John D. MacDonald

Blood of the Vixen

Chapter One

Beautiful Pawn

One hundred times during the long dream-like trip across the Pacific she had remembered the slow words of Sakna Kahn, remembered the fanatic brightness of his eyes, the pain of his lean brown fingers bruising the flesh of her arm.

When the freighter rolled heavily in the long blue swells of the Pacific, she spread her robe on the rough canvas of the hatch cover, stretched out in the rude warm touch of the tropic sun, dressed in the brief two-piece sun suit she had bought in the lobby of the Taj in Bombay.

She shut her eyes against the florid sun, and the gentle rise and fall of the vessel rocked her with a soft, almost sensual motion.

She was tall, taut, clean-limbed but in the wideness of her mouth, the limber way she carried herself, there was a hint of something elemental, almost savage.

Twice she had felt a shadow across her face during the early part of the trip, two days out of Bombay, and had looked up to see the square, pasty face of Gibson, the ship’s second officer. He had a habit of speaking out of lips that barely moved and of never looking into her eyes.

But there had been an answer for Gibson. A slim and delicate answer. Six inches of delicately engraved steel blade with mottled jade hilt. Sakna Kahn had given it to her. It was the last thing he had given her, pressed hurriedly into her hand as he helped her down into the little craft that took her out to the ship.

Sakna Kahn had remembered every detail. He was oddly powerful in political circles. There had been no difficulty getting permission — permission for a Burgher girl to visit the states on a temporary visa.

But she was not like other Burgher girls. Not like her Anglo-Indian cousins in Hindustan and Pakistan, the girls with the blue shade in the deep tan of their skin, the purplish look to their fingernails. Those girls fled from the sun.

She, Latmini Perez, her skin the shade of a jigger of coffee in a liter of milk, could doze in the bright sun, the small beads of perspiration gleaming amid the transparent down that covered her rounded arms and legs. She had much Dutch and Portugese blood in her, very little of the blood of Singh, the lion.

That was one of the reasons Sakna Kahn had selected her. There had been no chance of refusal. Refusal would have meant being dragged, some dark night, into a waiting car and taken out through the warm night, past the sleeping villages beyond the Victoria Bridge and left to rot in the jungle...

She remembered Sakna Kahn’s words: “It is a very simple plan — so it won’t fail. But you may have been seen talking with me. Our enemies are many, and they are clever. They will not expect our plan to be this simple. I will keep your passage as secret as possible. And yet they will find out. If you are careless, they will take you, and there will be many ways in which they will encourage you to speak of this plan. Before you leave, I will give you something which will spare you such torment. Strike deep!”

His words had made no sense to her until the knife was slipped into her hand. Already it had been of use. When Gibson walked up to stare at her on the third day, she had plucked the knife from under the edge of the robe and slid the point of it along the steel deck near the hatch cover. It had made a small grating noise.

Gibson had licked his lips. “What’s that for?”

“The knife is for you — if needs be,” she answered in a half-whisper. Gibson left hurriedly.

There was but one other passenger. An American, with face stained and blotched with disease, returning home to die. He seldom left his cabin.

And that was the way Latmini Perez wished the trip to be. Alone. Time to think. Time to remember. Time to grow accustomed to fear.

As she remembered Sakna Kahn’s words, she reached with her right hand and, with gentle fingertips, touched the thin white ridge of scar tissue that marred the clear skin above her knee. She frowned. The scar would always be there. There should be a way to make Sakna Kahn pay for that blemish. Pay in blood, as she had payed.

Yes, the plan was simple. So simple that it should succeed. If she did not become careless.

After customs inspection and verification of her papers in the Port of Los Angeles, she left the ship and went directly to the railroad station Sakna Kahn had mentioned. As he had ordered, she made no attempt at all to see if she was being followed.

She checked her two suitcases at the station, caught a taxi and went to the heart of the shopping section. There she bought with the money he had given her, several new dresses, a light suit, a hat, underthings, nylons, accessories. She bought a bag for them, a lightweight expensive suitcase.

She left the clothes she had purchased in Bombay behind, and wore her new things. Carrying the bag with her, she went to a movie, and left ten minutes later by the side door. She took a taxi out to Wiltshire and had the driver let her off on a corner. When a bus stopped, she waited until the last possible moment before boarding it. She was certain then that she wasn’t followed. With the change of clothes, she had become an American girl, with an excellent tan, and an interesting trace of something foreign in her manner, and particularly in her speech.

Forsaking the bags she had checked, she took a Pacific Electric train to San Bernadino and there transferred to a major railroad headed East. Six hundred miles later she changed from coach to pullman.

She slept, lulled by the clattering and rocking of the pullman car. In her sleep her slim fingers touched the mottled jade hilt of the slim dagger. With the blade sheathed, it was taped to her side, hilt down. Her body warmed the jade.

Latmini Perez shut herself in a telephone booth in the Pennsylvania Station. Sakna Kahn had made her memorize the number. It took her several moments to figure out the alphabetical and numerical combination on the dial.

A woman answered, her voice high and impatient. “Yes? What is it?”

“Badla lena,” she answered, saying the Hindi phrase meaning ‘revenge.’ To have come so many thousand miles through the watchfulness of the enemy in order to say these few words into the black, chipped mouthpiece...

“Oh! I see. Wait a moment, please.” The line was silent. Latmini took a deep, shuddering breath.

A man came on the line. “Listen carefully. You can’t come here. Go to the Hotel Arnot on West Fiftieth. There will be a reservation for you there, made in the name of Janice Walters. Go to your room and stay there. Be careful. Open the door for the man who will say, ‘Are you ready yet, Miss Walters?’ Is that clear?”

“Yes.”

The line clicked, went dead. She stepped out of the booth, picked up the suitcase and walked quickly back into the waiting room, reassured by the dense crowds and yet afraid of who might be in those crowds.

The Arnot was in a dusty brown building, the lobby entrance dim and bleak as compared with a garish door to the left over which sputtering neon announced, The Arnot Grill — Music by Al Denees.

The desk clerk was a blond young man with pointed features. He looked approvingly at her as she said, “You have a reservation for me? Janice Walters.” He placed the registration card in front of her. “Yes, we do, Miss Walters. But we can’t give you a single. Will a suite be okay?”

“Excellent.”

She signed, the clerk tapped the desk bell and gave the key to the hop who hurried over. He picked up her suitcase, led the way to the elevator and stepped aside as she walked in. Eighth floor. Thick rugs, badly worn on the corridor floor. White carved moulding and deep aqua walls. Thick, soft silence and the odor of dust.

“To your right, Miss.”

Eight oh nine and eight eleven at the end of the corridor. He clicked on the overhead lights, and the small sitting room was cheerless, the furniture arranged geometrically, the tapestry upholstery stained with oil from the hair of the countless people who had sat there.

The bedroom was in contrast, the walls refinished in pale gray, the furniture new, modern, inescapably cheap.

The hop said, “They’re redecorating. In this layout the bedroom’s all done but they haven’t touched this sitting room yet.”

She wasn’t used to the currency. She handed him the largest of her silver coins and it seemed to be adequate. “Call the desk if you want anything,” he said, let himself out. She affixed the chain across the door, hurried to the bedroom and did the same with the bedroom door which opened on the corridor. Then she slipped the taped knife into her sleeve.

On impulse, she turned off the lights, stood by the wide windows and looked down into the honking, confusing traffic of Fiftieth Street. For the first time in many days, she felt almost relaxed. With relaxation came reaction. She walked into the bedroom, sat listlessly on the edge of the bed, the tip of her cigarette making a subdued red spot in the darkness. When the cigarette was done, she stubbed it out and lay back on the bed. The traffic noise was a vast, throbbing lullaby...

She started violently, suddenly aware of the tapping at her door. There was a bitter taste in her mouth. Her sleep had been sound. She stood up so quickly that she wavered dizzily. In the sitting room, she turned on the floor lamp and a table lamp and arranged her hair quickly as she walked to the door.

“Who is there?”

“Are you ready yet, Miss Walters?”

She slipped the chain off and opened the door. The stocky man came in, his hat in his hand. He had a violently florid complexion, hair so blond as to be almost white, his eyebrows and small mustache startling against the veined red of his skin. His eyes were pale, watery blue, quite vague — but she got the impression that those eyes saw all that was necessary to see. He was very well dressed.

He closed the door behind him, slipped the chain back in the slot, and took off his topcoat, threw topcoat and hat on the frayed couch and sat down heavily in the nearest chair, looking at her with evident approval.

“I’m Roger,” he said, as though that one word explained everything.

“Roger? I don’t—”

“Of course you don’t, my dear.” His voice had the clipped, flat accent of a Lord Haw Haw. “It isn’t necessary that you know.” He looked at her intently, his eyes ranging from ankle to throat. She backed away and sat down. “A very nice job of selection by our friend, Sakna,” he said.

“Against my will,” she said.

Roger laughed. “Of course, my dear. No one willingly does this sort of thing, you know. That is, unless they happen to be psychopathic. I would assume that you are — quite normal.”

“What is the next step?” she said.

“You will tell me every detail of your instructions,” he said quietly.

She shook her head. “No. I cannot.”

His face turned a deeper shade and his eyes narrowed. “May I ask why not?”

“Part of my instructions are to tell no one.”

He smiled. “Oh, but those instructions came from Sakna Kahn. Here you are under my jurisdiction, my dear. I countermand his orders.”

“I won’t accept the change,” she said firmly. “It is all very well for you to ignore him, but I have to go back there. You don’t. As long as I have to go back and report to him, I will do exactly what he told me to do.”

His anger faded. “You are stubborn, my dear. Very well, then. If you won’t, you won’t. At least we’ve done part of our job. We’ve put you in the same hotel where Karl Ehrlich is staying. Sakna Kahn at least managed to tell us that much of your mission.”

“Ehrlich is — here!” she gasped.

“Certainly! You’ll know him by sight?”

“Sakna Kahn had one picture. A poor one, cut from a Berlin newspaper from before the war.”

“He hasn’t changed. He’s tall, heavy through the shoulders. Coarse features. He is very mild in action, quite courtly in fact. He has a — shall we say — pronounced regard for the fair sex.”

“Sakna Kahn knew that when he — selected me.”

Roger smiled. “I assume that Sakna Kahn has the usual safeguards to guarantee your obedience?”

She remembered the look in Sakna Kahn’s eyes when he had said to her, “Remember, my dear, you have two younger sisters. Any deviation from your instructions would be unfortunate. We would have to pay them a visit. Your family plantation near Ratnapura is quite isolated, is it not?”

“Yes,” she said weakly to Roger. “My obedience is beyond question.”

“He is a clever man. But so is Ehrlich. It takes a clever man to get a clean bill of health from the War Crimes people when you have Ehrlich’s background. I must be leaving. You have the number. In case of trouble, telephone again.”

He picked up his coat and hat. She followed him to the door. At the door he turned, smiling at her, twirling the hat in his hand. Suddenly the hat smashed up at her face, the room swung like a giant pendulum and there was a touch of fire along the line of her jaw. She felt herself topple toward the floor, but she couldn’t feel the impact of landing on the floor. She fell endlessly...

Light stung through her eyelids. She moaned and put her arm across her eyes. From far away Roger said, “Ah, awake again, I see.”

She blinked at him. He sat in his shirtsleeves looking at her. She was on the couch. Her jaw hurt. She touched her fingertips to it.

“There will be no mark,” he said, “if that’s what you’re worried about. I masked my fist with my hat.”

Under cover of her arm, she reached gently with the fingers of her other hand, found to her dismay that her sleeve was unbuttoned, the jade knife gone.

“Your plaything is on the bureau,” he said. “I took the liberty. I thought you might be dangerously angry.”

She sat up dizzily, the pain throbbing along the lean line of her jaw. “Why did you?” she whispered hoarsely.

“An elementary precaution. Your little gift for Ehrlich would have been taken if you had had it here. If I could take it, Ehrlich could take it. I assure you, my dear, that you have been carefully searched. I trust you left it in a safe place?”

He smiled with his lips alone. The vague blue eyes had glints of anger.

“I don’t believe you, of course,” she said.

“That is of no interest to me.”

“Had you found what you sought, Roger, you would have been gone by the time I awakened.”

“Possibly,” he said casually.

“I want to laugh at you,” she said. “You have made me feel good. Very good. I was foolish. I thought that Sakna Kahn and the ones like him — you, for example — were selfless fanatics. It is a pleasure to find you are a common thief. It makes all of you less formidable.”

He stood up and slowly slipped into his suitcoat, smiling down at her as he buttoned it. “One round for you, my dear. It is like a mathematical equation. Had I won, you would have been proven a poor one for Sakna Kahn to have sent.” He picked up his coat and hat again and hurriedly let himself out. She walked over to the door and replaced the chain.

As she was getting dressed, she ordered her dinner. It was too late to go out alone. When she had finished, she pushed the cart out into the hallway, locked her door and glanced at her watch. Nearly eleven. She thought vaguely of calling Ehrlich, even went so far as to rest her hand lightly on the phone. The idea was poor, she realized, and she was motivated by the urge to get the business over with quickly. She forced herself to relax. She sat in the darkened room for a time, watching the night silhouettes of the buildings of central Manhattan. She went to bed.

The tapping at the door was insistent. It had worked itself into her dreams before awakening her. In her dreams she was crouched in the heavy dust of a Ceylonese village street. On the far edge of the jungle a machine gun made an odd sleepy noise.

She sat up in the darkness, her palms moist. The tapping sounded again. She stepped into her slippers, padded over to the door and said, close to the panel, “Who is it?”

A woman’s voice, oddly familiar, spoke: “Let me come in, please.” Something of panic and something of despair was in the voice.

“Who are you?”

“I’m a friend of Roger’s. Please. Quickly!”

Leaving the chain on, she opened the door and looked cautiously out. A young woman with heavy facial bones, brown hair, smart clothes stood outside. “Hand me your purse through the crack in the door,” Latmini said.

Quickly the girl pushed the purse through, Latmini shut the door, unclasped the purse, looked quickly inside. She snapped it shut, took off the chain and opened the door. The girl came in hurriedly and Latmini locked the door behind her.

Latmini clicked on the bright overhead lights. They stood for an awkward moment, looking at each other inquisitively.

“It is very late. Won’t you sit down?” Latmini said.

The girl sat on the edge of the couch in a posture of strain. “Who are you?” Latmini asked.

“Wanda Dziemansek,” the girl said. “It means nothing to you, I know. I talked to you before. I answered the phone when you called. I couldn’t come earlier. I... I love Roger Darron.”

“I don’t see how that can possibly interest me,” Latmini said.

“I know how he is,” Wanda said. “It has happened before. I will not let it happen again. When he came to see me, he beat me. I knew then that you are beautiful. He beats me when he likes someone else. He drank a great deal and fell asleep. He will not notice that I am gone.”

Latmini frowned. “I don’t understand all this.”

The girl stood up suddenly. She began to pace back and forth. She changed suddenly from a rather stolid-looking brown-haired girl into something of fire and ice and fury. “I tell you that this will not happen again. I, Wanda Dziemansek, will prevent it. Sure, he took me out of a D. P. camp near Munich — but it doesn’t matter anymore. I will not wait patiently for him to come back to me again. I am grateful to him no longer.”

“I have no interest whatsoever in your Roger Darron.”

“It makes no difference. If he likes you, he will find a way. I know how it is done. He knows things about you. Oh, he is very clever.” She mimicked his tone: “My dear Miss Walters. You would hate to have me advise the authorities of your real reason for being here, wouldn’t you? There will be no need to do that—”

“But isn’t he, as a go-between for illicit sales of arms and ammunitions, as vulnerable as anyone else?” Latmini asked.

“There is no evidence against him. None! And he has taken out his first papers. He is better protected than you others who only visit.”

“But why do you come here to tell me this nonsense?” Latmini asked.

Wanda tapped her chest. “Because this time it will be different. This time I will go to the authorities and I will tell them why Ehrlich has come here. I will tell which U. N. delegates have been contacted by Ehrlich. I will tell them why Roger Darron has received word from Sakna Kahn. I will expose the whole stinking mess. You think of what I have told you when Roger comes to you with one of his — so delicate proposals. You hear me!”

“Wait a moment, Miss Dziemansek. I want to ask you—”

“There is nothing more to say to you. I despise you, Miss Walters, or whatever your name is. I could spit into your face! I have seen war, Miss Walters. I have seen the bombs land on the villages. I have seen children with half their faces blown away crawling through the dirt and crying for someone no longer there. Let me go.”

“But I don’t—”

“You and your kind want it all to come back again. Leave Roger Darron alone!”

There was nothing more to say. Latmini Perez let the girl out, shut the door behind her. Latmini felt emotionally exhausted. She went back to bed but she could not sleep. She thought of Roger Darron’s vague eyes, of his florid face. Obviously, if he was able to gain the release of Wanda from a D. P. camp, he must have been in a position of some authority. She wondered if Roger Darron would do as Wanda believed he would.

Suddenly she sat bolt upright, her heart pounding. If Wanda went to the authorities, the entire plan would fail. With Darron out of the way, no one would be able to tell Sakna Kahn exactly what had happened quickly enough. Quickly enough to prevent what Kahn had threatened if Latmini failed to carry out her instructions. Kahn would believe that Latmini Perez had betrayed him.

She thought for a time of the towering hills of Ratnapura, of the neat rows of the clipped tea bushes that marched over the irregular high fields, of the warm taste of arrack and honey. She muffled the sound of her weeping with the corner of the blanket...

Chapter Two

Salesman of Death

She managed to smile at the man behind the desk as she said. “You see, it would be very awkward if it turned out to be someone else. But I believe that I know him. If you would please point him out to me. Mr. Ehrlich. When he comes through the lobby.” She let him see the five imprint on the folded bill she held. She made her smile warmer. “But he must not know, you understand.”

“Perfectly, Miss Walters.” The folded bill was whisked off with a furtive motion. Suddenly the desk clerk lowered his voice. “He’s coming toward the desk now.” There was a glass panel, a mirror, in one of the columns behind the clerk. Latmini glanced into it, saw a man in a neatly cut gray suit, a folded topcoat over his arm. He smiled at the clerk, tossed his key onto the top of the desk and walked toward the lobby door.

“Is he the one you know?” the clerk asked eagerly.

Latmini frowned. “I do not know. It has been so many years. Thank you.” She turned away. Karl Ehrlich was bigger than she had guessed. A full six foot two or three and very broad across the shoulders. He moved with a quick light step — the step of a trained athlete, in spite of the fact that he was close to forty.

Ehrlich stood just inside the lobby door, working his arms into his topcoat, staring out at the crowds on the sidewalk. She wondered how it could best be done. Of course, she could always walk up and say, “I wish to talk to you, Herr Ehrlich.”

But then there was the danger that he would be alarmed by the blunt approach, feel her so lacking in discretion that he would be afraid to make any sort of deal with her.

With sudden decision, she walked by him, pulled open the heavy door and stepped out. She stopped too close to the door and, as she saw it closing, she moved just enough to catch the edge of her coat in the door. She turned, pretending awkwardness, saw him loom up through the glass, pull the door back. “Allow me, please,” he said in a gentle voice, a curiously soft voice for so large a man.

He looked at the edge of her coat, bent and touched the soiled spot with a manicured finger. “I do not believe it is torn at all. You are lucky.”

“Thank you. If you had not come along, I probably would have tom it trying to pull away.”

She smiled up into his face, saw the sudden quickening of interest. “Excuse my boldness,” he said. “You are not American, no?”

“Ceylonese. Would you have guessed?”

“No, I would have said Egyptian, possibly Turkish.”

She made a face and they both laughed. She said, “You are not an American either. I would say German. Possibly Austrian.”

“You are very clever,” he said. “Ah, there is a taxi. What way are you going, Miss—”

“Walters. Janice Walters. That is an Anglicised version of my name. I was going to waste an hour looking in shop windows and then I was going to find a place to have lunch. Perhaps you can tell me where I can best waste my hour?”

He bowed and said, “I am delighted to know you, Miss Walters. My name is Ehrlich. Karl Ehrlich.” He glanced at his watch. “It is now eleven. If you will permit me, I will be happy to take you to a very pleasant place for lunch. We can go there now, if you wish, and talk about this fabulous city we are visiting over sherry or cocktails.”

She peered at him with a burlesque of suspicion. “You are reputable, Herr Ehrlich?”

He solemnly raised his right hand. “I am a pillar of any community I happen to be in, Miss Walters.”

He assisted her into the taxi and directed the driver to take them to a small French restaurant on East Sixty-fourth. There was an awkward silence for a few moments after the cab started up and then he began to talk very charmingly about his first visit to New York City back in 1927 when he knew no English. He soon had her laughing. He used his powerful well-kept hands along with his conversation, using deft gestures to illustrate the little stories he told.

Fifteen minutes after they had entered the restaurant and sat down at a discreet little table in a comer of the lounge, they were evident friends. She noticed that there was no one close enough to them to overhear. He had stopped talking for a moment and was looking at her with obvious approval, his eyes glowing.

She looked into his eyes and said, “Herr Ehrlich, I have come many thousand miles to see you. It is understood that you have certain merchandise for sale.”

The glow went out of his eyes, but his lips kept the same easy smile. The brown eyes became as dull and expressionless as stones. He said slowly, “I must be growing fat and unwary. You have been clever.”

“I understand that your syndicate will not deal with those who are not clever.”

“That is quite right. Did you lie to me about your being Ceylonese?”

“No.”

“What is your right name?”

“Must you know that?”

“Do not lie this time. I must know it and it will be necessary for me to cheek back and see that you are what you claim to be.”

“My name is Latmini Perez.” She smiled, thinking to make him less cautious. “My friends call me Sitara at times. It means ‘star’ in Hindustani.”

For a moment the glow came back into his eyes. “Star? That is nice. The name ‘Stella’ means star. May I call you that?”

“I’ll have a hard time keeping track of my names. Latmini, Sitara, Stella, Janice.”

He became suddenly cautious. “You have not handled this type of mission before?”

“Never.”

“Why do you do it at this time?”

“I could lie to you, Karl Ehrlich, and tell you of some inner yen for adventure. I will not lie. I am doing this because harm will come to ones I love if I do not do it.”

“In the end, my dear, that is the best way. It was proven during the days of the Third Reich. The most loyal servants are those who have everything to lose, including their lives.”

“You do not have to check back to Ceylon. A man in New York can vouch for me, I am sure.”

“Who is he?”

“I must trust you, Herr Ehrlich. But there is something I must check. Suppose I merely tell you that the initials of this man are R. D. and that he has a red face.” “Roger Darron is a fool, Stella. I have refused to deal with him further. I have told myself that I will deal with no one again where he is concerned.”

She felt a quick rush of alarm. Her voice hoarsened as she said, “But you will not apply that rule to me?”

He looked at her for long moments, licked his heavy lips and said, “You will be the last one.”

“Thank you,” she breathed.

He danced around, lowered his tone and said, “I will make another exception. I will be careless and foolish. In return for this concession I make you, I will expect that you will make similar con-sessions when the opportunity presents itself.”

She smiled. “We are without witnesses, of course. And you will probably say nothing specific. So the concessions are something I will have to think about.”

He laughed, almost silently. “Stella, my dear, you have wasted years in not taking up this sort of thing earlier. After this is over, maybe there will be a place in our organization where—”

“After this is over,” she said firmly.

“Of course. One thing at a time. You must understand that at the present time the demands on our syndicate are rather heavy. Our shipments have gone out regularly to Palestine, India, China, Burma, the Dutch possessions. But our stocks are now slim. Tell me, will the merchandise we supply be used by trained people?”

“No. It will be used by people who have not been permitted to handle such things for generations.”

“Open or guerilla warfare?”

“First guerilla warfare. Sabotage.”

“How many men do you hope to have engaged in this enterprize?”

“It is said that there should be about five thousand — to begin with. They will capture other merchandise as the fighting goes on.”

“When should shipment be made?”

“As soon as possible. The merchandise is to be crated as truck parts and consigned to a name in Colombo. I will give you his name after arrangements are made.”

“Deals of this sort are cash in advance.”

“We cannot give you cash.”

“Then there will be no deal.”

“Wait! We can give you something that is as good as cash. Possibly better. We can deliver it to any spot you designate.”

Ehrlich shrugged. “We will need more data than what you have given me. Can you set a value on this something you talk about?”

“Half a million dollars. Minimum valuation.”

He smiled. “Do not say that figure with such awe, Stella. We deal in many millions. Once shipment costs are taken out, you leave us ninety dollars with which to equip each of the five thousand you speak of. That is very little. For what you say, we can equip three thousand with our merchandise. And, of course, give you a supply of materials for the sabotage phase. Three thousand rifles of an obsolete type. Forty sub-machine guns. Thirty rounds for each rifle. One thousand rounds for each automatic weapon. Five hundred pounds of plastic explosive with caps and fuses. Three hundred grenades. Nothing more.”

“They were very anxious for pistols.”

“They are in demand. They cost more than the riffles. Rifles would be as good for your purposes, particularly if your people aren’t trained. This is not an offer, however. This is what you might get, provided you could pay cash in advance.”

“My instructions are to ask you this: Will you transmit the order to your people and have the items crated, but not stenciled? Then I will take, to any place you say, this item I speak of and you can see its value.”

Karl Ehrlich was silent for long seconds. He rubbed his massive chin and said, “I like you, Stella. I will agree to that — even though the others will be cross with me.”

“What guarantee of performance can I get from you, Mr. Ehrlich?”

“Call me Karl. You can get no guarantee. I can only tell you this. Any failure on our part to fulfill on a promise makes it more difficult in the future to get the prices we ask.”

“That is a very small crumb of comfort,” she said. “I told you that persons I care for will be hurt, if anything goes wrong, Karl.”

He touched her hand with surprising gentleness. “Nothing will go wrong, Stella. Nothing at all.”

“Where must I make delivery of this item I have spoken of?” Latmini asked him.

“I will tell you that after I find out more about you.”

“Have your people contact Sakna Kahn.”

“We know who he is. That will be done.”

She wanted to pull her hand away from his, but she knew that it was not time to reveal her feeling. She smiled at him. She remembered the girl who had come to her room. Possibly Karl Ehrlich would find some way of preventing trouble from that direction. It was so obviously not his style to kill, but rather to persuade, that she considered it quite safe to say:

“You called Roger Darron a fool. He is more than that. A girl came to me last night and told me that she had gathered enough information from Roger so as to make a great deal of trouble for all of us if Roger once again walks out on her. She was afraid that Roger was too interested in me. She mentioned your name, said that she knew which U. N. delegates you were contacting.”

Karl Ehrlich took his hand away slowly, looked down at the clean nails. His lips barely moved as he said, “Indeed? That is very interesting.”

“You know how much all this means to me in a personal way, Karl. It would be a shame if you and I were to get along beautifully, and yet have the entire thing spoiled by this troublesome woman’s jealousy.”

“She is a Pole, I believe.”

“I don’t know. Her name is Wanda Dziemansek. I have the telephone number of the apartment where she is staying at present.”

“I know where it is. You realize, of course, that there would have been no need for you to leave Ceylon if Darron were trustworthy?”

“I had imagined that that could be the case.”

He glanced at his watch. “We must hurry. I have an appointment.” He snapped his fingers loudly and the waiter came hurrying over.

He stepped out of the taxi at the entrance to the hotel. With the taxi door still open, he stood and looked down at her, the afternoon sun bright on his face. “I will see you tonight,” he said. It was not a question.

Latmini looked at him steadily.

“If you wish.”

“At seven thirty. I will telephone you in your room. Until then, Stella. Do not worry.”

She looked up into his face, thinking of how each individual feature was blameless in itself, and yet the effect of the whole was one of brutality and ruthlessness. Karl Ehrlich, salesman of death. There was an air of inevitability about him, a courteous and smiling doom.

She shuddered as the taxi drove away, turned quickly and went through the lobby to the elevators.

At seven she stepped out of her bath.

She hurriedly slipped on the dark green dress she had bought in Los Angeles.

It was a lightweight wool, and it pleasantly exaggerated the slimness of her waist, the long clean lines of her throat. She lit a cigarette and stood at the window. The cars had turned on their lights and the people on the sidewalks walked leisurely.

The knock on the door came at seven twenty-five. Having expected the loud ring of the phone, she was momentarily startled, and then realized that Karl Ehrlich had decided to come up rather than call.

Affixing a smile on unwilling lips, she unfastened the chain and swung the door wide. A strange young man walked in, smiling and unflustered. He was tall, almost as tall as Ehrlich, but he had none of Karl’s solidity. This man looked wiry and alert. He had a frank, smiling face, friendly eyes and a scrubbed look.

“I’m afraid you have the wrong room,” she said quickly.

He pushed the door shut. “Not at all, Miss Walters. Not at all.” He didn’t take his hat off, merely shoved it so far back that a lock of red-brown hair fell across his forehead. He had freckles across his nose and a deep scar near the corner of his mouth.

He sat down on the couch, tucked a cigarette in the corner of his mouth and lit it. He looked at her calmly and with approval. She saw that his eyes were brown like Karl’s. But not as wise as Karl’s. Younger. More naive. She suddenly felt completely capable of handling this friendly young American.

“Sit down, Miss Walters. You look uncomfortable. Pretty dress.”

“You’ll have to tell me what it is that you want,” she said, unsmiling and firm. With a lazy motion he reached into his hip pocket, pulled out a wallet and flapped it open. She saw the silver gleam of the badge, the bright glint of blue enamel.

“Lady, you are entertaining the law. Sit down, honey.”

Abruptly she sat. “On second thought,” he said, “suppose you show me some identification.” His voice was still warm and friendly.

Her mind racing madly, she walked over to her suitcase, unlocked it and took her passport out and carried it over to him.

He glanced at her and at the picture. “Latmini, huh? Is that the way you say it? Latmini Perez. Maybe you don’t write so good. On the register it looks like Janice Walters of Los Angeles.”

She managed a smile. “There is a man here who would pester me, Mr.—”

“Mr. Joe Harrigan. Now tell me about this man and how he’d bother you.”

“Well, he’s just a man. What difference does it make, Mr. Harrigan?”

He stood up so suddenly that it startled her. He walked over to the bureau, yanked open the drawers and fumbled through them. Over his shoulder he said, “It’s a hell of a life, having to do this sort of thing. Don’t look so indignant.” He looked in her purse and then looked at the green dress. “Guess you couldn’t hide anything under that, Miss Perez.” She was conscious of the knife she had taped back to her ribs before dressing.

He sat down again. He yawned and said, “Well, it’s like this. About three o’clock today, as near as the guy from the Medical Examiner’s office can make it, somebody did a little work on a couple people named Darron and Dziemansek. I understand you know ’em.”

Her throat felt dry and tight. It would be dangerous to lie and dangerous not to lie. In a subdued tone she said, “I know them.”

“Glad you didn’t lie. You wouldn’t know ’em now.”

Latmini fought for control when the room swam before her eyes. Harrigan’s face seemed to swell to five times life size and then recede so far away that she could barely see it. Out of a mist he said, “Sorry I gave it to you so fast. Want some water?”

She nodded and with surprising speed he appeared with a glass of cold water. She sipped it gratefully.

Harrigan said, “I just spent quite a bit of time proving to myself that you didn’t leave the hotel after you came back at one thirty-five. Near the phone in the apartment where they were killed is a scratch pad. There was nothing written on it, but on the sheet that was gone somebody had written ‘Janice Walters — Amot.’ And here you are. Other people are checking other things. I’m checking you. Okay?” She nodded. “So tell me why your name is on the pad.”

“I didn’t know where to go for a room. Mr. Roger Darron was supposed to have made a reservation for me. I believe a friend wrote him from Ceylon. I called him when I got in town and he sent me here.”

“Also I find out that this Darron, or somebody who looks like he used to look, came to see you.”

“He was being friendly. He wondered if I wanted anything.”

“Then his gal friend comes to see you at three in the morning. Why?”

“She was jealous. She thought he liked me.”

Harrigan grinned at her. She suddenly felt that there was a brain behind those brown eyes, a brain not as naive as his expression. And not as friendly. “I can see how you might make her jealous. She didn’t look so good when I saw her. What are you doing in this country, Miss Perez?”

“Just a visit. Some shopping. I’m a tourist.”

“Who was this friend who steered you to this Darron guy?”

At that moment the phone rang. She hurried to it and pressed the receiver close to her ear so that the sound of Karl’s voice wouldn’t be audible to the listening Harrigan.

“Stella? I’m down in the bar. Shall I come up?”

“I don’t think so. I’d rather not go, if you don’t mind. I’m afraid it would be too crowded there.”

Karl was quick. “I see,” he said softly. “Someone is with you. If you do not need help, say good-by immediately. I will not want to see you tonight, at any rate.”

“Good-by,” she said and hung up, turning calmly to face Harrigan. He sat and watched her with an amused look in his brown eyes.

For a moment she was afraid that he would ask what place it was that would be too crowded for her tastes. Instead he said, “I was asking you who it was that steered you to this Darron.”

“Oh, that was an old friend of my family’s. A man named Sakna Kahn. He owns several businesses in Ceylon. He travels quite a bit.”

“I see. What about this Wanda Dziemansek? What information can you give us about her?”

“I never saw her or heard of her until she came to my room early this morning. She threatened me if I — became friendly with Mr. Darron. She happened to say that Mr. Darron took her out of a D. P. camp near Munich.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if she was in this country illegally. You know, this guy Darron lived pretty well without a job and without much dough. We can’t find a sign of a bankbook or a job.”

She shrugged as if it was of no interest to her.

But the strain of being calm was beginning to tell. She could feel a small muscle in her upper lip begin to twitch. To her great relief, Harrigan stood up and settled his hat firmly on his head.

He walked leisurely to the door. “Well, we’ll keep checking back, Miss Perez. We’ll be around when we turn up something.”

Chapter Three

Secret in Blood

When the door closed behind him she began to tremble so badly that she could hardly stand. It was pure horror to think that what she had said to Karl about Darron had resulted in— That couldn’t be true! It must have been some other enemy. Bad luck. Pure bad luck. With the police in on it, Karl Ehrlich would become cautious and refuse to deal with her. Darron was the only one who knew the method for quick communication with Sakna Kahn. If Sakna Kahn should hear that Darron was dead and that Karl Ehrlich had refused to deal with her—

She stood, still trembling, and tightened her hands until the finger nails bit into her palms. She suddenly realized that Karl would not call again, that Karl would probably never call again. She remembered his air of caution. The unreality of the situation was a constant nightmare. Because one power-mad man in Ceylon saw the British leave India, he wanted to hurry them out of Ceylon. The British garrison was small. It would succeed. For a time. There would be many deaths.

When you dealt in death, you had to deal with men like Ehrlich, Darron and Sakna Kahn. You had to wear a variety of names and when success was in your grasp, you ended up standing in your hotel room, shaking from head to foot. There was a bitter taste in your mouth. You stood and thought of the men who would be sent by Sakna Kahn to the plantation after your two sisters if Sakna Kahn ever suspected the least trace of disloyalty to his blood-stained cause.

She suddenly realized that her only way out would be to see Karl Ehrlich alone. In a place where he would be forced to talk to her. His room! She would have to find a way to get into the room. Finding out which room was easy. She merely phoned the desk and asked and they told her.

She paced back and forth, trying to think of some way to get into his room. Suddenly she grinned crookedly at her own stupidity. It would be easy to find out if he was in there. Room nine twenty-six. One floor above. She found the fire well and went quickly up the stairs. She knocked at his door. No answer. Again. He was not in.

A maid came down the hall, clean sheets over her arm, and went into the room across the hall from nine twenty-six. She used a pass key on the door.

Latmini dipped hurriedly into her purse, found a ten dollar bill, pushed the half-open door wide open and walked in.

“Yeah?” the maid said expectantly, eyeing the ten.

“I wonder if you’d let me in the room across the hall.”

“Against the rules. Can’t do it.”

“But I’m a guest in the hotel. You see, a friend of mine has that room. I want to play a joke on him. Really, I’m not a thief.”

“Ask the desk.”

“You know they’ll say no. Look, I’ll make it fifteen dollars.”

The maid scratched her thin blonde hair. “Well—”

The room wasn’t built for walking. Square and plain, with drab plaster walls, draperies fresh from the showroom of your cheap local dealer in furniture which makes your home look like “the home of the movie stars.”

And yet she walked. Ceaselessly. From the bed to the bathroom door. Back. The wide windows looked down on the heart of the city. She felt the deep pulse of the city and it was something that was part of the beat of her heart, something that took possession of nerve, vein, pulse...

There would be no point in calling the desk.

As soon as Karl came back from the meeting, or wherever he was, he would come to the room. There was nothing else he could do. It was his room. Karl seemed to be a creature of habit.

She paused, near the windows, held her hands outstretched, fingers spread, felt the excited surge of pulse that made her hands tremble, made a vein throb in her throat, made her feel once again the deep fear that had been with her ever since she had walked up the gangplank at Colombo.

On impulse, she hurried to the bureau, pulled open the drawers, riffling impatiently through the neatly folded underthings, the starched shirts. It was in the second drawer. A plain silver flask bearing the odd seal that she had learned to recognize. Just a plain silver flask, dull finish, inscribed with a warning that she could interpret.

She unscrewed the top, tilted it high and the sharp sting of the liquor tore at her throat. Of course it was good and expensive liquor. Karl would insist on nothing less. The deep rich glow warmed the chill of fear, made her strong again... and bold.

It was at the instant that she heard his key in the door. The knob turned. She stood waiting for him, his silver flask in her hand.

He was startled at the glow of light in the room. She saw him blink against the glare, pause, iron out the expression of dismay.

His tone was most casual. “Hello, Stella.” As though finding a woman in his room was a customary thing.

She heard, in her own voice, the thin fragile note of hysteria. “Karl!” she said. “How nice! Welcome home.”

Without taking his eyes from her, he closed the door behind him. The click of the brass latch was thin, metallic, final, somehow ominous. Karl had become a stranger. Without warning. Without plan.

He walked toward her, stopped three feet away and said, “It is nice, isn’t it?” His eyes were cold. “I saw Roger this evening. He told me — just enough.”

She backed away suddenly as he reached for her. She couldn’t evade the square tanned hand that reached for her throat, but tore the fabric of her dress.

Holding the dark green dress together, she backed against the bed, looking at him with wide eyes.

“I think we will talk this over,” he said. He walked slowly toward her.

The flask dropped to the floor. She shrank back.

He paused and smiled. “Or perhaps you would prefer to finish your drink?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, hysteria close to the surface. “Why are you like this?”

He stooped and picked up the flask. Some of the contents had seeped out onto the pale rug. He glanced down at the dark wet spot. She looked also, saw the threads in the rug twist and blacken, saw the tiny wisps of gray smoke that arose, smelled the pungent odor of acid. She put both hands to her throat.

Karl laughed at her. The sound was flat, metallic — somehow reminding her of the click of the door latch. “Don’t fret, Stella. This toy is a thing I have seen before. It is the impact which releases the capsule of acid into the liquor. A pretty seal etched into the silver, don’t you think? Don’t you remember seeing it before?”

She could make no sense of his words. She felt as though she had been pushed onto a stage in an unfamiliar part. The other actor was giving her the cues, but she couldn’t respond. “No, I—”

“Think, my clever little one: Think hard! Surely one like you who comes to Karl Ehrlich and pretends to be a customer must also be observant.”

“I did not pretend. I have—”

His voice softened. “My dear, a man does not lie when he looks into the eyes of death. Roger Darron labeled you an imposter when he said that you have nothing of value with you.”

His huge frame and the uncanny quickness of his movements made any thought of escape impossible. She lifted her chin, tried to make her voice firm and confident. “But surely Roger Darron told you more than that. He must have—”

“Stella, my sweet, he had no chance to say more.”

“Then you—”

The silence in the room was intense. Her mouth dry, she looked into his eyes and saw what Roger Daron had seen — and Wanda. She saw the way Wanda had walked back and forth, suddenly alive as she talked of Roger. She saw Roger’s vague blue eyes, his florid face, the red puffiness of his hands. A fragment of memory returned. There had been a ring on the third finger of his left hand. A heavy ring, the flesh bulging above and below it. An odd seal on that ring. The seal matched the design on the flask.

Inadvertently she said, “His ring.”

“I knew you were observant, Stella. Now you know far too much, don’t you? When he was blinded he fumbled for that flask. I thought it must be some sort of a key to his activities. I brought it back here with me and put it away in the drawer. You must be psychic, my dear. Something led you directly to it. Now, suppose you tell me, very quickly, who your represent, what you are after.”

He stepped closer to her, one of his big hands clamping on her wrist. He twisted slightly, and the pain shot through her arm.

“Who sent you to me?” he asked, accenting each word.

He had his right hand on her left wrist. She moved a bit closer to him, and smiled. She slipped her right hand through the tear in her dress, snatched the jade hilt of the knife, felt the tape pull away from her flesh. She snapped it down to fling off the sheath and then drove it up at him.

He twisted back. The keen blade slit the fabric of his suit and that was all.

“The kitten has claws,” he said softly. On his toes, like a boxer, he began to move cautiously toward her. “It will be better if it is your knife that is used,” he said.

The door broke open with a splintering crash and Harrigan bounded into the room, the light glinting on the steady muzzle of the revolver he held aimed at Ehrlich’s middle. “Break it off right here, kids,” he said softly.

Ehrlich snatched the knife by the blade, pulling the hilt out of Latmini’s lax hand. With the same sweeping motion, he threw it at Harrigan, bounding after it like a great cat.

The crash of the shot in the small room was like the crack of a thousand whips. Harrigan had fired as he jumped back. He stood, his back against the closet door, and the jade handle of the knife quivered close to his head. His rush carried Karl heavily into the wall near the door. Then Karl crashed to the floor and lay still.

Harrigan put one toe under Ehrlich’s shoulder and grunted as he kicked him over. “Oh, unhappy day!” Harrigan said. “Right smack in the face. And so many people wanted to have words with him.”

He kicked the shattered door shut in the face of a shaking man who stood there, his eyes bulging. He said to Latmini, “Sit down, honey. I got a call to make.”

She sat numbly on the bed. It was finished now. Sakna Kahn would believe that he had been betrayed. Anything he might do, he would consider as a lesson to others who would think of betrayal.

She heard the murmur of Harrigan’s voice as he spoke over the phone. He hung up.

“What made you come here?” she asked in a low voice.

“We’ve had this outfit covered like a tent, sweetness. Our man was on the switchboard when I was in your room. One of the Federal agencies has been fastened to Ehrlich like a leech for months. We coordinated a little. That reminds me.” He stepped out into the hall, pushed some people aside and picked up a stethoscope from the floor, came back into the room and kicked the door shut.

“A very old gag, honey, but a good one. He was too smart for the boys to plant wires on. So I got this in a hurry from a doc in the hotel. Flat against the door, you can hear pretty good.”

She stared over at the dead face of Karl Ehrlich and shuddered.

“What’s the matter, honey?” Harrison asked. “You’ve heard about these things. The boys will be along in a few minutes now to wrap up Ehrlich. You’ll have to answer our questions, then we turn you over to the Federal boys for a thorough going over.”

“It won’t do any good,” she said dully. “It has all gone wrong for me. Everything. Nothing will do any good now.”

He walked over to her, squatted on his heels in front of her and peered up into her face. “Maybe you should tell Harrigan,” he said softly. “You sound beat.”

“I’ll tell you, but it won’t do any good. I was sent here to contact this man and buy weapons for shipment to Ceylon. I have failed. The man who sent me here will take his revenge on my family.”

Harrigan frowned. “So that’s why Ehrlich here was such an interesting item to the boys from Washington! But have you got that kind of money on you?”

She silently shook her head.

He stood up. “Then Harrigan can’t do anything for you, honey. We need a little more than a fairy tale from a beautiful lady to swing us into action.”

She shrugged hopelessly. “What could you do?”

“Simple. Our British cousins are also interested in Ehrlich, even though he’s dead. I spent some time in CIC during the late fracas. I know how far they’ll play along. With proof of some kind from you, I’ll bet they’d send their people to your family, pick them up and hold them in protective custody.”

Slowly she lifted her head. “Do you mean it? Really?”

“Of course I mean it.”

She stood up and wavered weakly. He caught her by the elbows and said, “Steady as she goes, lass.” For a moment their eyes met. She felt that something had passed between them. A certain understanding. With an odd flash of prescience, she knew that this man would be mixed up in all the rest of her life.

She walked to the closet door and said, as she wrenched the knife out of the wood, “You said there is a doctor in the hotel. Call him immediately.”

He stared at the knife. “But what—”

“Call him!”

As he crossed to the phone she went over and sat on the bed. He replaced the phone on the cradle and said, “He’ll come running. Now what—”

She had pulled the skirt of the green dress up above her knees. She glanced at Harrigan. He licked dry lips and she saw the confusion in his eyes.

Her mouth twisted into a grimace of anticipated pain, and she placed the keen edge of the blade against the ridge of white scar tissue, pressed down and drew the blade quickly across the scar, biting deep. The dark blood flowed quickly. Faint with pain, she flexed her thigh to bunch the muscles, pressed hard with her thumbs on either side of the wound.

A dark object slipped from the wound and thudded against the rug. She tried to press again, but all strength had gone from her fingers. Weakly she said to Harrigan, “Emerald... nearly thirty karat... imbedded in tissue... sterile... two others still there... half-million dollars... they were stolen from Buddhist temple.”

She felt herself going over forward and tried to catch her balance, but it was too late. As the room darkened, she knew that Harrigan took a quick step and caught her. A strange voice asked something about a patient. She couldn’t hear it clearly because Harrigan’s arms were around her, and his voice, deep and gentle, was saying, “It will be all right. Don’t be afraid. It will be all right.”

Content

John D. MacDonald
Blood of the Vixen

Chapter One Beautiful Pawn

Chapter Two Salesman of Death

Chapter Three Secret in Blood