Pulp Fiction | The Invisibility Affair by Thomas Stratton (3 page)

At the foot of the stairs, he stepped out of Illya's way and looked around. To his right, two hot air ducts snaked through a wooden partition and disappeared into the ceiling. A vacant workbench with several electrical outlets stretched along the wall facing him, and what looked like a bin full of large chunks of scrap of metal filled one corner.

"What have we here?" Napoleon peered around behind the stairway into the other half of the basement. Lying near the far wall was a door; in the concrete wall itself a door frame was mounted, one side splintered and buckled.

Illya and Napoleon walked over to the door frame. Beyond the opening, a set of wooden steps led up to ground level outside the house. A half dozen two-by-fours lay on the steps, forming a crude ramp. The top of the stair was blocked by a single horizontal door, presumably mounted flush with the ground.

"Looks like something big was moved out through here," Napoleon observed, eyeing the splintered section of door frame.

Illya moved back into the basement. "Heavy, too," he said, gesturing at two deep gouges in the concrete floor.

Napoleon walked back toward the workbench. About ten feet from the bench, not far from the bin of scrap metal; he spotted four bolt holes in the floor.

Very
big, judging from those," he murmured. "Find anything in there?" he asked Illya, who had begun poking through the scrap bin.

"No, not really," Illya said, picking up an oddly shaped piece of metal and turning it over in his hands. "Just lots of iron in strange shapes and some burnt-out electrical equipment. We'd better have some of the lab boys out here to look at it. They might be able to come up with something useful."

Napoleon turned to Reed. "You don't have any idea what Morthley had down here?"

"No, I never had any reason to go beyond the living room." Reed replied. "Dr. Morthley was friendly enough, but he didn't talk about his work, and it wasn't really any of my business."

"Until now," Illya murmured.

"Was he friendly with anyone—friendly enough to drop hints about his work?" Napoleon asked.

"Not that I know of. Oh, he was friendly enough. He'd talk about crops, weather, politics, business, basketball—he was quite a basketball fan. Said once that he grew up in Indiana. But nothing about his work. He'd answer questions if you asked him, but his answers never seemed to give any information."

"We had better search the house, I suppose," Napoleon said, turning to Illya. "The Doctor doesn't seem the type to leave notes lying about, and I'm certain that Thrush isn't the type, but we can always hope."

* * *

As Napoleon had predicted, the search proved a failure. The sun was nearly down as they left the house. Napoleon pulled the list of neighbors from his pocket. "I see Mrs. Cartlin's name leads all the rest; I believe you mentioned her this afternoon."

"Oh, yes." Reed walked to the side of the house next to the drive. He pointed almost directly across the road toward a grove of trees still visible in the fading light. "Her house is just on the other side of those trees. Go on down this road a quarter of a mile, then turn right. Mrs. Cartlin's is the first house on the right. If you're going to talk to her tonight, you'd better do it fairly soon. She's nearly eighty and goes to bed pretty early." He looked at his watch. "I'd better be getting back; there doesn't seem to be much else I can show you tonight."

As Reed drove off, Illya made an annoyed gesture. "What's the matter?" Napoleon asked.

"We forgot to give him back his margarine."

Napoleon shrugged. "He probably wouldn't want to park it under the sheriff's nose, anyway." He joined Illya in the car. On the way to Mrs. Cartlin's, he unclipped his U.N.C.L.E. communicator from his pocket and contacted Waverly in New York, informing him of their progress and requesting that technicians be sent to the Morthley residence.

"So it appears to be somewhat more that coincidence, eh, Mr. Solo?" Waverly said as the car pulled into Mrs. Cartlin's driveway.

"Well, we haven't really learned much so far, sir, but something heavy was undoubtedly taken out of Dr. Morthley's basement. The lab boys may come up with something there. Of course, we have no way of knowing who—oh, we're at the Cartlin house now. I'll check in again as soon as we learn anything definite. Solo out."

He slipped the miniature transceiver back into his jacket pocket and stepped out of the car to join Illya on the narrow gravel walk that led to the porch of the small, one story cottage. The front door swung open before Napoleon had a chance to knock. He stood with his fist upraised while a small crinkled face surrounded by grey-white hair peered up at him from a height of about four and a half feet.

"Hello there," the face said. "I've been waiting for you. Who are you, by the way?"

Napoleon slowly lowered his hand, smiling uncertainly. "We're special agents from U.N.C.L.E.—" he began.

"Oh, yes," the face said, breaking into a wide grin. "That's the outfit old Charlie Reed moonlights for. What's he been telling you now? I saw him out there pointing to my house a few minutes ago."

Even the normally imperturbable Illya looked a bit taken aback at this news. "You did?" he asked.

"Oh, my, yes," she informed them. "I've been watching you through my binoculars ever since you drove up to the old Adams place."

"Could we step inside a minute, Mrs. Cartlin?" Napoleon pressed lightly against the partly open door.

"Oh, of course." Mrs. Cartlin stepped back and the door swung open, revealing a living room crammed to overflowing with spidery chairs, fragile little tables, and even more fragile bric-a-brac. "Would you like to see my binoculars? They're a very good set. It's getting a little dark to see very much though. I've been planning to get a good telescope, but all optical equipment seems priced very dear these days."

"No, thank you," Illya said, edging nervously into the room and barely avoiding a porcelain kangaroo with his elbow. "But we would like to talk to you about what you might have seen with them."

"Yes," agreed Napoleon. "We're investigating the disappearance of Dr. Morthley, and we'd like to know if you've ever noticed anything unusual at his house, or if he's had any visitors in the past, oh, say three months."

"Why?" She folded her arms and rocked back on her heels, then leaned forward to Illya. "Was he a Thrush?"

"Not that we know of," Illya replied calmly, "but he might have been involved with some."

"Well, I wouldn't wonder," she replied vigorously. "That girl looked like a Thrush if I ever saw one! Bold as brass, she acted—"

"What girl?"

"Oh, there was a girl visiting Morthley almost every day for a while back in April. Haven't seen her lately, though. Not in the daytime, at least, and I can't see much at night. If I only had that telescope..."

"You don't happen to know who the girl was, do you?"

"Why, of course not! How could I know a thing like that?"

"I just thought..."

"But, I do have her license number if you'd like to see it." She turned and opened a drawer in a cluttered table near a window. Reaching inside, she pulled out a small red leather notebook with a tiny gold pen attached to it by a silver chain. "It was a 1966 Rambler Classic, four-door, light blue, license number W44-948. She was there first on..." Mrs. Cartlin paused to flip a page "...on April 17, stayed for about an hour, and came back the 19
^th
for the whole day. She was there every day after that until the 28
^th
; she was only there a few minutes that day." She snapped the book shut. "Hasn't been back since—during the day, at least. Did you get all that down, or should I run through it again?"

"I think we have it all. Thank you very much," said Napoleon. "You've been a great help, and now I think we'd better see about tracking down that license plate." The agents edged outside, Napoleon barely avoiding a jade axolotl on the way.

As they got in the car, Illya spoke. "Napoleon, do you suppose our budget would allow another part-time agent in this area?"

While Illya drove, Napoleon contacted Waverly and reported their encounter with Mrs. Cartlin.

"I'll have the license number run through our data center and contact you as soon as we have anything," Waverly said. "And I'll check with our finance department about the budget for part-time agents. Until now, Wisconsin hasn't been what you could calla productive area for our organization, but in the present situation...Well, we'll see. He ceased transmitting, failing as usual to use the prescribed closing phrase.

Napoleon returned the transceiver to his inside pocket. "Shall we talk to any of the other people on the list, do you think?"

"We might as well do something while we're waiting for a reply on that license number. Unless you want to drive back to Waukesha and deliver Charlie's margarine."

Napoleon muttered something under his breath and studied the list. "Let's see, there's a house there, just past the next corner. According to the list, it belongs to a Mr. Brandondale. He—" The road was suddenly blocked by a dark sedan that shot out of the crossroad, swerved slightly toward them, and stopped in the middle of the crossing. Illya twisted the wheel sharply, and the rented car lurched as the left front wheel dropped into the ditch. The sound of metal scraping on gravel came from beneath the car and increased in volume as Illya jammed the accelerator down and aimed the car at the narrow gap between the steel fence posts that lined the road and the blocking car.

He didn't quite make it. The right fender smashed solidly into the left front of the other car, skidding it sideways against a sturdy metal post holding up a stop sign. "There goes our deposit," muttered Illya as the rear end of the rented car skidded violently through a section of wire fence, taking out one of the steel fence posts on the way.

Napoleon had grabbed for his gun when the other car appeared, but before he could use it, his head bounced off the windshield, leaving a network of hairline cracks in the glass. His vision blurred, his ears rang, and he discovered that shaking his head to clear it was a definite mistake. Looking up, he saw several identical blurred figures standing by the car door. Another painful shake of his head resolved the images into one large man in a dark suit, green shirt and orange tie, pointing an enormous old Mauser automatic pistol at Napoleon's head. A second later, the door was open and he had been plucked from his seat and deposited on his feet in the road. Staring at the shirt and tie hurt his eyes; he looked around for something less clashing.

"Step around to the front of the car, gentlemen. That's right; stand together where I can keep an eye on both of you."

The speaker was a young man, wearing a conservative suit and a bright shiny expression. Any Hollywood producer would have immediately cast him as the Rising Young Executive. Only the Walther P-38 in his hand—a weapon basically similar to the U.N.C.L.E. Specials carried by Napoleon and Illya—seemed incongruous. He turned to the large man.

"Take a look at our car, Andy' I don't like the looks of that puddle under the radiator."

Andy, after a struggle, got the hood of the other car up, peered into the interior, and shook his head. "No good, boss. We ain't gonna run this heap till she sees a garage."

"Too bad. Well, take a look at the other car; perhaps we can commandeer it. Andy," he added in an aside to Napoleon and Illya, has his faults, but he's the best mechanic I've ever met."

"One of his faults would seem to be an addiction to old gangster movies," said Napoleon. "I didn't know you could buy suits like that anymore."

After several minutes' effort, Andy announced that Solo's rented car was operable. "But she ain't gonna go far; I just hope she holds together till we get where we're goin'."

Under the direction of the smaller man, Andy produced a coil of rope from the defunct sedan and trussed up the two U.N.C.L.E. agents. After they had been thoroughly tied, the smaller man went through their pockets with brisk efficiency, removing weapons, communicators, and identification cards. His eyebrows raised as he glanced at the latter.

"Solo and Kuryakin, eh? This is interesting; we knew U.N.C.L.E. was sending agents to investigate, but we hadn't realized your organization considered the situation serious enough to call on the Dynamic Duo. If I'd known who it was, I'd have arranged a more ingenious trap. Still, simplicity has its advantages."

When he received no comment, he smiled. "Incidentally, my name is McNulty—Arpad McNulty, at your service. Now then, Andy, I think the best thing is for you to dump them in the trunk, where they'll be out of sight. And I suppose you had better gag them; I hate to hear grown men screaming for help."

"Right, boss," Andy replied. "Anyway, we'll need all the weight we can get on them back wheels to get outta that ditch."

The two agents were unceremoniously crammed into the trunk. Together, Andy and McNulty were able to force the trunk lid down.

To Solo and Illya, the next few minutes were torture. The lurching and bumping occasioned by the car's lengthy escape from the ditch made them both wonder how, as tightly packed as they were, they could bump into so many things. When the motion finally settled down, Napoleon's bound hands touched Illya's gag. He promptly went to work on it and soon had it off. Another lurch of the car and Napoleon became painfully aware that his head was against the spare tire. After a minute of deliberate scraping, his gag was displaced enough to allow comprehensible speech. Attempts to free their hands weren't as successful; it seemed that Andy was an expert with ropes as well as cars.

"If we'd gotten rid of that blasted margarine," Illya grumbled, "we'd have a little more room back here..." His voice trailed off as his mental gears whirred. "Napoleon, can you squirm around enough to get your hands on that margarine?"

"Maybe, if you can manage to give me a couple more cubic feet to maneuver in. Why?"

"See if you can get an individual package out. Maybe together we can get it unwrapped, and..."

Napoleon grinned in the dark. "I see. Which one of us gets his wrists greased?"