Flashpoint

to do it, but the way she appeared to be mainlining it, she was due to have a very short run.

I wondered if part of the answer to her financing might not lie in the envelope tucked inside my shirt. If Erikson's Israeli contacts were right about a connection between the plane hijacking and dope smuggling, Talia was a good bet to be a connecting link.

But there was also the chance that the envelope contained money enough to buy a few days' drugs supply for a hard-hooked addict, certainly a serious matter to Talia. It didn't explain her fear of the man to whom she had made the phone call, though.

She came out of the bedroom with a smile designed to inflate any male ego. She had changed to an Oriental- looking, choke-collar costume of shining red silk. It had the long sleeves that I expected to see, but it was form fitting, and she had the form to fit it. The skirt was slit to the waist, exposing bare thigh to the hip. I didn't need a fluoroscope to determine that she was as bare underneath as her crimson-nailed bare feet.

'Thank you,' she murmured as I rose and handed her the glass of raki. Her eyes looked different, heavy-lidded and unfocused. I guessed that she had shot herself up while she was in the bedroom to quiet her jangled nerves. 'Why don't we sit on the chaise longue and make ourselves comfortable?' she went on.

It came to me suddenly what this production was all about. She was trying to freeze me in place until her boss could get someone downstairs to tail me when I left. I downed my drink quickly. She sensed my intention to leave and grabbed my hand. 'Put it on ice, Talia,' I said, backing away. 'I'll see you tomorrow.'

She still clung to my hand. 'Don't go,' she protested. Her full lips pouted provocatively. 'There is much of the evening left.'

'I've got to put out the word to people I know that I want the envelope intact,' I improvised. 'Your boss wouldn't pay me for it if it had been opened, would he?'

'That's right,' Talia said. She released my hand. 'Tomorrow, then,' she called after me as I went out in the corridor. 'You won't be sorry.'

No one was in the lobby when I stepped off the elevator downstairs, but the threat would be outside in the darkness of the street. I couldn't detect anything unusual. I decided to walk the short distance to Chryssie's pad. I wanted to look in on her anyway since I'd left her locked in.

I detoured into an all-night cafeteria on the Avenue of the Americas and called Erikson. 'This is Little Boy Blue,' I said.

'I was beginning to wonder about you,' he answered. 'How did you get clear of the mess at the tavern?'

'I was squiring our little bird home. You probably know that someone extinguished the large-nosed bum.

And they put the steel to the girl once, before I got in on the action.'

'Badly?'

'No.'

'I'd like to hear about it. Come on over.'

'It will be awhile. I might have company.'

'I see. Be sure you take care of that first.'

'Will do.'

* * *

When I left the restaurant, there was no tail behind me that I could locate. I remained inside behind the dirty panes of the double doors in Chryssie's old building for five minutes before I went upstairs. No one followed me inside.

A single light was on when I let myself into the flat, and the familiar odor of Mary Jane was in the air. Chryssie still had a cache somewhere I hadn't found. She was sprawled on the bed in naked, childishly-smiling marijuana-euphoria. I had never known a girl with less use for clothes. I threw a sheet over her, locked her in the apartment again, and went downstairs to the street.

A lifetime of looking over one's shoulder hones the senses. I hadn't seen anyone follow me from Talia's place, but I still felt vaguely uneasy. I'd stayed there too long after her telephone call. I checked the sidewalk from inside the double doors and saw nothing suspicious.

Still, I had a feeling.

I left the building and walked a block to a subway. I ran down the stairs to the train level and was lucky enough to catch a crowded downtown local. Once aboard, I walked through the cars until I came to the head of the train. I had seen at least fifteen other people board the train at the same stop.

I got off at the first station. There was a crush of other people. I walked half a dozen steps toward the exit gate, then did an about-face. I had to sprint to get back aboard the same train. The closing, double doors almost stranded me. There was no question that I was the last one to make it aboard. And there was no question that if anyone had followed me to that point he was following me no longer.

At the next stop I disembarked and caught a taxi at the surface. I gave the driver an address within a block of Erikson's office. To play triply safe, I punched the elevator button for the fifteenth floor instead of the sixteenth.

I would have preferred to walk down instead of up, but I figured I had just enough juice left to do it by the book.

7

Jock McLaren admitted me into the office when I knocked. 'Damn it all, Earl, you have all the excitement,' he greeted me. He sounded wistful. 'I got to the Picadilly when it was all over. Come on. Karl's inside.'

Erikson was stoking a pipe at his desk when he entered the inner office. He nodded but was silent until he had the pipe drawing to his satisfaction. 'Tell him your end of it first, Jock,' he said.

'Well,' McLaren replied, looking at me, 'I found out from the bartender that a guy answering your description had blown the scene with the girl. So I figured I'd do the next best thing, and I trailed the police ambulance down to the morgue to check out the man we knew as Hawk. I identified myself and took considerable physical evidence from the body. We checked it out with sources we consider reliable, and we got a make. The man's name was Hakim Shukairat, age twenty-nine, a Jordanian. He held a rank roughly equivalent to captain in the fedayeen. He was the leader of a fanatical commando group that we're certain forced down a chartered American airliner near Las Vegas and also-'

'Earl knows that,' Erikson interrupted him. I realized that Erikson, with his usual need-to-know security precautions, hadn't told McLaren that I was aboard the hijacked aircraft.

McLaren raised an eyebrow but continued. 'Shukairat led or participated in the shoot-up of an El Al plane in Switzerland some time ago. It appears likely that he was brought to the U.S. for the same kind of work, and it's believed that he would have mounted similar operations.'

McLaren paused for an instant. 'So far we've been unable to tie him into any political, military, or financial contacts in this country that would make him anything but a bandit, although we're sure they exist. Our evaluation to this point indicates that he was an able field man but that he wasn't a planner. He probably received his orders from well-trained superiors. And he either got careless today or he was set up for the fall by the girl.'

'I'll bet against the last one,' I said.

'Do you think the two assassins were Israeli agents?' Erikson asked me. 'Making a move on their own because they felt we weren't moving fast enough?'

'There was nothing to indicate it,' I said slowly. 'I imagine a man like Shukairat could have papered a room with his enemies. They didn't look any more like Israelis than they did any other Middle East nationality. Although come to think of it, the whole affair had kind of the look of an execution.'

'I'm going to have a little talk with Bergman,' Erikson said grimly. 'If it was Israeli intelligence, and if Bergman can't keep his falcons leashed, we'll ship them out of the country. What about the envelope you mentioned, Earl?'

I unbuttoned my shirt, removed it, and tossed its bulk onto the desk. It was smudged and wrinkled, but the seal was still intact. McLaren hunkered down and peered at it from eye level without touching it at all. 'Whose prints are on it?' he asked.