Nick Carter

The Code

Dedicated to The Men of the Secret Service of the United States of America

Prologue

I didn’t make it to Kirby’s funeral. I was in Singapore at the time, wearing a beard and glasses and posing as a turncoat missile expert eager to sell American secrets to the Chinese Communists. I played my role well enough to eliminate one of Mao’s key agents and crack an information pipeline he had established, to pick up a couple of bullets in my side, and to receive a coded wire of congratulations from Hawk, the guiding genius of the dirty work division that employs me. We call it AXE. We’re the good guys.

When a belated report of Kirby’s death reached me, I was in a British hospital on the north coast of the Malay Peninsula, recuperating. Hawk had sufficient pull with the British to get me good doctors, a soft bed, and a pretty nurse. The news about Kirby spoiled it all.

Kirby had been one of AXE’s best agents, sharp and dependable. We had worked together on some sticky jobs in Latin America, the kind of jobs that put you to severe tests. I hadn’t forgotten how Kirby, a cool man in a clutch and a skilled helicopter pilot, had picked me off a boat in Cuban waters just before the craft exploded into more small pieces than a jigsaw puzzle.

Now he had been murdered and AXE didn’t know who his killers were. Finding them was to be my next assignment.

One

The plane delivered me to a private landing strip in the Florida Keys. A car sat waiting with a tall, expressionless man leaning against the hood. I recognized him. He was one of the two AXE agents who worked as Hawk’s body guards. His name, appropriately, was Smith.

This proved to be one of Smith’s talkative days. He spoke all of eighteen words as he drove me toward my rendezvous with Hawk.

“The Old Man is biting nails,” he said. We were racing along a deserted road with the limousine’s speedometer needle nudging 70. “I can’t remember when I’ve seen him in such a foul mood.”

The reason for Hawk’s unhappiness wasn’t difficult to figure out. No one would be unconcerned after losing an agent like David Kirby.

The limousine swept around a curve and I saw a lonely cottage perched at the end of a hardpacked road. Beyond the cottage, an empty dock probed out into the quiet bay. The Gulf of Mexico shimmered in the distance like colored glass hammered by the sun.

A wind was blowing in on the island, tousling Hawk’s white hair. He was waiting outside the cottage as we pulled in. Smith’s carbon copy, the second expressionless operative who could usually be found near Hawk, stood at the door.

“This is the place where the killings occurred,” Hawk said, gesturing with a quick, angry chop of his hand toward the house. “I’ll take you inside in a minute.”

“Thanks for sending for me.”

“I’m not springing you loose on a vendetta, Nick. I sent for you because I need you.”

He gave me a level look, then went on. “We’ve managed to reconstruct some of the details. The killers were driving a small truck. They stopped back there,” he pointed, “and cut the telephone wires leading to the house. Then they approached the house and persuaded someone to admit them, probably on the pretense of checking out the phone. We think they were dressed like linemen. They took Kirby and the man Kirby had come here to meet completely by surprise, and killed them and two others who were in the cottage at the time.” There was a trace of bitterness in his voice as he added, “We still don’t know who they were and we can only guess at their motives.”

“How many people are we looking for?”

“As an educated guess, I’d say four. At least two were carrying automatic rifles. One had a shotgun. We found tracks where one of them circled the house to approach it from the rear. He broke in the back door and they caught the men inside in a crossfire. It was an ugly piece of work.”

The wind buffeted us as we walked toward the house, Smith following silently behind.

“What was Kirby’s assignment?” I asked.

“He came here to talk to the man renting the cottage. The man was Frank Abruze.”

The name made me halt in mid-stride. “The Mafia’s Frank Abruze?”

“None other. The legendary Frank Abruze. One of the few men the Mafia ever agreed to retire with honors. He’d suffered a heart attack and decided he wanted to spend his last days in Sicily. The Mafia’s board of directors voted to okay his retirement and pay him a small pension for loyal service.” Hawk permitted himself a thin smile. “The pension was somewhat better than a gold watch. Two hundred thousand a year, as a matter of fact. We had learned that Abruze was leaving the country within a few weeks and Kirby had established contact with him.”

“I’d be interested to know what they had to talk about, an AXE agent and a former Mafia capo.”

“Abruze’s travels, Nick. He was a man who was trusted by conflicting factions within the Brotherhood and when they had a touchy errand to be run abroad, they often sent him.” Hawk touched my arm. “Let’s go inside the cottage now.”

Hawk’s other bodyguard, whose name was Corbett, opened the door for us. I almost winced when we stepped inside. The place had been closed up for months but it still seemed to hold the smell of death.

“Frank Abruze was an interesting man, an individualist. I won’t say I respected him. His record was too bloody,” Hawk continued, “but he had been one of the leaders in opposing Mafia involvement in the international drug traffic. He had vigorously fought against it within the last two years, when the U.S. arm of the Mafia was offered a deal by an Asian group that controlled choice opium fields in Indochina.”

“This was before the heart attack that led him to retire?”

“Right. Then when Abruze happened to get wise to the Communist guerrilla angle in the deal everything blew sky-high. He laid his findings before the Mafias high council and suggested they reconsider the proposition. This time the vote went his way. There were dissenters, but the board decided to cancel the deal.”

“I get the picture. Abruze had information about the opium fields we could use. Kirby was trying to persuade him to give it to us.”

“Abruze’s virtues were few, but one of them was a belief that communism wasn’t the wave of the future. There was reason to hope he would cooperate with us. Also, Kirby had a suspicion that Abruze had some information about the Communists. It’s possible that their Mafia contacts were involved with them in more business than just drugs.”

“What kind of business?”

“Kirby didn’t know. Abruze had only hinted that he knew something that AXE might find very interesting.”

Hawk led me into a room where the walls were riddled with bullet holes. He gestured angrily. “The killers didn’t take any chances, as you can see. They sprayed enough lead around in here to kill a dozen men.”

“Abruze had a tough reputation. Heart attack or no heart attack, he wasn’t a man to play around with. They had to make sure there were no survivors.”

Hawk nodded. “They were quick and efficient, I’ll give them that. And absolutely coldblooded.”

“You said two other persons were killed Abruze’s boys?”

“His personal bodyguards.”

I opened a window and let a breeze in. I thought about the old Mafia capo and my friend Kirby lying on the floor with their bodies torn apart by bullets. I took a deep gulp of the cool air streaming against my face.

“How does the Mafia feel about Abruze’s death?”

“My usually reliable sources say they profess to be appalled that one of their trusted elder statesmen got bumped off. But remember that Abruze’s views were opposed by some and that he had made enemies in his time. The important thing to me is that one of our top agents was killed under circumstances I can’t explain. I don’t plan to shrug that off any more than you do. I want the slayers found.”

“There are three possibilities,” I said. “Communist agents, old enemies of Abruze, or someone who didn’t like his putting a damper on the Asian drug deal.”

Hawk spilled cigar ashes on his trousers and brushed them away. “Four possibilities. Remember my mentioning Abruze’s $200,000 a year pension? He had the first year’s payment here in the house. It disappeared along with the killers.”

“Ripping off one of the Mafia’s most feared capos? It would take a crazy man to come up with an idea like that.”

Hawk stood up abruptly. “Look at those bullet holes. Do you think the man responsible for this was sane?”

He had a point.

I followed Hawk outside. “I’ve seen the house and heard the story, but you didn’t rush me down here just for this. What’s the rest of it?”

“There was another person in the cottage, one who escaped the slaughter. We’ve finally found her.”

The girl looked like a million pre-inflation dollars. She was a blonde, young, and long-limbed. Although she wore a coat with the collar turned up, I caught a glimpse of her face as she came out of a restaurant and onto the street. She had high, prominent cheekbones and wide, dark eyes — a fragile set of features unmarked by the cynicism and toughness I had expected.

“Freeze it right there,” Hawk said to the man operating the projector. We sat in the shadowy projection room of one of AXE’s main bases studying the motionless image on the screen. “Her name is Sheila Brant, but she isn’t calling herself that anymore,” Hawk said. “We had a hell of a time finding her.”

I was having trouble believing what Hawk had told me about Sheila Brant. It didn’t go with the fineboned face and the soft eyes.

“You sure she was Frank Abruze’s mistress?”

“No doubt about it. But we know very little about what she was before Abruze picked her up in Vegas.”

I let out a disappointed sigh. I guess there’s no law that says a beautiful girl of twenty-two can’t find happiness in the bed of an aging Mafia hood. “The old Hon had taste.”

“Much like yours, as a matter of fact,” said Hawk, his voice grown sardonic. Then he continued, “When we learned that Sheila had been staying at the Florida cottage with Abruze and was not among the dead, we started looking for her. She had hidden her tracks well.”

“Who is she running from? AXE, the law, the Mafia?”

“Possibly all three. And possibly someone else besides. You’ll be happy to know that I’m going to arrange for you to ask Sheila that question.”

I was looking forward to it. I glanced down at the luminous dial of my watch. Although I knew the briefing was necessary, I was beginning to feel the sharp edge of impatience. I was eager to get on the road and on the trail of David Kirby’s killers. That trail was already much too cold to suit me.

“This film was made in a small town in Idaho called Bonham. Sheila Brant has been living there for the past two months. You’ll have a cover story to explain your sudden appearance. We don’t want to frighten the girl into flight again,” Hawk told me. “But after you arrive, you’ll have to wing it.”

“Let’s see the rest of the film,” I suggested.

The projector started up again. We watched Sheila Brant, one hand in the pocket of her coat, walk to a parked car. Her movements had a fluid grace. As she opened the door of the car, her head jerked around as if she’s heard a sound that set her nerves to jangling. When she realized that the sound was harmless relief touched her face.

She got into the car and drove away, the camera followed her until she turned a corner.

“Our man shot the film from a hotel window across the street from the restaurant. The girl works there as a waitress,” Hawk said. “This was eight days ago. Our man didn’t try to make contact. That’s your job. To establish contact with Sheila and if necessary a relationship. We need to know what she knows. All of it.”

The projector clicked off and lights burst on, filling the room with brightness.

“Well, did the film tell you anything?” Hawk asked me.

“You were right. She is frightened. She was carrying a weapon in the right hand pocket of her coat. Also, she has good legs.”

“I thought you’d notice all of that,” said Hawk dryly. “Make sure you keep your eye on her right hand as well as her legs.”

He handed me the folder he’d been holding in his lap. It contained AXE’s file on Sheila and a summary of my cover story. I had the rest of the day to commit them to memory, to get my phony identification prepared, and to familiarize myself with the special equipment I’d be taking with me to Idaho.

I left the Sheila Brant file in the living quarters to which I had been assigned, then picked up my phony identification. The Ned Harper pictured on the driver’s license looked exactly like Nick Carter. He had a hard face, but I rather liked it. Along with the identification, I got a suitcase packed with personal belongings appropriate to the part I would be playing in Idaho. The clothing looked neither new nor tailored, but it fit me perfectly.

I spent an hour in the arms room. I checked out a case that contained, among other deadly items, a high-powered rifle with a long range sight. Together with my personal arms the case gave me as much firepower as some police departments.

Another of my stops was the base’s electronics department. Acting on orders from Hawk, our experts had packed a kit for me. It looked like a shaving kit but it contained sensitive bugging devices, a camera, and a tiny tape recorder. I doubted that I would need any of this equipment, but Hawk wasn’t overlooking anything.

I had one more visit to make — to the shed where mechanics had been working on the car I’d be driving when I became a man named Ned Harper. One of the mechanics was a sturdy little man in his forties who said he’d heard a lot about Nick Carter and had been wanting to meet me. I decided not to tell him that half of what he’d heard probably wasn’t true.

“Our orders were to give you a car that looked like it came off a cheap second-hand lot, but one that would really scat,” he said with a grin. “That’s what we’ve done. This baby isn’t pretty, but I think you’ll fall in love with her. She responds like a French whore.”

We walked to the other side of the shed. The mechanic pointed toward a short stretch of obstacle-littered road. “That’s where we try her out. A test driver is about to put her through her paces.”

A three-year-old Ford, the paint flecked in spots and one of the fenders dented, sat purring at the end of the obstacle course. The driver, wearing a crash helmet, waved a hand to us, then abruptly slammed down the accelerator. The car took off like a scalded cat.

“I promise you can get 120 per hour out of her in a pinch,” the little mechanic said proudly. “We’ve got her tuned like a concert violin.”

The car was bearing down on the obstacles. I thought it would hit the first one, but the driver cut the wheel at the last minute. He zigzagged the car along the course, tires screeching. At the end of the course, he slammed the brakes and skidded the car into a deliberate spin, whipping it around with a Hollywood stuntmans flair before he straightened out and drove back to us.

“That man should be driving at Indianapolis,” I said.

The mechanic’s grin widened. “Do you like surprises, Carter?”

I saw what he meant when the driver got out of the car, removed the crash helmet, and shook out a mane of bright red hair. Even with her body concealed by shapeless coveralls, there was no doubt that the test driver was entirely female. Built on a large frame, the redhead was my height and would have made almost two of the little mechanic. In fact, she could probably have packed him on a five-mile hike without breathing hard.

Her cheeks flushed, she walked over to us, the helmet swinging in her hand.

“What do you think, N3?” she said, using my Killmaster rank instead of my name. Among girls who looked as striking as she did, I tried to encourage a little more familiarity than that.

“Of the car, or the driver?” I asked.

Fire flared in her green eyes. “The car, of course. I don’t give a damn what you think of the driver.”

I glanced at the mechanic, who shrugged, then beat a diplomatic retreat. He didn’t want to be a witness when this magnificent redhead chopped the famed Nick Carter into little pieces with her scorn.

“What have I done to you?” I asked her, slightly bewildered.

“Nothing at all. Let’s see that it stays that way, N3.”

There it was again, the rank instead of the name. I took this and the glint of fire in her eyes as a challenge. “I thought you were showing off a little bit when you were behind the wheel of the car,” I said. “Was it for my benefit?”

“Of course you’d think that. You were probably astonished to see that a woman could handle a car better than you can.” Her proud lip curled, but it only made her full mouth more inviting. “Let’s get the obvious out of the way right now, N3. You may be worshiped as a bedroom athlete by some of the girls around here, but I’m not impressed by your reputation.”

“What does impress you — performance? Maybe we can arrange a demonstration.”

She laughed as though the suggestion amused her. She tugged at the zipper that ran down the front of her baggy coveralls. “Do you know what I was told, N3? I was told that if you were on a plane that was crashing, you’ll still find time to proposition the stewardess.”

“That’s true,” I told her. “In fact, I’m the one who said that.”

She shrugged the coveralls off her shoulders and wriggled out of them, managing to make the procedure as titillating as a strip tease. Underneath her work clothes, she was wearing hip-hugging pants and a sweater that clung to her curves like the skin on a grape.

“I respect you as a professional. The rank N3 means something,” she said. “But let’s keep our conversation on the professional level, shall we?”

I couldn’t think of anything that interested me less, except possibly delivering a temperance lecture at a home for old maids.

“The car handled well for you, but I’d like to try it out for myself,” I told her.

I got under the steering wheel, awoke the motor, and backed the car up. Then I gunned it. I took the course as fast as the girl had and finished up by braking the car into a tire-screeching double spin. When I got out, tossed her the keys, and said, “It’ll do,” I thought she’d spit in my face.

“Now who’s the show-off?” she said, but there was a hint of surprise mixed with the sarcasm in her voice.

“The car doesn’t look like much, but it’s got a lot under the hood. You look like a lot of woman, but maybe you aren’t so much. I’m curious enough to wonder about that.” I dropped the duplicate key to my quarters into her hand. “If you want to use this it’ll have to be tonight. I’m leaving the base in the morning.”

“What makes you think I’d even consider using it?”

“Maybe you’re as curious as I am,” I said.

Back in my quarters I tugged off my coat, baring the stripped-down Luger in the quick-draw rig under my left arm. The armament I checked out from AXE varied from assignment to assignment, but I was never without my personal weapons: the Luger I called Wilhelmina; the stiletto, Hugo, up my sleeve; and taped to my inner thigh, the tiny gas bomb, Pierre. The bomb could kill everyone in a closed room within seconds; all that was required was a hard twist that snapped its shell.

Opening the desk drawer, I took out the folder Hawk had given me. I flipped back the cover and frowned in annoyance. I thought I remembered leaving the copy of my cover story on top of the file. Now the first page was the sheet containing Sheila’s physical description and a still photograph excerpted from the film I’d seen earlier that day.

I told myself I had to be mistaken. I shuffled through the contents of the folder, but there was no sign of the single-page story. Well, no use worrying about it now, I reflected. An outsider would find infiltrating an AXE base as difficult as smuggling a steamboat into a football stadium.

Still vaguely uneasy, I settled down to read over the file on the Brant girl. As Hawk had said, there were no details on her past. She might have been born the weekend Frank Abruze had picked her up in Las Vegas. After AXE discovered her in Idaho, however, the data was painstakingly complete — the hours she worked as a waitress, what time she usually went to bed, and even a penciled sketch of the floor plan of the house she rented.

Many times I had wished that I had a photographic memory. Since I didn’t have one, I’d developed my own methods for anchoring key facts in my mind. I jotted down notes in the pocket notebook I carry and read them over, scanned the floor plan of Sheila’s house, then stretched out on the bed, pushing everything out of my thoughts except the material I’d been reading.

I must have dozed off. I awoke in darkness, alerted by a sound so tiny I couldn’t define it.

It came again, just a faint scratching sound, metal touching metal. I surged off the bed and landed in a crouch with the Luger in my hand.

The door opened and a yellow stripe of light raced across the floor. The redhead said, “You have quick reflexes, N3.”

I relaxed, realizing the sound I’d heard had been her key turning in the door. I wasn’t embarrassed to be caught with a gun in my hand. The instinct that had brought me off the bed had saved my life more than once.

“Turn on the light. The button’s on the wall behind you,” I told the girl.

She flicked the switch, then tossed me the key. “If you’re leaving tomorrow, I won’t be needing this again, will I?”

I palmed the key, grinning. “So you got curious.”

She shrugged. “I guess I just had to find out if you’re all that I’ve been told.”

“Why don’t you close the door and introduce yourself?” I said.

She closed it without taking her eyes off me. The challenge still glinted in their green depths.

“Patricia Steele,” she said.

Removing my shoulder rig, I hung it on the back of a chair and slid the Luger into the holster. “How long have you been working for AXE?”

“A year, approximately. Now ask how a nice girl like me got into this business.”

“Let me hazard a guess. You wanted to prove you could do anything a man could do.”

“Oh, you’re a cunning bastard,” she said without a noticeable degree of malice.

“I have a bottle of Scotch,” I said. “A gift from our boss. Shall I break it out?”

“I didn’t come here to drink,” she said. She peeled her sweater over her head and pitched it at a chair.

She wore a black lace bra. Well, half a bra. Her cups were running over. Well-endowed was one of the inadequate descriptions that sprang to mind as I eyed her.

Shaking out the bright red mane of hair, she smiled at me. The smile was part taunt, part promise.

I remembered her line from that afternoon. I repeated it. “Now who’s showing off?”

“I am,” she admitted. “But you like it.”

Still smiling, she tugged down the zippered fly of her slacks, wriggled out of the heap they made at her feet. Now she wore only the black bra and a matching splash of black lace below.

Calmly she walked to the bed and sat down on the edge. She unfastened the bra and pulled it away from her large breasts. With a casual movement of her arm, she draped the garment across the headboard, then lay back on my pillow.

“I’ll leave the pants for you,” she said. “I thought you might like to tear them off me.”

Something other than a challenge was shining in her eyes now. Excitement, desire.

When I shed my clothing, and she saw the stiletto and the gas bomb, she exclaimed, “My God, you re a walking arsenal.”

I grinned lewdly. “You re packing a pair of cannonballs yourself.”

Her laugh was husky and uninhibited. She might be out to prove she was the equal of any man, but she certainly didn’t mind being regarded as a sexual object “Come on, N3,” she urged.

“Nick,” I told her. “The bed is no place for formality.”

“Nick. Nick,” she said, “I’m ready.”

I tore the lace pants off her. She had been right. I enjoyed doing it.

Pat was a strong girl. I felt muscles ripple in her back as we embraced. Her mouth was soft and warm, her tongue quick and darting. I buried my face in her breasts and her fingers clawed in my hair. When I toyed with her hard nipples, she writhed and growled like a hungry cat.

My hands slid down to her buttocks and I raised her to meet my opening thrust. I sank deep inside her and heard her moan. Her body ground against me. When I sped my movements, she bucked and shook the bed. She had the lithe power of an animal.

“Nick,” she gasped. “Let’s finish together.”

As far as I was concerned, her timing was perfect. All of it, as a matter of fact, had been perfect.

Her hand slid down my thigh, exploring. “Muscles. You’re quite a hunk of meat, Mr. Carter.”

“So are you.”

“I wasn’t prepared for this. You’re even better than I’d been told.”

“I take it. I’ve earned more than your professional respect.”

She laughed. “May I sleep here tonight?”

“You can stay the night,” I said “I don’t know how much sleep you’ll get.”

Two

In the morning I rose early and started gearing up before the redhead awoke and turned over in the bed.

“Nick,” she said, “it was great. Especially the last time.”

I taped the gas bomb to the inside of my thigh. Last night had been last night. Today it was back to business as usual. I strapped the stiletto to my forearm and tested the spring mechanism. I flexed my arm and the thin knife popped down into my hand, ready for use.

“The look on your face is a little frightening,” Pat said.

I gave her a grin that failed to reach my eyes. “I’m not exactly the boy next door.”

Then I put on the clothes that went with the role of Ned Harper, donned the Luger, slipped a zippered jacket over it, and examined myself in the mirror. As far as I could tell, I looked like a down-at-the-heels truck driver. When I drifted into the town where Sheila Brant was hiding out, my story would be that I was looking for work.

“I’m not supposed to ask this,” said Pat, “but what happened to N1 and N2?”

“Their luck ran out,” I told her. Like David Kirby’s, I thought.

I snapped shut the suitcase AXE had furnished me. I was ready to leave. All I had to do was say goodbye.

The redhead saved me the trouble. “I know. Ships that pass in the night and all that. Stay lucky, Nick.”

I drove into Bonham, Idaho, at two o’clock in the afternoon. The town had 4,700 inhabitants and this looked like the day 4,695 of them had decided to stay home.

Turning in at a gas station that advertised instant service, I pulled up to the tanks. The instant service failed to materialize. I got out of the car and went inside, where I found a man napping behind a desk cluttered with dust, roadmaps, cracker jars, and boxed auto parts. I rapped my knuckles on a clean edge of the desk.

His eyes cracked. “Yessir?” he yawned.

I pointed to my car. “I want some gas.”

“Oh,” he said as though the possibility hadn’t occurred to him.

While he yanked loose the hose and thrust the nozzle into the Ford’s almost empty tank, I stood nearby and glanced along a drowsy street brightened by the pale sunlight of late spring.

I saw no traffic signals, no neon signs. Bonham looked like a Norman Rockwell painting of a small town. I felt out of place, my assorted deadly weapons strapped to my body and locked in the trunk of my car. Bonham looked nothing like the spot a Mafia chieftain’s former mistress would choose to hide out. That was probably the very reason Sheila Brant had chosen it. Give her credit for brains, I thought.

I flexed my tired shoulders. I had been driving fast and for long hours every day since I left AXE’s base on the Carolina coast. Later in the day I’d be contacting the AXE agent who’d been watching Sheila to make sure i she didn’t skip out on us.

The service station attendant was getting around to swabbing the car’s windshield. “You’ve got enough dead insects on here to fill a bucket,” he complained. “You must have driven all night.”

“Yeah,” I said. He was observant, if not instant.

“Tourist?”

“No,” I said.

His head turned and his eyes weren’t sleepy anymore.

“I’m a truck driver,” I said. “I’m hoping to land a job here.”

“Any special reason you picked Bonham?”

“I like small towns.”

“There’s lots of other small towns.”

Damn, I thought. He was certainly curious. I said, “I like the looks of this one.”

While he was checking the oil, I went into the men’s room and slid the bolt on the inside of the door. I splashed cold water in my face. I was tired from being glued to the seat of a car so long, I told myself, or the service station attendant’s questioning wouldn’t have irritated me.

He knocked on the door. “Hey, mister, I need to see you.”

I unzipped my jacket so I could reach the Luger quickly, then opened the door. “What about?”

“About Sheila Brant,” he said, then grinned. “I’m the agent you’re supposed to meet, N3.”

I had never seen my contact and I was taking no chances. “What are you talking about?”

Pushing the door shut, he dipped a hand in his pocket and produced a cigarette lighter identical to mine. He pitched it to me. “I’ve talked to a couple of people who worked with you in the past, Carter. I thought I recognized you from their descriptions. Then I raised the hood of that battered car you’re driving and spotted a motor that’s a piece of art. Some of Hawk’s gimmickry, I told myself. My name’s Meredith, by the way.”

I turned the lighter over. What looked like a manufacturer’s serial number on the bottom was actually a code that identified the owner as an AXE operative. “All right, Meredith. But I’d be more careful if I were you. Don’t forget that the cause of this whole business is the loss of a damn good agent.” I didn’t press the matter further. It wasn’t my place to chew him out “What’s the latest on our girl Sheila?”

“She’s still here, playing it cool. I’ve tried to avoid getting too close so I wouldn’t arouse her suspicion. I took this job because I was afraid the townspeople would begin to wonder why I was sticking around. I’m staying at the hotel. I’ll see you there tonight and we’ll talk some more.” He hesitated. “I understand I’m to be the backstop on this assignment and I’m looking forward to working with you. Don’t judge me by what just happened. I’m usually not so casual.”

“I hope not,” I said.

I drove slowly along the town’s main street, noting the location of the two-room police station, the post office, and the economy size city hall. You could have packed the whole town in a shoebox, I thought. Tucked between two larger buildings was a cubbyhole bar with a sign reading “Cold Beer” propped in the window. Four storefronts down I found the hotel, a relic of days when Bonham had been a railroad stop and had been larger and more prosperous. Now the two-story building needed paint and I saw that screens were missing from some of the upper windows.

As I got out of my car, I took a good look at the restaurant across the street from the hotel. Sheila Brant did not come on duty until 4 P.M. and if business didn’t pick up, she wouldn’t be needed even then. The place appeared to be empty of customers.

I entered the dim lobby of the hotel, where the furniture bore a quarter-inch of dust and the wear and tear of advanced age. There was no elevator, only a flight of stairs, and the potted plants I walked past needed water as much as Bonham needed a breath of new life.

The desk clerk greeted me as if he was a politician greeting the deciding vote. He said they had long since closed down their dining room, but I could get a good meal at the restaurant across the street “Try it, you’ll like it,” he said.

In my room, I peeled off my clothing and gear and took a shower. Although my features didn’t show it, my insides were coiled like a spring. Turning in my mind was the thought that I was near the girl who could give me some answers about David Kirby’s death.

From my second-floor window I had a good view of the restaurant. As I buttoned my shirt and put on my trousers, I thought about Sheila Brant. I wondered if she had managed to escape from that cottage in the Keys on her own or if the killers for some reason had permitted — her to leave alive.

Meredith had given me the number of his room, which was a few doors from mine. I walked down the corridor to it. Meredith appeared to be the genuine article, but I was the suspicious type and I was going to check him out.

What with my AXE training and a great deal of practical experience as well, I had become an expert at picking locks. The door to the hotel room proved no challenge at all. A twelve-year-old could have sprung the lock with a penknife.

I turned the knob, and stepped quietly inside the room. A man was seated in a chair near the window. He gave me a broad smile. “It would have been just as easy to knock.”

I couldn’t think of a clever opening line. All I managed was, “Who are you?”

“Meredith, of course. And you must be Nick Carter.”

If he wasn’t Meredith, he was a hell of a good liar. He seemed completely at ease. “I’ve been waiting for you. I guess you just got in,” he said. “Have you seen the girl yet?”

“Not yet.”

If he had known he was the second Meredith I’d met in the past hour and a half, he wouldn’t have been so relaxed, I thought. I produced a cigarette. “Got a light?”

“Sure.” He felt around in the pocket of his wrinkled brown coat. He was a round-faced man, beginning to bald and go to fat, but appearances don’t tell anything. AXE agents come in all sizes, shapes, and ages. “Here you are, Carter.”

He handed me a book of matches.

“Don’t you have a lighter?” I asked casually, lighting my cigarette.

“Never carry one. The damn things are always running out of fuel.”

I grinned and tossed the matches back to him. “I guess if I could pick the lock, so could you.”

He crossed his legs and leaned back in the chair, his hands cupped on his knee. His eyes hadn’t left me since I entered the room. “You mean you don’t believe I’m Meredith?”

Unzipping my jacket, I said, “I know damn well you aren’t.”

His relaxed smile was still in place. He had plenty of poise. “What did I do wrong?”

“The important thing is that you did it. Who are you really?”

“I’m the man who’s carrying your death warrant,” he said. With a deft movement, he pulled up his trousers leg with one hand. With the other he plucked a revolver out of a scabbard strapped to his calf.

I dropped to one knee as he drew. His revolver was equipped with a silencer and I heard a soft cough as the gun went off. The bullet thudded into the wall.

I flexed my arm and the stiletto popped into my hand. I threw it as he moved to get me in his sights again. The knife sank into his throat and quivered like a dart. His eyes bugged and he leaned over as though he intended to look under his chair.

I caught him as he sagged toward the floor. He was heavy. I stretched him out and frisked him. His wallet contained five thousand-dollar bills and some identification that said his name was Coogan and he came from Denver. That didn’t necessarily mean anything. His papers were probably as phony as mine. Stuffing his driver’s license into my pocket. I stood up. Things were off to a bad start. Someone knew why I was in Bonham, AXE’s security had clearly been breached.

I had to do something about the body. I couldn’t leave it in the genuine Meredith’s room. Making sure the corridor was empty, I chose a door at random and sprung the lock. Apparently the room was unoccupied. I picked Coogan up and carried him across the hall and put him on the bed.

No Chamber of Commerce would be interested in hiring me, I thought. I had been in town less than two hours and already a man was dead.

I went downstairs and struck up a friendly conversation with the desk clerk, who welcomed the opportunity to leave his crossword puzzle. I told him I’d met a man in the hallway, a round-faced, jovial fellow.

“That’s Mr. Hobbs. A salesman. Checked in today. Room 206.”

“What does Mr. Hobbs sell?”

“I don’t believe he said.”

After five minutes, I extricated myself from the conversation, mounted the stairs again, and picked another lock. Room 206 was empty except for a sample case. Mr. Hobbs had barely touched down before he took up his wait for me. I slapped the case on the bed and opened it. The only sample it contained was a stripped down rifle with a silencer and a scope. Mr. Hobbs, also known as Mr. Coogan and briefly as Meredith, had been selling death. The well-oiled rifle was the kind of hardware packed by a professional assassin.

I could guess at his game plan. He was to intercept me and kill me as soon as I arrived, pick off the girl from the hotel window when she came to work, then leave Bonham in a hurry. The lie about his being Meredith had been a quick ruse to pull me off guard and possibly to find out if I’d talked to the girl. Mr. Hobbs, or Mr. Coogan, had been a clever pro, cool-headed and good at his business. But even the best have their bad days.

I faded quietly out of room 206 and down the stairway. Because telephone calls from the rooms went through the hotel switchboard, I used a pay phone in the lobby to call Meredith at the gas station. “Don’t walk in any dark alleys. The opposition has hit town,” I told him when he came on the line.

“Damn. Have you got a fix on them? I mean, on who they are?”

“Just that they aren’t amateurs.”

“Well, no reason to be surprised,” he said. “If we could find the girl, so could they.”

“I’m afraid we led them to her,” I said.

I could picture Hawk’s reaction when I told him someone must have entered my quarters on the AXE base, rifled the Sheila Brant file, and used our information to get a line on the girl. He’d blow up like a sabotaged missile.

The events of the day had changed the situation radically. I couldn’t play my cards slowly and patiently as Hawk had recommended. Sheila’s life was in jeopardy. I had to make contact and win her confidence fast.

I was standing outside the hotel when she arrived at the restaurant. I watched her open the door of a red Volvo, and caught a glimpse of sleek thigh as she slid out of the car. The legs were as good as I remembered, the sexy walk even better.

She took note of me as she moved around the car with long, graceful strides. Apparently the sight of any stranger tensed her up. She paused, eyed me briefly, and I returned her gaze with my most winning smile.

After she’d vanished into the restaurant, I smoked a cigarette. I wanted to give her time to shed her coat and start waiting on tables. As I stalled, three motorcycles roared into town. The cyclists were as out of place in Bonham as I was. They wheeled past the hotel, looking me over through goggles clamped to their bearded faces. They wore jackets with leering devils painted on the backs. Their destination was the bar. Talking loudly, they dismounted and went inside. I knew they didn’t live in Bonham. The town didn’t hold enough excitement for their kind.

“Outlaws and bums,” said the hotel clerk disgustedly. He was leaning in the doorway behind me. “They’re part of a gang that comes through here a couple of times a year. Call themselves Satan’s Brood. They camp out on the old fairgrounds. Folks in town would like to run them off the property, but the police don’t want to stir up a riot.”

I threw my cigarette away. If the bikers were regular visitors, that meant they were no concern of mine. I crossed the street to the restaurant, where business was picking up. I counted a total of four customers. All were men, and three of them couldn’t take their eyes off Sheila. The fourth, I thought, must have been half-blind.

I took a corner table away from the other diners. Even before Sheila moved toward me, I caught her gaze drifting in my direction, sizing me up.

“Welcome to Bonham. Plan to stay long?” she said when she reached my table.

“That depends on you, Sheila.”

The expression to her fragile face froze. “My name is Susan.”

“It’s Sheila Brant and until Frank Abruze was killed, you were his mistress.” My hand flashed across the table and I pinned her wrist. “Don’t get up-right. Plaster a smile on that lovely face and pretend we’re talking about what’s on the menu,”

“The smiling part won’t be easy. You’re about to crush the bones in my wrist.”

I loosened up on my grip, but didn’t let her go. “The people you’re running from know where you are. I can’t imagine why they’d want to eliminate you, but that seems to be what they have in mind. You need help.”

“And you’re going to give it to me?” Her pretty mouth twisted. “That’s the story of my life. Men are always going to help me. And the more help I get, the more trouble I find myself in.”

“I’m the man who’s going to change all that.”

“I was wondering who you are. Now I know. You must be Mandrake the Magician.”

“The name is Ned.”

“Well, Ned the Magician, it’ll take a couple of miracles to clear up the complications in my life.” Despite what she said, there was a stirring of interest in the dark eyes. “You want something in return for your help, of course.”

“We’ll discuss the terms later.”

“Oh, I’m sure we will,” she said in a sardonic voice.

Business or no business, I was hungry. I told her to bring me a thick steak and black coffee.

“You trust me not to make a run for it?”

“Cinderella didn’t run out on her fairy godmother, did she?”

She laughed. “I’m no Cinderella.”

She could have played the part, I thought. She looked like a girl a prince would bring a slipper to, and carry away even if the slipper didn’t fit. Only her Prince Charming had turned out to be Frank Abruze, Mafia capo.

When she returned with my coffee, she brushed against me as she placed the cup near my hand. I interpreted that as a sign that we were going to get along.

“Apparently you aren’t the fuzz. And you aren’t one of Abruze’s friends. So who are you?” she asked.

“I’ll explain that later, too.”

The door banged and the three bikers came in, bringing a stench with them. None of them had touched a bar of soap in weeks. The man behind the cash register, presumably the restaurant’s owner, regarded the trio with displeasure. He could have done without their business for at least the next ninety years.

They decided to sit at the table next to mine. They talked loudly, guffawing at each other’s jokes. To amuse myself, I tried to determine which of them was the ugliest. The contest ended in a dead heat between the one with a knife scar curling down his cheek and the one seated nearest to me, a stocky man wearing a bead necklace, a greasy headband, and leather wristbraces. The one in the middle, who had long hair and a copper-colored beard, was the most presentable.

While Sheila was taking their orders, Scarface ran his hand up her leg. She took the offense with remarkable cool. Copper Beard slapped his companion’s hand away. “Behave yourself,” he said in an even voice.

The one seated near me caught my gaze and showed his teeth, several of which were missing. “What are you looking at, buster?”

“You,” I said. “I was admiring your dental work.”

“A cop once stepped on my face. Would you like some of the same?”

“Not especially,” I said, resisting the temptation to shove my coffee cup down his throat.

Copper Beard clamped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. He squeezed so hard that the man with the missing teeth winced. “Don’t kid around with the gentleman, Georgie. He might think you’re serious. The last thing we want is a misunderstanding. Right?”

“Right” echoed Georgie. He didn’t sound sincere. He sounded scared of the man with the hand clamped on his shoulder.

I finished my steak in peace and told Sheila I’d be waiting when she got off work at midnight. Returning to my hotel room, I settled down in the chair near the window to keep watch on the restaurant. For all I knew, the dead assassin had confederates who’d make a try for the girl.

The cycle bums emerged and meandered down the street in the soft dusk, still exchanging loud boasts and laughter. Only the one with the copper-colored beard was silent, striding between the others, a head taller than they were, smooth-moving as a catamount. They were heading back toward the bar. I watched them until they were out of sight.

Long before Sheila appeared, I was beginning to worry about Meredith, who hadn’t shown up and hadn’t called. Without taking my eyes off the restaurant’s door, I placed the telephone on my lap and asked the night clerk to give me an outside line. I dialed the number of the gas station and got no answer. I sat in the darkness listening to the buzz and I had the feeling that events had taken another abrupt change in course.

Sheila came out of the restaurant, walking at a fast clip, glancing around as she made for the Volvo at the curb. A light mist of rain had started to fall. I could see drops forming on my window pane. Sheila was wearing the long coat she had worn in the film made by Meredith. I could guess that she was carrying a gun in her pocket.

“Baby, you are a tricky one,” I said softly.

It wasn’t midnight; it was only 10 P.M. She was leaving early — running out on me.

I kicked back my chair and reached the door in three quick strides. I went down the stairway fast, passed a startled desk clerk, and hit the street as Sheila drove away.

The sound of bike motors starting up merged with the pulse of the Volvo’s motor. The cyclists charged past without seeing me. They were following the car. I saw the red glow of their taillights sweep around a distant corner as I sprinted for my battered Ford.

I picked them up as they sped out of town in pursuit of the Volvo, which was moving very close to its limit. As the town fell behind us, I cursed. Sheila was setting herself up for whatever the bikers had in mind.

I gave the Ford some more gas and closed in on them, and saw that the leader had forged up alongside the Volvo and was waving for the girl to pull over. She ignored him and tried to get greater speed out of her car.

When the beam of my headlights splashed over them they became aware that someone was horning in on the party. One of the bikers turned back, whipping into my path so suddenly that I slapped at my brakes to avoid a collision. I saw the ugly face of the man called Georgie as I slid into a spin on the rain-slicked pavement. I gritted my teeth and rode the spin out, bringing the Ford around again. I resumed the chase.

My headlights caught Georgie first. He was purring along between me and the others, maintaining a slower pace in order to see if I’d stuck with them. As he glanced back, he showed his missing teeth in a crude burlesque of a grin. He seemed almost glad I hadn’t wrecked the Ford. Now he had another chance at me.

He turned his bike and from somewhere behind the seat produced a short length of chain. With the chain dangling in his hand, he gunned the bike and shot toward me.

I didn’t hit the brake and I didn’t slow down. I bore steadily forward, the beam of my lights licking through the night. Georgie drew nearer. When he saw that I intended to hold to my course even though he was in my path, he swung the cycle over into the other lane of the highway.

I could have swerved the car and struck him, but I was afraid to do that on the slick pavement. I didn’t want to go into another skid. Giving the Ford more gas, I picked up speed instead. Georgie flashed past my window and I saw his arm move. He snapped the chain like a whip.

The unexpected burst of speed I urged out of my car caused Georgie’s timing to go awry. The hard-swung chain smashed into the window behind me and not the one alongside my face. I winced involuntarily as I heard the glass crack. Then I was putting distance between us because he had to slow down in order to get the bike turned around again. I saw his light hanging on behind me as I streaked around a curve and up a rolling hill.

Cresting the hill, I spotted Sheila and her pursuers. The man on the lead bike was running alongside the Volvo. He gained on the car and started swerving into the driver’s path, causing her to draw over toward the shoulder of the road in order to avoid a collision.

She was so engrossed in the duel with the cyclist that she failed to make the next curve. Leaving the road, the Volvo bounced and swerved like a paper boat in a swift gutter current. I was afraid it would turn over when it struck the ditch, but the jolt only slowed it down. Sheila had the sense to avoid a sudden use of the brakes. From the shimmy the car made, I could guess she’d thrown it into a slower gear. Then she sawed on the brake. The Volvo bucked and slid, but it didn’t go over.

As she finally brought the car to a halt in an open field, the bikers were turning around. One of them jumped the ditch, a beautiful piece of riding, and raced across the field toward the car he’d been pursuing. His wheels churned up dirt.

The second biker didn’t have the guts to jump the ditch. He stopped on the shoulder of the road, then saw me coming up out of the night. He killed his motor and got off the cycle.

Slowing down, I glanced into the rear view mirror to check on Georgia He was still on my tail and gaining. Soon he’d catch up with me.

I turned onto the shoulder near the field and shut off the car. I left the headlights burning when I got out. The waiting biker was the one with the scar curling down his cheek. He reached inside his jacket and brought out a knife. Light gleamed on the blade as he stepped toward me.

“Mister, you’d better get back into that car and get the hell away from here.”

“If I don’t?”

“I’ll slice you up like bacon ready for the frying pan.”

One knee bending, I half-turned. My left foot shot out. I felt the sharp contact with his kneecap. A Japanese master of karate had taught me that move and it was a good one. Scarface went down as if the ground had been jerked out from under his feet.

Rising to a crouch, he made a pass with the knife. I shifted and the blade whipped in front of me, an inch short of my belly. I clamped both hands onto his arm and brought it down over my knee and broke it. Scarface howled.

I picked up his knife and threw it into the darkness on the other side of the highway.

Then Georgie arrived on the scene. He rode straight for me, swinging the chain. I knew that if he hit me in the face I’d be blinded or scarred for life. I heard the chain whine as I ducked. Then Georgie had passed me. Before he could turn around, I had tugged down the zipper of my jacket and pulled the Luger.

I shot him out of the saddle and the bike kept going, careening into the middle of the highway before it fell on its side and slid.

Without giving Georgie another glance, I walked back to the car, shoved it in reverse, and flashed my headlights on the field.

Copper Beard had dismounted and was hammering on the window of Sheila’s car with his fist. He stopped when the yellow beams of my headlights spilled over him.

I put the Ford in low and drove across the ditch. The bounce jarred me off my butt. Copper Beard started running back toward his bike. I got there first. I wrenched the wheel at the last minute so that only my bumper hit the bike, but the impact sent the machine spinning. Copper Beard was sprinting toward his friends now, probably hoping to reach one of their bikes. I turned the Ford so that I could see him clearly in the headlights. I got out and drew a bead with the Luger and shot the fleeing man in the leg.

Sheila Brant shoved open the door of her car. She was holding a .38 in one hand. Copper Beard didn’t know it, but I might have saved his life.

“Mister,” Sheila said in an awed voice, “you are something else.”

I pointed the Luger at the Volvo’s left rear tire and shot a hole in it. I walked past the staring Sheila and shot the left front tire. Then I raised the hood and yanked out some wiring.

“Are you crazy?” she demanded.

“You ran out on me once. I’m making sure you don’t do it again.”

“I didn’t know if I could trust you. I don’t even know who you are.”

“I told you. The name is Ned.”

“I’m used to running. I thought it was the thing to do.”

“You can probably use that gun,” I said, “but could you have handled all three of these Boy Scouts? Use your head, Sheila. You need protection.”

Plucking the keys out of my own car and pocketing them, I walked back to Copper Beard, who was lying on the ground clutching his leg.

“You’ll live,” I told him. “If I decide to let you.”

He licked his lip. “What does that mean?”

I leaned down and put the point of the Luger between his bushy eyebrows. “Tell me the reason for the night’s activity.”

“We wanted the blonde. What else?”

I prodded him with the gun barrel. “I thought you might tell me something else. Something more interesting”

“Man, I’ll tell you anything you want to hear. But the truth is, we wanted the broad. She gave us frostbite in the eating place, so we decided to hang around and have some fun with her when she got off work.”

“No one hired you to take care of her?”

“Like who?” He forced a shaky grin. “Man, what did we get ourselves into anyway?”

I wasn’t sure I believed him. I said, “I can’t be bothered with gathering you freaks up and taking you to jail. But stay out of my sights. If I get you in them again, I’ll kill you.”

“Man, I’ll avoid you like the draft.”

Sheila was standing at the open door of my car. “What were you two talking about?” she asked when I returned.

“I gave him the name of my doctor,” I said. “Get in the car. We’re going back to Bonham.”

She hesitated, then obeyed me. She slid under the steering wheel and over to the passenger’s seat with her skirt climbing up her legs. I grinned at her, holstered the Luger, and got in. Then she punched her .38 into my ribs.

“I know this is a poor way to show my gratitude,” she said, “but a girl has to look out for herself.”

Three

I had violated one of the longest-standing rules in my own book. A smart agent never holstered his gun while someone else was holding theirs. Now I was in what was at best an embarrassing position. At worst it could turn out to be fatal.

“I deserve this for being careless,” I admitted to the girl who was nudging the revolver into my ribs, “but I would like to have it explained to me.”

“The keys, Ned. I want the keys to your car. Then I want you to get out. I’m not going back to Bonham. Someone might be waiting for me there.”

“You intend to ditch me and take off alone again?”

“I’ll take my chances. I’ve survived so far.”

“You’d have had a hell of a time surviving tonight if I hadn’t shown up.”

While I argued with her, I was assessing my situation. My right hand, the one nearest her, rested lightly on the steering wheel. I knew how fast I could bring that hand around in a karate blow that would strike Sheila Brant’s lovely white throat like an executioner’s ax. But I couldn’t run the risk of serious injury to the girl, and also the blow might cause her to jerk the trigger of the revolver and piledrive a bullet into me at close range. I didn’t like either of those possibilities.

Sheila’s voice rose higher. “I’d rather not shoot you. But I’ll do it if I have to.”

“Shoot away, baby,” I said. “I’m not giving you any keys.”

We sat there, neither of us moving, while she decided if she was going to pull the trigger. I felt a tiny drop of sweat forming along my hairline.

I didn’t know Sheila Brant well enough to place my life in her hands. She might have been involved in the death of AXE agent David Kirby; she might be panicky enough to kill me out of fright; hell, for all I knew, she hated all men and would enjoy sending a slug ripping into one. But I couldn’t let her get away again. Inside her head was something I had to have, a secret so important that someone was determined to see that Sheila never shared it with AXE.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” she said finally.

With a ragged sigh, she pulled the gun from my side and sank back against the seat. “I guess I’ll have to string along with you. I don’t seem to have what it takes to kill you.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” I took out my keys and turned the car around.

“Where are you going to take me?”

“Right now, back to Bonham. As soon as I can make proper arrangements, to a place where your life won’t be in danger.”

Bouncing across the field, I drove past Copper Beard, who had started to crawl toward his friends, dragging his wounded leg. Scarface was sitting at the side of the road cradling his broken arm and the man called Georgie lay curled in a motionless ball. A splendid group of All-American boys, I thought. As the car lurched across the ditch and into the highway, Sheila said, “Aren’t you going to look at the man you shot, to see if he’s dead?”

“No,” I told her. “I know he’s dead.”

I gave the accelerator a shove and my battered car took off like a streak. The little AXE mechanic would have been proud of the way his baby had performed tonight, I thought. In fact, the car was about the only thing that had worked according to Hawk’s well-laid plans.

I wanted to get Sheila to some secure spot under AXE jurisdiction, but first I had to call Hawk and set it up. I also had to find out what had happened to Meredith, why he had failed to show up at the hotel.

“I’ve never used this gun,” Sheila said. “I never shot anyone. Maybe that’s the reason I couldn’t shoot you.”

“I was hoping you had another reason. Like maybe you were growing fond of me.”

“Not yet,” she said. “But I suppose it could happen.”

My hand touched her warm thigh. She didn’t seem to mind. “Give me the gun,” I said.

After a moment’s hesitation, she dropped the weapon into my palm. A token of trust, I thought I was making some progress.

“Why do you want it?” she asked me.

“Just a precaution. In case you get panicky enough to point it at me again.”

I slid the .38 in my left-hand pocket. The speedometer needle trembled on 70 as we raced back toward town.

“Those three men. Were they sent to kill me, Ned?”

“Their leader said no.” I couldn’t make out her expression in the shadowy car. “He said all they had in mind was a little friendly rape.”

“And what do you have in mind for me?”

“Several things.” I took a long curve without slackening speed. “Rape isn’t one of them.”

“Under the proper circumstances that wouldn’t be necessary.”

I grinned in the darkness. “How did you happen to hook up with Frank Abruze?”

“I was down and out in Vegas after failing to make it as a showgirl. He came along. He was old enough to be my father, but he had money.”

“Did you know what line of business he was in?”

“I wasn’t born yesterday.” She was silent for a long moment. “There are a great many good-looking girls in Las Vegas scrambling for a break. I was just one of a crowd. When I found out my face wasn’t my fortune, I started using my body.”

I dimmed my lights as a Greyhound bus passed us, going the other way.

“I wish I was on that bus,” Sheila said. “All right, Ned, I told you part of my story. Don’t you think you ought to tell me yours?”

“Which part would you like first?”

“Who you are, why you came galloping out of nowhere and into my life, and how you happen to know about my relationship with Frank Abruze.”

“Let’s just say I work for an organization that’s interested in locating Frank Abruze’s killers.”

“But you’re not in the Mob.” It was half a question.

“No. Maybe you remember a man named David Kirby. He was a friend of mine.”

“I remember the name. He came to see Abruze. That happens to be all I know about your Mr. Kirby. I didn’t ask Abruze questions about his business.”

“Four people were killed in that cottage in the keys, but you walked out alive, Sheila. How did you manage it?”

She didn’t answer me. Instead, she said, “You want me to finger the killers. In return, your organization will promise to protect me. Is that the deal?”

“That’s the deal.” I spotted the lights of Bonham ahead and slowed down. “What do you say?”

“I’ll think it over.”

“The way I see it, baby, you don’t have any choice.”

The town went to bed early. Only the restaurant, the bar, and the hotel remained open for business. I stopped at the darkened gas station. “What time do these people usually close?”

“Around eight o’clock. Why do you ask?”

That meant Meredith had been at least an hour and a half overdue before I left the hotel to chase the cyclists. With a flashlight in one hand and the Luger in the other, I got out of the car and prowled around the station. I finally found Meredith lying in a patch of weeds about fifteen steps beyond a pile of abandoned oil drums.

He had said he’d be careful, but he hadn’t been careful enough. His throat was slashed.

Sheila came up behind me. She gasped when she saw the huddled body pinned in the beam of my light. “I know that man. He worked at the station.”

I clicked off the light. “Yeah.”

“But he hadn’t worked here long. Who was he really, Ned?”

“Another friend of mine. He’d been watching you.”

“And now he’s dead.” Her voice rode high, panic in it. “How are you going to protect me when your own people aren’t safe?”

It was a fair question, I thought.

Sheila turned away from me and ran across a vacant lot, through knee-high weeds. Chances were she didn’t know where she was going. She only knew that she wanted to get away.

I sprang after her. Wet weeds slapped my trouser legs as I ran. I could hear the girl’s breath pumping loudly before I caught up with her. Lunging, I grabbed one of her arms and yanked her back toward me.

“Let me go,” she panted, struggling. “I don’t want your protection. I’m better off without it.”

Her fingernails clawed for my face, but I caught her other wrist. Her breasts heaved against my chest and her breath was hot on my throat as she tried to wrench away. I wrapped my arms around her and forced her to stand motionless.

“Meredith made a mistake. I won’t make one.” I was talking softly, hoping to calm her. “I’ll get you out of this town tonight. We’ll go to your place and I’ll make arrangements and then we’ll put Bonham behind us.”

“Ned.” She spoke my name in a voice as low and as soft as mine. “I know what a man likes.” Struggling no longer, she stood with her breasts against me, her thighs to mine. “I’ll be nice to you. Oh, so very nice. But please let me go.”

I wasn’t insulted by her offer. She was desperate, and had resorted to her best pitch, and I couldn’t blame her for that.

“You make it sound attractive. But my job is to find out what you know. I couldn’t let you run off alone anyway. It would be throwing you to the wolves. Someone is very serious about putting you out of the way. Serious enough to knock off Meredith and to try to do the same with me. Serious enough to send an assassin after you, Sheila. I ran into him today in the hotel. He was packing a rifle and he intended to pick you off from a hotel window when you arrived for work.”

She froze in my arms. “You think Abruze’s killers did all that?”

“It figures. You are the only one who could identify them.”

A bitter laugh spilled out of her. “I don’t have the slightest idea who sent the assassin, but I can tell you one thing for certain. It wasn’t the men who shot Frank Abruze and Kirby. No, indeed. They want me alive.”

“Baby, you are full of little surprise.” Fingers wound tightly around her wrist, I pulled her toward the car and shoved her into it.

I hated to leave Meredith’s body where it was, but his killer might still be around, looking for us. I had to get the girl to a safe place as quickly as possible.

“Tell me about it, Sheila,” I said as I started up the car.

“You won’t be pleased.”

“I probably won’t. Tell me anyway.”

“Frank Abruze didn’t pick me up in Las Vegas by accident. I was introduced to him. This man I knew came to see me and said Abruze was in town and liked my type. He said he could arrange for us to get together. Which he did. Only later, after Frank decided he’d like to keep me around, this man got in touch with me again. He said I owed him and he was ready to collect.”

“You think he planted you with Abruze so you could spy for him?”

“Something like that. He knew the Mafia was going to deliver $200,000 to Abruze at the cottage. He demanded that I let him know when the money arrived. He said it was going to be a holdup, but one one would get killed. I believed him. I was afraid he’d blow the whistle on me if I didn’t do as he said. So I called him when the money got there.”

I digested her story as I drove to her house.

“You know what I’m saying, don’t you?” she asked in a savage voice. “You know what it meant when I made that call.”

I unlocked the door of her house and put on the light in the living room. The Luger in my hand, I glanced around, then walked to the telephone.

“I set Abruze up,” Sheila said. “They came and they killed him and his bodyguards and the man named Kirby. They shot them all. It was a slaughter.”

“You didn’t know what they were going to do,” I told her.

I gave the long distance operator an emergency number. No matter where Hawk traveled, and that covered a lot of territory, the girl who answered the telephone at the emergency number knew how to get in touch with him quickly.

Sheila yanked open a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of bourbon. “I’ve told myself that. But it doesn’t help a hell of a lot. Frank Abruze was a hood, but he treated me decently. I got him killed.” She held up the bottle. “Do you want a shot of this?”

I shook my head. I had Hawk’s girl on the line. I spoke the code words that assured her I wasn’t an imposter, “Aberdeen blue.” I told the girl I wanted to speak to the man.

“I’ll relay the message, N3,” she said in a crisp, efficient voice. “Give me your number and hang up. He’ll call back within fifteen minutes.”

“Hurry it up. Time is burning my coattails.”

I hung up. Sheila had taken the bottle into the kitchen. I followed, and found her standing at the sink crying.

She rubbed at her eyes. She took down a tumbler, poured two fingers of bourbon and downed it like a drink of tea. “This Kirby. How well did you know him?”

“We were friends.”

“He picked the wrong day to visit Frank Abruze.” She dropped the glass and it splintered on the floor. She buried her face in my shirt front. “Who could have sent the assassin, Ned? The Mafia?”

“Maybe. Maybe they found out you set up their esteemed elder statesman.”

“I was afraid they would. I was running from them and from Abruze’s killers.” Her fingers dug into my sleeves. “You blame me for those four deaths, don’t you?”

“Not as much as you blame yourself.”

She tugged at me, placed her mouth on mine. Her lips were warm. “Ned, take me to the bedroom.”

“I’m waiting for a phone call.”

“You’ve been thinking of making love to me. Do it now. I need it now.”

It was true that the thought had occurred to me a few times. Like about a dozen. The first time had been when I saw her in the film Meredith had shot. But there were questions still unanswered between us.

I stroked Sheila’s soft blonde hair. “Later.”

“It would make me feel better. Please.”

“Later,” I promised again. To prove I meant it, I lowered my mouth to hers. I felt her moist lips part, felt her darting tongue. My hand crept up to cup her round breast. She was wearing no bra.

When I heard the noise, I wheeled away from her. I hit the switch on the wall and threw on the light at the back door. The yard lay silent. I stepped outside with the Luger ready and listened, testing the air like a hound on the hunt. Something was wrong. I felt it.

Sheila had rented a house on a dead end street. Her nearest neighbors were too far away to hear anything less than an explosion. Their lighted windows formed small orange squares in the dense shadows far down the street. Sheila had wanted privacy, but privacy could be a trap. I thought of how easy it would be for someone to corner us here.

The telephone jangled inside. I backed to the door and bolted it, then moved quickly through the kitchen and into the living room. I snatched the receiver off the cradle.

A crisp, efficient female voice said, “Hold the line, N3. Mr. Hawk is coming on.”

“What’s up, Nick?” he asked.

“I have that package you sent me to pick up. I’m ready to deliver it.”

“You got results fast.”

“I had some help. Is the Denver location okay?”

“Take her there. I’ll call ahead and make the arrangements for you. What’s the nature of your opposition, Nick?”

“I can’t give you a clear rundown on that yet. But the heat is intense. I believe we may be dealing with two different groups,” I said. “Meredith has dropped out.”

“Then we shouldn’t be wasting time talking. Get out of there.” He slammed his receiver down.

“If you want to take any belongings with you, pack them,” I told Sheila. “We’re leaving. Everything is going to be A-Okay.”

“You really believe that, Ned?”

“Of course I do. And I’m a damn good prophet.” I was trying to bolster her nerve. Actually, I wouldn’t fee! safe until we were surrounded by people I trusted.

“There was another question you should have asked me. When are you going to get around to it?”

“I thought I’d let you tell me your own way,” I said.

“All right. Maybe you’ve wondering why Abruze’s killers want me alive? The answer is, they think I have the $200,000.”

While she packed, I stood at a front window and watched the dark street through a crack in the blinds. I saw no cars, no lights, no movement. The sound I’d heard earlier could have been a stray dog or cat, a motor coughing in the distance, a dozen things. But my uneasiness persisted.

Sheila stayed in the bedroom too long. I clicked the blind shut and crossed to the bedroom door. I turned the knob and opened the door on darkness.

Wondering why she had turned off the light, I shoved the door wider with my foot. “Sheila?”

“I’m waiting for you, Ned.”

Light from the room behind me fell across the bed where she lay. Her nude body was a white blur against the bed’s blue cover.

“There’s one more thing to be attended to,” she said. “Come here and make love to me, darling.”

She was beautiful, a work of art.

“It won’t take long, sweetheart,” she said, her voice low and husky. “I’m so hot I’m burning on a short fuse.”

She was blonde all the way, the genuine article. One sleek leg curled and she turned on her side and held out her arms. The light coming through the open door caressed her full breasts.

“For God’s sake, Ned, put that gun down and come here.”

I took two steps toward her, walking the band of light like an alley cat walking a fence. I could make out only the vague shapes of furniture in shadowed corners of the room. The bathroom door to my left was closed, the windows curtains drawn. Some women liked to make love in pitch black, but I didn’t think Sheila would be one of them. A warning was ticking steadily at the back of my mind as I reached the bed.

“I told you this could wait,” I said.

“Later may be too late.”

Her voice could have changed slightly, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was only imagining there was a message in her words.

I stood over her. I could hear her breathing. Harsh, excited. I ran one hand over her breasts and there was perspiration on them. I touched her lean belly with my fingertips and I could feel her trembling. I realized how tightly she was holding herself in.

“Yeah,” I said, still touching her. “I guess we should do it now.”

I felt the muscles in her belly leap in tension as she pulled in a deep, frightened breath. That, too, was a warning, as much as she could give me.

In less time than it would have required to turn around and take a step back toward the door, I thought it out. Sheila was playing a role and she was playing it well because her life depended on it. There was an intruder in the dark bedroom.

Wondering where he was, I glanced around. At the same time, for the benefit of my hidden audience, I said, “You’re very persuasive, baby. Tell me again how much you want me to come to bed with you.”

“You know how much, Ned.” She tried to make her voice playful.

There was a lamp on the bedside table near me, but if I tugged the cord, the sudden burst of light might blind me long enough to get me killed. I ruled that out.

“Shed your clothes, darling,” Sheila purred. “Then I’ll tell you all sorts of things you’ll like.”

“I’ll bet,” I said.

She had been told to get me undressed, and that was not bad thinking on the part of my hidden adversary. A man seldom hangs onto a firearm while he’s peeling off his drawers.

Reaching down to Sheila, I slid my hand under the small of her back and raised her off the bed, sank my mouth into the pit of her throat. My lips grazed up to her ear and I whispered, “Where is he?”

He was so close that he heard even the whisper. He rose up from a crouch on the other side of the bed.

I threw the naked girl aside and plucked the Luger from its holster, but I didn’t get a chance to fire. A second man sprang on me from behind, pinning my arms to my sides.

I hadn’t counted on doing battle with a team.

“Hold him,” the big man on the other side of the bed grunted to his friend.

Driving my heel back, I caught the man behind me on the shin and he cursed, but I failed to break his hold. He knew what he was doing.

The big man scrambled across the bed and hit me in the face with a .357 Magnum. He was strong. The blow tore my lip, loosened teeth, laced a cut in my cheek.

I brought up my foot, lashing for the big man’s groin, but he anticipated the move and danced away. He was as fast on his feet as a boxer.

To my surprise, he laughed. “Looks like we got us a handful, Jake.”

Jake was grunting, trying to hold me. I spun around and slammed him into the bedside table. The lamp crashed to the floor, but Jake hung on.

The big man moved in and hit me again. I felt as though I’d collided with a wall.

“Don’t kill him,” I heard Sheila crying. “Please don’t kill him.”

The bathroom door opened and another man entered the bedroom. My knees had sagged under me when the big man hit me the second time. My head was ringing. I gulped air and lunged backward driving Jake into the bedpost. He grunted in pain and I snapped his hold and brought my Luger up.

The third man came in on me from the side and cracked a gun barrel against my head. I staggered sideways, dropped the Luger, and would have fallen if my hands hadn’t encountered the big man’s coat. I felt cloth tear as I caught hold.

“Damn it, that’s the limit,” he said. He hit me so hard with his fist that I left my feet, landed on the floor on my shoulders, and skidded against the wall.

I tried to get up and couldn’t. I was losing consciousness.

Fighting out of a pit of black, I slitted my eyes. I couldn’t guess how long I had been out cold, but I was still in the bedroom, lying on my belly on the floor.

The intruders had pulled my jacket off my shoulders and down my arms to bind them and then they had tied my wrists behind me with strips of sheet. My feet were tied in the same manner. I moved my hands enough to determine that they had done a thorough job. I wouldn’t be slipping out of my bonds.

“You got yourself a tough cookie here, doll,” the big man said. I recognized his gravel voice. He padded toward me and prodded a foot in my side to see if I was still unconscious. I let him think I was.

“Leave him alone,” Sheila said. “It isn’t his fault he happened to be here when you came.”

The big man laughed. He had a weird sense of humor. Cracking my eyes again, I watched him turn away from me. Without moving my head and giving myself away, I could see only his feet and legs. The legs, clad in dark cotton trousers, looked the size of railroad ties. He was wearing sneakers on his feet.

“We had a hard time finding you, doll, but now that we’re back together again, it’s going to be fun and games. Do you still love me?” From the scuffle of feet and the sound of Sheila spitting like a cat, I guessed that the man had touched her. Laughing, he said, “You’ll get friendlier. Before the night’s over, you’ll be a lot friendlier.”

It sounded like a threat.

“I helped you to surprise him. Doesn’t that count for something?” Sheila asked.

“Don’t con me, doll. You played that sexy little scene to perfection because you knew any slip-up would have got your boyfriend a big hole in the gut.” His voice grew more serious. “You hung up on him? You dig the citizen, doll?”

“No. I just don’t want him killed for nothing.”

She was still playing a role, gambling for my life.

Cautiously I shifted my narrowed gaze, trying to locate the big man’s companions. I spotted one of them to my right, squatting on the floor. Like the big man, he wore dark clothing and sneakers. A stocking was drawn over his head, distorting his features. I remembered that Hawk had said the killers I was looking for were cold, efficient professionals. This man and the giant with the gravel voice certainly warranted the description.

They had come to the house prepared to enter it without alarming the occupants. Except for the one faint sound I’d heard, the sound I’d been unable to pin down, they had succeeded. I assumed they’d come in through the bathroom window, probably slitting the screen and lifting it out. They’d seized Sheila when she entered the bedroom and then they’d forced her to strip off her clothing, and ordered her to lure me into the bed and off guard.

The man squatting nearby had searched my pockets and dumped their contents on the floor. He combed through them with his hand, pushing aside what failed to interest him. He looked my AXE lighter over and shoved it into his trousers pocket. Flipping open my wallet, he examined my identification. He appropriated the money and tossed the wallet over his shoulder. “Hey, Moose, catch.”

“Ned Harper,” the big man said, reading my driver’s license. He chuckled. “According to this, he’s a truck driver. How many truck drivers pack Lugers in shoulder holsters?”

I analyzed the conversation. These men didn’t know I was an AXE agent, so they weren’t associated with the assassin at the hotel. For the same reason, they probably weren’t responsible for Meredith’s murder. That confirmed my theory that I was dealing with two different sets of antagonists.

Sheila said, “I can’t tell you why he carried a gun. I only met him today. He talked to me in the restaurant. I liked his style, so I let him bring me home.”

“Needed a little sex, did you?”

“I haven’t had any lately,” she told Moose defiantly. “I’ve been too busy running from you to live a normal life.”

I wriggled my arm furtively, seeing if I could disengage the stiletto up my sleeve. No chance. They hadn’t pulled my jacket down far enough to reveal the knife’s hiding place, but they had accidentally succeeded in blocking its use.

“This bird’s no truck driver,” said the man squatted near me. “All this stuff says he is, but I’ll lay you odds he’s not. You saw how he handled himself.”

“Maybe the Mob sent him. That would be a laugh.” The big man walked over to me and leaned down. He turned me over and rocked my face with slaps.

Gasping as though I was just regaining consciousness, I opened my eyes wide. I saw a face masked by a stocking, wide shoulders, a neck like a bull’s. The hand that grasped my shirt front would have made two of mine and mine weren’t small.

The stocking bit had puzzled me at first. Why did they conceal their features when Sheila obviously knew them well? Then I’d realized that they hadn’t known who else they would encounter when they broke into the house. The masks were another precaution that labeled them as experts at their trade.

“How you feeling, stud?” the big man asked me.

My hair was damp with blood seeping from a cut near my ear and my head was throbbing with pain. When I spoke, my swelling lip made my voice sound as though I wore a boxer’s mouthpiece. “I feel great.”

The big man reached inside his coat, pulled his gun out of his belt, and rammed it against my Adam’s apple, causing me to gasp. “I’ve got a crowded schedule and I can only spare you a minute. Are you a hit man? Did the Mob send you here with a contract on the blonde?”

Struggling to draw an even breath, I glanced toward Sheila, who was huddled in a chair, still nude but with the remains of a ripped sheet clutched to her, partly concealing her body. Her fragile face was pale, the dark eyes filled with fright. She was worried not only about herself but about me.

“Speak up or you’ve had it,” Moose told me.

“Yes,” I said hoarsely.

Moose nodded and released my shirt front, let me fall. “Hear that, Sheila? You’re in trouble with the Mafia.”

“You’re the one who murdered Abruze.”

“But they don’t know that. They only know you were there and you didn’t get killed, so you must have fingered him.” Moose laughed loudly.

The third man appeared in the bedroom doorway. He was dressed like the others. “I pulled all the blinds and made a quick check of the house. The money doesn’t seem to be here.”

“If it is, she hid it well. Sheila’s a bright girl. Aren’t you, doll?”

“Too bright to cross you. I didn’t steal the money. I’ve told you that.”

“I left it with you. You were responsible for it.”

“Moose, if I had it, I’d give it to you. Can’t you see I’m scared to death?”

“You’re scared, all right, but people will go through a lot for $200,000. Who knows that better than me?” He gestured to the man in the doorway. “Go down the road and get our car and bring it to the house. We may be here for most of the night, but Sheila is going to give us what we want.”

“What if she doesn’t talk?”

“Sid, I hate for a man to look on the dark side of things. We’ve spent months trailing the girl and now we’ve found her. What does it take to get you to realize that matters have taken a turn for the better?”

“Two hundred thousand bucks would help,” Sid said.

“If she doesn’t tell us, by God, we’ll backtrack her through five states. We killed four men for that two hundred grand and it’s ours.”

Moose snatched the sheet away from the cowering girl. Then he grabbed her by the hair and yanked her out of the chair.

The last I saw of her, they were dragging her from the room.

Four

I heard Sheila cry out and then her voice choked off. They had her in the kitchen. I didn’t know what they were doing to her, but I could imagine.

I had to find something to cut my bonds. I remembered the broken lamp that had fallen to the floor when I wrestled one of the killers against the bedside table. By rolling over, I could see under the bed to the other side. The shattered lamp still lay there. I rolled to the bed and under it. When I rolled out the other side, I was within reach of the lamp.

One piece of the lamp’s base looked sharp enough to cut the sheets binding my hands. I got up on my rear and squirmed around and felt for the jagged hunk of glass. Since I couldn’t see what I was doing, I’d probably slice up my hands, too, but that couldn’t be helped.

I was sitting there sawing away when one of the men came back.

“Look at you,” he said. It was Sid, the one Moose had sent after the car. “You stupid jerk. It would take you an hour to get loose that way.”

I heard Sheila cry out again, pain and terror in her voice. I clenched my teeth and worked at my bonds with the piece of glass clutched in my bleeding fingers. As long as the man in the doorway didn’t stop me, I’d keep trying to get free.

“The girl’s telling you the truth. There’s no sense in torturing her,” I said.

“You don’t understand Moose. He enjoys this kind of stuff. Even if he believed her, he’d probably do the same thing.”

“He must have got himself a lot of kicks down in Florida, when you shot up Abruze’s cottage.”

“Yeah, the four of them were lying there dead and Moose grabbed the shotgun away from me and gave them another blast. Laughing all the time. He’s one crazy bastard, that Moose.” Sid said this in the tone of voice most people would use if they said a friend was the life of the party.

I sliced the flesh of a knuckle and winced. “Why did you give the money to the girl in the first place?”

“We had to stash it. We couldn’t show up rich overnight, could we? For six months after those killings, any strange dollar that fell in the underworld was going to be reported to the men who run the Mob. You know that.”

I had almost forgotten the lie I’d told Moose, that I was a professional hit man sent to take care of Sheila Brant. I said, “I was just carrying out a contract. I’m not in the Mafia.”

“We broke two of the Mob’s laws. We heisted some of their dough and we knocked off an honored capo. They’ve been looking for us harder than the cops have. For the girl, too. We thought we had the girl and the money stashed in a safe place, but she disappeared.”

The conversation was giving me precious time and I tried to prolong it. “I’d like to know how you happened to find the girl. I thought I had the inside track there.”

Sid walked over to me. Matter-of-factly he kicked me in the ribs. “Enough of the stalling. You aren’t going to get loose, pal.” He produced a revolver and fitted a silencer on it “Moose always gives me the jobs he isn’t interested in. He gets the girl and I get you.”

I realized that he had come to the room to kill me. Believing that I worked for the Mafia, they weren’t going to leave me alive to tell my bosses what I’d learned. I squirmed across the floor toward the man with the gun, determined to go out resisting. He only backed away, scorning my futile efforts to reach him. I saw the barrel of the revolver rise and point at me like a cold and deadly eye. Falling on my side, I rolled toward the gunman, trying to knock him off balance. He backed up again, the revolver unwavering. Then he shot me.

I heard the pop of the silenced weapon and felt the bullet tear into my chest like a blazing-hot rivet. He shot me again. I felt a stab of pain when the second bullet hit my neck, but I seemed now to be a participant in a dream. The shot was like a bee sting, no more.

Lying on my side, my shirt blotted with blood, I watched Sid move in my direction, almost soundless on his sneakered feet. My vision was fuzzy. By the time he reached me, he appeared to be no more than a vague shape.

He put his foot against me and pushed me on my back. I gazed helplessly up at him. He pointed the revolver again. I thought he was going to administer the final coup, a bullet between the eyes, but he lowered the weapon. He had decided to let me bleed to death.

My eyes stared at the ceiling. I was paralyzed with weakness. Sid reached down and flipped open my jacket to look at the chest wound. He seemed satisfied. He went away.

I could hardly see the ceiling now. Darkness was creeping in at the corners of my mind. I thought about Hawk and how he’d react when he learned he’d lost a Killmaster. I supposed he’d put a posthumous letter of commendation in my file before he closed it for good — epitaph for an agent killed in the line of duty.

I thought about Pat Steele, the redhead who’d wished me luck. She might be a long time finding out that I had followed N1 and N2 and David Kirby into the ranks of those whose luck had failed. I thought about Kirby and Sheila Brant and told myself I’d let them down by getting myself killed...

But then, like a swimmer coming up for air, I burst out of the blackness that had engulfed me. I couldn’t explain it, but I was still alive. My eyes fixed on the ceiling and brought it into hazy focus. I had no conception of time, no idea how long I had been unconscious.

The house was silent, caught in an eerie stillness. A faint light had entered the room, as though dawn had come outside. The killers were gone, I thought I was alone.

I heard a car. From the sound of the motor, I knew it had stopped outside the house. The car’s door slammed. I lay listening, hoping. The front door opened. I heard footsteps in the living room. They moved toward the kitchen.

I worked my mouth, but no sound came out. I was too weak. When I tried to move, the ceiling seemed to dip and I almost fainted.

The footsteps again, steady and heavy. A man appeared in the doorway and looked in on me. He wore a striped suit and a hat. I made a sound, a strained grunt.

He heard me. He walked into the room and gazed down at me. I saw cold grey eyes in an expressionless, pockmarked face. Finally he knelt beside me. He took out a knife and slit the front of my shirt and examined my wound. I couldn’t tell if he was interested in helping me or merely curious about how long I had to live.

“Who are you?” he said at last. He had a faint Sicilian accent.

My mouth formed the word. “Harper.”

He got up and went to the bathroom and came back with a household first-aid kit. He knew something about gunshot wounds. He stopped my bleeding quickly, then cut up a sheet and began winding the strips around my chest like a bandage. He paid no attention to my neck wound, so I assumed it was only a graze and not serious enough to be of concern.

“Who shot you, Harper?”

I shook my head to indicate I didn’t know. I was in no condition to talk about what had happened.

He studied me for a minute as if deciding what to do about me, then slit the strips of cloth binding my wrists and ankles. That pockmarked face of his was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

Rising, he glanced around the room once more, then left the house without speaking to me again. I heard his car start up and drive away.

The name sprang suddenly into my mind. Valante. Marco Valante. I had seen his picture in the newspapers during a Justice Department investigation of organized crime. According to reports, he was one of the men at the top.

When I remembered that he had spent a few minutes in the kitchen before he found me, I got to my hands and knees. Crawling took a great deal of effort. I was moving slowly toward the door when my hand brushed the address book. My fingers closed around it.

I had to rest anyway. I lay on my side, fighting off dizziness, and examined the book. It must have fallen from the pocket of one of the intruders at the time we were struggling. Recalling how I had torn Moose’s coat, I decided the book belonged to him. Thrusting it into my pocket, I started crawling again. I had to pause and rest three times before I finally reached the kitchen.

Sprawled in the doorway, I raised my head and looked at Sheila, who lay motionless near a chair where she’d been tied. The strips of cloth that had bound her still dangled on the chair’s arms and lower rungs.

I found my voice. “Sheila?”

The fact that she didn’t move or reply did not surprise me. But I croaked her name again in a voice charged with pain and fury. Then I crawled to her. The fragile face was bruised and bloody. The hoods had worked her over savagely.

I touched the girl’s outstretched wrist. It was cold. I closed my eyes for a minute, bringing my emotions under control. Then I pulled myself nearer the body.

She had been killed, I saw, by a blow so powerful that it had broken her neck. The one man who could have delivered such a blow was Moose. The son-of-a-bitch, I thought.

I felt guilty because I had brought her back and had failed to protect her. I was still alive and she was dead. But the strongest emotion that coursed through me, the one that filled me with determination, was fury. I would come out of this and I would get Moose and his friends, I thought I would do it not only for Dave Kirby but for Sheila.

Somewhere I discovered more strength than I’d thought I had. I reached up and grabbed hold of the edge of the kitchen table and pulled myself to my feet. Swaying, I looked around me, then staggered to the window. I tore down the curtains and covered the girl’s nude body with them. I collapsed into a chair, until I regained enough strength to stagger into the living room and make the incredibly slow journey to the telephone. I pawed the receiver off the hook and dialed the operator.

My croaked words didn’t make much sense, but I succeeded in communicating my need for help. When one of Bonham’s two policemen arrived at the house, I was unconscious on the floor, the receiver clamped in my hand so tightly he had trouble prying it loose.

I was a novelty for the staff at the hospital in the county seat near Bonham. They treated few gunshot wounds except during hunting season when overeager sportsmen usually managed to wing one or two other hunters, and I had the additional attraction of being the luckiest man they’d ever met.

“The one bullet only tore the flesh on your neck. You could get hurt worse playing touch football,” the doctor said. “But you were remarkably lucky on the one that got you in the chest.” He held up the shoulder holster I’d been wearing. “This slowed the slug down and angled it away from your vital organs. The bullet went through the leather rigging and was slanted from its path. You bled enough to lead the gunman to believe he’d made the right connection. You’re very lucky, Mr. Harper.”

“Yeah,” I said. I was lucky, but Sheila was dead.

“Your Good Samaritan helped, too. He did a splendid job of bandaging you up. I wonder if he’s had some medical training.”

I grinned when I heard the Mafia’s Marco Valante being termed a Good Samaritan.

The day and a half I had spent in the hospital had put me back in stride. I was still weak, but I felt close to par. I could move around my room, the doctor said, and if all went well, I could check out of the hospital within a week. He didn’t know it, but I planned to check out unofficially inside thirty minutes.

I walked to the window and looked down at the hospital parking lot. The battered Ford with the souped-up engine was sitting there waiting. I’d had it brought over from Bonham that morning. Moose and his companions had almost two days’ start on me. I had no intention of letting their trail get any colder.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a man in your physical condition,” the doctor said. “The beating you took would have laid me up for days. But don’t press yourself too soon. You might find out that you’re not as strong as you think.”

“I’ll be careful, Doc.” I wasn’t even thinking about what I was saying. I was thinking about getting Moose.

After the doctor left the room, I removed my hospital robe and donned street clothing. I strapped on the bullet-scarred shoulder rig, my good luck charm, and checked the Luger.

My plans had not been cleared with Hawk. So far we’d had no opportunity to confer at length on the happenings in Bonham. We had talked once on the telephone since the police rushed me to the hospital, a necessity because my presence in the house with a slain girl had required a bit of explaining.

In fact, the Bonham police had threatened to arrest me. They were very upset about the rash of fatalities that had broken out in their town on the day of my arrival. But Hawk had pulled some strings, and suddenly there had been no more questioning, no more pressure. There had been no stories in the newspapers, either.

I left the hospital by the back stairs. I was walking briskly across the parking lot when a long car turned off the highway and came to a halt alongside me. A door swung open and Hawk said, “Nick, I’m glad you’re up and about.”

Hoping I didn’t look like a school-kid caught playing hooky, I obeyed his signal to climb into the limousine.

“You were planning to call me, I suppose. Certainly you wouldn’t leave the hospital and take up the chase again without letting me know.”

“Certainly not,” I said.

“You weren’t afraid that I’d veto the idea and say you were in no condition to pursue a wolfpack of killers?”

“No, sir,” I replied, respect in my voice. “You know I’d take myself off a job if I didn’t feel I was able to handle it.”

“When you get too old for this line of work, Nick, I’m going to recommend you for the diplomatic service,” Hawk sighed. “I was in Denver anyway and since I suspected you’d pull something like this, I came on over. Would you like someone assigned to you as a reinforcement?”

“No sir. I’d rather follow up on it alone.”

Hawk slid the soundproof glass panel between us and the two men in the front seat.

“It’s no longer simply a question of avenging Kirby, is it, Nick?”

I shook my head. “There’s the girl, too. But there’s more to it than personal vengeance. The man who leads the killers is a sadist who’ll go on slaughtering people if he isn’t stopped.”

Hawk flipped down a panel in front of him and tugged out a tape recorder. He pressed a button. In an official-sounding voice, he said, “Give me your report, N3.”

I related the events that had occurred since my arrival in Bonham and then Hawk cut off the recorder. “That takes care of the official part of it. The rest that is said is strictly between the two of us. I’m going to permit you to continue with this on your terms. Get the bastards, Nick.”

“You realize our security was breached at the base on the Carolina coast, don’t you?”

“I’ll take care of that,” Hawk said in a hard voice.

“I think the base was infiltrated by an agent of the Mafia. They were after the information we’d gathered on the girl, and they were seeking Frank Abruze’s killers. They can’t have a pack of mavericks knocking off a man to whom they’d promised security and retirement. It’s a direct challenge and an affront.”

“Agreed,” Hawk said. “I’ve drawn the same conclusions.”

“There are some missing pieces to the puzzle. Like why an assassin apparently working for the Mafia tried to kill me, but Marco Valante lent me a hand. Quiz your Mafia experts about that. Maybe they can come up with a theory.”

“Consider it done.”

“The men who killed Abruze and Kirby are looking for their blood money now. I’m convinced Sheila told them the truth and that she didn’t know what happened to the cash. They killed her for no good reason except that killing is Moose’s bag. There are three of them, by the way, not four.”

“What lead do you have to follow from here?” Hawk asked.

“This address book Moose dropped while we were wrestling the other night. There are seven names in it I’m going to pay a visit to each of these people. Maybe One of them will lead me to Moose.”

“If Moose and his confederates or the Mafia don’t get you first.” Hawk flipped through the address book. “These are women’s names, all of them.”

“And each in a different city. Moose has lady friends all over the map.”

“I’ll have a check made of the FBI’s files. Maybe they’ll tell us something about Moose and his friends. From your description, he’s the size of the Jolly Green Giant. That’s a start.”

I reached for the address book, but Hawk was in no hurry to return it “Nick, this is more than a list of names. If s a sexual catalog. Did you read these comments Moose wrote about the seven girls?”

“Yes,” I said. “Pretty racy stuff.”

“He describes what each of them does best in the sexual line. Trudy in Los Angeles sounds sensational.”

“Personally, I liked the references he gave Cora in Vegas. Tell you what, I’ll let you know how accurate Moose’s notes are.”

“You’re a strapping physical specimen, my boy, but I don’t see how you could personally explore the subject in depth without wearing yourself down to skin and bones,” Hawk said in an amused voice. “The delights of Barbara, for example, are such that even Moose couldn’t describe them. He simply underlined her name and put exclamation points behind it.”

“Maybe he did that because she’s the only virgin in the bunch.”

“I rather doubt that Moose knows any virgins,” Hawk said. “I suppose it isn’t necessary for me to point out that all of these girls are probably involved in underworld activity and will most likely be involved with hoods who won’t hesitate to kill you if they get suspicious?”

“It’ll be a fun trip, all right.”

Hawk closed the book and passed it to me. “What else, Nick? Are you holding back anything?”

“No,” I lied. “That’s it. I’ll be in touch.”

He spoke my name again as I was getting out of the car. “Sheila made quite an impact on you, didn’t she? What was she like?”

“I couldn’t say. I didn’t get to know her that well.”

What I hadn’t mentioned was that one of the names in Moose’s book could belong to the girl we’d known as Sheila Brant. AXE had been unable to pin a past on her, but she must have had one before she met Frank Abruze.

I was pursuing Sheila’s ghost as well as her killers.

Five

If there was one big drawback to my job, other than the hours and the high mortality rate, it was that I was required to spend more time in other people’s countries than I spent in my own.

I had not seen El Pueblo Nuestra Senora la Reinda de Los Angeles de Porciuncula, known to most of us as just plain L.A., in two years. The city had changed, not entirely for the better. The climate, so like that of the Mediterranean countries, was still beautiful and so were the girls. But the traffic and the smog had grown thicker.

As I worked my way into a drugstore telephone booth, I was wondering how Trudy, who had rated the first page in Moose’s sexual Who’s Who, would compare to some of the knockouts sitting at the soda fountain waiting to be discovered. The great American dream of stardom never dies.

A female voice answered the telephone and sounded disappointed when I asked for Trudy. “I’ll call her.” While I waited, I looked at the legs of the girls at the soda fountain and kicked open the door of the booth so I could share the air conditioning. The days were getting hotter and I was wearing a lot of bandage about my chest.

Trudy’s voice sounded sultry, but maybe my judgment was influenced by Moose’s capsule description of her talents in the bedroom. When I told her a friend had suggested I get in touch with her, she invited me to come around. It was as easy as falling off a bar stool. “I’m crazy about meeting new people,” she said.

I soon discovered the reason. Meeting new people was Trudy’s business. She worked in a bordello. She led me up a flight of stairs, clinging to my hand and talking a blue streak.

“You come highly recommended. I got your number from Moose,” I said.

“Moose? Oh, sure.” She tugged me into a room and slid down the zipper of my trousers while I was still looking around. “I have to check you over, honey, and give you a nice bath. The lady I work for says cleanliness is next to prosperity.”

I evaded her deft grasp. “She must be quite a philosopher. I’d like to meet her sometime.”

“No, you wouldn’t. She’s as cold as a loanshark’s heart. Most madams are. Those movies where they have hearts of gold, that’s a lot of Hollywood nonsense. What’s the matter with you, honey? You got a thing about being touched?”

At least I’d found a talker, I thought. If I asked her for directions to the stadium, she’d probably throw in the baseball club’s lineup and last season’s record.

Trudy plastered herself against me. She was a big girl, a beauty parlor blonde, and there was a lot of her to plaster. Her nipples prodded my chest like bullets.

“What happened to your face, honey?” She touched the cut at the edge of my lip, the stitches the doctor had put in the side of my head. “You look as if you fell into cement mixer.”

“I had an accident.”

“I’m sorry.” Her hand seized hold of me again. “My, you’re a real man, aren’t you?”

She probably told that to all her customers, but she sounded as if she meant it. I backpedaled hastily and worked at my zipper, knowing that if Hawk could see me now, he’d burst out laughing.

“I want to ask you about Moose. When did you see him last?”

“I really don’t remember. Is that what you came here for, to find out where Moose is?”

“You’re a smart girl. You saw through me right away, didn’t you?” I laid the flattery on as thick as I could. “I am looking for the big clown. We kind of lost touch, you know what I mean?”

She edged closer to me and slid her left arm around my waist. Her right hand found my zipper again. She was faster than a pickpocket. “Since you’re here, you might as well enjoy the visit. What turns you on?”

I caught hold of her groping hand and turned it palm up. I pressed three twenties into her curled fingers. “Tell me about Moose.”

Her friendliness tapered off sharply. She folded the bills neatly and stuffed them into my belt “I sell sex, not information.”

“Moose and I are old friends. But we lost touch, like I said. Look, he gave me your number, didn’t he?”

“You could be lying about that. Anyway, I don’t remember when I saw Moose last and I don’t know where he is. Even if he’s your long-lost brother, I don’t want to talk about him.”

I took out two more twenties, folded all five together and stuck them into her low-cut blouse. “Are you sure?”

“I’m absolutely sure. Moose likes to knock people around, and he does a good job of it. Nobody talks about him to strangers.”

“Give me an old address, a telephone number even. I won’t tell where I got it.”

Trudy fished between her large breasts and pulled the bills out. She stroked the wrinkles out of them. “I haven’t seen him in several months, maybe even a year. Honest. And I never knew any address. He came around here from time to time, that’s all.”

“He had a name, didn’t he?”

“I thought you were a pal of his. Pals know each others names.” She threw the bills at me and they fluttered to the floor. “You don’t even look like a friend of his. You look too honest. Pick up your bribe and beat it.”

Negotiation having failed, I tried a more direct approach. I pushed back my coat so that she could see the Luger nestled in its leather sheath. “I want a name, Trudy.”

She licked her lower lip. “You a cop?”

“No, just a man looking for Moose.”

“Jones is his name.” She laughed nervously. “You probably don’t believe me, but it’s the honest-to-God truth. His name is Edward Jones. And that’s all I can tell you.”

“Thanks,” I said as I walked to the door. “You can keep the bribe.”

I waited outside the house for three hours, slumped down in the car seat and trying to look inconspicuous. I was about ready to flunk myself on character analysis when Trudy finally appeared and flagged a taxi.

Carter, I thought, it’s a good thing you aren’t a trusting soul.

I took off behind the cab, which led me across town to a cheap apartment house. I followed Trudy inside in time to spot her darting up a flight of stairs. At the end of a long hallway, the busty blonde knocked on a door. When she got no reply, she knocked harder. Then she turned and saw me and her eyes widened in astonishment.

“Your story didn’t have the ring of truth,” I told her, “but I got my money’s worth. You led me here.”

“Clever as hell, aren’t you?” she spat.

I tried the door. “Apparently Moose isn’t home. What do you suggest we do about that?”

She ran for the next flight of stairs. I pursued her to the roof and cornered her. She fought and scratched my face, tried to knee me in the groin, and called me some names I hadn’t heard in years. Considering my widely varied travels, that was saying quite a lot for her vocabulary.

I pulled her wrists behind her and forced her over to the edge of the roof. “Now let’s hear the truth about Moose.”

“You won’t push me off. He would, but you won’t.”

“Don’t count on it, Trudy. Moose killed a friend of mine and beat a girl to death. I’m going to find him and I don’t care what I have to do along the way.”

She was panting. “Is that true, about the girl? Are you on the level?”

“The girl’s name was Sheila. Did you ever hear Moose mention her?”

“Never. And I haven’t seen him lately. He lived in that apartment when I knew him. I thought he’d like to know you were looking for him. That’s the only reason I came. I swear it is.”

“Does he call himself Edward Jones, or did you make that up?”

“He used the name when I knew him. He’s probably used a dozen more. If you don’t believe me, go back to the house and quiz the other girls. They’ll tell you the same. He’s a heist man. He boasted about having pulled some big capers.”

I turned her loose. “All right.”

“Can I go now?”

“Take off,” I said.

Trudy looked back when she reached the stairway.

“He beat her to death?”

“Yeah,” I said. My voice was hoarse.

I found the cheap lock on the apartment door easy to spring. The rooms were vacant and dust lay on the furniture. The last occupant had been gone for quite a while. I glanced around me disgustedly. I had hoped for more.

Company was waiting for me at the foot of the stairs. I tried not to show my surprise when I saw her.

“What you said put me to thinking,” Trudy said.

“Did it?”

“About the girl, I mean. Was she your girl?”

“No,” I said. “But she didn’t deserve to die that way.”

“I can’t tell you any more about Moose than I already have. But I can give you another name. Are you clued in on the way heist men operate? If they have a big caper lined up and they need money to make the arrangements, they go to someone in the Mob or to a guy who finances heists for a cut of the loot. There’s a man named Haskell in L.A. He’s loaded with dough and lives like a solid citizen, but I heard Moose boast that he put up the money for some heists.”

“Thanks, Trudy.”

“Forget it. And I mean just that. Forget I told you.”

The sign on Haskell’s door said he was in real estate. The thick carpeting in the outer office indicated he made money at it, or at his moonlighting. His voluptuous secretary gave me a smile that was all teeth and no sincerity and told me Mr. Haskell saw no one without an appointment.

“How does one get an appointment?”

She showed her teeth again. She should have been advertising toothpaste. “If one doesn’t know Mr. Haskell, one rarely does.”

“I know Edward Jones,” I said. “Will that do?”

She gathered up some papers and went in to drop the name to her boss in privacy. When she returned, she said Mr. Haskell was very busy today and as it happened, he’d never heard of Edward Jones.

“In other words, I should get lost.”

The smile bloomed again, twenty-four karat this time. “You got it, buster.”

A black Cadillac was sitting at the curb when I walked out of the building into the California sunshine. Behind the wheel was a uniformed chauffeur with a face like a second-story man.

I leaned down to speak to him when I passed the Caddy. “You shouldn’t wear a tailored uniform. It makes the bulge under your arm stand out like a bump on a tire.”

He grinned and patted the bulge. “That’s where I carry my references.”

I parked a half-block away and waited. The chauffeur had obviously come to pick Haskell up. Within ten minutes, a rotund man who looked as if he was carrying a watermelon under his coat appeared and got into the car.

When the Caddy passed, I fell in behind it. Our destination turned out to be a swank country club in the suburbs. The fat man was a golfer. I spent most of the afternoon watching him through binoculars. He had a drive like an old woman. I was the victim of an advanced case of boredom by the time he finally trudged back to the clubhouse.

It was time for me to make a move. I put up the binoculars and walked to the parking lot. Moving behind a row of automobiles, I came up behind the chauffeur, who was leaning against the Caddy’s hood with his arms folded.

“Hey,” I said softly.

He whipped around and I drove a hard right into his solar plexus. I yanked him between two cars so that we wouldn’t attract attention and hit him again. His eyes rolled like marbles and his fumbling hand slid limply away from his jacket buttons.

“Let’s see your references,” I said and gave the jacket a hard pull. Buttons rained against the side of the Cadillac. I extracted the .38 from the holster under his arm.

“Now we’re going to wait for your boss,” I told him.

When Haskell emerged from the clubhouse, the chauffeur was sitting stiffly behind the steering wheel. His posture was due to the gun I had punched into the back of his neck.

“Max, what’s the matter with you?” Haskell asked as he drew near.

“His belly hurts,” I said. I shoved the right-hand car door open with my foot. “Get in, Mr. Haskell.”

The fat man peered into the back seat at me. He had a smooth golf course tan, but at the moment he looked a little pale. “This doesn’t speak well for your judgment,” he blustered. “I am a man of some influence.”

I had been waiting a long time and impatience was prodding me. “Get into the car, Mr. Haskell, or I’ll spill some of your chauffeur’s blood on these expensive leather seats.”

He eased into the car and settled back with a grunt. Lacing his pudgy fingers together, he said, “You’d better have a very good excuse for this impetuous action.”

“Success breeds overconfidence, Mr. Haskell,” I said. “I’m not a cheap hood and I don’t give a damn how important you think you are.”

His small eyes shifted uneasily, but he maintained his poise. “I assume you’re the man who claims to be a friend of Edward Jones.”

“I didn’t say I was his friend. I said I knew him. What I want from you is some information on where to find Mr. Jones.”

“We never exchanged addresses.”

I saw no reason to handle Haskell with kid gloves. Despite the chauffered Cadillac and his carpeted office and his country club membership, he was no more than a sophisticated mobster. I brought the barrel of the revolver down on his kneecap. The sharp blow drew a gasp of pain.

“Who the hell are you?” he wanted to know.

“I’m the man who asked you a question about Edward Jones.”

“He hasn’t been in L.A. in months. I haven’t had a deal with him in longer than that.”

“Who works with Jones? He has a couple of friends he uses on his jobs. I want to know their names.”

He grimaced and rubbed his knee. “If you were as well acquainted with the man as I am, you wouldn’t be interested in finding him. He isn’t completely right upstairs. He likes to kill people.”

“That’s the reason I’m looking for him.”

“I can’t tell you about his friends because I dealt with him alone. He was very careful about details like that. He stopped coming to me for financing because he found another backer. Someone in the Organization, I think.”

I got out of the car. Another zero. A wasted afternoon except for the pleasure of getting to know Mr. Haskell a little better, which I could have done without.

“Aren’t you going to tell me who you are?” Haskell asked.

“Why should I? You didn’t tell me anything.”

I threw his chauffeurs gun into a garbage can down the street.

That night, I called Hawk from my motel room. “Let’s compare notes,” I said when he came on the line.

“I have some information on the man who tried to kill you in the hotel in Bonham. For one thing, his name actually was Coogan. He had a police record. He was a gun for hire, one of the best. The FBI seemed a little surprised that you were capable of taking his measure.” There was noticeable satisfaction in Hawk’s voice.

“Who gave him his orders?”

“He was an independent contractor. For hire to anyone who could pay his fee, which was high. The FBI says he was not on the mob’s regular payroll.”

“What about Valante?”

“He was Frank Abruze’s closest friend.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have much. Moose is not in Los Angeles.”

Hawk cleared Ms throat “And what about Trudy? Did she live up to billing?”

There was no doubt about it. My boss had a streak of the dirty old man in him.

Six

I went to bed early and slept until dawn. A hissing sound awoke me. Eyes slitted, I lay listening, my fingers curled around the butt of the Luger. Then I felt a sudden burst of heat against my face.

Kicking off the sheet, I twisted and hit the floor in a crouch, Wilhelmina in my hand. Orange tongues of flame licked up the wall of my motel room. The hissing sound I’d heard had been the curtains at the glass doors to the patio catching fire. Already they were curling into black tinder and the fire was catching on the wall.

I grabbed the extinguisher off the wall in the hall and as I reentered the room I flinched at the heat. The extinguisher made quick work of the flames. I won out, but if I had slept five minutes longer, the story would have been different.

I dropped the extinguisher, picked up the Luger again, and tore down the charred curtains. Someone had cut a neat hole in the glass door and reached through to set the curtains ablaze. It was a fine professional piece of work. While I stood admiring the hole, a bullet pierced the door near my head. I heard the slug go past and thud into the far wall. An instant later I was flat on the floor.

The gunman was hidden behind a short brick wall on the other side of the enclosed patio and pool. In the pale light I could see the snout of his rifle as he poked it over the wall. Since I hadn’t heard the shot, the rifle must be equipped with a silencer. The man was a pro all the way, except that he had missed my head by six inches. Maybe I had moved just a little as he squeezed the trigger.

I didn’t return his fire because I couldn’t see him clearly. He couldn’t get a bead on me, either. We played a waiting game, each of us hoping for an opening. His patience outlasted mine. I decided to move. Hugging the floor, I began to wriggle backward.

When I was well away from the doors, I stood up. I stepped into my trousers. Moving quietly on bare feet, I trotted along the carpeted corridor and climbed a flight of steps to the second floor of the motel. With a little luck, I could get a shot at him from above, I thought. But by the time I reached the railing of the second-floor balcony he had vanished from his hiding place.

Clumps of shrubbery on the motel grounds provided plenty of cover, but the rifleman had to dart between them. Sooner or later I’d spot him. I waited, shivering a little in the cool air. Besides my trousers, all I was wearing was the bandage on my chest.

Finally I glimpsed a crouched figure scuttling away from me. Before I could fire a shot at him, he had leaped behind the far corner of the building.

Quickly I descended the steps, ran past a row of coin-operated drink machines and out the door into a parking lot. My man was in retreat. He had scaled a wire fence and was springing into a car parked on the shoulder of the road beyond the motel property. He started the motor and sped away.

I could have snapped off a shot, but it probably wouldn’t have stopped him and I didn’t want to attract a crowd. I padded back to my room, asking myself the obvious question. How had the would-be killer known where to find me?

I checked out of the motel after breakfast and drove across town to the house where I’d met Trudy.

A burly Chinese greeted me at the door. I hadn’t seen him on my first visit and I didn’t regret it. He was built like a tractor and he didn’t look friendly.

“What do you want this time of day?” he asked, glowering.

“Too early for business?”

“Unless you’ve got an appointment. Which you haven’t.”

I leaned my shoulder against the door as he tried to close it in my face. I smiled at him. “Tell Trudy a friend is here to see her.”

“Trudy isn’t seeing anybody today.”

“You’re wrong about that,” I told him. “She’s seeing me.”

“Mister, don’t try the tough act with me. I could throw you into the next block.”

“Maybe you could. But when I got back there would be hell to pay.”

He threw back his head and burst into laughter that sounded like the roar of an outboard motor. “I used to be a professional wrestler. The Mighty Shang, Terror of the Orient, even though I was born right here in L.A. You ever watch wrestling on television?”

“I try not to.”

“Look, tough guy, I only work here. But I’ll deliver your message, if you want to wait.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s all right. You amuse me.”

He let me inside and moved away, still chuckling. He went into a back room on the ground floor, closing the door behind him. I heard voices, one a woman’s. As I waited, I wondered why a girl who had been so available yesterday was so hard to see today.

A blonde appeared at the head of the stairway Trudy had led me up the day before. She looked a great deal like Trudy except that she was younger and heavier in the hips. She was wearing a negligee that concealed hardly enough to matter.

Yawning and stretching, she called down to me, “What do you need, sugar?” Her tone of voice indicated that whatever it was, she knew where I could get it.

The Terror of the Orient came back and interrupted. “Get lost,” he snarled at the girl. Apparently he was no longer amused. He jerked a thumb at me. “Come on, tough guy.”

I entered a room in which the blinds were drawn tight against the sun. Cheap incense fouled the air and the furniture was a mixture of teak and Hollywood grotesque. The big Chinese closed the door behind me and I heard the lock click.

The woman waiting for me looked nothing like Trudy. She was in her thirties and must have had an Oriental somewhere in her ancestry. Her eyes were slightly slanted and her skin had a sallow hue. Her black hair had been cut close to her head. A glittering mandarin robe clung to her slender body and her long fingernails were painted silver. In the shadowy room her eyes shone like those of the Siamese cat curled in her lap.

“Is this him, Alida?” asked Shang.

“Of course it’s him.”

“You’re no friend of Trudy’s, mister.” He seized my sleeve, gathering a handful of it in his thick fingers. “I may break your neck.”

The cat in the woman’s lap raised his head as though he’d heard the threat. His tiny tongue flicked around his chops.

“Just wait a minute,” I said. “What’s the reason for the hostility?”

The woman stroked the cat and studied me with malevolent eyes. “I run this house. You came here yesterday under false pretenses. You brought us trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“The worst kind. Trudy made a mistake when she didn’t tell me about you to start with. I won’t permit you to see her again. This business you are involved in is none of her affair.”

The Chinese dropped his other hand heavily on my shoulder. “Is he mine now?”

“Not yet,” Alida told him. She pointed a long fingernail at me. “You got to the girl with your talk of Moose beating a woman to death. Maybe you lied. Maybe you have other reasons for looking for him.”

“What would they be?”

“Two hundred thousand dollars, for example.”

It was just a matter of time until she turned Shang loose on me, and I had no intention of leaving without talking to Trudy. So with a savage backward motion, I slammed my elbow into Shang’s hard belly. He grunted with pain and surprise.

Pivoting, I spiked him with my knee. His face was anything but inscrutable. Lines of pain rippled up toward his eyes and he sank into a stoop like a pigeon-toed man trying to hold a walnut between his knees.

As he reached for me, I feinted, then hit him with the edge of my right hand. The blow, which would have split a plank, caught him on the side of his thick neck. His eyes protruded and his breath whistled between his teeth. Catching him by the coat, I yanked him off balance and hurled him over my hip. He hit the floor like a piano falling two stories.

I pulled the Luger. “Now, where’s Trudy?”

Alida stood up and pitched the cat at my face. I dodged and the Siamese sailed past, a ball of spitting fury. He landed on Shang’s back and clawed his way up. The Chinese tried to buck him off and the cat sank his claws into the man’s head.

Poor Shang screamed loud enough to shatter glass.

I rapped the cat lightly on the spine with the Luger. He meowed and sprang to a nearby table.

“You all right?” I asked Shang, but he wasn’t listening. I turned on Alida and she was pulling open the drawer of a table. I had an idea the lady wasn’t looking for a guest book for me to sign. I grabbed her by the back of the tight gown and it tore as she writhed away. When she wheeled, she had a .38 Beretta in her hand.

She called me a name she hadn’t learned from her Chinese ancestors. It was 100 per cent back alley American. Before she could pull the trigger, I slapped her wrist with the heavy Luger and the Beretta spun out of her fingers and struck the wall.

I put the point of the Luger right between her hate-filled eyes. “The question was, where’s Trudy?”

Alida took me upstairs. The girl was sitting on a bed playing solitaire. She gave me a sullen glance. “Look who’s here. My lucky charm.”

“I tried to keep him away from you. Take my advice and tell him nothing,” Alida said.

Trudy had a day-old shiner. I walked over to her and tilted her chin. “Who did the job on you?”

“A guy named Oscar. Oscar Snodgrass.”

“I don’t think that was his name.”

“The word is out that a Mafia capo got hit and a piece of the Mob’s cash heisted. Moose is wild enough to pull a caper like that. And you come looking for Moose. Alicia says that’s an odd coincidence.”

“I’m not interested in the money. I told you the reason I wanted Moose.”

The girl looked at Alida. “What am I going to do? I believe him.”

“I went to see Haskell. He didn’t tell me anything I needed to know. But someone has tried to kill me and now I find you and the sweet-tempered madam here up-tight. What’s the story, Trudy?”

She swept the cards together into a pile on the bed. “Alida, I’m going to tell him.”

“Then hurry up. I want him out of here. I don’t want any more trouble with the Mob.”

“Two men came here last night,” Trudy said. “I can’t tell you their names, but I can tell you who they work for.”

“The Mafia.”

“That’s who. They knew you had been to see me. They wanted to know what you were after. The short ugly one hit me and I got scared. I told him you were looking for Moose.”

They had been following me, I thought. I’d led them here like I’d led them to Idaho. They were patient and they were tenacious and now they knew what they hadn’t known before, that Moose was their heist man.

“They’ll burn you,” Alida said. “I hope they burn you good.”

I went down the stairs. The Mighty Shang was hanging on to the arms of a chair and grimacing as the blonde in the negligee dabbed iodine in his hair. The Siamese cat sat licking his paw and eyed me balefully as I walked past. “Nice kitty,” I said. He was the real terror of the Orient.

Seven

I left Los Angeles at ten o’clock in the morning, driving south. The second name in Moose’s little black book was Therese and Therese was in San Diego. I hoped to be talking to her before the day ended.

The race was on now. The Mafia knew almost as much as I knew. They would be sending out soldiers to hunt down Moose. My only edge was the little black book with the seven names in it.

I kept an eye on the rear view mirror, trying to pick out the car that would be trailing me. I decided it was the brown sedan, the Buick. The driver made an effort to throw me off: he let another car come between us briefly, and when I slowed down, he forged ahead of me for a few miles.

While he was up there, I whipped off the main highway onto the first available side road. I pulled up at a service station and told the attendant to fill the Ford’s tank and check under the hood. I went inside and opened a soft drink.

The brown Buick came along before the attendant finished checking the oil. Two men were in the front seat. One turned to look at the Ford, but they kept going. They still hoped they hadn’t been spotted.

Still holding the pop bottle, I walked out the side — door of the station and climbed the hill behind it. The attendant called after me, but I kept going. I stopped in a clump of trees and squatted down. I could see the station clearly, but no one there could see me.

The driver of the brown car would idle along waiting for me to come into sight again. When I didn’t, he would turn around and return.

I finished the drink and watched the attendant clamp down the hood of the Ford. My behavior puzzled him, but he had my car. He wasn’t worried about my running out on the bill.

The Buick came back. The two thugs consulted the man at the service station. He pointed in the direction I had taken. The hoods talked it over. Then they started to run up the hill. They were afraid I had abandoned the Ford and was trying to elude them on foot.

Come on, boys, I thought.

As they drew closer, panting and cursing, I slid behind a tree. The taller man was in better shape. He led his companion by three strides. He sprinted past my hiding place, running along the fringe of the thicket. The shorter man yelled after him, “Hey, Joe. Slow down. You think this is the Olympics?”

Holding the pop bottle by the small end, I stepped from behind the tree. “Hey, Shorty,” I said.

He stopped as if he’d run into a clothesline. “Joe!” he yelled.

I hit him on the head with the empty pop bottle and he dropped in a heap.

Joe had paused He looked back and saw me coming at him. His hand streaked inside his coat and reappeared with a .45. Then he hesitated. He didn’t shoot.

I didn’t ask why he held his fire. I tackled him.

The thug wrapped his legs around me and swung at my head with the .45. We rolled over wild grass and brush as we wrestled. I captured his wrist and wrenched. I broke it. The sound was like a dry stick snapping. The thug moaned. I hit him twice and then crawled away.

He got up and kicked the Luger from my hand. I tripped him. He got up again, broken wrist dangling, and hit me with his good hand. He was tough. He kept coming. Finally I dropped him with a right cross.

His persistence was amazing. Once again he staggered to his feet.

I was getting tired. This was the most I had exerted myself since I’d been shot and I was feeling the drain on my energies. Compared to Joe, the Mighty Shang had been an easy mark.

“The party is over,” I told him. I slid Hugo down into my palm. “I was saving you for talk, but I can change my mind.”

Sunlight glinted on the stiletto’s blade as I weaved toward him. Joe put up his good hand. “I’m not about to try to take that thing away from you. Let’s talk.”

“Which of you worked on Trudy?”

“The guy you kayoed. But I would have done it. Business is business.”

I stepped closer and put the point of the knife to his Adam’s apple. “Who’s your boss?”

“Valante. Marco Valante.”

“And what did you have to tell him the last time you reported?”

“That you’re looking for a heist man named Moose. We got that from the girl. Valante told us to stick with you.”

I gathered up the weapons, thrust his .45 in my belt, sheathed the stiletto, and marched him back to Shorty with the Luger against his spine.

Joe looked down at his partner. “He’s going to have one hell of a headache tomorrow. Valante warned us you were no pushover.”

“How long have you been tailing me?”

“We picked you up in L.A., but there’s been somebody on you since you got out of that hospital. Valante kept switching the troops.”

Valante was a clever man. If he had stuck with one set of soldiers, I’d have noticed them.

I flipped Shorty over and extracted the gun from his shoulder holster. I straightened up and looked at Joe, wondering how much he knew. He was a young, good-looking Italian, neatly and expensively dressed. I couldn’t believe he was a run-of-the-mill thug. He was too cool, too tough, standing there with his broken wrist hanging but holding back any signs of pain except the lines tightening near his dark eyes.

“I’m flattered that Valante put your kind of talent on my tail. You must be his number one boy.”

“I was until this happened. Maybe I won’t be anymore.”

“Who killed Meredith?” I asked the question suddenly, hoping to get a reaction that would tell me if he lied.

What I got was a puzzled scowl. He clasped his broken wrist to his belly, flinching slightly. “Who’s Meredith?”

“He worked at a service station in Idaho. Someone cut his throat.”

“Not me. Not anybody I know. Valante was in Idaho, but he didn’t see any action. It was over when he got there. He found the girl dead and you shot up. Man, you know all this. Valante stopped you from bleeding to death.”

“He had a use for me. He wanted to know what I’d found out.”

It had worked, too. He’d had to wait until I left the hospital and give me a loose rein, but his boys had stayed with me long enough to obtain Moose’s name. The way matters stood, my venture to L.A. had proved more profitable to the Mob than to me. Hawk wouldn’t be very happy about that.

“Valante may have had his own reason for helping you, but you’re still alive,” Joe said. “I wouldn’t knock it.”

“How would you like to enjoy the same privilege?”

“Living, you mean?” He laughed nervously. “I’ve answered all your questions, man. What more do you want?”

“So far you’ve told me no big secrets. Nothing Valante would mind me knowing, considering the circumstances. The tough questions are coming up.” I pointed the Luger at his heart. “Think carefully now. How did Valante know about me in the first place?”

“He went to a meeting of the board, the top men in the Organization. They talked about the Frank Abruze killing. Your name was laid on the table. The board voted to turn the matter over to Valante. He had a special interest. He and Abruze were close.”

“There was another man in Bonham, Idaho. He went there to hit the girl. He tried to kill me.” I held the Luger steady, still aiming at his heart “What do you know about Coogan?”

“The Mob didn’t send him. They sent Valante.”

“What will Valante do now?”

“I can’t read his mind, man.” Joe was beginning to speak in a tighter voice. “I can guess a part of it. He’ll ask for a meeting of the board. He’ll throw down Moose’s name. The word will go out to every family in the country and they’ll start combing the places where the crazy bastard could be hiding.”

“I take it you’d heard of Moose before Trudy gave you his name.”

“Just gossip. Talk of the trade. He’s a psychopath. The Organization try to steer clear of his type these days. That’s the reason he operates on his own. But word about a guy like that gets around.”

“That’s good, Joe. You’ve been a lot of help.” My lips peeled back from my teeth in a cold smile. “There’s just one more point to cover. Which one of you tried to pick me off this morning?”

“Me or Shorty, you mean? Valante told us to stay with you, but we had no orders to make a hit. We didn’t do it.”

“Don’t kid me, Joe. The man was a pro, like you.”

Joe was sweating. “There’s a joker in this deck somewhere. Meredith, Coogan — those aren’t people I know anything about. The board didn’t want Abruze’s girl friend dead before she’d sung them a song. I told you my orders from Valante. He said stay with this guy Carter, he’s smart, he may help us to find the Moose. He said I wasn’t to plug you unless it became absolutely necessary. Didn’t I have a chance just a little while ago?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Sure, you did And you’re right. There is a joker in the deck.”

There had been one there ever since Bonham. A man who knew what the Mafia knew and a lot about AXE. A man who had hired Coogan, slit Meredith’s throat, and set the trap for me at the motel. I lowered the Luger and left Joe and his unconscious companion on the hillside. I paid the wide-eyed attendant for the gas he’d pumped into the Ford. Then I raised the hood of the Buick and ripped out the wiring.

“They’ll be along,” I said. But they wouldn’t get away from the station in time to catch up with me.

I drove the rest of the 110 miles to San Diego with the speedometer needle steady on the limit. By noon I was within sight of the bay. Circling gulls rode the wind with stylish grace.

While I ate a hurried lunch, I made my plans. I had to call Hawk. There was something I wanted him to have AXE sources check out.

But first there was Therese, who had inspired the second glowing passage in Moose’s black book. By now I knew all the telephone numbers in the book by heart I dialed. Therese’s and talked to a woman with a whiskey voice.

She cut through the preliminaries. “You want a date with Therese?”

“Yeah.” The question didn’t surprise me. There was a strong possibility that every girl in the book was a hooker or a call girl.

“You got any special tastes, sweetheart?”

“I’d rather not discuss them on the telephone.”

She laughed and gave me an address. It was in a rundown neighborhood near the waterfront, in the middle of a street that looked as inviting as a cellblock.

I locked the door of the Ford when I got out, wondering if even that precaution would assure the car’s being there when I returned. This was a part of town where a man could get rolled in church.

The building I approached was an eyesore that should have been razed years before, but the buzzer set in the worn door frame worked. A woman with yellow hair peered out, then glanced up and down the street as if to make sure I hadn’t brought a paddy wagon with me.

“I called,” I said. “I came to see Therese.”

She was suspicious. Maybe I didn’t look like her usual customer. “You aren’t one of Therese’s regular friends.”

“I’d like to be one. I’ve heard a lot about her.”

The woman decided to smile. Her teeth weren’t the best. Her yellow hair had been dyed long ago, and not well, and her painted eyebrows looked like batwings. She swung the door wider so I could squeeze past, then slid a bolt.

“Are you expecting a raid?”

“These days you never know. It’s not easy earning an honest living anymore.”

I was sure she knew nothing at all about earning an honest living, or even anyone who did. She wore white boots, skin-tight pants, and a pullover blouse with zebra stripes that were drawn taut over her copious breasts. Big nipples studded the blouse like rocks.

“You’re a nice-sized boy,” she said, running a quick and experienced eye over me. “I’ll bet you’re really sweet.”

I had been called any number of things, but never sweet. I forced a grin, playing the role dictated by the circumstances. This woman certainly wasn’t one who would be interested in doling out information to a stranger.

“Here’s Rondo now,” she said, laying a hand on my arm. Her fingers were the size of sausages.

A man had come out of a door at the foot of the stairway that ran to the house’s second floor. The sleeves of his shirt were cut off and exposed his broad upper arms. Metal studs gleamed in his wide belt. His pants fit as tightly as the woman’s, showing the bulges in his powerful legs. His face was moon-shaped, fat pinching in the corners of his small eyes.

“Tell us what you’d like Therese to do for you, sweetheart,” he suggested, baring teeth that were in even worse shape than the woman’s.

I felt a prickling on the back of my neck. I was in no ordinary bordello. There seemed to be no one in the house but the three of us and the girl I hadn’t seen.

“I’d like to see her first.”

“She’s a lovely chick. You won’t be disappointed.”

“Let him go up, Rondo,” the woman said. “It’s a reasonable request.”

Rondo shook his head. “I’ve got a feeling he’s a ringer. He didn’t give you any references, did he?”

“Moose,” I said. “Moose gave me Therese’s number.”

“That’s a good name.” He stuck out his hand. “Put fifty right here. It’s like a cover charge. A fifty-dollar job is the cheapest trick this chick pulls.”

I crossed his palm and he climbed the creaking stairs to confer with Therese, then waved to me from the landing. “She says come on up.”

The first thing I saw when I opened the bedroom door was the array of whips and belts laid out on a wooden table. The second thing was the girl. She really was lovely.

“What’s your name, darling?” she said in a husky voice.

A thin slip was her only piece of clothing. She was leaning against a stack of pillows on an unmade bed. The furniture in the dim room was old and dilapidated. The dresser held only a hairbrush and a cracked washbasin and the faded curtains smelled of dust. Therese was the only item of value there. She had black hair, an olive complexion, and high cheekbones that drew the skin of her lean face taut. Her body was young and lithe and she looked as though she’d be all that Moose had said in his little black book.

But he hadn’t mentioned the whips.

“Ned,” I told her. “My name is Ned.”

“And what’s your game?”

My eyes swung back to the table. I knew now the kind of house I was in, and the games that were played here were very rough indeed. It figured, I thought. Given Moose’s leanings, it figured he’d be carrying the number of a place like this. Only the girl didn’t figure. She was too lovely to be here.

“You’re going to be surprised when I tell you my; game,” I said.

“I like surprises.” There was perversity in her smile. She was the kind of woman Faust had soul his soul for.

“I want to know where Moose is.”

“I’m surprised, all right. And a little disappointed.”

“I’ve got to find him, Therese.”

“You didn’t mention this to Rondo. If you had, he wouldn’t have let you see me.”

“That’s the reason I didn’t mention it.”

Therese put a crudely-rolled cigarette in her mouth and struck a match on the wooden floor. The slip skidded down her shoulder, baring a small, round breast. She gave me the tantalizing smile again. “Moose left town.”

The odor that took over the room told me her cigarette wasn’t the kind she’d have offered the chief of police. I walked closer to the bed. “If you wanted to find Moose, where would you go?”

“To Hell. That’s where he ought to be.” She laughed, showing her teeth. They were clean and even and white. Everything about her was perfect, everything but what she was.

“Did he have friends in San Diego that I could look up?”

“I look at people and right away, that first time, I know if I’m going to like them or not. I like you.” She leaned her head against my leg. Her voice was soft. “If it’s important, I’ll help you. Why are you trying to find Moose?”

“He killed some people.”

She raised her head. “You aren’t a policeman. I can tell policemen by the way they walk.” She stroked my leg. “You don’t feel like a policeman, either.”

“He killed a friend of mine.”

The door to the bedroom burst open. Rondo and the yellow-haired woman came in.

Therese straightened up, her lovely mouth twisting. “You should have waited, Rondo!” she yelled “I could have gotten him to tell me more.”

“We heard enough.” He picked up the biggest whip on the table. “Mister, if Moose ever found out one of us set you on his tail, we’d all be sorry.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell him.”

“There won’t be anything to tell.” He snapped the whip as he moved toward me. “I saw that fat wallet of yours when you shelled out the fifty. You’re carrying a nice hunk of cash.”

“Get him, Rondo!” the yellow-haired woman said.

I realized that they were perfectly willing to kill me for the cash I carried, or even just as a favor to Moose.

Rondo drew back the whip and as he did, I picked up the straight-backed chair near the bed. The whip sang through the air and snaked around the leg of the chair as I raised it to protect my face. Rondo cursed and tried to pull the whip back.

I took two steps toward him and smashed the chair down over his head. It splintered and he sank to his knees. I belted him in the face with my fist and blood spurted.

With a squeal, Therese bounded back on the bed, reached under the pillow, and hauled out a .25 caliber Bauer automatic. They were ready for anything, this crowd.

Therese didn’t tell me to stop where I was or to put up my hands. She pointed the gun and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit the wall. She was too excited to shoot straight.

I had rapidly revised my opinion of the girl. She was lovely, but I wouldn’t have wanted to run into her in a dark alley.

“Shoot him, Therese,” urged Yellow Hair. She was a great cheerleader. I backhanded her and dived for the girl.

I hit the bed on my belly and it collapsed under my plunging weight. Therese spilled off one side with her feet flailing. She was wearing nothing underneath the slip. The force of my dive carried me across the bed like a hockey puck skidding on ice and I landed on top of her. The fall was cushioned for me, but the girl made a sound like a sick bird.

The vest-pocket gun danced from her hand, careening along the floor. Rondo wiped his bloody nose, got to his feet, and staggered for it.

I reached for the Luger, but Yellow Hair leaped on my back. She must have weighed 160. I spun around and threw her over my shoulder and she crashed upon the bed.

Rondo was trying to pick up the little automatic. He seemed to be having trouble seeing it. I clamped one hand on the back of his neck and jerked him forward so that his head butted the wall. He spilled down on his face and lay still.

Yellow Hair reared up on the broken-down bed and cried out. “Rondo. Did he hurt you, Rondo?”

“No, sweetheart,” I said. “He likes butting his head against the wall.”

“You bastard. If you’ve hurt Rondo...”

I pulled the Luger out and her voice choked off in mid-sentence. “What did you say, darling?” I asked in a sarcastic voice.

She crouched on the bed and glared at me silently.

I grabbed the dazed Rondo by his belt, lugged him to the center of the room, and turned him face up.

“Don’t shoot Rondo!” the woman screamed.

I had the Luger pointed directly at Rondo’s ugly face. I said, “Why shouldn’t I shoot him, baby doll?”

“Ill tell you about Moose. That’s what you want, isn’t it? He left town a few months ago. They had stashed the loot from a heist with some broad and she ran off with it. They were hunting her.”

“You did say they, didn’t you, sweetheart?”

“Moose and Jack Hoyle and a third man. Hoyle is a short guy, comes to Rondo’s shoulder. He has a tattoo right here.” She touched her left forearm. “We never saw the third man.”

I dug in Rondo’s pocket and got my fifty dollars back before I left.

Eight

I had just arrived in San Francisco and had Hawk on the telephone.

“You’ve been in San Diego? Which of the torrid numbers in the little black book is there?” he asked in his most sardonic voice.

“Therese. A lovely girl,” I said. “And as sweet as a coral snake.”

“I must hear about her sometime. But for the time being, business. Have you made any progress?”

“I have the name and description of a member of Moose’s gang. His name’s Jake Hoyle.”

“We can run a check on him in law enforcement files, but that route didn’t give us much on Moose. The research people checked with the FBI and ran computer searches on the name Edward Jones. Nothing. A rundown on the basis of the sketchy description you gave us got the same results.”

“I’m not surprised. The man’s apparently very good at his trade. So good he’s probably never been apprehended by the law. There’s no telling how many unsolved heist jobs across the country were his work.”

“Well, N3, what next?”

I told him about the attack on me at the motel and the information I’d forced out of Marco Valante’s lieutenant. “There’s something the research division can do for me. Find out the names of Frank Abruze’s worst enemies, especially any former foes of his who might now be sitting on the Mob’s board of directors.”

“I can give you that off the top of my head. It was part of the Abruze file accumulated before you entered the picture. There’s a man named Loggia who was an Abruze rival when they were young thugs on their way up. And there’s Rossi. They’re both on the Mafia’s ruling council”

One name was familiar. “Lew Rossi?”

“Lew the Doctor. Gambling, prostitution, and narcotics. He and Abruze had different views on the Asian deal and they had clashed before on the drug issue,” Hawk said. “Nick, tell me what you’re thinking.”

“This joker in the deck, the man who killed Meredith, sent a killer to Bonham to hit the girl, and took a shot at me at the motel. I think he’s in the Organization’s top echelon. He must have been at the meeting where Valante heard about me. It’s the best explanation for the knowledge he seems to have of the Mafia and of our organization.”

“If you’re right, what’s his purpose?”

“I think he set Frank Abruze up for a kill. The $200,000 was the payoff. He told Moose, ‘I know where you can pick up two hundred grand if you’ll do a job for me while you’re at it.’ Now he’s in a bind. He can’t let the Brotherhood find him out. He didn’t want Sheila Brant to talk to anyone and he doesn’t want us to bring in Moose.”

“That would explain some things that have happened,” Hawk agreed. “But for the present, our best bet is still the little black book.”

“I’m working on it,” I said.

The telephone beside the bed rang sharply. I sat up. The hotel room was dark. I put the telephone receiver to my ear. It was the operator, reminding me that I had left a call for 8 P.M.

“Thanks,” I said. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I turned on the lamp and checked under the bandage on my chest. I was healing nicely on the surface, but I carried wounds that weren’t visible.

I had been dreaming of Sheila Brant. I had relived the moment when I found her body in the kitchen of the house in Bonham. Since her death, she had been on my mind more often than I would have wanted anyone to know. Although I had known her only briefly, something had rippled between us, an electricity that had been mostly sexual but had held the promise of more.

From the window of the hotel room I saw the lights of the Golden Gate Bridge. Now I had come to look for a girl named Penny, hoping she would give me the key to the whereabouts of those who had killed Sheila and David Kirby.

Penny’s name was the third Moose had written in the little black book that had led me to Trudy and Therese. “Penny. Great boobs,” read Moose’s notation at the top of the page he devoted to the girl. I couldn’t imagine hers being any greater than Trudy’s. Below that comment, Moose had listed the sexual acts Penny performed with special skill. If Moose was a qualified judge, and apparently he was, Penny was almost as rare as a Stradivarius.

I put up the book and dressed. I had slept for five hours and I felt keen, alert. This was going to be a night to remember. Tonight I was going to Liz Burdick’s cathouse.

The mansion, erected after the earthquake and fire that had ravaged San Francisco in 1906, sat on top of a hill. It was the city’s most famous bordello and the woman who ran it was a legend in her own time. A playwright had once wanted to make her life story the basis for a Broadway musical. Liz Burdick had reportedly told him thanks, but she didn’t need the publicity.

A maid answered the door and showed me into an old-fashioned parlor where lush red draperies hung. The furniture was antique, the carpet an inch thick. I doubted that the Governor’s mansion in Sacramento was furnished as well.

Liz Burdick came into the room and the maid closed the double doors behind her and left us alone. I tried not to look dazzled. I had expected an older woman. Liz Burdick was only in her thirties.

Her long gown swept the rug as she moved toward me and gave me a cool, slender hand and looked me directly in the eye. “You’re a little early, but I’ll call some of the girls down. I’m sure I have some you’ll like,” she said.

“It was arranged that I’d see Penny.”

“Yes, we talked about her when you called, but she won’t be in tonight. I hoped you’d try someone else,” she smiled.

Her eyes were a cool jade green and appraising despite the smile she wore. I wondered if I should have Bed to her. I had said I was a businessman in town for a convention and a friend had suggested I pay a visit to her house.

“Penny is one of our most popular girls, but we have others just as attractive. I could make a choice for you if you trust my judgment,” she suggested.

“I’m sure your taste is excellent, Miss Burdick.”

“Mrs. Burdick,” she corrected me. “I’m a widow.” Her long ash blonde hair shimmered in the light and she moved with a sensual grace as she crossed to a chair and sat down.

“But I’m interested only in Penny.” I gave her what I thought was a guileless smile. “My friend did quite a selling job on her.”

“In that case, you’ll just have to wait until the next time you’re in San Francisco.”

“What’s wrong with tomorrow night?”

“Penny won’t be here, I’m afraid.”

“Mrs. Burdick, do the visiting fireman a favor. Tell me how I can get in touch with Penny. If she doesn’t live here, give me her address. I could call her up and maybe arrange something.”

“We have rules here, you know. We don’t give out information like that about our girls. They have a right to a life of their own when they aren’t working.”

She was growing cooler as I grew insistent.

Stabbed by a sudden suspicion, I said, “Are you trying to prevent my seeing her?”

She smiled and didn’t answer, but her manner was response enough.

The maid came into the room after knocking discreetly. She brought a tray with a pair of drinks on it. I sat with a glass in my hand and wondered why the madam was giving me the VIP treatment when she apparently had no intention of allowing me to see Penny.

“When I called, I asked to speak to Penny, but I got you. Why was that, Mrs. Burdick?”

“Because she wasn’t here, obviously. At the time, I believed she’d be back later in the day. I was mistaken.”

I rattled the ice in my glass, but I didn’t take a drink. “Where is she?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your business.” She didn’t raise her voice, but her eyes were steely now.

Scowling, I put my glass down. I didn’t trust her.

“Our girls take vacations, you know. They visit relatives. They get sick. They’re like anyone else, despite what you may hear.”

I hated to pull a gun in the genteel surroundings of the classiest cathouse in San Francisco, but the measure seemed to be necessary.

Liz Burdick raised her eyebrows as the Luger slid into my hand. However, she looked something less than surprised.

“Now we’re getting down to the real business at hand, aren’t we, Mr. Harper?”

“The gun is to let you know that I’m serious. Very serious.”

“Penny has left us for a while. I can’t be any more definite than that.”

Dealing with her was like dealing with a woman shielded by a wall of ice.

She set her glass down. Every move she made was like poetry. “Are you interested in telling me why you carry a gun, Mr. Harper?”

“People keep trying to put bullets in me.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. But we live in violent times. Now that you’re pointing the weapon at me, what am I supposed to do?”

“I hoped it might shake you up a little. I underestimated you.” I stood up and holstered the Luger. “I’m looking for a man who carried Penny’s name in his address book. A big man called Moose, and sometimes Edward Jones. He’s a tough character.”

“No such person has ever been in this house.”

“I want to ask Penny about him.”

“I’m sorry. It can’t be arranged. You’d better leave, Mr. Harper.”

I didn’t move. I stood looking at her and said, “Name your price.”

“I don’t sell information.”

I grinned at her. “I’m not talking about information.”

This time she was surprised. “You mean, for one of my girls?”

“No, Mrs. Burdick. Not one of your girls.”

She understood. And damn her, she smiled and met my eyes. “That would be very expensive. The best is always expensive.”

“I want the best,” I said.

I stretched out on the bed and watched Liz disrobe. Her limbs glinted golden-tan in the light from an antique lamp. Her waist was slender and her shoulders small, but her breasts were large and full. They swayed as she moved toward me. Like her face, her body was well kept, in superb condition.

“What do you think this will get you? Other than the obvious, I mean.”

“You interest me. I want to find out what makes you tick,” I said.

She laughed huskily. “You don’t find out about a whore by taking her to bed. A whore is an actress and the bed’s a stage.” She leaned over me and put her mouth on mine. Her tongue crawled between my lips and her hand slid down my thigh. “But I am not a whore. Do you understand that?”

“Not really,” I said.

“I do not service my clients. My girls do that. I am not for sale.”

“Then why did you accept my offer?”

“It wasn’t an offer,” she said. “It was a challenge.”

I pulled her down on the bed. My hands slid over her body. I felt her fingers working on the buttons of my shirt. I helped her by sliding it off. When she saw my bandaged wound, she asked no questions. Her composed features grew flushed as I made love to her. Her tongue darted out for mine, the hands stroking my back suddenly tensed, and then she surged under me with a wild cry...

“Well, how was it?” she asked.

“Like you said, you’re the best.”

“So are you, Ned Harper. Aside from that, what are you? A gunman, a cop, what?”

“Closer to a cop.”

She touched the bandage. “This is a bullet wound, isn’t it?”

“Compliments of a friend of the man you claim you never saw.”

“Do you think I’m going to help you just because you went to bed with me?”

“I’ll find him with or without your help. He has killed at least five people. One happened to be a close friend of mine. One was a beautiful woman. He broke her neck.”

“Stop it,” she said in a harsh voice. “Moose came here twice. He wasn’t my typical customer. He was crude and violent and I could tell he was a criminal. But he had known Penny before she started here. She said he was a friend. I told her he was no good. I was glad when he didn’t show up again after the second visit.”

I kissed the back of her neck. “Where is she, Liz?”

“I wasn’t protecting Moose. I was helping Penny. She said she didn’t want to see you, that it would endanger her life.”

“How did she know that?”

“She didn’t elaborate. She left in a hurry, as soon as I promised I wouldn’t give her away.” Liz twisted in my arms. “Maybe Moose has been in contact with her. Is that what you re thinking?”

“It’s possible.”

“I know where she’s staying. I don’t know if I want to tell you. The information could get you killed if Moose is with her.”

“Tell me,” I said.

She sighed “The place is an old summer cottage outside of town. I’ll write down the directions for you.” She rose and walked to an antique writing table. She moved beautifully. She had a small, hard behind, like a young girls.

I watched as she stood at the table and wrote on a dainty scrap of blue stationery. Her full breasts swayed when she moved. The light played on her sleek shoulders. She was a genuine blonde, golden between the thighs.

Soundlessly I left the bed. I reached around her and caressed her breasts. I cupped them in my palms and toyed with her nipples, feeling them grow hard again.

Tilting her head, she stood motionless, enjoying my caresses. I could smell her hair, the perfume on her body.

“I’m glad I came to San Francisco,” I said.

Slowly she leaned against me, then turned and let her head fall on my shoulder. “How long do you have, Ned?”

“Long enough,” I said.

Her hand gently touched my face. I picked her up and carried her back to the bed...

The house where Penny was staying sat high on a bluff outside San Francisco. Liz’s directions had been easy to follow. I parked fifty yards away from the house at the side of a deserted road, got out of my car, and quietly closed the door. The night air was cool and damp, the ground wet from a summer rain. On each side of me, the woods had grown thick with underbrush that crowded the edges of the road.

I could see a car near the house’s front door. Approaching cautiously, I passed the car and crouched under one of the lighted windows of the house. Inside, two people were talking. I heard their voices although I couldn’t make out their words. One of the voices belonged to a man.

My Luger in my hand, I turned the corner of the house. I suddenly felt tight inside. My search might be nearing an end.

I walked on the balls of my feet, moving quickly through the shadows. As I arrived at the front door, I heard the voices growing louder. The people were coming out. Turning, I looked for a hiding place. The man’s footsteps, loud and hard, were at the door. I darted to the parked car and ducked behind it.

Light flooded out into the night, painting a yellow stripe along the ground. The man’s figure breached the doorway. It was not Moose. He was not nearly the size of the gravel-voiced giant. I felt the sharp cut of disappointment.

“Lock the door,” the man said to his companion, a girl I only glimpsed. He moved down the steps. His stocky shape looked familiar. So did the choppy steps he took as he approached the car.

He didn’t even glance in the direction of my Ford parked down the road. He opened the door of his own car and got in. The house’s front door had closed and the girl had disappeared.

The man turned the ignition key. I heard the motor stir and felt the car start a sluggish movement as the man shoved the gear into reverse. I grabbed the handle of the door on my side and jumped inside the car as the man backed away from the house.

He slammed on the brakes. “What the hell?”

“I’ve got a gun, so take it easy. Turn on the overhead light. I want to see what you look like.”

He had dark hair and a hard face. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and I could see the tattoo of an anchor on his forearm.

“Jake Hoyle’s the name, isn’t it?”

“You should be dead,” he said. “Sid put a bullet in you.”

“I remember the occasion.” I swiped him in the face with the Luger. Just hard enough to make sure I had his complete attention. “Where is Moose?”

“You don’t want to see him. You’re out of your league. Moose eats guys like you for dessert.”

“I thought he preferred to beat up women.”

“Listen, the wisest step you could take would be to get out of this car right now and go somewhere a thousand miles from here.”

That night in Idaho was burning in my mind, vivid again, filling me with fury. I was remembering how Sid had calmly put a bullet in me while I lay bound and helpless. I was remembering Sheila Brant and David Kirby.

I jammed the Luger against his throat so hard that he gasped. “I asked you a question. If you don’t answer it, I’ll blow your brains all over the seat of this car.”

Hoarsely he said, “I’m going to meet Moose now.”

“Good. I’ll go along with you.”

“It’s your funeral.” At least he hoped it was.

He cast occasional sidelong glances in my direction as he drove. “Moose knows about you. He knows you’re some kind of a federal agent.”

“How did he find that out?”

“He has connections. He has them right up to the top of the Organization. You’re going to get yours, mister. You’re living on borrowed time.”

I put a cigarette in my mouth. “You’ve got a lighter of mine. You took it off me in Bonham.”

“You don’t forget anything, do you? I gave the lighter to the girl.”

I punched in the one in the dash. “Drive faster. I’m eager to see Moose again.”

With an oath, Hoyle shoved the accelerator harder. “Rondo was right. You’re crazy.”

“Rondo told me he didn’t know where you were.”

“He didn’t, but we have a mutual friend. He made a call. I figured you’d be coming to San Francisco to see Penny. You found that address book Moose lost. You’re looking up every broad in it.”

“Only I don’t have to look any longer, do I?”

“No. This is the end of the road for you, mister.”

Without changing his tone of voice, Hoyle wrenched the steering wheel. When the car swerved, I was thrown into the dash.

I didn’t see him put his hand inside his coat, but I saw the flash of the gunshot and heard its sound as he pulled the trigger. He was fast. He was very fast. But the bullet didn’t hit its target. I had already dropped to the floor of the car. I didn’t have time to think things out. I shot back. The Luger exploded loudly inside the closed car. Hoyle made a gurgling sound in his throat and slumped over the steering wheel.

The car was traveling along an open stretch of pavement without a curve on it. Hoyle had chosen the spot carefully. If things had worked out the way he’d planned, he would have killed me with one quick shot and would have been able to keep the car from leaving the road. But his plan hadn’t worked.

The driverless car careened to the left and streaked across the road. It hit a ditch as I tried to reach the steering wheel and I was thrown against Hoyle’s body. Bucking out of the ditch, the car forged through underbrush and finally came to a halt. I was amazed that it hadn’t turned over.

I straightened up and pushed Hoyle back against the seat and felt for his pulse. He didn’t have one. He was dead. There had been no choice but to shoot him. Still, I was bitter at the development. I hadn’t wanted him dead. I wanted Moose.

I put the Luger away and pulled Hoyle’s body out of the car. I got the motor started again and ground out of the brush. The car bounced over the ditch and onto the pavement again. I drove back to the house.

I had to get Penny to tell me Moose’s whereabouts or I was back where I had started.

Lights were still on inside the house. I circled it and found an open bedroom window. I couldn’t see Penny but I heard her. She was taking a shower. I could hear the water going.

I sat down on the back steps and removed my shoes, then picked the lock on the door. I moved quietly through a kitchen and a living room and into the bedroom.

Penny was singing in the shower. I didn’t recognize the tune. Penny was no Barbra Streisand. My cigarette lighter was on the chest. I dropped it into my pocket and sat down to wait for her to finish.

When she came out of the bathroom, she was wearing a shower cap, a pair of slippers, and nothing else. We eyed each other. The surprise was mutual. She hadn’t expected to find a stranger seated in her bedroom and I hadn’t expected to see her in her birthday suit.

The note Moose had made about her breasts had been accurate. They were exceptional. Everything about her body was exceptional She made Raquel Welch look like a teen-age boy.

“Hey, how did you get in?” she said.

“By the back door. I picked the lock.”

“You aren’t a burglar, are you?”

“I’m Ned Harper. The man you didn’t want to see.”

“The one who talked to Liz on the telephone?” She plucked off the shower cap and shook out her hair. “You must be some kind of operator if you got her to tell you how to find me.”

“We happened to hit it off.”

“You know the reason I didn’t want to see you. Hoyle told me you were prying into things that are none of your business. He said if you showed up, I was to avoid you and get the word to him.”

“And you handled it rather neatly.”

“Not neatly enough. That’s obvious.” She opened a closet and took out a dressing robe. “Okay if I put this on? I hate to talk business while I’m naked. Later on, if you want, I’ll take it off again.”

“I doubt that we’ll get that friendly.”

“You never know. Did you happen to run into Hoyle by any chance?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I was afraid of that. What happened to him? Nothing good, I’ll bet.”

“He won’t be coming back.”

She took the news without flinching. “He said he could take care of you by himself. I didn’t believe him. They tried to kill you once and you came through it. You handled Rondo. I’d say you’re pretty tough.”

I wondered if I was supposed to be flattered. I said, “You know quite a lot about me.”

“All that Hoyle knew. He was a big talker.” She had belted the robe and was standing in front of my chair. “You’re pretty talkative yourself.”

“I always talk a lot when I’m scared,” she confessed, “I’m afraid you’ll kill me too.”

I said, “I rarely kill women.”

“You want a drink? I’ve got some liquor in the other room.”

“No, thanks.”

She stepped closer to my chair and opened the robe. When I didn’t move, she caught my hand and placed it on her body. Apparently she believed the best defense was a good offense.

“Let’s bargain,” she said softly.

“What are we bargaining for?”

“My life, and anything else I can get.”

“I want to know where Moose is.”

Pouting a little, she pulled the robe together again. “Hoyle came to San Francisco alone. Moose is on the road somewhere.”

“That isn’t what Hoyle said. He said Moose was here.”

“He lied to you. Moose didn’t come. He let Hoyle come alone. That was a mistake. They underestimated you.”

Hoyle had obviously made up the story about taking me to meet Moose. He had been stalling for time, waiting for an opportunity to go for his gun.

“Who is Moose’s connection in the Mob?” I asked Penny.

“He never told anybody that. There is a man, sure, a big wheel he’s had dealings with. The Organization as a whole frowns on Moose because they think he’s crazy and uncontrollable. But there was one man high up who financed some heists for Moose, as a private deal between the two of them. Moose said they did each other some favors.”

“You know something, Penny? You’re saying a lot, but you’re telling me very little.”

She bit her lip. “I’m doing my best to help you. I want to save my skin.” She pawed through her hair. “Let me think. They’ve been backtracking, trying to follow Sheila Brant’s trail. They’re trying to find the money she stole. But I swear to you, Hoyle didn’t tell me where Moose and Craddock are now.”

“Craddock,” I repeated. “Tell me about Craddock.”

“Sid Craddock is the third man who was in on some of Moose’s heists. He took part in the Abruze kill. He’s a slender man with curly hair and a baby face. That’s all I can remember about him.”

She had provided one piece of information of some use. I encouraged her. “Hoyle must have confided in you a lot.”

“He was boasting — trying to impress me. He had the hots for me even back when I was Moose’s favorite pastime,” she said. “He showed good taste, Harper. I’m sensational in the sack.”

“I believe it.”

“Can I make you a proposition?”

I grinned at her. “I thought you already had.”

“There’s a big bundle of money around somewhere. Two hundred thousand dollars. That’s how much they got when they hit Abruze.” She pursed her lips. “It gives me the hots to think about that. I’d like to have it all changed into ones and wallow in it naked. Two hundred thousand one-dollar bills. Would you like to lay on me on a two-hundred-thousand-dollar mattress, lover?”

“I don’t have your kind of imagination.”

“They left it with Sheila. They split up after the Florida job and entrusted it to her. Hoyle told me that.”

“Moose and his friends were wrong about Sheila. She didn’t make off with the money.”

“Then what happened to it?”

“She never had a chance to tell me. My guess is that it was taken from her. She was afraid to face Moose, so she ran.”

Apparently I had learned everything from Penny that I was going to. I got out of my chair. She followed me to the back steps, where I put on my shoes.

She hadn’t asked me any more questions about Hoyle. She wasn’t exactly grieving for him, I thought.

“Hey, listen, Harper. Suppose you happen to find the money while you’re trying to run Moose down. What do you do with it?”

“I haven’t given it any thought.”

“Two hundred thousand. It boggles the mind.”

I laced my shoes. “Are you about to suggest I give it to you?”

“Well, we could share it anyway. It’s Mafia money. Listen, I know about that book of Moose’s that you have. You’ve been looking up the girls whose names were in it. I could help you out. I know my way around whorehouses real good.”

“You said you were afraid of me.”

“For two hundred grand. I’ll walk a bed of coals, dance naked on the White House lawn, and lay the First Cavalry Division. Take me along. Harper, and let’s look for the money. We could do a lot with it, and I could give you sex like you’ve never had before.”

“No, thanks,” I told her. “You forgot Hoyle much too easily.”

Nine

I was back to the little black book and to the list of names, now narrowed to four. They were Janice, Eve, Barbara, and Cora, I decided to drive up to Portland and look for Janice first. If I drew a blank there, I would swing back down to Reno, to Denver, and to Las Vegas, where the other girls were supposed to be.

Moose knew I had his address book. He knew I was running through the list of girls, hoping to get a lead to his whereabouts. When he learned that I had killed his pal Hoyle, he wouldn’t sit still, I thought. Somewhere along the way, in one of those four cities, I would find Moose or he would find me.

The bordello in Portland was an old house located in a fading residential block near the meatpacking district. I knocked on the door early in the morning and asked for Janice. A yawning girl with tousled hair waved me in.

A cathouse early in the morning is not as fragrant as a rose garden. It smells of the night before, of bodies and sex and sometimes booze, and if the maids are already cleaning up, the scent is like that of an army latrine.

The girl with the tousled hair weaved through the maids, her shorty nightgown swinging with the motion of her hips. The maids looked me over, apparently wondering why I couldn’t postpone my lust until the nighttime hours.

Rapping on a door, the girl said, “Janice. It’s the man who called.”

Janice responded sleepily. “All right.” The girl who had brought me to the door smiled and patted my cheek and swung on down the hallway.

A long-legged brunette wearing yellow pajamas opened the door and rubbed a knotted fist in one eye. She hadn’t bothered to button the pajama top. “You’re looking for Moose, you say?”

“That’s right.”

She tugged the door wider. “Come in.”

My reflection moved in full-length mirrors as I stepped into the room. Another mirror was set in the ceiling above the round double bed. In the bed lay a naked blonde, who turned on her side to look at me, the silk sheet gliding down her white body.

“My friend Delia.”

I nodded and the blonde nodded back.

“Moose hired us to put on a couple of shows for him and his friends. He wasn’t exactly my cup of tea,” Janice said.

“How long since you heard from him?”

“January,” said the blonde. “It was back in January.”

“He brought a man with him that he wanted to impress.” Janice smiled. “I think we impressed him, don’t you, Delia?”

“You bet.”

“Who was the man?” I asked.

“Mr. Smith,” Janice said. “The well-known Mr. Smith. We’ve put on shows for a lot of his relatives.”

Delia giggled. “He didn’t want his real name used.”

“What did he look like?”

“Tall and thin. He wore glasses. If he hadn’t been with Moose, I’d have thought he was an accountant.”

“Since he was with Moose, what did you think?”

The blonde propped her chin on her hand. “Come on, now. If you’re looking for Moose, you know the kind of business associates he has.”

“Mr. Smith was an Organization Man. An important one,” Janice said. She sat down on the bed near the blonde. They would have made a great pair of bookends.

Unlike some of the people I’d questioned about Moose, they were willing to help me, but I found out they had no further information of value. I thanked them and they invited me to come back sometime.

“Ask for me or for Delia,” said Janice. “We like to work as a team.”

Thirty minutes after I left Portland, the Lincoln roared up behind me on the open road. The driver swung into the passing lane and sped up alongside my Ford.

I saw a face and then a shotgun barrel. I spun the steering wheel and slammed the Ford into the heavier car and ducked at the same time.

The shotgun blast ripped through the window, but it missed me.

The Lincoln was too bulky to be thrown into a skid by my light car. Its driver held it in the road and yanked his own wheel. Fender ground against fender and then the Ford left the pavement, skidded on the shoulder, and plunged into a picnic area just off the highway.

I used the brake as much as I dared and jerked the gear into second as the car’s rear end whipped around and struck a litter barrel. I gritted my teeth, fighting to control the skid. The car spun again and hit a wooden picnic table, then flipped over on its side.

I must have been living right. I pushed open the door and climbed out unhurt.

The Lincoln had kept going. I saw it dart out of sight over a hill. There had been two people in the front seat, the driver and the gunman. The face I’d glimpsed just before the shotgun bucked was one I’d never seen clearly before today, but I knew that it belonged to Moose. He had been grinning as he pulled the trigger.

The Ford was a casualty. I had to leave it in a garage. I rented another car and set out for Reno, stopping along the way only to eat and place a call to Hawk.

“I’m getting close to Moose. He can feel me breathing on his neck and he doesn’t like it. He tried to kill me today.”

“Nick, be careful.”

“I won’t be checking in with you so often from now on. I’ve got a feeling I’m going to be very busy.”

“Do you want the information we gathered on Jake Hoyle?”

“No,” I said. “He s dead.”

I had no trouble finding Eve in Reno. The dingy trailer camp was on the outskirts of town. There were three girls and a madam, each with her own trailer. Eve was entertaining a client and I had to wait with the madam, trading small talk of mutual disinterest. The office was hot and stuffy and the madam was an old woman trying to pretend otherwise. Her blonde wig didn’t fit and her red nails were ragged.

When I worked the conversation around to Moose, her remarks became more animated. She remembered the big goon; she couldn’t recommend him as a customer Or as a decent human being. He had beaten up one of her girls because he liked a little violence mixed with his sex. The madam was broadminded, but she couldn’t condone that kind of behavior.

I worked my tie loose. The madam kept talking, saying the same things over and over again. Finally Eve’s customer emerged from her trailer and walked to his car. I left the madam still jawing about freaky sex.

Eve was a red-haired girl going to fat and bogged down in disappointment. She said there was too much competition in Reno and anywhere else I’d care to mention. Too many divorcees giving it away. Too many amateurs all over the nation, too much of this new sexual freedom. “Hippies will do it for any reason or no reason at all. I hate hippies,” she said.

The talk and the atmosphere depressed me. I had already paid the madam, but I pulled out another twenty and placed it on the bed. Eve swept it up like a vacuum cleaner. She said certainly she remembered Moose. They had met when she was in Denver, in better days.

“I often think about going back,” she said. “Everything was better then, including me.” She smiled apologetically. She realized she wasn’t taking care of herself. She liked to eat too well and the only exercise she got was on her back.

The conversation was like a river running in the wrong direction. I reminded her that I was interested in Moose. “I’m sorry,” she apologized again. She got up and opened two cans of beer and passed me one. “Moose hasn’t been around lately.”

There had been a time when she was hung up on him and when he thought her something special. But the relationship didn’t last and he had kept in touch mostly for old tunes’ sake. The last time he’d dropped in had been earlier in the year.

“I left Denver right after he hooked up with that other girl and stopped coming around. She was a waitress. From a small town near Denver. She was Moose’s type, stacked. I remember seeing her once. She fell for Moose’s line about making big money.” Eve laughed cynically. “I guess he didn’t tell her how he was going to make it. I heard later that he got hard up for a stake and put her in a house.”

Her monolog had stopped boring me. I said, “Was she a blonde, that girl? Do you remember her name?”

“The name, no. She was what I call aristocratic looking. High cheekbones, big dark eyes. You’d have thought she was a model.”

She was talking about Sheila Brant.

“What’s the matter?” Eve asked, catching some expression on my face that I hadn’t known was there.

I stood up and leaned in the door of the trailer, my back to her. “I don’t guess you know what happened to her.”

“I never heard. Maybe Moose left her and moved on, the same as he did with me.”

“Moose made a big connection later on,” I said. “He got to be close to a man with power. In the Organization.”

“That’s news to me,” said Eve. “There isn’t much of a grapevine out here.”

A cowboy was walking among the trailers, his hat drawn down to shadow his eyes. He carried a green shopping bag. I watched him as he came toward me.

“You didn’t say why you’re looking for Moose,” Eve said. She was standing near me, opening another can of beer.

The cowboy stopped. His hat was new and crimped awkwardly. He reached into the shopping bag and pulled out a sawed-off shotgun.

I lunged sideways as he brought the weapon up and pointed it at me. I hit Eve with my shoulder and drove her out of the line of fire as the shotgun went off. Lead streamed through the trailer doorway and struck the wall like hail.

Moving to the window, I pulled back the curtain. The cowboy was reloading. I knocked the glass out with the barrel of the Luger and shot at him. He lost his hat as he ran for cover.

“My God! What’s going on?” Eve said.

I ran for the door while the cowboy was ducking behind the madam’s trailer. I went for the ground like a swimmer making a shallow dive. At the last minute I turned and hit on my shoulder and rolled over. I snapped off a shot as I sat up and the bullet screamed off the trailer an inch in front of the cowboy’s face as he peered around the corner. He ducked back out of sight.

I bobbed to my feet and zigzagged toward his hiding place. I fired a shot as I ran, trying to discourage him from letting loose with the sawed-off shotgun. Swerving, I put my back to the wall of the trailer.

No noise came from him for a minute. Then I heard the madam yelping. Girls were peering out of the trailers. One screamed at the top of her voice. The madam came around the corner of the trailer, her wig slipping sideways on her head.

The cowboy was walking behind her, using her as a shield.

He reached around her with the shotgun in one hand, ready to fire a blast at me. I pointed the Luger down and shot between the madam’s legs and blew away part of the cowboy’s boot. Some toes left with it.

His scream eclipsed the woman’s.

The madam bolted from his grasp as he fell. She scurried under the trailer, which was jacked up off the ground.

Sprawled on his back, the cowboy turned, trying to bring the shotgun to bear on me. My next bullet hit him in the head.

The girls bounded from the trailers, surrounding me as I knelt beside the dead gunman. I couldn’t tell anything from what was left of his face. I searched his pockets and came up with a wallet containing a California driver’s license issued to Sidney L. Crandall. His slender build was about right, I thought. He could be Moose’s other partner, the one who had put a bullet in me in Idaho.

I returned the wallet to his pocket. His trousers, shirt, and boots were also new. He’d bought the clothing for this job, to divert suspicion.

“I’ve seen this guy before. He’s been hanging around here for the last day or so,” said a girl wearing a black slip. “He drove that pickup truck over there.”

He and Moose had split up, I thought. Moose had gone to Portland and Sid had come here. They had been out to finish me off fast.

I hurried to the pickup truck and gave it a quick search, hoping to find some clue that would lead me to Moose. No luck. The papers in the glove compartment showed the truck had been rented two days before in Reno.

The madam came over to me as I got into my car. I heard a police siren in the distance. The madam said, “You’d better stick around to explain this to the police.”

“You take care of that for me,” I told her.

I arrived in Denver at 8:30 P.M. and ate a thick steak washed down with two cups of black coffee. I’d had only one full night’s sleep since I left the hospital in Idaho, and the physician who’d warned me to take it easy would have been appalled to learn the kind of activities I had been engaged in.

For all I knew, Moose was also in town. I had reduced the ranks of his gang by two, but he had picked up another confederate since Bonham, the man who had been driving the Lincoln when Moose tried to gun me down outside of Portland.

I had been thinking about that man in my spare moments. AXE’s investigators, after checking the murder scene at Key West, had put forward the supposition that four killers had attacked the house where David Kirby was meeting with Frank Abruze. Only two men had shown up with Moose in Bonham, but maybe there had been another gang member all the time.

There were other factors for me to contemplate while I was trying to judge the possible odds against me. There was the mysterious joker in the deck, the man I had yet to identify. I had convinced myself that he was a Mafia bigwig who had put the finger on Frank Abruze and that he was the man the luscious twosome Janice and Delia had described to me, the important Organization figure Moose had wanted to impress. The girls had said he was tall, wore glasses, and looked like an accountant.

Finally, there was Marco Valante, the old friend of Frank Abruze’s. On one occasion Valante had given me a helping hand, but I had roughed up two of his boys and jarred them off my trail. Valante might not be so kindly disposed toward me if and when we met again.

Well, no one had told me this would be an easy job, I thought.

I paid my dinner check and stopped at a telephone booth in the restaurant lobby to call Barbara, the girl I’d come to Denver to find.

Barbara was the only one of the seven girls listed in the little black book who had not been described by Moose in some detail. Her name had been underlined and Moose had linked a string of exclamation points after it as though she defied verbal description. If she was so super-special in the bedroom that Moose was incapable of assessing her performance, I thought, she must rate high among the natural wonders of North America.

I had to admit that curiosity was gnawing on me as I dialed the number in the book. After one ring, a recording broke in on the call to tell me the number I had dialed was no longer in use. It was a big letdown, although I had half-expected that I would have difficulty contacting some of the girls in the book. They were all call girls or prostitutes and theirs was a mobile profession.

I stood outside the telephone booth and asked myself what I should do next. I had no way of knowing when Moose had taken down Barbara’s number. Maybe the girl had left town. Even if she had only changed addresses, I was at an apparent dead end. I didn’t know her last name or what she looked like. I had the option of going on to Las Vegas and trying to contact Cora, the last girl on the list, but I hated to give up so soon.

I decided to consult an expert. I hailed a taxi “I’m looking for a man who knows the local bordellos,” I told the lanky driver.

“Let’s see. A bordello is a fancy whorehouse, right?”

“Technically, it doesn’t have to be fancy,” I said.

“You’ve got your man. Emmett Ripley, like it says on the license there. You can call me Red.”

“All right, Red. Do you know a hooker named Barbara?”

He thought about it. “Not offhand. But I know a couple who’d love to have you call them Barbara if that’s your thing.”

“I’m looking for a particular girl.” I got into the cab. “Take me to someone who knows the subject better than you do.”

He thought about that. “Well, there’s one possibility.” He drove me to a bar called Millie’s. “Go in there and talk to the bartender who looks like an elephant stepped on his face. I’ll wait for you.”

There was no mistaking the bartender Red meant. He looked like a former prizefighter. I told him he had been recommended by Ripley.

He gave me a bourbon and water. “Which do you prefer, blondes, brunettes, or redheads?”

“I prefer Barbara.”

“If you mean Barbara the Bazoom Girl, she left town. She was a stripper, you know. Hustling was just part-time with her.”

I confessed that I didn’t know what Barbara looked like.

“Well, besides the Bazom, there’s one more Barbara that I can think of who might be your girl.” He went to a telephone and talked, returned and wrote an address inside a matchbook. “She says to come around.”

“What’s she like?” I asked as I got off the bar stool.

“Venus de Milo in heat,” he said.

Red Ripley drove me to the address, which turned out to be an aged building in a neighborhood laced with coffeehouses and hole-in-the-wall bars and cafes. I got out and paid the fare. “Take off, Red. I may be staying awhile.”

I walked along a hallway in need of paint and knocked on the door at the end of it. Barbara was in her early twenties. She was wearing a buckskin jacket, khaki trousers, and sandals. Posters of rock groups decorated the walls of the small apartment.

“What a relief,” she said. “The last guy Charlie sent over here was older than Henry Kissinger.”

“How much do you get for a trick?” I asked her.

“A hundred bucks. Some people think it’s too much, but I’m working my way through the university.” She smiled. “Make it two and you can stay all night.”

“What’s your major?”

“Foreign relations,” she said with a straight face.

“I’ll give you the hundred for information, no game-playing required. I’m looking for Moose.”

“And I thought this was going to be a fun date. Oh, well. A hundred is a hundred. You give me the money and I’ll give you Moose’s address.”

It was much too easy. I said, “He’s in town?”

“He got in yesterday. Let’s see the cash,” she insisted.

I pulled out the money, glad I didn’t have to file a formal expense account. There were some people in AXE’s clerical department who simply wouldn’t understand.

Barbara folded the bill carefully and stuck it in her trousers pocket. Then she tossed me a telephone book. “Moose called and asked me to come over. I haven’t been yet, but I wrote the address down on the cover.”

I tore the address off the book. “I’m surprised you didn’t ask why I’m looking for him.”

“I don’t really care. I don’t imagine you’re a member of his Cub Scout troop, but that’s no business of mine. Just don’t tell him that I sent you.”

She might look like the Venus de Milo, I thought, but she had a heart like the Chase Manhattan Bank.

When I turned to leave, she picked up a heavy glass ashtray from an end table and struck me on the head with it. The blow was a good one. I found myself on my knees, shaking my head in a effort to clear it.

She also knew karate. She leaped on my back and slashed at the back of my neck with the edge of her hand. I blacked out.

I awoke lying on my back on the floor. My coat had been removed and Wilhelmina extracted from the holster under my arm. When I got through telling myself how stupid I had been to let her catch me by surprise, I rolled on my side.

Barbara was talking to someone on the telephone. “He’s here,” she was saying. “Everything’s under control.”

I realized that my sleeves were rolled up. Both of them. She had also taken the stiletto out of its scabbard. Maybe I wasn’t stupid, she was just smart. A lot of professional spies had searched me and missed that little knife. Barbara hadn’t.

She glanced at me as I sat up. She lifted the Luger, which she was holding in her hand, and pointed it at my head. Her eyes gave me a warning I didn’t ignore. I sat very still.

“All right,” she said to the person on the other end of the line and hung up.

“Moose?” I asked her.

“You know as much about Moose’s whereabouts as I do,” she said. “I wrote the address on that telephone book six months ago.”

I felt dizzy. I said, “So I’m your prisoner. Do you mind telling me why?”

“I collect snoopers.”

My eyes were beginning to haze over. I brushed my hand over them. Suddenly suspicious, I checked both my arms. The needle mark was on the right one. I looked around and spotted the hypodermic needle on the arm of a chair.

“It’s nothing fatal,” Barbara said. “I knew what I was doing. I’m not really studying foreign relations. I’m a student nurse.”

“What else are you?”

“You’d be surprised,” she said with a smile. “I’ve been waiting for you for days, Mr. Carter. I was beginning to think you weren’t going to show up.”

The room was tilting now, turning slowly in one direction, then in the other. I slid down on my side.

“You’re going under,” Barbara said. “Just relax and let the drug work. The way you’ve been running around the country shooting people and beating them up, you need a little rest anyway.”

“How did...” I had trouble talking. My words were slurred. “How’d you... know?”

“I’m Marco Valante’s daughter,” she said.

Ten

It took me a long time, but I finally climbed out of the deep well of darkness and opened my eyes. Morning sunlight streamed through the windows of the girl’s apartment. I squinted and turned my face away from it. I had a faint headache, which could have been a hangover from the drug Barbara Valante had injected in my arm or an effect of the blow she had dealt me with the heavy ashtray.

Everything had its compensations, I thought. At least I now knew why Moose had put the exclamation points after her name in his book. It wasn’t every day a cheap hood like Moose scored with the daughter of a Mafia chieftain.

I heard a radio in the other room playing rock music. The volume was high. It didn’t help my headache at all. My arms had been bound to the back of the wooden chair in which I was seated. My ankles had been tied tightly to the rungs at the bottom. I tried to move and had little success. An expert had put me in the chair to stay.

I closed my eyes and tried to organize my thoughts. I had been knocked out all night by the drug. The call Barbara had been making must have been long distance. That would account for her putting me to sleep for more than eight hours.

The discovery that Barbara was Valante’s daughter had proved a shocker. I wondered how the girl came to be in Denver when her father reportedly operated on the Eastern Seaboard. My memory of what I’d read of Mafia power divisions was spotty, but I knew that Lew (the Doctor) Rossi was in charge of the Mob’s Denver territory.

I opened my eyes and called the girl. “Barbara!”

The volume of the radio diminished slightly. Barbara came through a door holding a cup of coffee in her hand. This morning she looked much less like a product of Americas counterculture. She was dressed smartly in a green dress and her black hair was in a neat bun at the back of her head.

“You’re completely different today. You should have been an actress,” I said.

“If I had become an actress, people would have started falling all over themselves giving me juicy parts as soon as they found out who I was.” She took a sip of the coffee and regarded me with clear blue eyes. “I went through a period of enjoying that kind of attention and then I grew up. I came out here to get away from my father’s influence and people who had heard of him. I changed my last name and started studying to be a nurse.”

“Then you did hand me one piece of truth last night.”

She gave me a firm, open smile. When she did that, she looked almost like the girl next door. The only difference was that most girls next door weren’t suited for a Playboy centerfold.

“I’m sorry I had to slug you with the ashtray, but I was afraid I couldn’t handle you unless you were stunned. I’d been told that you’re a hard man to put down and out. My karate instructor says I’m one of his best students, but I’m not especially strong and I felt I needed that little edge on you.”

“You handled me like I was an old maid school teacher,” I said.

She walked nearer and touched the lump at the back of my head lightly with her fingers. “That knot will go down. And you don’t seem to have a concussion.”

“A mere concussion is the least of my worries.”

“Do you think someone plans to kill you, Mr. Carter?”

“A lot of people have been trying.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’re in good hands with Valante.” She held her coffee cup to my lips. “Here. Take a sip of this. It’s the best I can do for you at the moment. I have to get to classes.”

I swallowed the hot coffee down. “You and Moose. That’s a pairing that doesn’t seem natural.”

“I didn’t know what Moose was then. I mean, what he was inside. The fact that he was a holdup man didn’t matter to me one way or the other. How could it matter to the daughter of Marco Valante?”

She held the cup to my lips again.

An announcer on the radio broke in on the music and gave the hour. It was 8:30 A.M. He began to give the news, which included a shooting at a Reno trailer camp. He didn’t describe the kind of trailer camp it was.

“Moose seemed to me to be one of those rare men who make their way through life without relying on anyone else,” said Barbara Valante. “He was strong and self-assured and he wasn’t afraid of anyone or anything on God’s green earth. Later on, after I got to know him well enough, I realized that his strength could become cruelty. And his lack of fear is the result of a fantastic ego. He is so daring he’s, well, crazy.”

“Everyone seems to agree on that point.”

Barbara Valante was an intelligent and articulate girl. Sexy, too. But I hadn’t forgotten that she’d laid a trap for me. If I had been able to get my hands free, I wouldn’t have been so friendly.

She took the coffee cup back into the kitchen. The radio clicked off. I heard another door open, one which apparently led to the back stairway of the apartment building. Voices murmured. Barbara ran some water in the kitchen sink, apparently rinsing out her cup, then returned.

“I have to leave now, Mr. Carter. My father will soon be here to talk to you. In the meantime, there’s someone in the kitchen who’s going to keep you company.”

She called him. He came into the room and grinned at me. He had taken off his coat and I saw that he was wearing a Smith and Wesson .38 revolver in a shoulder rig. He also had a cast on one wrist. His name was Joe, I remembered. He worked for Valante.

“I know just how you feel, Carter. Embarrassed. You AXE agents are supposed to be the cream of the crop, but one little girl took you all by herself.”

“She isn’t little,” I said. “There are places where she is anything but little.”

Barbara Valante laughed. Then she picked up a purse and went out the door of the apartment, leaving me alone with her father’s lieutenant.

“I was a little embarrassed myself, the way you took me in California. You could ruin an ambitious young man’s future that way,” Joe said.

“Sorry. At the time, it seemed the thing to do.”

Joe sat down and checked his watch. Apparently Valante was due to arrive any time.

“How did you get here?” I asked him. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“Valante figured it out. He said you apparently had a list of Moose’s girl friends, old and new. There was a possibility Barbara was on the list. So after you shook me in California, he sent me here to try to intercept you.” He fished in his pocket and pulled out Moose’s little black book. “Now I know where you got the names. I searched you last night.”

“You were here, in the apartment, when I was talking to the girl?”

“In the neighborhood. Barbara called me after she put you to sleep.” He grinned again. “Quite a girl. I ought to have one like her.”

“We both should.”

“Back when she had something going with Moose and Valante found out about it, there was an explosion you could hear all the way to Poughkeepsie. Valante really blew his stack. I thought he’d kill somebody. The way things have turned out, it would have been better if he had.”

“I know what you mean.” I was stealthily testing my bonds again. It was no use. If I got free, someone was going to have to set me free.

“When Valante laid down the law to her, she made him eat his words,” Joe continued- “She told him that he wasn’t running her life anymore. I thought he’d croak. But it worked out. Barbara ditched Moose on her own and Valante forgave her. Now he’s even proud that she stuck up to him.”

Valante’s young lieutenant obviously thought a lot of his boss. And he thought a lot more of the boss’s daughter.

He checked his watch again, stood up, and glanced out the window at the street below. “There they are.”

Footsteps sounded in the hallway. Joe rushed to open the door. He was so eager to please his boss that it stuck out all over. Valante came into the room and stood scowling at me. The two men with him split up. One leaned against the door and folded his arms over his thick chest. The other walked over and sat down near the kitchen doorway.

“Carter, you’ve been a trial to me. You were bleeding like a stuck pig that night in Idaho and I stopped up the bullet hole. I let you live. You repaid me by manhandling my people and getting in my way,” Valante said.

“You had your own reasons for playing Good Samaritan. You thought I might lead you to Abruze’s killers. At the time, you didn’t know Moose was involved.”

The man who had taken a seat lit a cheroot with a silver lighter. “Smart boy, isn’t he, Marco?”

“Very smart. I think it’s about time we found out what else he’s learned.”

“Your daughter promised I wouldn’t be hurt,” I said to Valante.

“Now, have I said anything about violence? We only want to ask a few questions.” Valante walked over and clicked shut the blinds on the windows. That was not a good omen.

“I don’t have time for playing games, Marco. Let’s finish him off now,” the man in the chair growled.

I had been furtively watching the man in the chair since the moment he entered the apartment. I wanted very much to know who he was. The hood who had leaned against the door was a run-of-the-mill Mafia thug, stolid-faced and dull-eyed. But the man in the chair was expensively dressed, with silver cuff links and alligator-skin shoes. He appeared to be a boss of a rank equal to Valante’s. I was especially interested in him because he was tall and thin and wore glasses. Except for his natty clothing, he looked like an accountant, not like a gangster. He looked like the man the two girls in Portland had described as a friend of Moose’s.

“I brought you along because this is your territory, Lew. But I’m running this show. And I want to know what Carter’s found out in his travels,” Valante snapped.

I caught the name. The man in the chair was Lew Rossi. Lew the Doctor. Frank Abruze’s old enemy.

Pulling out the black book, Joe passed it to Valante. “I found this on Carter. It belonged to Moose. That’s where Carter got the names of the girls.”

“How’d you get hold of this, Carter?”

“Moose lost it during a scrap.”

Valante flipped through the pages. Rossi leaned forward. Behind the glasses, his eyes gleamed like bright black metal. If his name, or one of his aliases, was found in the book the game would be over for him. Valante would suspect what I had just figured out — that Rossi had hired Moose to knock off Abruze.

“Just girls’ names,” Valante said and Rossi appeared to relax. Valante came to the page that bore Barbara’s name. He tore it out angrily and balled it up. “The bastard.” Then he looked at me again. “Only one left to check with, Carter?”

I kept my mouth shut.

“You’ve been mighty busy lately — tearing up whorehouses, knocking people around, and killing a few... But you haven’t got Moose yet, or the money either, I guess.”

“There’s no sign of the money. Moose doesn’t have it. Two of the men I killed were in on the Abruze slaying. They were in Bonham with Moose when he murdered the Brant girl,” I told Valante.

“I’ve figured that out. But I can’t let you get Moose. I intend to have the pleasure of collecting the blood debt that’s owed me. Frank Abruze was my oldest friend. We went way back. So you’re going to be spending some time with Lew here while I go to Vegas after Moose.”

Rossi stood up with the cheroot clamped in the corner of his mouth. “And I’m going to take good care of you,” he leered.

Valante may not have wanted me dead but Rossi sure did. He was going to put a bullet between my eyes as soon as Valante left, I was sure. No hard feelings involved. Just an item of business to be taken care of.

“You figured some things out, but not all of them,” I said to Valante. “You missed the most important one.”

“What’s that?”

“He’s stalling, Marco. You better get going if you want to catch Moose,” said Rossi.

“What’s the matter, Rossi, afraid to hear what I have to say? I’ve got your number.”

“What are you talking about?” Valante demanded.

“About Frank Abruze being fingered. It wasn’t just a heist Moose pulled in Florida. It was a hit on your friend. Rossi set Moose on Abruze and he’s been working against you people ever since, trying to keep you from finding out.”

Lew Rossi had taken a step backward so that he was standing to Valante’s side and behind Joe. He suddenly slammed his fist into Joe’s back. The young hood opened his mouth and gasped. He took a step toward my chair and reached out the hand that bore the cast. Then he pitched forward on his face and I saw the knife between his shoulder blades.

Marco Valante spun around. I yelled at him. “No, Valante. The other guy!”

He realized that he had made a mistake, but it was too late. The man at the door, Rossi’s boy, shot him and his body jerked as the bullet hit. Valante stubbornly refused to fall. He made a complete turn, bringing his gun around, and faced the man who had put a slug in his back.

The man at the door jerked the trigger again. His gun, equipped with a silencer, made a spitting sound. The bullet hit Valante like a fist pounding into flesh. Valante finally started to fall, but he got his own shot off. Then he collapsed on the floor near my chair.

Rossi’s gunman was propped against the door, his legs spraddled as though he hoped to brace himself and avoid toppling over. He had done his job. He had saved his boss. But he was dying. Valante’s shot had caught him in the belly. Slowly he slid down the door, like a drunk who had decided to sit on the floor. His knees hinged. His feet suddenly slipped forward and he sank into a curled heap.

Lew Rossi slid the knife smoothly out of Joe’s back and wiped it on the young hood’s coat. He rolled Joe’s eyelids back to make certain he was dead. Then he stepped over Joe and nudged Marco Valante with his foot. He nudged him again, then glanced at me. “Disappointed, Carter?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Finally Rossi checked on his own man. He didn’t look broken-hearted when he confirmed that the gunman was dead. There were plenty of replacements around.

“How’d you find out?” he asked me.

“A lot of bits and pieces fell together. Somebody in the Mafia sent Coogan to kill me and the girl in Bonham. It wasn’t Valante — he wanted to get the girl to talk and me to lead him to Abruze’s killers. When I discovered that Moose had a friend in the Mob I put two and two together. Abruze had screwed up a drug deal with the Chinese Communists. I figure that was your deal. But you wanted Abruze dead for a more important reason than just that grudge.” I was guessing now. “He had found out about your secret dealings with the Communists and was about to talk. You were afraid we’d find out just what those dealings were about and so you got rid of Abruze and Kirby. And after them Meredith and I had to be dealt with before we discovered anything. You must have killed Meredith yourself — his murderer used a knife.”

“They don’t call me the Doctor because I studied medicine. In the old days I did a lot of instant surgery.” He snapped the knife shut and put it in his pocket “I almost got you at the motel. You’re a lucky bastard, Carter.”

“It’s because I’m pure at heart.”

“You’re mighty curious, too. Since you’re not going to leave this apartment alive, I might as well fill you in on the rest of it.” He seated himself in the chair again and relit his cheroot. “I have a good deal going with those Chinks. The drug deal was just a cover-up — an excuse for me to be meeting with them. I’ve been using my men to infiltrate AXE and feed info to the Communists. One of my men in your Carolina base found out the whereabouts of Sheila Brant from your files. The Communists pay for my help with high quality drugs. I’ve got the best supply in the country. Naturally, the Mob wouldn’t be to happy to learn of my private dealings. Abruze had gotten suspicious, so he had to go.”

“How do you plan to explain this scene to the Organization? The job you did on Joe practically carries your initials.”

“You did it, Carter. You’re good with a knife. You also killed Valante and my boy over there. That’s my story, and Barbara Valante is going to back it up.”

He called Barbara at the hospital and told her that her father had been hurt and she’d better get back to the apartment in a hurry. He hung up and sat looking at me with a flinty smile on his thin lips.

“You’ve given me a hell of a time, AXE man. But I’ve got you now.”

I was sweating, yanking at my ropes desperately. Somehow I had to let Hawk know what I had just found out. But I didn’t want to be within a hundred miles of the old man when he learned that AXE had been infiltrated by Mafia men who were working for the Red Chinese.

Rossi got up. He pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and stuffed it into my mouth. “Barbara ought to be here in about ten minutes. I don’t want you yelling or joining in the conversation.”

It was twelve minutes exactly before she came running down the hallway and plunged into the apartment. She turned white when she saw the terrible scene: three bodies, one of them her father’s. Many women would have fainted. She only let out a choked sound of agony.

Rossi kicked the door shut and clamped his hand over her mouth. They struggled until he put the knife to her throat.

“I know it’s hard for you, Barbara,” he said in his smooth voice, “but you’ve got to keep quiet and behave. Your life and Carter s depend on it.”

She nodded and Rossi let her go. She made sobbing noises in her throat, her eyes asking me for explanations I couldn’t give her.

“I want you to go to the telephone,” Rossi told her.

“Who am I supposed to call?” she asked in a hoarse voice.

“Anybody you want to, as long as it’s a member of the board of directors. I suggest Sal Terlizzi or Don Corvone. Let’s make it Terlizzi. He always thought a lot of you. He’ll believe anything you say.”

Barbara sniffed and drew a sharp breath. Her eyes darted to me and I tried to speak despite the gag, but found I was only choking myself.

“What is it I’m going to say, Rossi?” she asked in a voice grown suddenly harder.

“That Nick Carter killed your father and Joe and that I’m out trying to run him down. It’ll be all right if you have trouble talking. That’ll make it convincing. Then you hang up without giving any more details.”

Rossi had gathered up all the weapons in the room and laid them out on a table. He picked up the Browning Valante had been carrying. “Now, Barbara, if you don’t deliver the message exactly as I give it to you, I’m going to shoot Carter in the face.”

His plan was taking shape. The Mafia boss Barbara was supposed to call would swallow her story. After she hung up, Rossi would murder us both. Then he’d tell the Mob I’d killed the girl before he could get me. He must have thought out a few other details to make the latter part convincing, but the gist of it was obvious.

I caught Barbara’s eye and shook my head. I hoped she understood. Once she completed that call, we were both dead.

She walked to the telephone. Rossi moved along behind her. I tilted over my chair and hit the floor, trying desperately to break it so that I could free my hands. I didn’t succeed, but the crash as I struck the floor caused Rossi’s head to jerk around. When his eyes left Barbara, she snatched up the hypodermic needle she’d used the night before and drove it into his shoulder as hard as she could.

The sudden pain brought a scream to Rossi’s lips. Even I winced as I saw the device standing up in his arm like a porcupine’s quill. Rossi cursed and yanked it out. While he was doing that, the girl hit him with the telephone. He fell against the wall and she ran into the kitchen and slammed the door. Despite her grief, the girl had thought fast. Flight was better for her than trying to stay and fight Rossi.

Rossi shook his head groggily. He was so angry I thought he was going to shoot me just to vent his spleen. Then we both heard the door to the back stairway slam. He realized that he had to stop Barbara or his entire scheme would fall apart. He lunged for the door she had closed, battered it open with his shoulder and ran through the kitchen. I heard him going down the stairs.

A drawer opened in the kitchen. Barbara darted hack into the room carrying a butcher knife. She was panting. “I slammed the back door and ducked into the broom closet. He ran right past me,” she said as she cut me loose.

I grabbed the knife from her and cut the ropes that bound my ankles. I picked up the other gun with the silencer on it and sprinted through the kitchen to the stairs.

Rossi had reached the street and ducked back inside when he failed to see the girl. He looked up as I appeared on the second-floor landing.

His bullet knocked splinters off the side of the open door behind me. Mine tore die sleeve on his coat.

He opened the door that led to the street and sprang through it. By the time I got down to street level, he had vanished around the corner of the house.

Eleven

Barbara was kneeling at her father’s side when I got back to the apartment. Pain lined her pale face.

“This is going to demand a lot of you, I know, but I need your help. I have to find Rossi fast,” I said.

“What do you think hell do?”

“He isn’t going to give up his position and run. He’ll make up another story to tell the Organization. For example, that you betrayed your father and joined forces with me.”

She stood up. “Then we have to stop him before he can get in touch with them.”

“Exactly.”

She was driving a little Fiat. As we sped away from the apartment house, she said, “Rossi has an estate in the suburbs. I guess he’ll go there.”

I directed her to the street where I’d left my rented car the night before. The car was still there, with a ticket for illegal parking on the windshield.

“You drive,” I ordered. I sat alongside her, putting together the rifle I’d checked out at the AXE base in South Carolina.

Rossi’s house sat on a hill. Iron gates guarded the entrance and a high fence surrounded the grounds.

“An alarm goes off if the gates are forced,” Barbara said. “You have to call the house and ask to be admitted.”

I slid under the steering wheel and took her place. Then I drove through the gates, popping the lock and knocking them apart. The car shot up the paved drive with one of the gates still hanging onto the hood. A bent fender scraped a tire, sounding like a buzzsaw.

A man in a gardener’s clothing yelled at us as we passed him. A second man came running through the shrubbery with a gun in his hand. I picked up the rifle with one hand, crossed my arm over my chest and thrust the barrel out the window. I pulled the trigger and the running man swerved and pitched sideways into a fishpond.

“That’s Rossi’s car,” Barbara yelled, pointing at the Cadillac in the driveway. “He’s here, all right.”

I jumped out of the car and fired a shot into the Cadillac’s gas tank. I pumped in two more bullets, then pulled out my AXE lighter and tossed it into the gas that had started to seep from the tank.

“What are you doing?” the girl asked in a bewildered voice.

“Making sure he can’t get away,” I said.

Flames burst up the body of the Cadillac and then the tank exploded. A man in a chauffeur’s uniform appeared on a flight of stairs running down from an apartment above the garage.

“Nick!” the girl cried, pointing at him.

I leaned against the hood of my car, dropped the rifle into position and put a bullet in the chauffeur’s chest while he was still trying to get the revolver from inside his jacket.

A slug whined off the fender near me. Someone inside the house was shooting at me. I dropped into a crouch and ran around to the other side of the car where Barbara was already squatting. Another gun started up. There were at least two men inside the house.

Holding the rifle across my knee I looked at the girl. She was breathing hard and the color had returned to her face.

“Barbara,” I said, “you’re all right.”

“So are you, Nick.”

“I want you to roll away from the car and hide among those rose bushes,” I told her. “Can you fire a gun?”

“Sure, I can.”

I pressed my Luger into her hand. “Shoot at the house. You don’t have to have a target. Just shoot. I want some cover.”

Then I wormed through the open door of the car and turned the key. I got the motor started while lying on my side on the seat, pressing down the accelerator with my hand. I reached up and pushed the gear and the car lumbered up the walk to the front of the house.

I rolled out on the lawn and squirmed through some shrubbery so that I was against the wall. I crawled under a row of windows to the corner of the house. There was a patio and a glass-enclosed porch at the back. Lew Rossi lived in style.

Picking up a small stone bench, I hurled it through the glass. A man came running out, looking for me. I waited, standing with my back against the wall. He finally ventured into the yard. As he passed me, I stepped out and hit him with the butt of the rifle.

I entered the house through the broken glass doors and found a woman in a red dress crouched in a corner. She was in her thirties and so scared she was shaking all over.

“Who in the devil are you?” she said in a quavering voice.

“I’m Nick Carter. Are you Rossi’s wife or his mistress?”

“Neither one. I’m visiting from Vegas. And if I ever get out of here, I won’t come back.”

I walked into a larger room and a man bobbed out of a hallway and took a shot at me. I fired the rifle from my hip and my bullet hit a vase on a long table to the mans right. He jumped back. Turning the long table over, I pushed it out to block the entrance to the hallway. Then I used it for a shield.

The man put two bullets through it, near my shoulder. I lay on my side and moaned. I counted to ten before he took the bait. Then I heard him moving toward me. I waited until he reached the table and leaned over it to look for my body. Then I swung the rifle and knocked the revolver out of his hand.

He grabbed me by the hair, which was the best thing handy. My howl was not as phony as my moan had been. I thought he was going to pull my hair out by the roots. Rising up, I hit him under the chin with the rifle stock. Then I stepped over him and moved down the hallway, which was lined with doors.

“Rossi,” I yelled. “Are you too yellow to come out?”

No answer.

I kicked open a door of an empty bedroom, then moved on.

“Rossi,” I yelled. “You have to catch a man from behind like you did Joe?”

Silence.

I tried another door. A bathroom. A woman in a maid’s uniform was cowering in the bathtub.

“You’ve got a fine place here, Rossi,” I yelled. “Tell you what I’m going to do to it. I’m going to set it on fire if you don’t come out.”

He came out. He sprang out of a linen closet, hit me with the door and knocked me sprawling, then jumped on me.

The knife flashed as he thrust it up for my throat. I jerked aside and caught his wrist in two hands and started bending his arm backward. He fell away and pulled free, driving a fist into my ribs. Then he slashed with the knife again, cutting a long rent down my trousers leg as I rolled away.

We faced each other in the hallway, both of us panting. He was on his knees and I was on mine and the rifle I had dropped lay on the floor between us.

“Pick it up, Carter,” he said. “Try to pick it up and I’ll slice off your hand.”

I had retrieved Hugo before I left Barbara’s apartment. I slid the knife down into my palm and when Rossi saw it, he raised his arm to throw his own knife.

Barbara shot him. She had come into the house and was standing at the end of the hallway. She raised the Luger and held it firmly in both hands and blew the back of his head off. She walked slowly toward us and stood looking down at the dead man. Finally she turned to me with an abstracted expression on her face and said, “The code... he broke the code of the Brotherhood... the bastard.”

She was wearing black when we said goodbye the next morning. She had her long hair done up in the chaste bun behind her neck and there was no makeup on her pale face.

“I suppose you’re going on to Las Vegas now to try to pick up Moose’s trail,” she said.

“I have a feeling he’ll be there waiting for me.”

“Did you read the newspapers? The police can’t figure out what happened. They think some kind of gang war is under way.”

“We pulled out just in time,” I said.

“Nick, there’s something I have to say.”

“You mean something like maybe we’ll meet again when the circumstances are better?”

“I guess I don’t have to say it at all.”

The number Moose had written down for Cora in Las Vegas was the number of a ranch, a legal brothel run by a woman named Arlene Bradley. When she learned that I didn’t want to sample the talents of her girls, the Bradley woman led me into a sparsely furnished office and sat down in a swivel chair.

“Cora left here some time ago. She wasn’t meant for this and she found herself another life.”

“Do you remember a man called Moose?”

“He and three others came here to see Cora. Naturally, I didn’t question them. But I thought they were people she shouldn’t have been involved with. As I said, I liked her. She was a nice girl and out of her element in a place like this.”

She took a snapshot out of the desk drawer and handed it to me. “I took this. Is she the girl you’re talking about?”

It was Sheila Brant.

“Just what are you after, Mr. Harper? What is the object of these questions?” the woman asked.

“Cora’s dead. Like you said, she got involved with the wrong people. Only I knew her as Sheila Brant.”

She blinked. The news seemed to hit her hard. When she spoke again, her voice was hoarse. “You should have told me sooner. I said I liked her and I meant it. Was the man known as Moose responsible for her death?”

“Yes.”

“He is in Las Vegas. I saw him in a casino last night.”

“If Moose shows up here, would you call me at my hotel?”

“Of course.”

I hunted for Moose that night in the casinos and clubs and hotels, but I didn’t find him.

Arlene Bradley called me while I was eating breakfast. “He got in touch with me. Can you come out?”

I drove through the broiling sun to the ranch. My pulse was fast and the adrenalin was flowing. My search was finally near an end.

“They asked about you, just like you asked about them. I said you had been here and were coming back. They want me to set a trap for you,” Arlene Bradley said.

“Did you accept the proposition?”

She smiled for the first time. It was a thin smile, hard and controlled. “I guess they think anyone in my business couldn’t object to theirs. They offered me $10,000 to get you alone so they can kill you”

“They must have found the money.”

“The money?” she said, frowning.

“Never mind. Tell them you’ll do it. Tell them you’ll set their trap.”

“And you’ll trap them instead.”

“I’ll try,” I said.

I had passed an old ghost town on the way to the ranch. We drove out to it and I plodded through the dust until I found a building that looked right for what I wanted. I took the rifle out of the car and hid it on a rafter near the door.

“Am I permitted to ask the reason for your doing that?” said Arlene.

“I’m carrying a sidearm, which is enough protection at close range. But they may try to pick me off from a distance.”

She gazed down the deserted street. Although the air was shimmering with heat, she shivered. “A perfect place for a shootout. Like in the movies. Only this isn’t make believe.”

“You’ve got some horses at the ranch. Tell Moose you’re going to take me out for a ride this afternoon. You’ll lead me here, then run off with the mounts and leave me on foot.”

“It sounds perfect. For them.”

“That’s what I want them to believe. When are they going to get in touch with you again?”

“Moose said he’d call at noon. The timetable will suit him fine. So will the part about my stranding you here with no horse.”

Back at the ranch, she poured me a drink and touched her glass to mine. “To success.”

“To crime,” I said.

She smiled for the second time since we’d met. “I keep up a facade of hardness because it’s better for business. But I can feel strongly for people. Like Cora. Like you.”

I poured us another. “To friendship, then.”

We rode out to the ghost town in a sun so hot my shirt was plastered to my back. I dismounted.

“Do you see them, Ned?”

“I saw a glint of sunlight. They’re probably watching through fieldglasses. Go ahead and take off. They’ll be along. They wouldn’t want to miss their appointment.”

She pounded off, leaving my horse. That wasn’t a part of the plan. But it didn’t matter. Moose would still come. I knew I could count on that.

I sat down on the sagging porch of one of the long-abandoned stores and smoked a cigarette. Then I saw the car — a familiar Lincoln. It stopped at the end of the street and a man got out. A big man. He stood looking at me and I felt my heart lurch.

My horse made a noise. I glanced toward the animal and saw the other thug approaching from the opposite direction. He was walking, leading a mount. His feet kicked up dust in tiny spirals.

They had planned to catch me in a crossfire.

I threw the butt of my cigarette down. I got up and moved between two buildings. Standing against the wall of one of the shacks, I waited for my stalkers to make their move. It didn’t take long. Moose came around the corner.

“How did you like my girls, Harper?”

“A couple were all right.”

“But not as beautiful as Sheila? She was a sweet thing, that one. I’m really sorry I broke her neck. We’d had some times together. But big money will turn a woman’s head, twist up her thinking.”

“She didn’t rob you.”

Moose moved closer. “Then who did? I got her the job in Arlene’s house, but I never told anybody else about the money. So how could it disappear like she said?”

My arm was hanging at my side and I had turned so that Moose couldn’t see my hand. I moved, brought the Luger around, and Moose’s mouth dropped in surprise.

“I guess she made the mistake of telling Arlene,” I said.

“Drop it, Harper!”

The other man had circled around the house and come up behind me. He was standing in a crouch, his gun pointed at me. “I said drop it, sucker.”

“Don’t shoot him,” Moose yelled. “I want to hear what he has to say about the money.”

I dropped the Luger and backed toward the shack. “Arlene won Sheila over and got her trust. She told me you offered her $10,000 for this setup. Is that right, Moose, or did she tell you it was a favor for an old friend?”

“She said it was a favor.”

I turned and dove through the open window of the shack. I hit my shoulder on rotten boards and they gave, spitting up dust. I could hear Moose and the other man yelling at each other. I got up and ran to the rafter and reached for the rifle I had catched there. I should have known it would be gone. Arlene had come back and moved it. She had set me up for real.

The trouble was that I hadn’t realized that she was involved until Moose brought up the money again. Moose had said he got Sheila the job in the house, which made Arlene a liar once, at least by sin of omission. Moose had said he still hadn’t found the money, which meant he couldn’t have offered Arlene the $10,000. That made her a liar twice. And she had given me that line about how strongly she felt about Sheila and about me. She had told me she would be waiting if I came out of this trap alive. With a gun, probably.

Moose came running along the porch of the house. He sounded like a buffalo. He charged through the door without stopping and fell through the floor. His weight was more than the rotten boards could take. He was pinned in the hole. He cursed and writhed, looking around for me.

I stepped toward him and hit him in the face with a loose board I had picked up. The blow was so hard the board splintered.

The other man was climbing in the window. I threw the stiletto at him, but my move was hurried and I missed. I dodged through the door. If Moose’s friend hadn’t picked it up, my Luger would still be lying outside.

I turned the corner at a trot. The gun was still there, but I didn’t lean over for it. Arlene was standing between the building, the reins of her nervous horse in one hand, a middleweight Mauser in the other.

“Go ahead and pick it up. I came back to help you,” she said.

“No, you came back to check with the boys and see if everything went according to plan. It didn’t. I’m still alive and they know the truth. You stole the money from Sheila. She ran when she found it missing, never guessing you had it. She trusted you.”

She fired the automatic.

I dropped fiat in the dust. I raised my head in time to see Moose’s companion lean out the window and fire at Arlene. The bullet was a .45 and it tore her face apart.

I let out a yell and lunged for the man, pulling him out of the window. I slugged him in the face and clamped onto his gun hand as we rolled over in the dusty street. Moose lumbered around the corner. He picked up a boulder, raised it over his head, and stepped toward me.

The man under me was trying to get his gun pointed in the right direction, but I had hold of his wrist. I hit him again. I knew Moose was coming. At the last minute, I rolled away. Moose had turned the boulder loose. The other man was sitting up and the boulder hit him with a terrible sound, like a cleaver whacking meat. There was no doubt in my mind that the man was dead. No doubt at all.

Moose looked bewildered by the turn events had taken. He shook his huge head unbelievingly. Then he walked over to his friend. He wrenched the .45 out of the man’s fingers.

I had crawled to the Luger. Turning, I shot Moose in the chest. Twice. I shot him a third time when he stood up, eyes wild, mouth working as if he wanted to speak.

Finally he fell and lay still in the dust. I rose slowly to my feet. The ghost town seemed almost soundless, like a cemetery. I was the only person in it who was left alive. The long hunt was over and, except for telling Hawk about the infiltrators in AXE bases, my job was done. But tomorrow there would be another.

Epilogue

I found Hawk by the side of the pool of his club in the green Virginia countryside near Washington. He was taking a much-needed sunbath. His bony elbows and knees looked like ivory doorknobs.

“How did the cleanup go?” I asked.

“It’s all taken care of. We had to close down the Carolina and the Denver bases, but we got ride of all the Mafia plants. Fortunately the operation was in an early stage and they hadn’t passed on any information of much value.”

“The Mob as a whole didn’t know anything about Rossi’s deal with the Communists or that he was involved in spying on AXE. Abruze probably didn’t know much either. He was just suspicious. But suspicions can be deadly when you’re mixed up with people like Lew Rossi.”

Hawk cracked one eye.

“It was a costly and bloody affair, Nick, but that’s our line of work, yours and mine. The dirty business they give no medals for.”

“I know,” I said.

“Are you ready to leave for London tomorrow?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Nick,” he called as I moved away. He sat up in the deck chair. “Who’s the broad waiting for you in the car?”

“A reliable informant.”

“You mean Valante’s daughter?” he said.

Barbara was waiting impatiently. “Let’s go somewhere and go to bed, Nick. Tomorrow will come awfully fast.” She slid closer to me as I drove away from the club. “Was your boss surprised?”

“Oh, sure,” I said. “He was almost speechless.”

Content

Nick Carter
The Code

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Epilogue