9

At five-thirty that Wednesday afternoon, two derelicts on the Bowery managed to complete the raising of sufficient funds for the purchase of some Sterno and a loaf of rye bread through which to filter it. It was not that they required such a vast amount, but they were not particularly prepossessing of appearance, even for beggars—and also, they were not working the most affluent section of town. In any event, they finally got the money and bought their Sterno and rye bread.

One of them, however, was impatient. He was chilled by the falling temperature, trembling from lack of stimulant, and long since convinced that the filtering of Sterno through rye bread was a legend, anyway. His partner shook his head at such philistinism, and proceeded to treat his portion of the can in the time-honored fashion.

When the headlights of the passing patrol car happened to pick up the shadows of the two inert bodies lying in the open doorway, the impatient one was already dead. The other did not die until an hour and a half later, which proves the efficacy of rye bread.

Wednesday–7:00 P.M.

Stanton walked into Clancy’s office. He peeled off his gloves and removed a folded newspaper from his overcoat pocket, laying it on the desk before his superior.

“Hey, Lieutenant,” he said with pride. “Did you see this? A whole article about that Willie McFadden character. The Wealthy Recluse, they call him. I didn’t know it, but his old man was a real big-shot in this town in the old days.”

Clancy glanced down at the article. The picture of Willie McFadden which the newspaper morgue had managed to unearth must have been taken at least thirty years before; it certainly bore no resemblance whatsoever to the shots that had been taken by the police photographer in the house on the Drive the day he died. Clancy scanned the headlines and then looked up at Stanton.

“Does it say anything of use to us?”

“They mention my name,” Stanton said, trying to sound noncommittal about it, and then answered the question, his voice dropping a bit. “No. They don’t say nothing at all, hardly.” He took the paper from Clancy’s hand, opened it to an inside page, and refolded it. His finger pointed. “Here’s where the article goes on. Mentions me and Keller both.”

He handed it to Clancy as the telephone rang. Clancy laid the paper to one side and picked up the phone.

“Yes?”

“Hello? Is that you, Clancy?” The deep accented tones could only belong to Captain Wise. “That information you asked me to get on the delgates to the UN—well, I’ve got it. Hang on a second.” There was a pause and the captain came back on the line. “I’ve got so much junk on my desk … Anyway, here it is. Six of them are staying in the precinct area. The ones from Belgium, Cuba, Israel, Uruguay, and Argentina.”

“That’s only five,” Clancy said, his pencil poised over his pad.

Captain Wise shuffled some more papers. “Oh. Here’s the sixth—Bolivia. I wrote it down on a different sheet of paper.” There was another pause. “I’ve got their addresses here, but my good God, Clancy, we can’t afford to put more men on all that mob. We’re short-handed as hell as it is. Even the traffic detail—they’re predicting snow tonight. Two days ago like summer, maybe hotter, and tonight they’re predicting …”

Clancy had run his finger down the hastily scribbled list. He swore. “Christ! Five of the six are hot-climate countries!”

Captain Wise, interrupted in his tirade, stared at the telephone in puzzlement. “So what’s that got to do with anything if I may ask?”

Clancy tried to sort out his thoughts, speaking more to himself than to his superior. “I’m sure that the three of them came in this morning by plane. They didn’t have overcoats or hats—they had to come from someplace warm. And they were planning on doing a fast killing and catching a plane out tonight—off and gone before the real pressure built up, while the panic and the confusion still had us running around in circles.”

“And?”

Clancy’s mind raced on, picturing the three men descending from a plane that morning. “They probably brought overnight bags with them, so they wouldn’t look too different from the other passengers on the plane; and they stashed them. Together with their papers and their passports and any loose stuff in their pockets. In one of the airport lockers …” He paused, thinking, frowning. “And either one of the other two has the key, or even more likely they ducked it someplace around the airport. They wouldn’t take a chance of any one of them getting caught with the key, and they didn’t know how many would be grabbed in that attempt to mug a cop.”

“Ducked it?” Captain Wise was following Clancy’s theory tensely. “The key? Where?”

“Hell!” Clancy said. “You can hide a key anywhere of a million places at Kennedy Airport. In the top of a flush-tank in a pay-toilet, in the dirt of a potted plant, in the upholstery of a bench in one of the smaller airline terminals …”

“That might be an idea,” Captain Wise said slowly. “If we took a picture of this character downstairs in the cell block and circulated it around the airport—hitting the airlines first that go to these six countries—maybe we’d find somebody who would recognize him. If we identified the airline, we’d have some idea …”

“Time!” Clancy interrupted almost savagely. He brought a clenched fist down on the newspaper before him. “It’s the time—we don’t have it! If I’d have done it when we first picked him up it might have done some good, but I had so many other things on my mind …” He dismissed this excuse as being both thin and pointless. “I’m positive this thing is scheduled for sometime tonight, and two of those characters are loose with Martin’s gun!” He shook his head angrily. “What time does that special session of the UN end tonight?”

Captain Wise’s voice became heavy with worry. “It’s already ended, Clancy. Fifteen minutes ago.” He sounded slightly ashamed, as if it were somehow partially his fault. “I got the word when they called in the last of those addresses.”

“Damn!” Clancy said hopelessly. “Those other two are probably setting up the kill right this minute. Can’t we bum men from some of the other precincts, Sam? Everybody’s been yelling bloody murder about a possible international incident and all that crap, and this is the hottest lead we’ve had so far. I’d bet anything it’s going to be one of the delegates in our precinct. Christ—they could even pull men off some of those other delegates, at least for tonight …”

“They’d never do it, Clancy. Not on a slim hunch like you’ve got. And neither would you if you were in their shoes. And we just can’t cover all six of them any more than they’re being covered. We don’t have the men.” Captain Wise’s voice slowed down a bit. “And even if we did …”

“Even if we did, what?”

“Well, even if we did, you know the chances of stopping a real determined assassin if you don’t know where he’s holed up, or when he intends to pull the trigger, or where he intends to pull it. If we don’t know anything else in this country we ought to know that. Anyway by now. And in this case we don’t even know who they’re laying for. I tell you, Clancy, it’s impossible!”

Clancy refrained with effort from slamming the desk in pure frustration. “I know, Sam. But it burns me to think that three professional killers can come into this country cold, come over into our backyard at the Fifty-second, mug a cop to get his gun, use it to kill a man, and then calmly walk away while we’re running around like a chicken with his head cut off!” His voice was bitter. “Especially when we know …”

His voice trailed off into silence; an almost electric shock passed through his slight frame. His hand reached out for the folded newspaper on his desk, trying to open it, attempting to thrust the sheets back one by one. His hand seemed to be governed by frenzy. Captain Wise’s voice sounded in his ear.

“Especially when we know what, Clancy?”

“Hold it!” Clancy’s voice demonstrated his change from despair to sudden excitement. He laid down the receiver to allow him two hands to flip through the newspaper. He found the page he wanted and ran one finger down a long column of tiny print. His finger froze on a line; he closed his eyes, squeezing them shut, doing a series of rapid mental calculations. When he opened them again they were bright with assured knowledge. He picked up the telephone again.

“Sam! I’ve got it! I’ve got it! Christ, but I’m stupid!” His fingers were locked tightly on the instrument in his excitement. “What’s the address where the Uruguayan delegate is staying?”

“The Uruguayan?” Captain Wise sounded as if he thought the weight of the problem, added to the mounting pressures of the day, had finally carried Clancy over the edge of sanity. “If it was the Cuban I could understand, although he’s probably got such an army of personal bodyguards that you couldn’t get within …”

“Sam! The address!”

Captain Wise swallowed his words and delved hastily into his papers. “Here it is. His name is Hurtado—Armando Hurtado—and he’s staying at the apartment of some friends at 45 West Eighty-fifth Street. Apartment 6K. They’re away on a trip and he’s got it alone.” The information scrawled on the sheets before him left him completely puzzled. “But what makes you think it’s the Uruguayan delegate? According to the dope I’ve got here, he doesn’t even have a bodyguard. He refused one.”

“Later! I’ll tell you all about it later!” Clancy started to slam the phone down and then brought it swiftly back to his ear. “Sam? Are you still there? Listen; get hold of the telephone number for that address and start calling. If you get hold of him, tell him to lock his doors and don’t open them for anyone. Not even me. I’m on my way there now. That’s just in case he gets home before I get there, all in one piece. If he doesn’t answer, keep calling him every couple of minutes.”

“But …”

Clancy had already disconnected. He turned to Stanton. He looked ten years younger and twenty years less weary.

“Stan, I want a squad car and I want it right now! I want it in front of the precinct in exactly two minutes, and tell the desk sergeant I don’t care where it is or what it’s doing—I want it! And get hold of Kaproski. He’s somewhere in the building with that shoe-shine kid. The three of us—we’ll handle it ourselves.” He paused as a sudden possible complication struck him; he almost winced at his own sheer stupidity. “Hold it! Forget the squad car. We’ll go in my Chevy. I don’t want them scared off by seeing a police car.…”

Stanton was staring at him. Clancy came to his feet, his eyes alive. “Well? What are you waiting for? Get Kaproski!”

Stanton turned and left the room swiftly; Clancy stripped off his jacket, slung a shoulder holster in place, and pulled his jacket back on over it. He took his service revolver from his desk, checked it carefully, and slipped it into place. He grabbed his hat and coat on the run and dashed out toward the front.

The three men came hurrying through the heavy doors of the precinct, shrugging their coats into place. The predicted snow had begun to fall; the road before them was white, traced with black lines where passing tires had scarred the smooth surface. Clancy jumped into the front seat of his parked Chevrolet while Kaproski and Stanton began scraping the light accumulation of snow from the windshield. The motor caught weakly, gasped, and then tried to retire once again into its icy sepulcher; Clancy turned the key again viciously, pumping desperately on the gas pedal. The motor came to life, roaring. Clancy ran down the window.

“Stan, you drive. Kap, get in back. Let’s go!”

Clancy slid over on the chilly seat; Stanton got in and slammed the door. The windshield wipers resisted action for a second and then sprang loose, beating quickly across the frozen glass as if anxious to get the car into movement and the case closed. Stanton shifted into gear.

“Where we going, Lieutenant?”

“Eighty-fifth Street,” Clancy said tersely. “Number Forty-five. It’ll be over near Central Park West; it’s one way west, so you’ll have to go up to the park and then down on Eighty-fifth.”

“Right.” Stanton nodded and pulled out into the snowy street; there was the slightest tug at the wheels as they experienced their first slipperiness of the year. Kaproski leaned over from the back seat.

“How do we handle it, Lieutenant?”

Clancy thought a moment; his eyes noted the slow traffic and the snow now falling faster but his mind was busily fixed on formulating a plan. “When we get to the apartment, Kap, you get out and walk into the lobby; we’ll make it look as if you’re a guy we’re dropping off. And then we’ll cruise down the street. Slow. With our eyes open. These characters might be hanging out in one of the areaways under the stairs of one of those old brownstones over that way.”

Stanton glanced over at him and then returned his eyes to the slippery road; his breath steamed in the cold car. He frowned uncertainly. “In weather like this, Lieutenant? And them without coats or hats? They’d freeze their ears off.”

Clancy shook his head. “I’m sure they didn’t arrange a room around there. They wouldn’t have had the time, nor would they want to make that much of a splash.” He thought a moment, trying to picture the possible moves of the two men with Martin’s gun. “They could be hiding out in the basement of the apartment building.…” He turned to Kaproski, speaking to him over the back seat. “You stay in the lobby until we get there. And put your gun in your outside coat pocket—and keep one hand on it. We’ll cruise down the street, and if we don’t see anything we’ll go around the block and come back. If we still don’t see anything, we’ll park just below the entrance. Stanton will stay in the car and I’ll come inside and join you.” His voice hardened. “That’s if we aren’t too late already …”

There was no answer from the two men. Stanton waited for the light to change at Eighty-sixth Street, turned right into Central Park West, and slowed down to turn into the next side street. The snow was pelting down now; the sound of the windshield wipers was a steady rhythmic click-click-click in the dark and chilly car. A cab coming in the opposite direction skidded slightly as it applied its brakes at the changing light and then straightened as the driver decided to gun his car through rather than take a chance of stopping. Stanton eased into the quiet street.

Number Forty-five was a new ten-story apartment on the north side of the street; a canvas canopy, fluttering lightly in the growing wind, connected the building with the street, protecting its small patch of sidewalk solicitously. It was one of the modern buildings, designed and constructed to avoid the necessity of a doorman. Clancy had removed his gun from his shoulder holster and slipped it into his coat pocket; the serrated butt of the weapon felt cold, but reassuring, to his touch. Stanton slowed down; the watchful eyes of all three men swept the immediate area, searching the hidden dark corners, noting the possible hiding places. Everything appeared deserted. Stanton swung the wheel, pulling before the building, shifting into neutral. Kaproski opened the rear door.

Clancy spoke swiftly. “Stay inside the lobby. And keep your eye on any door that might lead to the basement.”

Kaproski nodded agreement, stepped to the sidewalk, slammed the door behind him, and walked quickly across the walk to shove through the double glass doors. Stanton eased the car into gear, edging away from the curb. Beyond the lighted front of Number Forty-five a row of old brownstones stretched to the far corner, their curved stone railings a series of parallel white bands that faded into darkness beyond the scope of the faint glow of the overhead street lamps.

Clancy bent forward, staring tightly from his side of the car while Stanton did the same, bringing his eyes back to the road every second to make sure he held the center of the snow-flecked street. There was no sign of movement anywhere. Clancy frowned. His throat felt tight; his hand squeezed over the butt of his revolver almost convulsively.

They came to the corner. Stanton turned right, speeding up, managed to make the traffic light at Eighty-sixth Street and pushed down on the gas, hurrying to get back to Central Park West and complete his circle of the block. At Eighty-fifth Street he slowed down and once again entered slowly. Everything appeared as before; he applied the brake gently as they neared the apartment, turning to look questioningly at Clancy.

“Park it,” Clancy said tersely. “Just below the apartment. And stay in the car. Turn off the lights and cut the engine. And keep your eyes open. That delegate ought to be getting here soon—if he’s going to get here at all.”

Stanton nodded and drew to the curb. Clancy emerged quickly and walked towards the apartment entrance, his eyes automatically checking the nearest darkened areaways once again. Still no movement betrayed the presence of anyone near. He frowned and pushed through the tall glass doors to the small lobby.

Kaproski was standing there, half-facing the front doors and managing at the same time to cover another door set beside the small self-service elevator. One hand was bunched in his coat pocket. He nodded at Clancy and jerked his head in the direction of the second door.

“It leads to a stairway,” he said quietly. “They go up—and down, too. I didn’t check them out; I figured I’d wait until you got here.”

“They can wait,” Clancy said. “How about the elevator?”

“It’s empty and on this floor,” Kaproski said. He nodded in the direction of the indicator set in the wall beside the push-button. “I pushed the button and the door opened and then closed.”

“Good.” Clancy looked around and then scowled at his wristwatch. “Where in the hell can he be? Even in this weather it shouldn’t take this long to get here from the UN!”

“Maybe he isn’t coming right home …”

“Then we wait for him here if it takes all night,” Clancy said.

A worse thought struck Kaproski. “Or maybe they’re setting the kill up somewhere else.”

Clancy shook his head, although he was far from feeling as confident as he tried to sound. “They wouldn’t know where he might be any more than we do. And this place would be ideal for them.” He frowned, his eyes scanning the modernistic murals that adorned the walls of the lobby. “I wonder where in hell they’re holed up …” He moved to the front of the lobby, peering through the glass, and then stiffened. “Hold it! There’s a cab stopping in front …”

Kaproski moved backwards, setting his back firmly against the door that led to the stairway; any attempt to push it open would have to move him with it, giving ample warning. His large hand tightened ominously on the revolver in his pocket.

Through the glass Clancy could see a figure bending over the back seat of the cab, handing money to the driver. A moment later the figure had opened the door of the cab and was walking quickly across to the entranceway. It was a well-built man wearing a black Chesterfield coat and a Homburg of the same color; in one gloved hand a brown, expensive-looking attaché case swung loosely. He came through the glass doors, noted the two men in the lobby with nothing more than polite disinterest, and walked over, pressing the elevator button. We might as well start with this one, Clancy thought, and stepped forward.

“Pardon me, but is your name Hurtado?”

The man paused, puzzled; a slight frown crossed his handsome face. The elevator door slid open; his eyes flickered to it momentarily and then came back to the man at his side. “Yes, it is. Why?”

Clancy heaved a sigh of profound relief. “We are police officers. I’m Lieutenant Clancy of the Fifty-second Precinct.” He withdrew his wallet, opened it to display his identification, and held it out. The handsome man glanced at it incuriously and then back to the open elevator. As if in response to his attention, the doors slid closed once again. The man shrugged and turned to Clancy. “Yes? And?”

Clancy doubled his wallet and returned it to his pocket. “We’ve been waiting for you, Mr. Hurtado. We have reason to believe there is an attempt on your life being planned.”

A look of complete incredulity crossed the other’s face; it held a moment and then was slowly replaced by a faint smile.

“I’ve heard all of these rumors, of course,” he said. “At the meetings.” His English was excellent, with just the barest trace of accent; it was evident that his schooling had been British. “But I’m afraid you don’t understand. I am the delegate from Uruguay. Such things could not possibly affect me. Our country is not like some of the others.” He shook his head, amused. “I’m afraid you are not very conversant with politics, Lieutenant. Uruguay is quite civilized. In Uruguay …” He allowed the words to trail off. “I’m afraid you must be mistaken.”

“And I’m afraid we are not,” Clancy said gently.

The Uruguayan delegate stared at him a moment, looked around, and then raised one gloved hand expressively. “But you see? I do not even have a bodyguard. I am not armed—in fact, I am never armed. I come alone in a taxi. Why should I have any fear?”

“I’m sorry,” Clancy said firmly. “We still feel and believe our information to be correct. If you don’t mind, we’ll accompany you to your apartment. We …” His words stopped; his eyes widened. Of course! Where else to stay, warm and cozy, protected from the curious glances of passersby and out of the reach of the cold winter blasts? Where else to wait, in such certainty of the eventual arrival of the victim, than in the victim’s own apartment? And certainly getting into an empty apartment would prove no unsurmountable task to men as professional as these! He turned to Kaproski, his eyes lit up with the sureness of his knowledge.

“Kap—you take the steps. We’ll give you time to get to the sixth floor and then we’ll come up by elevator. You make sure that nobody’s in the hall when we get there.” He turned to the handsome figure listening in complete disbelief to the cloak-and-dagger nonsense being uttered so seriously in his presence. “Mr. Hurtado—may I please have the key to your apartment?”

The elegant diplomat shrugged and reached into his pocket. Apparently there was only one way to liquidate this nuisance and that was to play their childish game with them. “All right,” he said. “Of course. But this is truly foolish.…”

The two men rode up in the small elevator without speaking. Kaproski was waiting when they emerged from the tiny cab. With Clancy in the lead and the almost-bored diplomat in the rear, the three men walked quietly down the thickly carpeted hallway.

The entrance to Apartment 6K lay midway along the end passage that intersected the main hallway. Clancy paused, his hand up to stop the others, and surveyed the cross-passage carefully. A single light fixture lit the narrow space; the switch that controlled it was mounted on the stuccoed wall about three feet before the door of 6K. Clancy considered the situation and then nodded. He started to pull the other two with him beyond the projection of the hallway corner, when the faint ringing of a telephone coming from the apartment could be heard.

Señor Hurtado started forward. “That’s …”

“Shhh!” Clancy gripped his arm, dropping his voice almost to a whisper. The ringing continued a moment and then ceased. Señor Hurtado shrugged; he hoped the call had not been from his date for that evening. Clancy stared at the other two. “They can probably see a band of light under the door frame. Mr. Hurtado—please stay here, out of the way. Kap, when I put the key in the lock—and not before—I want you to turn off that switch.” He took his revolver from his coat pocket and checked it. Kaproski did the same. Señor Hurtado’s eyes widened at the sight of the lethal arms. He said nothing.

“Let’s go!” Clancy said in a hoarse whisper, and moved forward with Kaproski at his side.

He stepped to the near side of the apartment door and then slowly lowered himself to the carpeted passageway; for a moment he wondered what would happen if some neighbor came out of his flat at that moment. He put the thought aside and looked backwards over his shoulder; Kaproski was standing with his large hand on the switch. Clancy steadied his gun in his right hand and slowly reached up with his left, the key held firmly in his fingers. And then the telephone inside of the apartment began to ring again.

Clancy froze, waiting. He wanted the sound of the key to be heard inside the apartment. Seconds ticked by, and then the telephone stopped its sound. Clancy looked up at Kaproski and then suddenly nodded. The key slid into the door with a rasp even as the lights in the hallway disappeared. Clancy turned the key and shoved against the door violently.

There was an instant flash from the darkness beyond, followed almost at once by a dull explosion amplified by the confines of the small room. Clancy steadied his hand and fired at the flash. There was a muffled cry, a hideous gasp lost in the sound of the second explosion. Clancy lowered his hand a few inches and fired again. Kaproski ran forward, stepped hurriedly over him and twisted into the room, gun in hand. His fingers found the wall switch and flicked it upwards.

The man seated in the chair had not required the second shot; the first had found his throat and torn through it brutally. He lay spread-eagled back in the low chair, his head thrown back and twisted, as if trying to avoid the horror of death. The hand with the gun dangled at one side of the chair, impersonal and useless, the gun barrel scraping the carpet. At the far side of the room, sitting stunned by this sudden reversal, was the second of the killers. His hands were locked in a death’s grip on the cording of the chair; his eyes were wide with shock, his mouth frozen open in horrified disbelief.

Clancy pulled himself to his feet and followed Kaproski into the room. The thick fumes of cordite gave an acrid tang to the still air of the apartment; Kaproski was already looming over the second man, pulling him brusquely to his feet, locking the handcuffs about the thin wrists. Señor Hurtado appeared in the doorway, his handsome face ashen as he surveyed the bloody scene. Clancy drew a deep shuddering breath, holstered his gun, and moved to the telephone. He dialed a number, cupping the receiver, and then glanced at the white face in the doorway.

“Better stay in a hotel tonight,” he said, listening to the faint buzzing of the telephone at the other end of the line. “And let us know where you are. We’ll try and find out what this attempt on your life was all about.” The telephone was finally answered; he bent to it, explaining. There was a muffled exchange of conversation. “… and call Captain Wise and tell him he can stop ringing this number,” Clancy finished, and hung up. He looked across at the shaken diplomat. “We’ll have some people here in a few minutes. You should be able to move back in tomorrow.”

Señor Hurtado looked faint. “They …”

“That’s right,” Clancy said. “They were going to kill you.” He walked over, contemplated the dead body a moment, and then reached down to pull the revolver from the unresisting dangling hand. He looked at it a moment and dropped it into his pocket. A siren sounded weakly in the distance, growing in strength as it approached.

“If you have any brandy around, I’d suggest you take a good stiff drink. You look groggy.”

The diplomat looked at him blankly. “But why …?”

Clancy shook his head. “We don’t know, but we’ll try to find out.” The siren screamed beneath the windows and then was cut off suddenly; it sounded like a croupy child being given the satisfaction of a warm bottle in the middle of the night. Clancy looked at the pale man before him; his voice was calm.

“And let me give you one last piece of advice. The next time somebody offers you a bodyguard, accept it.”

Wednesday–9:00 P.M.

They brought in the dull-eyed, shocked survivor of the assassination attempt and booked him under the name of Richard Roe. The desk sergeant, pausing in his efforts to keep up with the words of his superior, looked up from the charge-book.

“What do we book him on, Lieutenant?”

“Spitting on the sidewalk,” Clancy said. “We’ll let the State Department worry about that tomorrow.”

He walked down the corridor and turned into his office, pulling off his raincoat and shaking it to free it of snow. Captain Wise was sitting there, his heavy face lined with anxiety. Clancy removed the gun from his coat pocket and laid it on top of the filing cabinet. He hung up the coat, placed his hat on the adjoining hook, slipped out of his jacket, and removed his shoulder holster. He laid it on the desk, put his jacket back on, and walked behind his desk, sitting down with a slight shrug of satisfaction. The holster and gun went into the drawer; he leaned back.

Captain Wise had been watching this routine with poorly concealed impatience. He waited until Clancy had settled down, waited a moment more, and then exploded. “That was a great message you left me! I’m sitting here I don’t know what’s going on and they call from downtown and say I can quit telephoning!”

Clancy grinned. “Well, I didn’t want you to waste your whole evening.”

“Very funny!” Captain Wise forced himself to simmer down. “Well? So what happened?”

Clancy’s grin disappeared. “Well,” he said quietly, “one of them was shot. Killed. And the other is in the process of being booked right now.” His eyes flicked to the top of the filing cabinet and then back to the rigid face before him. “That’s Martin’s gun up there. It’s been checked out.” He shrugged. “You’ll get it all in the report.”

“I know I’ll get it in the report. Only I want it now.” Captain Wise stared at Clancy, his expression half-angry, half-puzzled. “How in hell did you ever figure they were gunning for the delegate from Uruguay?”

Clancy stared back evenly. “Well, I went through the entire picture—how they arrived, what they planned to do, when and how they figured on leaving. The only thing I forgot was the question of money. This character that Martin caught yesterday had new bills on him; the kind you get at a bank. Or at an airport money-exchange counter.” He nodded in satisfaction. “I’m glad I finally had enough brains to think about it when I did—because they were really set to blast him the minute he walked through that door.”

Captain Wise frowned. “This is explaining? What are you talking about?”

Clancy reached into his pocket for his wallet; he sorted through the multiplicity of papers there, extracted the slip that had been found with the bills in Silent Sam’s pocket, and stared at it a moment. Then he passed it over. Captain Wise looked at it briefly and then back at Clancy.

“So?”

“So if they got money at the airport,” Clancy explained patiently, “—I mean dollars—then they had to put up some of their own currency. When I finally got around to thinking of that, I simply checked the newspaper for the exchange rate. The Uruguayan peso is 26.20 to the dollar; it’s been going down.” He leaned over the desk, pointing to the row of figures. “11/16/1500/26.20/57.26—the first two numbers are today’s date, and how I ever came to miss that I’ll never know. And the rest are the arithmetic of the transaction.”

He picked up a pencil and started to scribble on his pad, explaining.

“They put up fifteen hundred of their own money, which are Uruguayan pesos, at an exchange rate of 26.20 to the dollar. For which they received $57.26 in American money. They actually should have received $57.27, but never mind—the exchange always takes the break.” He leaned back, thinking. “Our boy downstairs must have been the boss of the three—they split the dough and he got the lion’s share.”

Captain Wise studied the figures a moment and then looked up. “I see. But what would have happened if they hadn’t bought any dollars at the airport?”

“Then we probably would never have gotten them,” Clancy admitted cheerfully. “If they had bought their dollars in Montevideo, the chances are they would have beat us.” He raised a finger. “But remember this: the money control in foreign countries is a lot tougher than it is here. Here you don’t have to give your name, or show your passport, or even furnish any identification. Most other places you do. They probably figured it was safer the way they did it.” He shrugged. “So they were wrong.”

“And thank God for that!” Captain Wise said reverently. Kaproski came into the room just as the large captain pulled himself to his feet; he stepped back against the wall. A sudden thought came to the captain and he paused.

“You know, Clancy,” he said thoughtfully, “those three killers could have still come from Uruguay, just the way you figured, with the intention of knocking off the Chinese Ambassador, too.”

“Sure,” Clancy agreed. “I thought of that possibility as soon as I saw how cool this Hurtado was. But what can you do? You’ve got to play the percentages.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Captain Wise said, and shook his head. “Personally, I’ll be glad when this whole UN thing is over, and all we have to worry about are our own hoods.”

“Me, too,” Kaproski said fervently from the sidelines. He rubbed his knuckles. “Them guys I can make talk.”

Clancy stared around the room and then began to arrange his folders. “That’s enough for tonight, I guess,” he said vaguely. “I’m bushed. I’m going home.”

“No date?” Captain Wise’s voice indicated more alarm than curiosity.

Clancy’s eyes came up to his a moment in speculation; he nodded slowly. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “you might have an idea at that.…”

He stretched one hand out for the telephone. Captain Wise stood waiting; Kaproski’s eyebrows were raised. Clancy cupped the receiver and looked slowly from one face to the other.

“Oh, pardon me,” Captain Wise said in embarrassment, and walked quickly from the room. Kaproski winked at his superior, and followed. Clancy smiled and spoke quietly into the instrument.