Recoil

“No. What’s this all …?”

The barmaid’s approach silenced them. She set the Bloody Mary on the table and took out her order pad. “Yes, sir?”

“Just a ginger ale,” Bradleigh said.

Mathieson studied him. Bradleigh had put on ten pounds or so but it only made his ruddy face squarer. His brown hair was still in a 1950ish brush crew cut and he was still wearing a conservative suit with a white shirt and plain brown tie; it might have been a uniform. His gray eyes picked up a little reflected candlelight and seemed frosty, as if he’d been affronted by something.

The barmaid went away and Bradleigh took an envelope from his pocket. “You’d better take a look.”

It wasn’t sealed. Mathieson reached inside—a folded newspaper clipping. STORE MANAGER SHOT BY SNIPER. He glanced down the paragraphs. One William Smithers had been gardening in his yard in Norman, Oklahoma, when a rifle bullet had struck him in the back. Apparently it had been fired from a passing car. Smithers had been taken to a hospital and was on the critical list: The bullet had broken a rib and done some internal damage.

He handed it back to Bradleigh. “So?”

“This was a last-minute squib in this morning’s Oklahoma City paper. The later editions probably ran photographs of him. Smithers is Walter Benson.”

It hit him like a fist. “Oh boy. Oh boy.”

“It could be a coincidence.”

“You don’t think it was, though.”

“If I did I wouldn’t be here.”

“Is he going to pull through?”

“Nobody knows. We’ve transferred him to another hospital under wraps. We’re guarding the place like the mint.”

Mathieson tried to compose himself. “What does it mean?”

“Obviously we think the mob found him.”

“I thought Frank Pastor was still in prison.”

“He is, but he’s up for parole in a matter of days. And his organization’s not in prison. Ezio Martin’s still ru

“And if they found Benson they may find the rest of us.”

“Fred, they may already have found you.”

He reached for the Bloody Mary. It had too much Tabasco and pepper in it; his throat burned afterward.

Bradleigh said, “I sent people out this morning to cover Draper and John Fusco. Maybe Benson was a fluke, maybe they haven’t got a line on the rest of you but we can’t take the chance. Not until we know more. I came here myself because if they do have information on all four of you then you’d be the prime target. You were the one who put Pastor away—the others were corroboration but we could have done it without any of them. You were the key witness.”

“That’s a comforting reminder.”

“I know.”

“How did they find Benson?”

“God knows. We’re investigating everything. Including ourselves.”

“Yourselves?”

“It’s always been our nightmare. The chance of a leak in our office. We don’t think it happened. We don’t see how it could. But we’ve got to check it out. Until we prove there was no leak we’ve got to assume all four of you may have been blown.”

“Terrific. That’s terrific.”

“Look, the way it probably happened, some guy happens to be passing through Norman, Oklahoma. He just happens to spot Benson in the street. Maybe just some uninvolved guy who gets back to New York and goes out to di

The barmaid brought Bradleigh his ginger ale. He tasted it.

When the girl was gone Mathieson said, “It’s been eight years. Nearly nine. Why should Pastor’s mob give a damn any more? Benson wasn’t doing them any harm in Oklahoma.”

“You still don’t know those people, do you?”

“Nor want to.”

“They shot Benson for reasons that make perfect sense to them.”

Mathieson said, “What reasons? What reason justifies trying to murder somebody who’s doing you no harm?”

“For one thing it’s an object lesson. They want the world to know they’ll catch up with their enemies no matter how far they run or how long they hide. It’s a deterrent.”

Mathieson scowled at him. Bradleigh went right on:

“Then there’s the matter of revenge. Those people are very primitive that way. Revenge is a religion with them. They carry it along from generation to generation. Vendetta. It amounts to their law.”

“What a grisly waste.”

“They’re weaned on it.” Bradleigh lit a filter tip.

“You’re saying we’ll never be safe.”

“Who’s safe? You could get hit by a truck. The chances are they stumbled on Benson by a fluke. The chances are you’re in no danger at all.”

Mathieson said, “You fly out here on the first plane and you alarm the hell out of my wife and me. And we’re in no danger at all. I see.”

“Look, Fred, it’s my job. I’m not trying to be an alarmist. I’m just preparing for a contingency. A remote possibility.”

Mathieson burned his throat on another swallow. At the bar a fat TV character actor whom Mathieson knew by sight but couldn’t name returned from the jukebox to a glass of something that looked like a potted plant. The jukebox bleated heartbrokenly.

Mathieson tried to compose his ragged emotions. “What do you think we should do?”

“Disappear. Take your family on vacation for a while. Don’t leave a forwarding address. We’ll send agents along for protection. And I’d like to set up surveillance on your house—see if anybody snoops around.”

“What if they do? You can’t arrest them for snooping around.”

“But we’ll know, won’t we. If nobody snoops around then we can assume your cover’s intact. If they do show up we’ll be warned. We might have to do another identity switch.”

“No.”

“Fred …”

“I couldn’t put Jan through it again.” The marriage was barely intact as it was. “And Ro

“He’s old enough to understand it.”

“He’d have to keep the secret for the rest of his life—or at least for the rest of mine. He’s too young for a responsibility like that.”

“You may not have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice,” he said with empty stubbor

“Like for instance?”

“Shouldn’t we wait and see what happens?”

“I want you to be prepared, Fred. It’s my job to protect you but I also kind of like you, you know. Most of the people we service are losers. Opportunists like Benson. Most of them are in the mob themselves. We nail them for something, then we offer them immunity if they’ll finger the higher-ups. Once in a while a guy like Benson accepts our offer and we go to work for him. But we don’t get too many good honest citizens who choose to testify because they see it as a moral duty. You were a breath of fresh air from the moment I met you. I don’t want anything to happen to you. We’ll send some good men to look after you. They’ll be there if you need them, you know, but they won’t get in your way. Where’d you like to go?”

Mathieson drummed his fingers on the table. “Hell. We’ve never been to Hawaii.”

“Sounds perfect, if you can swing the tab.”

“We’ve got high-priced clients nowadays. In fact we’re doing so well my partner wants to buy me out.”

“Does he. Well I hope it doesn’t come to that but you may have to accept his offer.”

“The hell. I just decided not to. This morning.”

“Did you tell your partner?”

“Not yet.”

“Then don’t. Tell him you want to get away for a couple of weeks to think it over.”

“It’s rough to get away right now, Gle

“Nothing’s as urgent as survival.”

“Maybe. But I think you may be——”