The Assassin (18 page)

She came towards him, moving slowly, wondering how to make the first approach. He looked an old man sitting there in his dressing gown, until she remembered what she had interrupted. And remembered that contemptuous ‘Beat it'. I'm fond of him. She had said that to Eddi King. Who was she fooling—how was it that tyrants conned people into pretending that when they pandered to them out of fear it was anything to do with fondness? He was a vile old man, indulgent to her only because she was his own blood. Her mother had always loathed him, and she had been right.

‘I want to talk to you about Beirut,' she said. She didn't sit down; she felt an advantage in standing a little away from him, looking down.

‘What about it?'

He knew; the way the hard eyes dilated for a second betrayed that. He knew about Beirut and about Keller. That disposed of her last hope that perhaps he and King weren't really working together.

‘There's a man come into this country who's been brought here to do something for you, Huntley. I want to know what it is.'

He didn't hesitate; he glared at her. ‘I don't know what the hell you're talking about!' She had caught him off guard when she first said it; now he was in control of himself. There wouldn't be another betraying flicker of an eye; he hadn't got nerves of steel or any of the other clichéd attributes. He had no nerves at all. ‘I was busy when you came busting in here,' he said. ‘You can tell me your fairy story in the morning.' He got up and started to move to his bedroom.

‘Don't do that, Huntley,' Elizabeth said, ‘or I'll take my fairy story to the police. Right now. I think they'd listen to it.'

He turned round then, swinging his tough, rangy body as if it were on ball-bearings. She was a Cameron, in spite of that overbred mother with her arts-and-crafts disdain for money. She could be tough too. He came back and sat down in his chair.

‘Get me a whisky,' he said.

‘No,' Elizabeth answered. ‘You get it yourself. I'm not Dallas.'

He reached out and pulled the top drawer of the eighteenth-century French petit commode which was close to his chair. It opened out in a flap, disclosing a recess full of drinks. He took the whisky decanter and tipped some into a glass.

‘All right,' he said. ‘It's midnight or later, so let's have the fairy story. Then I can go to bed.'

‘Don't try and stall me, Huntley,' Elizabeth said. ‘I'm your niece. I don't know how much that means to you, but at least it ought to prove that I'm not trying to fool around. You and Eddi King are in this thing together; you've brought a man into this country on a false passport and I want to know why.'

‘And what in hell give you the right to ask—who owes you any answers?' He was snarling at her; the full force of that bullying personality with its enormous power of intimidation beat on Elizabeth like a shower of rocks, and she threw back the only one she had.

‘Because King got me to bring him in,' she said. ‘That's what give me the right.'

And this he certainly had not known. So far, Eddi King had told the truth. His face changed colour; he got up and the whisky slopped on to the carpet.

‘You? You brought that guy into the States!'

‘Eddi asked me to do it,' she said quietly. ‘He asked it as a favour to you. He also asked me not to ever tell you.'

‘The bastard.' Huntley almost whispered the word. ‘The lousy bastard. Tell me again. How was it? Tell me exactly.'

‘I went along to see the Lebanon,' Elizabeth said. ‘You knew that. It was just a trip. But Eddi King had asked me to come specially. When we got there he asked me to take a man back home with me, see him through Customs and then leave him. He told me this was being done on your behalf, but that you mustn't know I was involved in it. But it was so important that it had to be me because I was the only one who could be really trusted. I saw this man in the street once, and then I picked him up in a taxi and we flew back to New York.'

‘Jesus Christ,' Huntley Cameron said, ‘I'll kill him. I'll fix him so he never crosses anyone again. And you did this?'

‘I did it,' she said. ‘I thought you had some scheme like the ones you've pulled out against the Administration before—I thought from what he said you were risking an awful lot, and I couldn't let you down. I brought the man through with me.'

‘But nobody connected you.' His mind was racing ahead, trying to see the consequences of this unbelievable link that King had forged between him and the assassin of Jackson. His niece. His niece had brought the killer in. Before he allowed himself to question the motive he wanted to know the extent of that involvement and the chances of its being traced.

‘You travelled together but you left him at the airport …'

‘No,' Elizabeth said. ‘No, I didn't leave him there. Nobody came to meet him after all, and he had no place to go. He's been in my apartment for the last two weeks. Until King came back from Germany. Then he got him moved out.'

‘You've been keeping him in Riverways for two weeks?' He couldn't believe it. He stared at her, his brain refusing to respond to the nerve impulses all screaming danger at the same second. It was impossible. Incredible.

‘What's he here for, Huntley?' She spoke quietly. The moment had come; if he held out against her, and he still might, then Eddi King would be brought into it. And that really frightened her now.

‘What did King tell you—he told you something, didn't he?' He was playing it along, not knowing how much she knew, whether she had even guessed. Two weeks she had been alone with the man. And in those two weeks she had picked up something. That was why she had come down to Freemont. To face him with it.

‘He told me a lot of lies,' Elizabeth said. She felt strangely calm. Huntley Cameron was the one who was afraid; he really did look old as if the last few minutes had each counted as a year. ‘He said the man was connected with the Mafia, dope, runnings girls, that sort of thing. He told the stupidest lies imaginable, right under your nose in the conservatory this evening. And he made me promise once again that I'd never let you know I'd been mixed up in it.'

‘You say it was lies.' Huntley knew it wasn't much of a straw but it was floating past and he tried to grab it. ‘How do you know it's not the truth?'

‘Because I know the man,' she said. ‘He told me a little about himself. He's a professional soldier, he's not mixed up in rackets.' She waited; he said nothing. She took a cigarette out of a gold Fabergé box and lit it.

‘I'm going to the police, Uncle.' It was the first time she had called him that. ‘I'm going to clear myself, so you'd better tell me the truth.'

‘You were right about the man,' he said. He gave himself a second whisky and tossed it straight down his throat. ‘He's not a racketeer. He's a professional killer. What's the matter—he didn't lay you in those two weeks, by any chance?' He gave a short, unpleasant laugh. He hated her at that moment; she had stood up to him and the old fable about this being the way to win a tyrant's heart was just a fable. The shot had been aimed true. It showed in her eyes. ‘A killer,' Huntley repeated. ‘A guy who'd shoot a man's head off for a few thousand dollars—how was it? Different to the others? Does it give you a thrill, just to think about it?'

‘Who were you going to have killed?' she asked him. ‘You're the killer, Huntley, not him. You and Eddi King. Who is it?'

‘If you go to the police,' he said, ‘you know what it will mean. Maybe you'll talk yourself out of it; I said maybe. Once they get their hooks into you, it might not be quite so easy to play innocent. But let's look at what happens. I get arrested, so does King. So does the man. And it all comes out, Elizabeth. My part in it, King's part, and your little romance with a gunman. That's what you'll achieve by going to the police.' He sat back, relaxing with yet another drink, pretending to talk seriously. She wouldn't get to the police. He had a system which he only need touch, and half a dozen security men would be up there inside a minute. If he didn't want his niece to leave Freemont there were ways to see she didn't, and he would use them. He paid very well. He would come to Eddi King later.

‘I don't want to go to the police,' Elizabeth said. ‘I never intended to—I had to say something to make you tell me.' Suddenly she needed to sit down; her whole body ached, her legs were trembling. A killer; a man who would shoot another man's head off for a few thousand … she put a hand up to her eyes, and tried to steady herself. Had it been any different? Huntley's jibe came back to her. And it had. It had been the most important thing that ever happened to her. But she didn't care what he was, she loved him. She dropped the shielding hand and looked into her uncle's hostile face. The battle was over. He wouldn't tell her who the victim was, and she didn't want to know. She just wanted to convince him of the truth. She wasn't going to the police, because she couldn't. Any more than she could tell the truth to Leary. She had to find Keller first.

‘You shouldn't have threatened me,' her uncle said. ‘You're my niece. I thought you'd have some family loyalty.'

‘I have,' she said wearily. ‘You know I couldn't turn you in and have us all disgraced, whatever happened. Just promise me you'll call it off, that's all.'

‘Where is the man now?' Huntley asked her.

She shook her head. ‘I don't know. Please, Huntley, whatever this is, whatever Eddi King has talked you into—don't go through with it. Don't you see he's used me to frame you?'

‘Of course I see it,' Huntley snapped back at her. ‘What I can't see is why. But never mind that now. I'm not giving any promises, Elizabeth. I have a duty to my country.' For a moment the narrow eyes flared open. There was a fierce, fanatic light in them. ‘I have a duty to protect it and I'm going to do so. If you knew what I know, you wouldn't ask for any promise.'

‘Try me,' she said. ‘There's nothing I can do to stop you, so you might as well. We might as well work together to protect ourselves. Your friend Eddi King is drawing some kind of noose right round us both.'

‘I want Casey to win,' the old man said. ‘I want this country out of Viet Nam and I want us to have peace. If we get the wrong President we'll have a war in the Far East and a civil war at home!'

‘It's Jackson,' Elizabeth broke in on him. ‘My God, that's who it is!'

‘And you object?' the old man asked her. ‘You think that crazy punk should get to the White House? You think his life is worth anything, compared to what he'll do to this country of ours?'

‘He won't get in,' Elizabeth protested. ‘He hasn't a chance!'

‘He has a very good chance indeed.' Cameron glared at her. ‘I've had it on the best authority, it'll be a straight fight between him and Casey. The President's not standing again.'

‘How do you know?' Elizabeth said. ‘How can you know that?'

‘How do you think I use my money?' he retorted. ‘What d'you think I do for information—read my own newspapers? I
know
he isn't going to stand, because he's got a cancer condition that the public hasn't even heard about. So there's nobody for people who don't want Casey, but John Jackson! Now do you see it?'

‘But what about the Vice-President?' Elizabeth could see it only too well. ‘Surely there's somebody the Republicans can put forward?'

‘In six months? You're talking through your ass; you sound like that log-head Dallas. Six months? To groom a candidate, to get the nomination—it's too late, don't you see that? The President's got cancer of the gut and no one found it out till now. There isn't time to catch up on Casey or Jackson. We can't afford that punk,' he lowered his voice, almost as if he were talking to himself. ‘What the hell else would make me throw in with Casey and his crappy socialism except I know what's the alternative … Jackson's not going to run, believe me.'

‘You can't kill a man, no matter what he is,' she said. ‘You can't do it, Uncle.'

‘One life,' Huntley said coldly. ‘One cheap little huckster, against civil war, black against white, absolute ruin for us all? You want to see New York burn? And not just New York but half the cities in America? You want communism in this country—because that's what Jackson will mean in the end. You think I'm a crackpot, don't you, just another rich man with a lot of Red phobias?' He laughed again, unpleasantly, as he had done when he sneered at her for sleeping with Keller. ‘If that was true I wouldn't be backing Casey.
I
can see further than my ass. That's what's made me what I am. I've told you, Jackson doesn't run. We'll wash out friend Eddi King's arrangement; don't worry about that. But I've got six months to make my own deal. And you can't stop me.'

‘No, I can't stop you,' she said slowly. ‘If you want to commit murder, you'll do it, whatever I say. I just know it's not the answer, that's all. What are you going to do about Eddi King? Why would he want to try and connect you with the assassination?'

‘I don't know,' Huntley said. He leaned forward, his tough old hands knotted round one knee. ‘All I can think of is blackmail. He comes and tells me you're mixed up in it to the eyeballs and then he puts the pressure on. After Jackson's got it and the guy's been taken care of too. He probably thinks he could shake me for the rest of my life.'

‘What do you mean, taken care of?' She tried to keep her voice from trembling. It didn't seem to matter to him; he was already thinking out how King intended using that incriminating journey, that damning stay in Elizabeth's flat. He didn't look at her when she asked the question.

‘Knocked off, after he's done the job,' he said. ‘King is going to fix that too. We didn't want to risk him getting caught and talking. Christ, if I'd only known what he could have talked about …'