Sight Unseen by Brad Latham Page A

Lockwood felt a trickle of-anger turn to a rush.
    “Get one of your other guys to do it, Manners.”
    Guy sucked on his lip in a meditative way. “Suppose I have the Marines lock you up for insubordination?”
    “You wouldn’t get away with that.”
    “Of course not. But it would take you a while to wiggle out.”
    They just looked at each other for a few moments. Lockwood felt no give to Manners’ position, no smile, no blink, no softening
     of his face.
    “You’re serious, aren’t you?” Lockwood asked.
    “Very serious. My guys don’t look as, let’s call it ‘smooth’ as you do, Bill. Tell Barbara you’re—”
    “Barbara?”
    “Barbara Wilson, the glamour girl in the pics.” Lockwood nodded. “Tell her you’re a businessman, out looking to buy land for
     investment. You look the type. Tell her you got her name from George Captree.”
    “Who’s he?”
    “The guy who gave you her name.”
    “There is a George Captree?” Lockwood asked.
    “Of course! And will she be glad to see you when you use his name!”
    “Give me more, Manners. What’s going on here?”
    The T-man reflected a few seconds before answering. “I guess it can’t hurt to let you in on this. We think she’s a spy for
     the Nazis, a sleeper agent.”
    “Out here? What for?”
    “Northstar’s out here, isn’t it?”
    Lockwood couldn’t counter this.
    Manners continued, “We think she’s in the German-American Bund. Either accidentally or on purpose, Josef D. could be passing
     information on to glamor-puss during their little nighttime trysts. I want that confirmed or denied.”
    “You had this on your mind all along, using me for this, didn’t you?” Lockwood asked.
    Manners smirked and sucked on his cigarette. “Not so much ‘all along,’ chump, but it’s been getting firmer and firmer—the
     more stubborn you got about keeping your dick in places where an insurance dick’s dick don’t belong.”
    “Give me the stupid things,” Lockwood said, obviously irritated, as he reached for the listening devices.
    “Whoa! I got to show you how to make them work, hot shot. Hell’s bells, you get it all wrong and you’ll just have to go back
     and reset them all over again.”
    On his way through Patchogue to Islip, Lockwood stopped at the South Shore Florist and ordered a dozen rosebuds and had the
     florist pack them in white lace and ferns. On the card he wrote:
    Myra,
    What a wonderful evening! Going to be tied up for a couple of days, will call soon.
    Bill
    “Can you have someone deliver them about six o’clock tonight?” Lockwood asked.
    “Oh, yes sir,” the florist replied, “whenever you say.”
    Across the street in the drugstore, Lockwood called ahead.
    “You’re a friend of George?” the nimble voice asked him over the phone. “Sure, come on over.”
    She had a rich contralto voice, well modulated and sure of itself. Lockwood grinned in spite of his reluctance about taking
     the assignment. It might be fun after all.
    “What do you like to drink, Barbara?” Lockwood asked.
    “I like something to drink,” she replied before laughing heartily at her own joke. “Why don’t you bring over a bottle of anisette,
     Mr. Lockwood?”
    “Make it Bill.”
    Her rich laugh again. “Sure thing, Bill. I’ve some wonderful peach and cherry tarts, and it’s that time of the day when coffee,
     tarts, and anisette go well together—if you’re at all like your friend Georgie?”
    “I’ll bring the anisette,” replied Lockwood.
    Neither of the two liquor stores in Patchogue had a bottle of anisette, and the one liquor store in Islip had only a couple
     of bottles. Lockwood thought the sallow proprietor looked at him strangely, and wondered if Barbara Wilson was his only customer
     for the liqueur.
    Barbara Wilson lived at the end of Moffit Lane in a small clapboard house that was set back almost to the point of invisibility
     behind great mounds of hedges and pine trees. He carried the bottle in one hand