The Shadowers Read Free Page A

two tons of luxury machinery handle like a stripped-down racing Ferrari. At that speed, she’d be riding the damn curve right at the limit of tire adhesion for a car that big. When she hauled on the wheel, the Cad started to slide. She panicked and hit the brakes and everything broke loose and she went off into the trees. There was no evidence of sabotage or any other fancy monkey business. There were no bullet wounds, hypo marks, or unexplained bruises. Somebody could simply have pulled alongside and forced her over, of course, but there’s no indication that anybody did.”
    Mac grimaced. “I don’t like accidents involving our people. There’s always a question. Well, I’ll keep in touch in case they should turn up something, but we can’t spend any more time on it now.”
    He glanced at the woman standing nearby, waiting. When he looked her way, she came forward to join us. At close range, I saw that I’d done her a slight injustice in dismissing her with a glance. It was the makeup, or lack of it, that had fooled me. There was also the straight, mousy, pulled-back hair and the horn-rimmed glasses.
    She was moderately tall. Her bulky tweed suit made her figure hard to judge correctly. The straight, loose-fitting jackets currently fashionable may come in handy to disguise an unwanted pregnancy—a problem this lady wasn’t likely to have to face, I judged—but they can hardly be called flattering. Her sensible shoes did nothing for her legs and ankles. Still, she wasn’t obese, emaciated, or deformed.
    As for her face, it had a lot of forehead and chin, as well as a grim, unhappy mouth. I put her age between thirty and thirty-five, although it could have been less. I decided that I didn’t like her. There’s really no excuse for a potentially presentable female to deliberately go around looking like Lady Macbeth after a hard night with the knife. I mean, it’s a kind of reverse vanity that implies a lot of real conceit somewhere.
    While I was looking her over, she was giving me a thorough examination from hair to toenails. She turned to Mac and spoke without enthusiasm.
    “This is your alternate candidate, Mr. McRae? Isn’t he rather tall for an agent? I supposed they were all fairly inconspicuous people.”
    “This is Mr. Paul Corcoran,” Mac said, passing over the personal comments. “Paul, Dr. Olivia Mariassy.”
    Dr. Olivia Mariassy barely acknowledged the introduction with a nod my way. “I suppose that’s an alias,” she said to Mac. “It’s a poor choice. The man is obviously of Scandinavian descent, not Irish.” Still speaking to Mac, she frowned at me: “Well, at least he doesn’t have the slick, ivy-league look of the other prospect. I don’t think I could stomach that crew cut and that button-down collar very long, not to mention the pipe. I think a pipe is nearly always an affectation, don’t you? Do you smoke?”
    The final question was thrown at me. “No, ma’am,” I said. “Not unless my cover requires it.”
    “Cover?”
    “Disguise.”
    “I see. Well, that’s something,” she said. “Only a fool would poison himself with coal tar and nicotine after all the evidence that has been published. Do you drink?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I also run around with women. But I don’t gamble. Honest.”
    That got me another long look through the horn-rimmed glasses. “Well,” she said, “a rudimentary sense of humor is better than none at all, I suppose.”
    Mac said, “Mr. Corcoran’s training and experience—”
    “Please! I’m not questioning the professional qualifications of either candidate. I’m sure they are both very rapid on the draw, if that’s the proper phrase. I’m sure they’re both capable and ruthless and perfectly horrible. Do you play chess?”
    She’d aimed that one at me. “A little,” I said.
    Olivia Mariassy frowned thoughtfully. There was a brief silence. Her head came up. “Well, he’ll have to do. The other was quite impossible.