gestured to his three fellows, said to Marylyn, “So long, see you around.” And left.
Marylyn looked after him, frowning. “What’s wrong with Joe?”
Quint grunted, and took in Marylyn’s two feminine companions, schoolteachers if he ever saw two schoolteachers. “Joe, just stopped being Joe,” he said sourly. “He just became a member of the Spanish secret police, assigned to snooping around the foreign colony.”
“Good heavens,” Marylyn said.
Marylyn turned to her companions. “Quint, this is Audrey Zaugbaum and Barbara Roos. They’re new out at the base this year. I mentioned last night to them that you were a friend, and they insisted I bring them around.”
The one named Audrey came up with a book, and said breathlessly, “Oh, Mr. Jones, I wonder if you’d autograph this for me.”
He looked at it. It was a collection of his columns that his agent Steve Black had put together and sold to one of the publishing houses. Quint wasn’t particularly happy about it. Steve had stressed his heavier diatribes. A reader would conclude that the author was more nearly like Walter Lippman than Art Buchwald.
However. He picked up a ballbearing pen from the table and flicked open the book to the title page.
Barbara Roos, who looked too young to be a teacher, even a grammar school teacher, also had a copy. They’d obviously picked them up at the bookshop at the PX especially for the occasion. She blinked at him coyly. “I didn’t even know you lived in Madrid. I thought, from your columns, you sort of drifted around the whole world, just, like, seeing everything, and all.”
“I used to get around quite a bit,” Quint said, signing his name on the title page. “I got tired.”
The one named Audrey laughed at him knowingly. ”
Quint said, “After that, just call me Quint.”
Barbara gushed, “But Madrid. Imagine you being right here in Madrid. And we’ll be seeing you around and all. What do you do for recreation in Madrid?”
Marylyn said brightly, “That will be enough of that, dear.”
Audrey Zaugbaum said, “Mr. Jones, haven’t you ever thought of going into politics…’
Quentin said, “No.”
“… into public life? You know, we Americans are changing. The old type William Jennings Bryan politician, the spellbinder, the rabblerouser, the city bosses, are disappearing. We demand something better than flowery speeches on the Fourth of July. We want brains, and insight. We need men like Quentin Jones to…”
“Hey, hey, hold it,” Quint said. “You’re finding more in my articles than I write into them. I’m just…”
Marylyn Worth said, “That’s what I’ve been telling him. He’s throwing himself away. Quentin is a man of destiny, who just hasn’t awakened to the fact.”
Quint started shooing them toward the door. “Okay, girls, break it up. Off to school with you. Let’s get in there and pitch and teach Johnny how to read so he can grow up and peruse my columns and make me rich.”
The two newcomers laughed inordinarily. It wasn’t
Marylyn said, “We do have to scurry along, or we’ll be tardy.”
“Twenty-three skidoo,” Quint said, winking at her. She was the last out the door, and he gave her a light pat on the fanny.
As he walked back toward the bathroom he was chuckling. The last he had seen of Marylyn’s face, as he closed the door, it was pale, and her eyes were bugged to the point where you’d have thought she had been raped. And all for an affectionate pat on the bottom. Quint shook his head. What a woman.
He thought about the situation over breakfast. Not hurrying. One thing was clear. If and when this was cleared up, he was going to have to leave Spain, or at very least, Madrid. He wasn’t going to be welcome. The powers that be could make it uncomfortable enough, without being overt, that he’d want to leave. He shrugged mentally. It was time he moved on anyway. He’d been getting stale recently. He needed a fresh viewpoint. Life was seeming meaningless, existence without flavor.
He finished his coffee and went into the living room to the phone. He dialed Mike Woolman’s office, and, somewhat to his surprise, got him.
He said, “Mike? Quint Jones talking. You’ve heard about Bart Digby? Yeah. Assuming that your brain is working at all, I suppose you see your own position, as well as mine.”
Mike said cautiously, “Meaning what?”
“Meaning that Brett-Home and Bart Digby were both working on the Martin Bormann deal. And both of them are dead. Anybody on the inside of this case knows that you and I have also been up to our ears in the developments. Do you need a blueprint? As they used to say in Chicago, Buster, we’re on the spot. We’re not going to have to bait that trap you were talking about. You and I both are already in it.”
“You mean you think the monster has us next on his list?”
“I don’t know if I buy that monster story of yours or not, but somebody with a nasty habit of killing people, has, undoubtedly, got us on a list. And I want off.”
Mike said, “That’s easy enough for you. You can write those damn columns of yours anywhere. Why don’t you head out for Manila, or Rio de Janeiro, or someplace?”
Quint said dryly, “I’ve got news for you. Old pal, Joe just lifted my passport.”
“
“Don’t stutter. Jose Garcia Mendez, it turns out, is Spanish police of some sort or other. Your suspicions were right. I had a squabble with Bart the other day, and we trounced each other around a bit. Evidently Bart was being shadowed, at least on a part time basis, and some bright-eyed cop reported to headquarters that he looked all beat up when he left my apartment. So great. So this morning Joe and three of the boys came popping into my apartment to search it, to get my alibi, and to lift my passport. I’m not allowed to leave Spain.”
Mike whistled.
“So,” Quint said. “My interest in the case is rejuvenated. I don’t see much sign of anybody else clearing it up, so we better before somebody finds us missing, complete to gizzard being removed surgically. I have a deep aversion for having my gizzard transplanted into some monster.”
“I’m with you, friend. How do we start?”
“We start by latching onto Uncle Nick. He’s the focal point of this whole shooting match.”
“Uncle Nick?”
“Nicolas Ferencsik. He’s holed up with the Dempseys, as you know. And maybe the Spanish police don’t realize it, but just as sure as little green apples, he’s up to his ears in this. I’ll meet you there. Let’s get a move on, Mike.”
“Right. See you at Dempsey’s,” Mike said.
Quint slapped the phone back into its cradle on the bar and turned to go. He pulled up short, and stared. There, sitting to the side of half a dozen bottles, was Bart Digby’s .38 caliber revolver. For some reason, after the fight, he had not reclaimed it Forgotten it, undoubtedly. Quint had picked the gun up later and left it on the bar, figuring on returning the weapon the next time he saw the C.I.A. man. It had been pure luck that the detectives searching the place hadn’t found it. Pure luck and the fact that Marylyn Worth and her two friends had entered before the search had been completed. Quint felt a chill go through him. If the Spanish had found Bart’s gun here, he would have been in a Spanish jail at this moment.
Quint took the weapon up. He knew guns fairly well, but didn’t like them. This was a Smith and Wesson Bodyguard, a .38 Special snubnose build on a .32 frame. A good hideout gun. He shrugged and stuck it into a trouser pocket. The chips were down now.
Although the distance was just a few blocks, Quint took the Renault. Time was important. It was still morning. So far as he knew, there was no record of the monster striking during the daylight hours. He worked at night—an indication that his physical appearance might be such that he dare not show himself openly in public.
He left the car before the Dempsey apartment house and took the elevator. One of the maids met him at the penthouse entrada.
She recognized him, of course. Quint was one of Marty’s “special boy friends” which gave him free run of the house. However, she said, “
