting, the plump customs officer ran into the hangar, the immigration officer right behind him. They went back in among the planes.

  I ran for the doorway. One of them shouted. I jumped, catching the protruding lip of the corrugated overhead door with my outstretched hands. For a moment it held my weight. I swung there, feet a yard off the ground. Then the door started to slide down gratingly. The customs officer came panting and blowing toward the doorway, the immigration man still at his heels. The overhead door slid further. Then my feet touched the ground and I braced myself and yanked the door down hard. It came down with a final rush and clanked against the asphalt. There was a handle on one side. I turned it and heard a lock click into place. They pounded and kicked at the corrugated iron from the other side.

  Walking quickly but not running, I went back around the corner of the building and past the restaurant. The ground hostess gave me another look. I ignored her. Scowling, she started around the building.

  I went into the deserted customs shed for the B-4 bag and the Magnum. The phone was ringing. They’d be out of there inside of five minutes. It was maybe five minutes into the heart of Reykjavík by taxi—if there was a taxi. I needed every second I could get. I yanked the phone wires out of the wall-box and went outside again, past the control tower and the Shell truck that was refueling Icelandic’s Edda for the run to Scotland.