The Menacers Read Online Free PDF Page A

pink, when she got around to actually looking at the bosomy lingerie lady on the cover.
    “Tsk, tsk,” I said in her ear. “That’s man-stuff. What you want is a health magazine featuring a muscle-bound weight lifter flexing his oiled biceps. Where can we talk?”
    “Go away!” she whispered urgently. “Go away! We’re not supposed to be seen together. We haven’t been authorized to break cover—”
    I said, “For God’s sake stop playing Sally Spy, girl agent. We’ve been made and you know it, so let’s just skip the cute undercover stuff for the time being. Is that your key?” I took it from her fingers. “Room 116? Let’s go.”

4
    It was a motel-style room entered directly from outdoors, pretty much like mine and, I suppose, like all the others in the place with the exception of a few larger suites or apartments. Two beds were arranged sofa-fashion along the left-hand wall, facing a closet, bathroom, and built-in dresser. A couple of chairs, a low cocktail table, and a luggage stand with a green vinyl suitcase on it, completed the list of furnishings.
    There were doors and windows at both ends of the room. From the parking lot, you could walk right through to the beach—and see right through, too, if the curtains were pulled back. It wasn’t an arrangement that made for a great deal of privacy if you had to leave things open and depend on the sea breeze for ventilation.
    However, with the air-conditioner on, the doors and windows closed, and the draperies drawn, the outside world moved off into the remote distance. Even the usual hotel noises were pretty well masked by the soft hum of the cooling machinery. All that could really be heard from outside was the slow beat of the surf.
    Priscilla Decker stopped inside the door and turned to face me, saying, “Well, Mr. Helm?”
    I let her question, if that’s what it was, hang in the air temporarily. I had other things, and people, to engage my attention. I looked first at the young man standing near the door by which we had entered, because he was holding a gun and aiming it at me.
    Priscilla said, “It’s all right, Tony… Mr. Helm, Tony Hartford.”
    It didn’t seem like a very convincing name. It sounded like something somebody clever had put together, picking the Tony for youthful charm and the Hartford for confidence-inspiring respectability. Of course, there was no reason why it should be his real name, under the circumstances—just as there was no real reason why Priscilla Decker should be hers. Both could have been, and probably had been, picked to suit the characters they were playing.
    I watched Tony put the gun away. His face didn’t break into a smile of greeting, nor did his hand present itself eagerly for a warm handshake. Well, I could live without his friendship. He was what I’d classify as low-grade, pretty-boy help. To be specific, the guy was a lean, tanned, sulky young male specimen with long wavy brown hair that had blondish streaks in it put there either by the sun or by Tony himself with the aid of peroxide or whatever they use for the purpose nowadays. He was wearing very close-fitting light slacks, and a knitted white sports shirt hanging loose about his narrow hips.
    One of these days, the House Un-American Activities Committee is going to discover a significant sign of communist penetration, hitherto overlooked by the subversion experts. It used to be that the chief sartorial difference between a Russian and the rest of humanity was that the Russian wore his shirttail out. Now they’ve got us all doing it, obviously a sinister plot against American decency, neatness, and self-respect…
    Having seen the gun safely stored away, I could afford to look, at last, from Tony Hartford to the fourth person in the room—which was where I’d really wanted to look all the time. I understood, now, why Vadya had found my conversation on the beach mildly amusing. She’d obviously known, as I had not, that O’Leary was a lady. At