Macao (KM031), page 2
part #31 of Killmaster Series
One of her first remarks had really startled Blacker.
“Back in Portugal,” she had said, “they think I’m crazy. Quite insane. They would lock me up if they could. They may yet. My uncle, who is also my guardian, keeps trying. That’s why I have to keep away from Portugal, you see. They know all about me, about my reputation, and they really think I’m insane. They know I drink and take drugs and sleep with any man that asks me—well, almost any man. I do still draw the line at times.”
That, remembered Blacker, was not the way he’d heard it. It was another reason he had chosen her. The word was around that when the Princess was drunk, which was most of the time, or high on drugs, she would take on anything in pants or, faute de mieux, in skirts.
After the spate of conversation she had lapsed into near coma, only smiling vaguely at him when he began to remove her clothing. It had been, he recalled now as he watched the film, like undressing a doll. She neither resisted nor cooperated as he moved her legs and arms to any position he desired. Her eyes were half closed and she actually seemed to think that she was alone. Her wide red mouth was half open in a vague smile.
The man on the sofa felt his loins begin to react as he watched himself on the screen. The Princess had been wearing a thin linen dress, not quite mini, and she held up her slim arms obediently as he pulled it over her head. She wore very little beneath it. A black half bra and a tiny pair of black lace pants. Garter belt and long, textured white stockings.
Ted Blacker, watching the film, began to sweat a little in the air conditioned room. After all these weeks the damn thing still excited him. He had enjoyed it. It would, he admitted, always be one of his most precious and treasured memories.
He unhooked her bra and slid it down her arms. Her breasts, larger than he would have supposed, and rose-brown tipped, stood out firm and white from her ribcage. Blacker had risen now, standing behind her, and he toyed with her breasts with one hand while, with the other, he pressed another button to bring the zoom lens into play and catch her in closeup. The Princess noticed nothing. In the closeup, so starkly clear that the tiny pores in her nose were visible, her eyes were closed and the gentle half smile was there. If she felt his hands or responded there was no sign.
Blacker had not taken off her garter belt and stockings. Garters were a fetish of his and by this time he had been so caught up in the excitement that he had nearly forgotten the real reason for this sexual charade. Money.
He began to position those long, long legs—so enticing in the long white stockings—exactly as he wanted them on the sofa. She obeyed his every command without once speaking or objecting. By now the Princess was well away on her trip and, if she recognized his presence at all, it was only in the dimmest sort of way. Blacker was a misty adjunct to the scene, nothing more.
For the next twenty minutes Blacker put her through the entire sexual gamut. He rang all the changes. What man and woman could do to each other—they did. Now and again, as she played her part, he would use the zoom lens for a closeup.
Blacker had on hand certain apparatuses—some of the Dragon Club clients had very odd tastes indeed—and he employed them all on the Princess. This she also accepted with equanimity, showing neither like nor dislike. In the end, during the last four minutes of the film, having exhausted his sexual ingenuity, Blacker slaked his lust in her, roughing her up and rutting like an animal.
The screen went blank. Blacker turned off the projector and went to the little bar, glancing at his watch. Nearly time for the Cockneys to arrive. Insurance that he would live the night through. Blacker had no illusions about the type of men he was meeting tonight. They would be thoroughly searched before being allowed to climb the stairs to the Dragon Club.
Ted Blacker went downstairs, hating to leave the air conditioned room. He had decided not to wait for Alfie Doolittle to blow him up on the tube. Alfie had a raucous voice for one thing; another was that the tubes might in some way be interconnected. You never knew. When you were playing for a quarter of a million pounds and your life, you had to think of everything.
The tiny lobby was humid and deserted. Blacker waited in the shadows beneath the stairs. At 2:29 Alfie Doolittle came into the lobby. Blacker hissed at him and Alfie wheeled, staring, one meaty hand moving instinctively to his shirt front.
“Blimey,” said Alfie, “I thought yer wanted me ta blow yer up?”
Blacker put a finger to his lips. “Keep your voice down, for God’s sake! Where are the others?”
“Joe and ‘Enry already come. I got them posted out back, like you said. Other two’ll be ‘ere any mo now.”
Blacker nodded in satisfaction. He moved toward the big Cockney. “What are you carrying tonight? Let me see, please.”
Alfie Doolittle, a contemptuous little smile on his liver-colored lips, promptly produced a knife and a pair of brass knucks. “Knucks for bashing, Teddy, if need be. Knife fer extreme emergency, yer might say. No guns in the lot. They’re all carrying same as me.”
Blacker nodded again. The last thing he wanted was killing.
“All right. Very good. I’ll go back up now. You stay here until your men arrive, then you come on up. Make sure they know their orders—they’re to be polite, courteous, but they are to search my guests. Any weapons found will be confiscated, not to be returned. I repeat—not to be returned.”
Blacker’s thinking was that it would take his “guests” some time to acquire new weapons, even if they had violence in mind. He intended to utilize that time to his best advantage, bid farewell to the Dragon Club forever and go to ground until he could collect. They would never find him.
Alfie scowled. “My men know their orders, Teddy.”
Blacker started back upstairs. Over his shoulder he said, curtly, “Fine. Just so they don’t forget them.”
Alfie scowled again.
New sweat bathed Blacker as he climbed. He did not really like the idea of Alfie being in the Club, seeing the film as he ran it for his prospective clientele, but he had been unable to find a way around it. He sighed and paused on the third landing to catch his breath, mopping his face with a perfumed handkerchief. No—Alfie must be there. No scheme was ever perfect. And certainly he didn’t want to be alone, unprotected, with his guests.
Ten minutes later Alfie knocked on the door. Blacker admitted him, gave him a bottle of ale, and showed him where he was to sit on a straight backed chair ten feet to the right of the huge sofa, and on a plane with it.
“Unless there is trouble,” Blacker explained, “you are to be like the three monkeys. See nothing, hear nothing, do nothing.”
Reluctantly he added, “I am going to show a film for my guests. You will see it too, of course. I wouldn’t mention it to the others if I were you. Or anybody, for that matter. Talking about it could get you in a lot of trouble.”
“I knows ‘ow to keep my mouf shut.”
Blacker patted the big shoulder, disliking the contact. “See that you do, then. If you pay close attention to the film you just might learn something.”
Alfie gave him a blank stare. “I knows all I need ter know.”
“Fortunate man,” said Blacker as he turned away. It had been a feeble jape at best and utterly wasted on the big Cockney.
The first tapping on the black door came at one minute after three.
Blacker lifted a cautionary finger at Alfie, who sat as un-moving as a Buddha in his chair.
The first caller was small, impeccably turned out in a fawn-colored summer suit and expensive white panama hat. He bowed slightly as Blacker opened the door.
“Pardon, please. I seek Mr. Theodore Blacker. You are he?”
Blacker nodded. “I am. Who are you?”
The little Chinese proffered a card. Blacker glanced at it, saw delicate black script: Mr. Wan Hai. Nothing else. No mention of the Chinese Embassy.
Blacker stood aside. “Come in, Mr. Hai. Please take a seat on the large sofa there. You are in the left hand corner. Would you care for a drink?”
“Nothing, please.”
The Chinese did not so much as glance at Alfie Doolittle as he took his place on the sofa.
Another rap at the door.
This visitor was very large and very shiny black with emphatic negroid features. He wore a cream-colored suit that was slightly soiled and out of fashion. The lapels were much too wide. In his huge black hand he carried a battered cheap straw hat.
Blacker stared at the man and thanked God for Alfie. This one was formidable. “Your name, please?”
The Negro’s voice was soft and slurred, with a trace of accent. His eyes, the corneas a cloudy yellow, held Blacker’s. The Negro said: “My name is not important. I am here as a representative of Prince Sobhuzi Askari. That is enough.”
Blacker nodded. “Yes. Take a seat, please. On the sofa. In the right hand comer. A drink? Smoke?”
The Negro refused both.
Five minutes elapsed before the third visitor rapped at the door. The time passed in an uneasy silence. Alfie stared at the floor, every now and then darting a swift, cunning-eyed glance at the two men seated on the sofa. They did not speak or look at each other. Blacker filled a glass with ice and fussed with a soft drink—no more booze for now—and felt his nerves beginning to vibrate. Why didn’t the bastard come? Had something gone wrong? Jesus Christ please not! Now with him so close to that quarter of a million pounds. He almost sobbed with relief when the knock finally came.
The man was tall, thin nearly to emaciation, with a shock of curly dark hair in need of cutting. He was hatless. His slacks were cheap and the sport shirt, open at the chest to reveal a scanty growth of hair, was a garish yellow with purple figures on it. He wore thin black socks and open work brown leather sandals.
“Mr. Blacker?” The voice was a light tenor, but the contempt and disdain in it cut like a whip, rhe English was good, but with a definite Latin tinge.
Blacker nodded, staring at the garish shirt. “Yes. I’m Blacker. You are—?‘r He did not quite believe it.
“Major Carlos Oliveira. Portuguese Intelligence. Shall we get on with it?” The voice said what the words did not: pimp, whoremaster, gutter rat, dog dung, foulest of the foul. The voice, in some strange manner, reminded Blacker of the Princess da Gama.
Blacker did not, in the jargon of his younger clients, lose his cool. Too much at stake for that. He pointed to the sofa. “You will sit there, Major Oliveira. In the middle, please.”
Blacker double locked the door and put on the police bar. He took three ordinary stamped postal cards from his pocket. He handed each of the men on the sofa a card. Then, standing a little back from them, he made his little prepared speech.
“You will note, gentlemen, that each of the cards is addressed to a postal box in Chelsea. Needless to say I will not pick up the cards in person, though I shall be close by. Certainly close enough to see if any effort is made, by anyone, to follow the person who does pick up the cards. I would not advise that. Not if you really mean to do business.
“You are going to see half an hour of film. The film is for sale to the highest bidder—over a quarter of a million pounds. I will accept no bid lower than that. There will be no trickery, no cheating. There is only one print and the negative, and both are for sale at the same price—”
The little Chinese leaned forward a bit. “Please—you have a guaranty of this?”
Blacker nodded. “I have. My word of honor.”
Major Oliveira laughed brutally.
Blacker flushed, wiped his face with his handkerchief, then continued. “That is not important. Since there can be no other guaranty you will just have to accept my word.” He essayed a smile that did not come off. “I assure you that I will keep it. I want to live out my span. And my asking price is so high that I do not need to resort to treachery. I—”
The Negro’s yellow eyes bored through Blacker. “If you will please continue with the terms. There is not a lot of time.”
Blacker wiped his face again. Had the cursed air conditioning gone on the blink?
“Of course. It is very simple. Each of you, after you have had time to consult with your principals will write out the amount of your bid on the post card. In figures only, no dollar or sterling signs. You will also write down a phone number where you can be reached in the utmost privacy. I can leave that to your discretion, I think. After I have received the cards and studied them I will, in my own time, call the highest bidder. We will make our arrangements then about payment and picking up the film. It is, as I said, very simple.”
“Yes,” said the little Chinese gentleman. “Most simple.” Blacker, meeting his gaze, had the impression of viewing a serpent.
“Very ingenious,” said the Negro. His fists made two black clubs in his lap.
Major Carlos Oliveira said nothing, just looked at the Englishman with blank dark eyes that might have contained anything.
Blacker fought with his nerves. He walked to the sofa and pressed the pearl button in the arm rest. With a little gesture of bravado he indicated the waiting screen at the end of the room.
“And now, gentlemen, the Princess Morgan da Gama in one of her more abandoned moments,”
The projector whirred. The Princess smiled like a lazy, half asleep cat as Blacker began to unbutton her frock.
Chapter 2
THE DIPLOMAT, one of London’s more posh and exclusive gaming clubs, is in a jewel of a Georgian house just off Three Kings Yard, not far from Grosvenor Square. On this night, hot and sticky, things were dull in the club. There were only a few well-dressed people coming and going, mostly going, and play at the wheels, at twenty-one and in the poker rooms was slow indeed. The heat wave that enveloped London was enervating the sporting crowd, sapping them of the gambling urge.
Nick Carter was no exception. The humidity did not particularly bother him, though he could have done without it, but it was not the weather that was bugging him. The truth was that Killmaster did not know, really know, what was bugging him. He only knew that he was restless and fretful; earlier he had been to an Embassy reception and dance with his old friend Jake Todhunter in Grosvenor Square. The evening had been less than a success. Jake had gotten Nick a date, a pretty little Limey lass with a nice smile and bulges in all the right places. The girl had tried hard to please, had shown every sign of being, at the very least, acquiescent. The big YES had been written all over her, in the way she looked at Nick and clung to his arm and danced too close to him. Her father, Jake Todhunter had said, was someone big in government.
Nick Carter couldn’t have cared less. He was afflicted— and only now was he beginning to reason out why—with a severe case of what Ernest Hemingway used to call the “galloping black ass.”
In the end Carter had been as near to rudeness as a gentleman could get. He made his apologies and left. He walked. He loosened his tie, unbuttoned the white dinner jacket and walked, his long, loose-legged stride devouring the burning concrete and asphalt. Through Carlos Place and over Mount Street to Berkley Square. No nightingale sang.
Eventually he circled back and, passing The Diplomat, decided on impulse to go in for a drink and a cooling off. Nick carried many cards to many clubs and The Diplomat was one of them.
Now, his drink nearly finished, he sat alone at a small table in a corner and found the source of his irritation. It was simple. Killmaster had been inactive too long. It had been nearly two months now since Hawk had given him an assignment. Nick could not remember ever having been out of work for so long. No wonder he was black assed, moody, mean and hard to get along with! Things must be damned slow in the counter-espionage department—either that or David Hawk, his boss, was keeping Nick out of action for reasons of his own. In any case something had to be done about it. Nick paid and prepared to leave. He would call Hawk first thing in the morning and demand an assignment A man could get rusty this way. It was actually dangerous for a man in his line of work to be denied action.
True that he worked out daily, no matter in what part of the world he chanced to be. Yoga was a daily regimen. Here in London, he had been working out with Tom Mitubashi at the latter’s gym in Soho: judo, jiujitsu, aikido and karate. Killmaster was now 6th Degree Black Belt.
None of that mattered. Practice was fine, but what he needed now was the real thing. He had had it up to here with vacation. Yes. He would. He would get the old man out of bed in the morning—it would still be dark in Washington— and he would demand an immediate assignment. Things might be slow but Hawk could always think of something if you pressed him. There was his little black Death Book, for instance, where he kept a list of the men he would most like to see eliminated.
Nick Carter was on his way out of the club when he heard the laughter and applause off to his right. There was something strange about the sound, odd, off key, that caught at his attention. It was mildly disturbing. Not just the drunkenness—he had been around drunks before—but something else, a high shrill note that was somehow wrong. His curiosity aroused, he stopped and gazed in the direction of the sounds.
Three wide and shallow steps led down to a gothic arch. Over the arch a sign in modest black script said: Private— Men’s Bar.
The high laughter came again. Nick’s alert eye and ear caught both sound and sign and correlated them. Men’s bar, but that was a woman laughing. Drunkenly, almost insanely, laughing. Nick went down the three stairs. This he wanted to see. With the decision to call Hawk his good humor had come back. It might, after all, turn out to be one of those nights.
Beyond the archway was a long room with a bar running along one side. The place was gloomy except for the bar where lamps, obviously snatched from here and there, had been placed to make it into a sort of improvised runway. Nick Carter had not been in a burlesque house for years, but he recognized the setup immediately.
