Manhunt. Volume 9, Number 2, April 1961

“You saw the signal. I don’t drink two cups of water because I like the stuff.”

The man’s scowl dissolved into a thick smile. “You must be Quill. They said you were a big, independent bastard.” He sobered abruptly. “Okay. She’s in the second seat from the rear, left side. Dark blonde, wearing a brown wool suit and a white blouse.”

Johnny’s hand tightened on the shaver. He’d never had to kill a woman before. “What did she do?”

“I’ll get to that, Quill. She’s only half the package. Her husband is the other half.”

“Oh?” The back of his neck prickled. This was beginning to sound like a nasty one. “Isn’t he sitting with her?”

“He’s sitting in hell for all we know. He pulled out of our operation in Montana three years ago. We’ve been watching the woman ever since, waiting for him to get in touch. Last week she bought a ticket to Trinidad.”

Johnny turned. “Trinidad’s a jump-off. He could be in Central or South America.”

“I doubt it. She can’t go far past Trinidad without making contact. He cleaned out their bank account when he left, and she sold her old car to buy the ticket.”

“Considerate husband. Is he dangerous?”

“To the organization he’s poison. Knows too many names. To you...” The stocky man shrugged. “He hasn’t played in your league. Spent all his time on the gambling end. Started in Montana, was working in Havana when that caved in on us. They moved him back to Montana and he finally joined the bottle a day club. About the time we decided he wasn’t a good risk, he disappeared.”

“What about his wife? Didn’t he have enough sense to keep her out of it?”

“Until he left, yeah. But he must’ve got a message to her telling her where he is, and he might’ve told her some other things. I think you’d better hit her, too.”

Johnny’s jaw tightened. “I don’t give a damn what you think. What’re the orders?”

The stocky man scowled. “Just make sure she isn’t dangerous.”

Wonderful, thought Johnny. Ten more years and they’ll let me wipe my own nose. How do you make sure of someone unless they’re dead? “They have names, these two?”

“Howard and Norma McLain. But they’d probably change them. Here’s a photo.”

Johnny took the two-by-three studio portrait. The man had curly black hair and big moist eyes. Lush-type, thought Johnny, the kind who marries a woman because he wants a mother.

The woman took his breath for a second. Her pale eyes jumped from the photo and pierced him with sharp intelligence. The forward set of her jaw told Johnny she probably wore the pants in the family; the smooth, wide slope of her shoulders hinted that she’d fill them beautifully.

What a waste, he thought. What a helluva waste.

He shredded the photo and flushed it into the Atlantic. “You say you watched her for three years?”

“I helped.”

“She have a lot of friends?”

“Hell! She never even smiled at the butcher.”

Thoughtfully, Johnny unplugged his razor and returned it to the shaving kit. The job might be slightly interesting, after all. “Anything else?”

“Yeah. I get off in Burmuda and you’ll be the only one watching her. Don’t lean on her. If she gets scared, she won’t make contact.”

“Don’t be elementary.” He zipped up the shaving kit. “You better go now, before they start thinking we’re a pair of queens.”

The stocky man started out, then paused with his hand on the doorknob. “Oh. Cantino’s your contact in Trinidad. He’ll send a man to help you.”

Johnny frowned. “Everybody knows I work alone. What’s Cantino in for?”

“Orders.” The man’s thick smile appeared again as he backed out the door. “Somebody up there doesn’t trust you, Quill.”

The door closed, and a chill climbed Johnny’s spine. He thought of the money he’d been stuffing into the bank in Zurich for nearly two years. Tough, if they found that. The organization looked at secret bank accounts the way wardens look at hacksaws.

He was sure of one thing; he had to do this job by the book.

He left the lavatory and walked to the magazine rack at the rear of the plane. Norma McLain sat with her knees pressed together, small hands folded in her lap, staring out the window. As Johnny passed her seat, she rubbed her palms against her cheeks in a tired gesture, revealing the red crescents of her lower lids.

He took a copy of Country Life and returned to his seat. Norma McLain didn’t look like a wife bound for a joyous reunion with her husband. She reminded him of a rabbit with its foot in a trap.

And that’s two of us, doll, he thought.

Tailing a woman on an island-hopping flight had its own built-in problems, Johnny found.

In Bermuda, Norma McLain spent the twenty-minute layover in the ladies’ room, while Johnny chain-smoked in the waiting room and eyed everyone who came and went. Her ticket to Trinidad might be a red herring. She could meet her husband anywhere, even in a ladies’ room.