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I don't believe, performed the blazing ears illusion for nearly a
decade."
"I'm glad you decided to revive it today," Gomez said. "Now let's
sneak off to someplace quiet where you can tell me the rest of---"
"I'll come along, too." From out of the wings stage right came
Jenny Keaton of the Internal Security Office.
The Chief Inspector pointed at Jake. "You had no right to be here," he
said accusingly. "It is quite probable, Herr Cardigan, that you
hastened the poor fellow's death."
They were in a stark white office, Jake, Spellman, the doctor who'd
attended Will Goldberg and Chief Inspector Hauser.
Jake, who was sitting in a stiff white chair, said, "His death was
arranged before he even turned himself in. Goldberg was never more
than a diversion."
"I admit," said Hauser from behind the wide metal desk he'd taken over,
"that the circumstances of his death are suspicious."
"To say the least," said Jake. "They wanted to sidetrack you and the
other investigating agencies. Long enough, anyway, to cover their
tracks some."
"There is still the possibility, however, that the young man
administered the fatal injection to himself," said Hauser. "Making
this, then, nothing more than the suicide of the guilty person."
Jake shrugged. "Suicides usually don't complain about being double
crossed he said. "I'd bet that Goldberg was surprised by what was
happening to him."
"He apparently talked a little before he expired," said Chief
Inspector Hauser.
"This man virtually shook the words out of him," accused the portly
physician, "In my opinion he--"
"Yes, fine, doctor." The Chief Inspector turned to Spellman.
"What exactly did Goldberg say at the end?"
"That he'd been double crossed that they'd fucked him," he replied. "He
also mumbled something about sun and sand."
"What do you think he was alluding to with that?" Hauser inquired of
Jake.
"Probably a dying hallucination. He thought he was out in the desert
somewhere. Sun, sand."
"The actual word he spoke was sands," offered the doctor.
"With an S."
Hauser nodded at Jake. "Could that have been, Herr Cardigan,
a reference to Bennett Sands?"
Jake shrugged again. "Bennett Sands is dead and gone." "Suppose,
however, that the word he used was s-o-n and not s-u-n," suggested
Hauser. "Perhaps Will Goldberg tried, as he was dying, to warn you
that some of Sands' followers meant to harm your son."
"That doesn't seem likely to me."
The portly doctor said, "If Sands is a person, then the patient was
talking about Sands' son and not this man's."
"How does that strike you, Herr Cardigan?"
"The only problem there, Inspector, is that Sands didn't have a son.
Only a daughter."
Spellman said, "If you'd cooperate with us now, Jake, instead of
holding back, it would help."
"I don't know what he was trying to convey, beyond the fact that he'd
been set up," Jake told him, standing. "Are you folks going to charge
me with anything?"
"Not at the present," said Hauser. "In fact, it might be a good idea
if you left Berlin now."
"Until I got here you were all satisfied that Goldberg was the one you
wanted. Now you--"
"Not satisfied, Herr Cardigan, but simply checking out the facts."
Hauser rose, too.
Jake walked over to the door of the office. "Thanks for your help,
Rhinehart. I hope I haven't screwed up your career too seriously."
Nodding at them, he left.
Grunting and mumbling, Gomez succeeded in getting the heavier of the
unconscious gunmen up over his shoulder. "A waste of time, chiquita,"
he informed Jenny.
She was dragging the other stunned gunman across the stage by his
armpits. "I didn't have a very high opinion of you to begin with," the
blonde agent told him. "But I didn't realize how slipshod you--"
"Running a check on these goons isn't going to enlighten you." He
followed her into the wings, legs wobbling some. "Smartest thing to do
is just leave them here."
"On the contrary, I'm darn certain that--"
"They're freelancers, hired for this one job."
The Amazing Otto, bringing up the rear, urged, "We ought to get out of
this theater as soon as possible. They may send more killers looking
for me, nein?"
"I'd have fled several minutes ago," answered Gomez. "But I'm obliged [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]