Liars and Tyrants and People Who Turn Blue Read online

A FAR, FAR BETTER THING

  “This Pedro,” Shelby was saying to Eric, “may have been the same man who supplied the Honduran rebels with their defective arms. If that’s the case, UN Intelligence will take over the investigation.”

  “Then you’ll be out of it?”

  “Almost certainly.”

  Eric didn’t say Thank God for that; it wasn’t necessary. Shelby knew what he was thinking.

  “Was Tee here today?” Eric asked.

  “Yes. Why?”

  “She left one of her accouterments behind.” He held up one of Tee’s hand grips. “Will she be needing it tonight?”

  “No, she has half a dozen of those things. I’ll drop it off when I get back.”

  Eric was trying out the hand grip. First he tried one hand, then the other. Then he tried both together, until he was grimacing from the effort. “My God, how does she do it? I can’t make this thing close even with both hands!”

  Shelby laughed. “You’d have to be the strong man in the circus to do that. Tee gets those grips made to order. None of the regular commercial hand grips have coils tight enough to do her any good.”

  Eric put down the grip and shook his hands to get rid of the sting. “What time are you leaving tomorrow?”

  “About eight. Dr. Wedner said count on two days, so I’ll be back around dinnertime Thursday.”

  “Are you staying with the Wedners?”

  “Yes, as usual.”

  “New Brunswick isn’t that far. Why not just drive back tomorrow night?”

  “The two days include one night session. Either that, or stretch it out to three days.”

  Eric nodded, familiar with Dr. Wedner’s working habits. Wedner was one of those scientists who just kept going until somebody could make them understand it was time to stop for a while. “What kind of new instrument is it he wants to test?”

  “It’s supposed to measure my neurological responses to different shades of the same color. Red in my case, of course.”

  “I thought they ran that test last year.”

  “They tried to, but the testing instrument wasn’t up to it. This is a new improved model.”

  Eric grunted. “Sounds like something advertised on television. Well, I hope it isn’t too tedious for you.”

  “I’m used to it by now.” Shelby had been making the short drive down to the Rutgers campus off and on for almost four years so Dr. Wedner and his staff could learn everything they could about her aura-reading ability. She’d read a dozen articles about herself in scientific journals in which she was referred to only as “the subject”—the good doctor’s attempt to shield her against undesirable publicity. But Shelby herself had sabotaged that strategy when she began working with the New York police. Then at police conventions and such the NYPD had passed on the word that one Shelby Kent was more accurate than voice stress analysis and polygraph combined—and the rush was on.

  Eric wanted to talk to Shelby about something, but he decided to put it off until she got back from New Brunswick. It wouldn’t be fair to dump it on her right before she left. Besides, he hadn’t quite made up his mind as to the best approach to take with her.

  He’d had a nibble about a new job. A man he’d lunched with had oh-so-casually let it be known that the San Diego Chargers would soon be looking for a new Director of Promotion. The man himself was an intermediary, sent to sound Eric out, to learn if he’d be interested in talking about a move. Eric had tried to remain casual as he admitted the possibility might hold some interest for him.

  Hold some interest for him! He’d jump at it. Here was the one thing he and Shelby needed the most—a chance to make a fresh start. A chance to get away from the sniggering and the elbowing and the jokes behind his back. A chance to get Shelby away from those sordid criminal types she was spending more and more time with. A chance to live a normal life again.

  But Shelby wouldn’t give it all up just because he asked her to—he knew better than that. It would be hard enough for her to leave her sister and Dr. Wedner’s testing program at Rutgers. But airplanes flew west-to-east too: she could make frequent trips back. Those things could be handled. What might cause trouble was Shelby’s plain old-fashioned stubbornness.

  If there were only some way to make her understand what her so-called career was doing to him. Could a woman understand such things as the sort of shifting allegiances going on in Eric’s world? He hadn’t told her about that humiliating episode with Buck and Hubbs and the new sports writer. Maybe he should tell her—that might make her see. How he and Buck and Hubbs had been a team handling an outsider who could be of use to them. How her name had come into the conversation—and all of a sudden it was Buck and Hubbs and the writer versus Eric. Suddenly he was the outsider. And he didn’t like it out there. He was a team player, had always been a team player.

  Another thing. Shelby didn’t like the west coast very much—in fact, she hated it. This wasn’t going to be easy.

  But maybe nothing would come of it anyway. Friday Eric had an appointment with a man fairly high up in the Chargers hierarchy; he’d know where he stood a little better after that. If the prospects looked good, he’d tell Shelby about it this weekend. This weekend, yes, that was better.

  In the meantime, he still had the Jets to worry about. Eric needed something to hype season-ticket sales. The competition for the entertainment dollar got a little fiercer every year, and people in Eric’s profession were reduced to thinking up gimmick after gimmick after gimmick.

  Maybe a new mascot?

  CHAPTER 11

  OUT ON A LIMBO

  There was a young man from Japan,

  Whose limericks never would scan.

  When told this was so,

  He replied, “Yes, I know,

  But I always try to get as many words into the last line as ever I possibly can.”

  New York Times:

  Arrest Made in East

  Harlem Arsenal Case

  Police yesterday arrested Pedro Yglesias, no address, in connection with the storage of weapons and ammunition in a 114th Street warehouse. Juan Martinez, apprehended by police last week, claims Yglesias hired him to guard the warehouse and provided him with sidearms for that purpose.

  Yglesias denies all knowledge of the warehouse and its contents. Almost all of the stored weapons are defective, according to Police Sgt. Luis Delgado.

  … but Senator Bromfield says the accusation of improper conduct is politically motivated.

  On the local scene, Pedro Yglesias, the man police say amassed an arsenal of useless weapons in East Harlem, is in a little deeper tonight. Captain J. S. Gulbransen of the freighter Margarita bound for Capetown, South Africa, says Yglesias tried to bribe him into taking on cargo illegally. Captain Gulbransen has identified Yglesias as the man who approached him about shipping a number of crates without the freight forwarding documentation required by federal and international law. Gulbransen said Yglesias claimed the crates contained Japanese motorcycle parts. Yglesias is still denying any knowledge of the arsenal. Last year Captain Gulbransen was charged with smuggling by the Treasury Department, but those charges were later dropped.

  Elsewhere in the news …

  Eric: “Any chance they’ll call you in to listen to whatsisname, Yglesias?”

  Shelby: “They don’t need me. They already know he’s lying.”

  TWX 24.6/9B UNIA HQ ATTN SIR JOHN DUDLEY BOTH SURVIVING HONDURAN LEADERS POST PHOTO IDENT PEDRO YGLESIAS SUPPLIER DEFEC ARMS RPT FOLLOWS

  Sir John: “Only one Pedro after all. And he didn’t even bother to use a false name. He was either very sure of himself or very amateurish. Amounts to the same thing in the long run. You were right about Africa, Gilbert—that was the next stop. Now we need to know who gave Pedro Yglesias his orders. He’s held out longer than I thought he would.”

  Gilbert: “Lean on him a little?”

  Sir John: “A little.”

  UN Ambassador Implicated

  In Defective Arms Plot
>
  NEW YORK (AP)—Pedro Yglesias, alleged entrepreneur of defective weaponry, has told UN Intelligence officers he was acting under the direct orders of Mañuel Aguirrez, head of the Mexican delegation to the United Nations, when he supplied terrorists with arms and ammunition.

  According to Yglesias, Ambassador Aguirrez has ordered the illegal shipment of arms three times. Yglesias, a Mexican national, claims he arranged transportation in each case without knowing the weapons’ point of origin.

  The first shipment was of rifles and ammunition from New York to Honduras. The weapons had been stolen from a U. S. Army supply train in 1943. Yglesias claims Ambassador Aguirrez arranged the purchase of the rifles while Yglesias was responsible for their delivery.

  Yglesias also admits shipping defective grenades to Seminole, Alabama, again disclaiming knowledge of their source. Yglesias was trying to arrange shipment of weapons to Capetown, South Africa, when he was arrested.

  After admitting complicity in three illegal shipments, Yglesias denied supplying arms to Burmese insurgents last February. UN Intelligence confirms that the Burmese weapons were also defective.

  Ambassador Aguirrez could not be reached for comment.

  CHAPTER 12

  EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMIDOR

  Our researchers into Public Opinion are content

  That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;

  When there was peace, he was for peace; when there was war, he went.

  —W. H. Auden, “The Unknown Citizen”

  “He lost his papers,” Kevin Gilbert said. “That’s what happened.”

  “His papers?” Sir John frowned.

  “His shipping papers. Yglesias says Ambassador Aguirrez provided him with shipping papers—probably forged—and he lost the ones for the Harlem weapons. The ones intended for Africa.”

  Sir John shook his head in amazement. “So then he goes out and makes that clumsy attempt at bribing the captain?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Gilbert, not stating the obvious.

  Sir John stated it. “Hardly jibes with my idea of a super-efficient organization at work, does it? I still smell conspiracy, but this Pedro Yglesias … the man’s a fool. What did he do—just ask around for the name of a ship’s captain with a shady past?”

  “That’s about it. He said he was afraid to tell Aguirrez he’d lost the papers and ask for new ones. Seems he’d messed up an earlier shipment. To Peru. That one never got off the ground, fortunately for us. So rather than tell Aguirrez he’d goofed again, Yglesias tried to arrange a shipment without the papers. He’s obviously an amateur—didn’t know the first thing about what he was doing.”

  “Did he know why he was doing it? What reason did Aguirrez give him for all this extraordinary shipping of weapons hither and yon?”

  “Well, sir, he’s not too clear on that. Something to do with fighting tyranny. Aguirrez told him it was all part of a top secret operation and he shouldn’t ask too many questions. At least that’s what Yglesias says Aguirrez told him.”

  Sir John looked disgusted. “‘Fighting tyranny’—a suitably vague phrase. You don’t suppose the esteemed Mexican ambassador to the UN is in it for the money, do you? Selling worthless weapons for whatever he can get? He’s going on television tonight, you know—going to deny the whole thing.”

  “Will it do him any good?”

  “Probably not. There’s talk of a Security Council commission to inquire into the matter. If it goes that far, we’re going to have to come up with some hard evidence of Aguirrez’s involvement.”

  “There are several lines of investigation we can—”

  “Good, put it all in your report. I’m taking you off the arms investigation temporarily. There’s somebody I want you to check out personally.”

  Gilbert nodded, thinking Ambassador Aguirrez.

  “A woman named Shelby Kent,” Sir John said. “Lives here in New York. Assign someone to run a security check on her. What I want you to investigate is the reliability of a rather unusual talent she has. It seems the lady is a human lie detector. The information I have is that nobody can tell her a lie and get away with it.” Sir John noticed the incredulous look on Gilbert’s face and smiled. “She’s been working as a police consultant for a couple of years. The New York police officer who caught Pedro Yglesias swears by her.”

  Gilbert started to laugh but then cut the laugh off short. “A human lie detector. You mean she’s a psychic?”

  “Not exactly. True, some police departments still do call in psychics—to help locate missing persons or describe murderers by handling their victims’ belongings or some such jiggery-pokery. This Shelby Kent doesn’t do anything like that. She, ah, reads an aura that people supposedly give off when they lie. Start with Dr. Bernard Wedner at Rutgers University—he’s been running tests on her. Then check the police she’s worked with.”

  Gilbert still looked skeptical. “She reads an aura and knows when people are lying?”

  “That’s the word.”

  “Excuse me, Sir John, but that’s hard to believe. Why have I never heard of her? Why hasn’t she been in the news, why haven’t books been written about her? That’s really incredible—a human lie detector!”

  “Yes, it is a bit hard to believe,” Sir John admitted. “That’s why I want you to investigate personally. If her talent is indeed foolproof—and I’ve been assured that it is—we’re going to need the lady’s services. As to why you’ve never heard of her, she simply prefers it that way. If she’d wanted to capitalize on her talent for personal fame and fortune, she certainly had the means to do so—she’s married to a PR man. But only Dr. Wedner and his team and the police have known about her officially. But policemen talk, just like everybody else. Her ‘secret’ isn’t really a secret any more.”

  “And you’re thinking of using her … to question Aguirrez?”

  “Possibly. I’m also thinking the Security Council’s commission of inquiry might like to know about her. If it comes to that.”

  For the first time the thought came to Kevin Gilbert that the old man was getting senile. To get taken in by something so patently phony as a human lie detector—what kind of con job was this Kent woman working? What was she after? She had to be good … how else could she have fooled the police? So no séances or obvious show biz tricks like that. He’d find out what she did and how she did it. By God yes, he’d find out.

  “Do you object to the assignment?” Sir John asked wryly.

  “No sir, I welcome it,” Gilbert answered grimly.

  CHAPTER 13

  MACHO DO ABOUT NOTHING

  Eric Kent looked around the bar with distaste. Theater people. Half of them neurotic and the rest flaming homosexuals. All using their profession as an excuse for any self-indulgent gesture that appealed to them.

  “Hello, sweetheart,” said the carefully made-up creature standing beside him at the bar. “I haven’t seen you in here before.” The carefully made-up creature was male.

  “Looking for someone,” Eric said rudely and turned his back.

  “Now, now, mustn’t be uppity. Maybe I can help. Whom seek ye?”

  Eric looked back at the rouged and mascaraed face and thought what the hell. “Max Bradley. Know him?”

  “Oh, you’re a friend of Max’s. He’ll be along in a bit. My name’s Vincent. What’s yours?”

  “Eric Kent,” said Eric, being careful to separate the hard c in Eric from the K in Kent. “Are you sure he’ll be coming here?”

  “Sweetheart, I just left him at the theater and I can assure you he needs a drink. He’ll be here. You’re not in the profession, are you? No, I thought not. How do you know Max?”

  “His wife and mine are sisters.” Why am I explaining myself to this freak?

  “Oh, family,” Vincent twinkled. “How nice. You here for a little male bonding?”

  “None of your damned business what I’m here for,” said Eric, exasperated.

  Vincent giggled. “My, you really are a b
reath of stale air, aren’t you? You really should learn to relax, sweetheart.”

  “Don’t call me sweetheart.” Eric was relieved to see Max come into the bar; he raised an arm and waved.

  Max was surprised to see him, and even more surprised to find him with Vincent. “Hello Eric?” Making it a question.

  “I thought I could catch you here. Can we talk? Privately?”

  Vincent pretended to be hurt. “I was just keeping your brother-in-marriage amused until you got here,” he told Max. “Now I am to be discarded like a used Kleenex. Egad.” He drifted away.

  “How can you work with people like that?” Eric didn’t even try to hide his revulsion.

  Max found Eric’s reaction to Vincent depressing. “Vincent is one of the best choreographers I know,” he said mildly. “The dancers love to work with him. He never gets mad, he never shouts. And he gets results.”

  Eric heard the note of reprimand in Max’s voice and dropped the subject. “Can we get a booth?”

  Max asked the bartender for a martini and led Eric to an empty booth. “Now. What’s on your mind?”

  Eric plunged right in. “I’m going to be offered a job with the Chargers. I had a long meeting today with some people from San Diego, and it looks good. It’ll be a step up for me, and I want to take it.”

  “That’s great, Eric,” Max said, sincerely pleased for him. “Congratulations.”

  “But there’s a problem. Shelby.”

  Max frowned. “I know Shelby doesn’t like California, but once she gets started with the police out there—”

  “That’s the problem. She mustn’t ‘get started’ with the police out there. It’s a chance for her to break away from all that nonsense and live a normal life.”

  Doubledoubletoilandtrouble. “I doubt that Shelby will ever live a ‘normal’ life,” Max said slowly. “She’s unique, you know—nobody else is like her. It’d be a mistake to try to force her into a normal mode of living.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” Eric snapped. “But I have to be the judge of what’s best. Shelby’s not known on the west coast. We’d have a chance out there. Max, you’ve got to take my word for it—it would be best if Shelby dropped her police work altogether.”