The Doomsday Bag Read online

  I wanted to be fully alert and comfortable when I tackled the story of Leonard Kanin.

  The man with the bag.

  The one that was proving a grab bag of surprises.

  Before I took the shower, though, I did one other very necessary thing. It had gotten to be a routine habit but now common sense and plain garden-variety discretion dictated such a move. I checked the room in its entirety for bugging devices and any electronic gadgets calculated to destroy me, my cover, and my assignment. There were none that I could see. The room had only been disturbed by the maids.

  None that I could find anyway, that is.

  In this day and age, you can't be sure of anything.

  Big Brother is watching us all.

  Guile Girl

  After the shower came the deluge.

  Of information on Leonard Kanin.

  I made myself comfortable on the big bed in the adjoining room, put my .45 in plain view by the telephone, and did my homework. There were about twenty sheets of closely packed type, several affidavits of reliability and clean-bill-of-health signed by important names like Burgess Wales, Chief of Army Intelligence, and Dr. Albert A. Tompkins, Psychiatric Department of Walter Reed General Hospital. As well as a Performance Rating, dated 1965, from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Hoover's signature was on that one. I ignored the affidavits and concentrated on the twenty sheets of information. Xerography had given me this intimate look at Leonard Kanin. The Bagman's important dossier was a Xerox job through and through. The Chief had obviously had them run a copy especially for my use. There was no telling who held the originals of what I now scrutinized.

  A remark Mr. President had made to me early in the day in the White House about his old Korean War buddy, Burgess Wales, personally recommending Leonard Kanin for the all-important job as thermonuclear water boy, ran through my brain like a haunting theme song. " . . . my old friend . . . Army Intelligence . . . trust Kanin and Wales with my life . . . " Heavy words. Words not to be taken lightly in the context of a President talking about his well-being and the security of the country. Especially a country which had seen one of its most beloved leaders gunned down in Dealey Plaza. A leader whose running-for-election brother had been just as ruthlessly murdered five years later.

  All of that was on my mind as I boned up on Leonard Kanin. The twenty pages of text had a lot to say about him. Scarcely a line of type was excess or dross, all of it was pertinent, even though the subject was being covered all the way from his birth in Ishpeming, Michigan, to his present domicile in Washington, D.C., as part of the White House Communications System. Agency, as it was referred to in the dossier.

  Kanin, wherever he was now or whatever had happened to him, had led what is euphemistically called "the full life":

  Born Leonard Allan Kanin, July 9, 1921, in his mother's bedroom in a ramshackle family house in Ishpeming. His mother died giving birth to him, leaving just two people to cry about that. Marvin Kanin was a school-teacher and left with an infant, who could only cry by reflex, so both of them faced the future together. It proved pretty bleak, even by 1921 standards. On a schoolteacher's salary, things were pretty meager, so little Lennie had to work before and after school, shine shoes, and sell paper shopping bags on street corners. The senior Kanin never remarried and when Lennie was ten died of a heart attack while running to catch a streetcar. There were no remaining relatives to take care of Lennie so he was sent to a Catholic protectory for orphans. The Kanins were of Catholic stock with an antecedency going back to the failure of the potato crop in Ireland—and maybe longer ago than that. Anyway, little Kanin ran away from the protectory at the age of thirteen and didn't show up again until the Hollywood, California, of 1939. It seemed he had lost himself on a freight train going west, and because of his size (as of now he was 220 pounds and six-foot-two), he had managed to work as an extra in more than one hundred movie spectacles. Everything from a De Mille extravaganza to Grade B epics. In the intervening six years between Ishpeming and Los Angeles, he had carved out a life for himself. At thirteen, he had been five-foot-eleven and passed for eighteen. Either that or nobody had cared. Anyway, he was remarkably strong and quick-witted, did a lot of stunt work in addition to his extras, and managed to roll up a good income by the time the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor. He went right down and enlisted and four years later emerged an infantry lieutenant with a battlefield commission which he had won at Salerno. In '45, redeployed back to the States, he helped a San Francisco cop disarm a knife-wielder who had run amok in a department store, and somehow drifted into police work. There again he couldn't be stopped. In '50, he was a detective first class and the outbreak in Korea saw him give up his shield and return to active service with the First Cavalry. Even then, he was only twenty-nine, still a bachelor but as hard as nails, according to his record. A guy who had been a loner almost since birth and still managed to come out all right. After Korea, he had turned up on Burgess Wales' stack of fitness reports as a Grade A applicant for the Secret Service. The kind of man needed for such a demanding job. Ten years with the S squad and the tall, built-like-a-football-halfback Kanin had put on a little weight, added some more official commendations, and suddenly he was a fixture in all presidential security setups. He wasn't with the Kennedy team when Dallas happened because he was in a Baltimore hospital having his appendix removed. The typewritten report in my hands said it was one of the greatest disappointments in his life not to have been on deck at least when the tragedy struck. After that, he was withdrawn, moody, and unresponsive. His usual drive was missing. As the years passed, he gradually drifted back in the setup, becoming less and less important or in demand as an operative. Finally, ultimately, he had been voted the Bagman chore; the antisocial, unpopular task of toting the black bag and being persona non grata with fellow agents. As the President had indicated. Who wants to pal around with a guy who has it in his power to blow up the world? It figured. So now, the ex-stunt man, orphan, Hollywood extra, war hero twice over with three Bronze Stars, two Silver Stars, and battle stars galore, was still six feet two inches tall, had grown dumpy around the middle and taken to wearing horn-rimmed glasses. He was still a bachelor and there were no women in his life. And he was still missing. A middle-aged question mark of outstanding proportions.

  There was a 5X8 glossy photograph of him clipped to the sheaf of typed sheets. I looked at it very carefully.

  Leonard Kanin didn't look a bit like his exciting rags-to-riches biography. He could have posed for a picture called Mr. Average Man. He was downright ordinary.

  With the kind of hero's background he had had, something should have shone out of his eyes. But it didn't. Maybe that was what had made him a perfect prospect for an agent—his lack of unique appearance. I can't say. At any rate, the photographer had caught nothing. Kanin had a dull nothing face with not one standout feature. You'd never have found him on a subway train if you were looking for him.

  It wasn't a passport-type photo, either. A sharp, clear studio job with full lights and darks. I was disappointed with Leonard Kanin's face though I had no right to be. But he just didn't look the part and that was disturbing somehow. It was like casting Woody Allen as Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind, or, more appropriately, Phil Silvers as Double-O Seven.

  There wasn't anything else to wonder about in the dossier. I had my man down in my mind now. All I had to do was find him. There were a lot of added items about Hobbies and Extra Pursuits but these all included such mundane things as bowling, pool, and stamp collecting and all that did was underscore the lonesome-Joe aspects of one Leonard Kanin. Those are pastimes that can be engaged in without benefit of company, too. The woods are full of men who bowl by themselves and shoot pool the same way. And nobody's ever needed a pal to collect stamps, either.

  I shoved the thick file directly under the big bed, out of sight, and lit a cigarette. It was time for some shut-eye but one last weed was indicated before I put out the lights.

  But somebody else had some o
ther plans for me that evening.

  There was a knock at the door.

  I rolled off the bed, scooping up the ready .45, instantly alert. The knock had been low, muffled, almost tentative. I frowned at the gleaming dial of my wristwatch lying on the end table. The minute and hour hands were almost embracing at midnight. I padded over to the door and stepped to one side of the barrier and waited. The knock came again, only a little louder.

  "Who's there?" I whispered.

  "It's me—Felicia Carr—can I come in?"

  It was her all right. Not even whispering could any other woman have matched the distinctive femininity of that voice. I eased the chain latch off my door and stepped back. She came sweeping in like a dame with plans, gaining almost the center of the room before I relocked the door.

  When she turned, with a rustle of her black trench coat—it must have still been raining—her electrical eyes connected with my quizzical stare, and a slow, sudden flush of scarlet painted her impossibly white and beautiful face. I didn't have to wonder about the blush. I was still holding the .45 but I was down to the buff, with only a pair of briefs as my fig leaf. There had been no time for Emily Post.

  "I couldn't sleep," she said huskily, hardly moving.

  "That figures."

  "I had to see you—I didn't want to phone—so I thought I'd tiptoe up here and take a chance—"

  "You took a big one. Top lady columnist visits private detective after hours in posh hotel. Tsk, tsk. What will the desk clerks and elevator operators and Washington say?"

  She had regained her basic composure. Her hands strayed to the buttons of her trench coat. She looked taller in the thing. And twice as delectable. Like Jacqueline Kennedy, she could have made a million other females want to wear the same thing. On her it looked stunning.

  "Do I stay or go?" she asked softly, her eyes still on me. "Don't think me headstrong or wanton—" She laughed almost self-consciously, shaking her head at herself. "That sounds silly, doesn't it?"

  "You stay," I said, "and you couldn't be silly if you tried. Just tell me one thing. Why?"

  "Why?" she echoed. Now she looked surprised and the delicate architecture of her nostrils and mouth flared in a smile. "Haven't I just about said it all already? Made my meaning clear—oh, damn!—maybe I'd better go at that . . . I feel . . . oh . . ."

  Whatever weird gutsiness had made her come in the first place had reasserted itself in the opposite direction. She forgot about her coat buttons, set her mouth in a firm line and came toward me, to step by and leave. She would have made it, too, except that I opened my arms and then I knew it was still raining in the city. The folds of the thing were still damp. She melted against me and for one insane second, her mouth was on mine in one of those thousand percent give-ins that was all woman, all sex, and all hunger. I'd had a lousy day myself and I have never asked a dream for credentials. I'm a lot of things, but I'm no idiot.

  She tasted as good as she looked. Warm, fragrant, compounded fire and ice, a union of strength and surrender. She writhed in my arms and I lost myself in her.

  When we broke apart, the flush was still on her face. But it was a different kind of crimson now. Her eyelids were at half-mast, her lips were parted, and she was breathing low.

  "I couldn't let you leave town without doing that—I've wanted to since the first time you smiled at me tonight. I couldn't be sure just how long you'd be here . . . oh, damn you . . ."

  "Why?" I whispered against her dark hair. We were locked in the middle of the room, standing and swaying like a couple of tired marathon dancers.

  "—it's those teeth of yours. So white, and that infernal look on your face. Looking so tough and manly and masculine but your eyes and your mouth give you away. You're an old softie, Mr. Noon . . ."

  "Says you." Even in the midst of the finer things in life, the old Sherlock instinct works overtime, though. "Did you phone your scoop in? Did they raise your salary?"

  "Yes . . . no . . . forget that, please," she said almost pleadingly. "You saved our lives tonight, mine and Charley's, and suddenly all I want to do is be grateful, be glad I'm alive. Maybe that's why I'm acting like a character in a novel but I don't care. I came here because I had to. And now that I have, I'm so glad that I did!"

  "Don't mess with me, Carr. I can be unforgettable."

  "Yes, damn you, I'll bet you can. But don't make any promises you have no intention of keeping."

  "Shut up," I said and kissed her again. She fell against me, and all of a sudden there were too many obstacles between us, too many barriers of the kind that made further madness very, very necessary. We were a pair of fools beneath an olive tree and there wasn't one good reason in the world not to get off our feet.

  "Ed." Her voice was small but filled with meaning.

  "Mmmm?"

  "Isn't there a bed in this place?"

  I laughed in my chest, swept her up in my arms, and carried her all the way. She nestled her head against my shoulder and gently nuzzled my ear. The old invisible orchestra with the million violins was already tuning up and plunging into that crazy head music that seems to fill the whole world at a time like that.

  There was a bed in the next room. A very big bed, in fact.

  We used it.

  My last cigarette made smoke signals in the glass ashtray on the end table.

  She hadn't had that many men in one lifetime. It was obvious but it didn't change anything. She demanded no variation on a theme, made no unusual requests. Her simple libido and psyche were obviously intact. The only thing amazing about her was that despite her intense sophistication and plainly worldly-wise outlook, she was as virginal as they make them. It was so easy to tell, unless she was the world's greatest actress.

  She lay shuddering, naked and ready, beneath me on the bed. A dim patina of neon glare, suffused with raindrops, glittered beyond the curtained windows. Her body was a pliant, pale, lovely blur. What I had seen in the club was all real. She was a woman, with everything that a benevolent nature can provide. She had taken it from there and molded herself into a lithe, athletic tigress. She was probably as well-built or better than anyone I have ever known. I didn't care just then. The time was now, the cosmically satisfying, all-powerful, nothing-quite-like-it present. It's the magic time, all around the universe.

  We met somewhere in the dark, her slender tapering thighs closing around me. Then the basic jungle and tropical thirst and voodoo fever took over. There was no time for words or small talk or investigation. Two strangers were putting their cards in plain sight and one could only hope for the best. Since healthy sex is a reaffirmation of being alive, we both went at it with velvet hammers and lace tongs. We writhed, clawed, twisted, breaking apart and coming together like a set of fingers bunching into a fist. And then, the fever ran down, the thirst was sated, and she was making small whimpering noises that weren't whimpers at all. I don't know what I said, if I said anything at all. It's a cliché, of course, but time had indeed stood still. Suddenly, things like .45's, dossiers, exploding ball-points, and automatic pump guns seemed like the silliest things on the green earth. They always do at times like that.

  "Promises, promises." Her cool breath rippled over my shoulder in the dark. Her head was cradled against my chest as her forefinger traced idle circles around one of my ribs. "You kept them."

  "Where do you really come from? Besides Dreamland, I mean?"

  "Quincy. Know where that is?"

  "Sure. Massachusetts. But you haven't got a Boston accent, at all. Finishing school?"

  "Uh-huh." Her fingers roved playfully and I caught her hand and squeezed it. She laughed. What a laugh she had. It had devils and angels and beloved and temptress written all over it. I hung on to my balance. It was too early for that kind of nonsense. "I left at a very early age. Settled down here. But let's not talk about me. Let's talk about you."

  "Sure. I went to P.S. 34 in the Bronx, graduated Theodore Roosevelt High School, same place, served three years with the United States
Army in War II, and now I'm in bed in Washington with what must be the most beautiful woman on the eastern seaboard at least. Okay?"

  "That's quite a jump," she said.

  "It is," I agreed, "and you are."

  She twisted her head away, raised herself on her hands, and stared down at me. I couldn't see her face but she could see mine. Her outline was shadowy magnificence. The fall of her breasts glistened where the lights from the street-side windows caught them.

  "You are a smasher," she breathed fiercely, "and I don't know what's gotten into me. Maybe I've been too long at the fair, Ed—this was the first time for me in a great while. I don't care if you believe that or not—but I'd like you to. Suddenly, it's important. Don't make me out a D.C. bed-hopper. I'm not. It's—too important to me."

  I found her face with my hands and cupped it.

  "Stop being defensive. You're just fine the way you are."

  "Really?"

  "Really."

  She came down at me, flattening across me, and the same old witchcraft started all over again. Without comment, questions, or instructions. Somehow we managed, without changing places again. She was a great fit for me. And I for her. With a combination like that, how could anything go wrong?

  'Time," she gasped, collapsing against me once more. "Mr. Noon, what are you doing to me? I feel—like a—"

  "Animal?"

  She nodded her head spasmodically in a series of rapid affirmatives, unable to speak.

  "Then consider the experiment a howling success."

  She laughed and then I laughed and pretty soon we were rolling around on that bed with that complete and utterly happy abandon that drives all fears and thoughts of death out the window.

  If Leonard Kanin had walked into the room just then, I would probably have laughed out loud and said, "Hi, kid. Put that heavy bag down and I'll be with you in a minute."

  Sex is like that.

  Love is like that

  But murder and sudden death are not.

  They never are happy.

  Even as we lay locked in each other's arms damning the world to interrupt us, an unknown assailant or assailants broke into a rooming house on Ninth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue and murdered Emil the waiter by the simple and excruciating device of holding a pillow over his face until he stopped moving. Stopped breathing. No one saw or heard anything that amounted to a disturbance. Nobody ever does until it is too late.