The Girl Hunters

I shrugged. 'So you found something out.'

'I did. About you too.'

'Go ahead.'

From overhead, the light bounced from his glasses so I couldn't see what was happening to his eyes. He said, 'Richie was a little bigger than I thought during the war. He was quite important. Quite.'

'At his age?'

'He was your age, Mike. And during the war age can be as much of a disguise as a deciding factor.'

'Get to it.'

'My pleasure.' He paused, looked at me and threw the rest of the beer down. 'He commanded the Seventeen Group.' When I didn't give him the reaction he looked for he asked me, 'Did you ever hear of Butterfly Two?'

I covered the frown that pulled at my forehead by finishing my own beer and waving to John for another. 'I heard of it. I don't know the details. Something to do with the German system of total espionage. They had people working for them ever since the First World War.'

There was something like respect in his eyes now. 'It's amazing that you even heard of it.'

'I have friends in amazing places.'

'Yes, you had.'

As slowly as I could I put the glass down. 'What's that supposed to mean?'

And then his eyes came up, fastened on my face so as not to lose sight of even the slightest expression and he said, 'It was your girl, the one called Velda, that he saw on the few occasions he was home. She was something left over from the war.'

The glass broke in my hand and I felt a warm surge of blood spill into my hand. I took the towel John offered me and held it until the bleeding stopped. I said, 'Go on.'

Art smiled. It was the wrong kind of smile, with a gruesome quality that didn't match his face. 'He last saw her in Paris just before the war ended and at that time he was working on Butterfly Two.'

I gave the towel back to John and pressed on the Band-Aid he gave me.

'Gerald Erlich was the target then. At the time his name wasn't known except to Richie--and the enemy. Does it make sense now?'

'No.' My guts were starting to turn upside down. I reached for the beer again, but it was too much. I couldn't do anything except listen.

'Erlich was the head of an espionage ring that had been instituted in 1920. Those agents went into every land in the world to get ready for the next war and even raised their children to be agents. Do you think World War II was simply the result of a political turnover?'

'Politics are not my speciality.'

'Well, it wasn't. There was another group. It wasn't part of the German General Staff's machinations either. They utilized this group and so did Hitler--or better, still, let's say vice versa.'

I shook my head, not getting it at all.

'It was a world conquest scheme. It incorporated some of the greatest military and corrupt minds this world has ever known and is using global wars and brush-fire wars to its own advantage until one day when everything is ready they can take over the world for their own.'

'You're nuts!'

'I am?' he said softly. 'How many powers were involved in 1918?'

'All but a few.'

'That's right. And in 1945?'

'All of them were--'

'Not quite. I mean, who were the major powers?'

'We were. England, Germany, Russia, Japan--'

'That narrows it down a bit, doesn't it? And now, right now, how many major powers are there really?'

What he was getting at was almost inconceivable. 'Two. Ourselves and the Reds.'

'Ah--now we're getting to the point. And they hold most of the world's land and inhabitants in their hands. They're the antagonists. They're the ones pushing and we're the ones holding.'

'Damn it, Rickerby--'

'Easy, friend. Just think a little bit.'

'Ah, think my ass. What the hell are you getting to? Velda's part of that deal? You have visions, man, you got the big bug! Damn, I can get better than that from them at a jag dance in the Village. Even the bearded idiots make more sense.'

His mouth didn't smile. It twisted. 'Your tense is unusual. You spoke as if she were alive.'

I let it go. I deliberately played the beer into the glass until the head was foaming over the rim, then drank it off with a grimace of pleasure and put the glass down.

When I was ready, I said, 'So now the Reds are going to take over the world. They'll bury us. Well, maybe they will, buddy, but there won't be enough Reds around to start repopulating again, that's for sure.'

'I didn't say that,' Art told me.

His manner had changed again. I threw him an annoyed look and reached for the beer.

'I think the world conquest parties changed hands. The conqueror has been conquered. The Reds have located and are using this vast fund of information, this great organization we call Butterfly Two, and that's why the free world is on the defensive.'

John asked me if I wanted another Blue Ribbon and I said yes. He brought two, poured them, put the bar check in the register and returned it with a nod. When he had gone I half swung around, no longer so filled with a crazy fury that I couldn't speak. I said, 'You're lucky, Rickerby. I didn't know whether to belt you in the mouth or listen.'

'You're fortunate you listened.'

'Then finish it. You think Velda's part of Butterfly Two.' Everything, yet nothing, was in his shrug. 'I didn't ask that many questions. I didn't care. All I want is Richie's killer.'

'That doesn't answer my question. What do you think?'

Once again he shrugged. 'It looks like she was,' he told me.

So I thought my way through it and let the line cut all the corners off because there wasn't that much time and I asked him, 'What was Richie working on when he was killed?'

Somehow, he knew I was going to ask that one and shook his head sadly. 'Not that at all. His current job had to do with illegal gold shipments.'

'You're sure.'

'I'm sure.'

'Then what about this Erlich?'

Noncommittally, Art shrugged. 'Dead or disappeared. Swallowed up in the aftermath of war. Nobody knows.'

'Somebody does,' I reminded him. 'The Big Agency boys don't give up their targets that easily. Not if the target is so big it makes a lifetime speciality of espionage.'

He reflected a moment and nodded. 'Quite possible. However, it's more than likely Erlich is dead at this point. He'd be in his sixties now if he escaped the general roundup of agents after the war. When the underground organizations of Europe were free of restraint they didn't wait on public trials. They knew who their targets were and how to find them. You'd be surprised at just how many people simply disappeared, big people and little people, agents and collaborators both. Many a person we wanted badly went into a garbage pit somewhere.'

'Is that an official attitude?'

'Don't be silly. We don't reflect on attitudes to civilians. Occasionally it becomes necessary--'

'Now, for instance,' I interrupted.

'Yes, like now. And believe me, they're better off knowing nothing.'

Through the glasses his eyes tried to read me, then lost whatever expression they had. There was a touch of contempt and disgust in the way he sat there, examining me like a specimen under glass, then the last part of my line cut across the last corner and I asked him casually, 'Who's The Dragon?'