The Girl Hunters

'Hell, Mike, when that Nazi war machine--' then he got the tone of my voice and put the glass down, his eyes watching me closely. 'Let's have it, Mike.'

'Butterfly Two isn't as out of style as you think.'

'Look--'

'And what about Gerald Erlich?'

'Presumed dead.'

'Proof?'

'None, but damn it, Mike--'

'Look, there are too many suppositions.'

'What are you driving at, anyway? Man, don't tell me about Gerald Erlich. I had contact with him on three different occasions. The first two I knew him only as an allied officer, the third time I saw him in a detention camp after the war but didn't realize who he was until I went over it in my mind for a couple of hours. When I went back there the prisoners had been transferred and the truck they were riding in had hit a land mine taking a detour around a bombed bridge. It was the same truck Giesler was on, the SS Colonel who had all the prisoners killed during the Battle of the Bulge.'

'You saw the body?'

'No, but the survivors were brought in and he, wasn't among them.'

'Presumed dead?'

'What else do you need? Listen, I even have a picture of the guy I took at that camp and some of those survivors when they were brought back. He wasn't in that bunch at all.'

I perched forward on my chair, my hands flat on the table. 'You have what?'

Surprised at the edge in my voice, he pulled out another one of those cigars. 'They're in my personal stuff upstairs.' He waved a thumb toward the street.

'Tell me something, Hy,' I said, 'Are you cold on these details?'

He caught on quick. 'When I got out of the army, friend, I got out. All the way. I was never that big that they called me back as a consultant.'

'Can we see those photos?'

'Sure. Why not?'

I picked up my beer, finished it, waited for him to finish his, then followed him out. We went back through the press section of the paper, took the service, elevator up and got out at Hy's floor. Except for a handful of night men, the place was empty, a gigantic echo chamber that magnified the sound of our feet against the tiled floor. Hy unlocked his office, flipped on the light and pointed to a chair.

It took him five minutes of rummaging through his old files, but he finally came up with the photos. They were 120 contact sheets still in a military folder that was getting stiff and yellow around the edges and when he laid them out he pointed to one in the top left-hand corner and gave me an enlarging glass to bring out the image.

His face came in loud and clear, chunky features that bore all the physical traits of a soldier with overtones of one used to command. The eyes were hard, the mouth a tight slash as they looked contemptuously at the camera.

Almost as if he knew what was going to happen, I thought.

Unlike the others, there was no harried expression, no trace of fear. Nor did he have the stolid composure of a prisoner. Again, it was as if he were not really a prisoner at all.

Hy pointed to the shots of the survivors of the accident. He wasn't in any of those. The mangled bodies of the dead were unrecognizable.

Hy said, 'Know him?'

I handed the photos back. 'No.'

'Sure?'

'I never forget faces.'

'Then that's one angle out.'

'Yeah,' I said.

'But where did you ever get hold of that bit?'

I reached for my hat. 'Have you ever heard of a red herring?'

Hy chuckled and nodded. 'I've dropped a few in my life.'

'I think I might have picked one up. It stinks.'

'So drop it. What are you going to do now?'

'Not drop it, old buddy. It stinks just a little too bad to be true. No, there's another side to this Erlich angle I'd like to find out about.'

'Clue me.'

'Senator Knapp.'

'The Missile Man, Mr. America. Now how does he come in?'

'He comes in because he's dead. The same bullet killed him as Richie Cole and the same gun shot at me. That package on Knapp that you gave me spelled out his war record pretty well. He was a light colonel when he went in and a major general when he came out. I'm wondering if I could tie his name in with Erlich's anyplace.'

Hy's mouth came open and he nearly lost the cigar. 'Knapp working for another country?'

'Hell no,' I told him.

'Were you?'

'But--'

'He could have had a cover assignment too.'

'For Pete's sake, Mike, if Knapp had a job other than what was known he could have made political capital of it and--'

'Who knew about yours?'

'Well--nobody, naturally. At least, not until now,', he added.

'No friends?'

'No.'

'Only authorized personnel.'

'Exactly. And they were mighty damn limited.'

'Does Marilyn know about it now?'

'Mike--'

'Does she?'

'Sure, I told her one time, but all that stuff is seventeen years old. She listened politely like a wife will, made some silly remark and that was it.'

'The thing is, she knows about it.'

'Yes. So what?'

'Maybe Laura Knapp does too.'

Hy sat back again, sticking the cigar in his mouth. 'Boy,' he said, 'you sure are a cagy one. You'll rationalize anything just to see that broad again, won't you?'

I laughed back at him. 'Could be,' I said. 'Can I borrow that photo of Erlich?'

From his desk Hy pulled a pair of shears, cut out the, shot of the Nazi agent and handed it to me. 'Have fun, but you're chasing a ghost now.'

'That's how it goes. But at least if you run around long enough something will show up.'

'Yeah, like a broad.'

'Yeah,' I repeated, then reached for my hat and left.

Duck-Duck Jones told me that they had pulled the cop off Old Dewey's place. A relative had showed up, some, old dame who claimed to be his half sister and had taken over Dewey's affairs. The only thing she couldn't touch, was the newsstand which he had left to Duck-Duck in a surprise letter held by Bucky Harris who owned the Clover Bar. Even Duck-Duck could hardly believe it, but now pride of ownership had taken hold and he was happy to take up where the old man left off.