Macao (KM031), page 4
part #31 of Killmaster Series
His Nibs had been right about one thing—the Aldgate, while a posh and expensive hotel, was not at all staid or conservative in the real London sense. The huge lobby would be swinging, bustling, at this hour in the morning—even in this heat there were always some swingers in London—and there was sure to be a reporter or two, and a photographer, lurking somewhere in the woodwork.
He glanced down at the girl again. Just then the taxi hit a chuckhole, a nasty springing bounce, and the girl fell away from him. Nick pulled her back. She mumbled something and threw one arm around his neck. Her soft wet mouth slid across his cheek.
“Again,” she murmured. “Please do it again.”
Nick disengaged her arm and patted her cheek. He couldn’t throw her to the wolves.
“Prince’s Gate,” he told the driver. “Off the Knightsbridge Road. You know it?”
“I know it, sir.”
He would take her to his flat and get her to bed. Sober her up, get her to feeling better in the morning. Then they would see what happened.
Killmaster admitted to himself that he was more than a little curious about the Princess da Gama. He knew, in a vague way, who she was now. He had read about her from time to time, in the papers, or perhaps had even heard her discussed by his friends. Killmaster was not “social” in any accepted sense—very few highly skilled agents are—but he did remember the name. Her full name. Morgan da Gama. A quite genuine Princess of the Royal Portuguese blood. Vasco da Gama had been an early, remote ancestor.
Nick smiled down at the sleeping girl. He smoothed the sleek dark cap of hair. Maybe he wouldn’t call Hawk first thing in the morning, after all. Give it a little time. If she was this lovely and desirable drunk, what might she be sober? Maybe. Maybe not. Nick shrugged his wide shoulders. He might be letting himself in for a hell of a letdown.
Give it time. See where the trail led.
They turned into Prince’s Gate and went on around to Bellvue Crescent. Nick indicated his apartment house. The driver pulled to the curb. “You want any help with her, sir?”
“I think,” said Nick Carter, “that I can handle it.”
He paid the man, then got the girl out of the cab and onto the pavement. She stood swaying in his embrace. Nick tried to induce her to walk, but she refused.
The driver was watching with interest. “Sure you don’t need help, sir? I’d be glad—”
“No thanks.” He swung her over his shoulder again, fanny first, her arms and head dangling behind him. This was the way it would have to be.
Nick smiled at the driver. “See. Nothing to it. Everything under control.”
Those words would come back to haunt him.
Chapter 3
KILLMASTER stood in the shambles of the Dragon Club, fourteen Half Crescent Mews, and pondered the ineffable truth of the old saw about curiosity and the cat. His own professional curiosity hadn’t killed him—not yet. But this time it—and his interest in the Princess—had gotten him into one hell of a mess.
It was five minutes after four. There was a hint of coolness in the air and false dawn lay just under the horizon. Nick Carter had been in the place for ten minutes. From the moment he entered the Dragon Club and sniffed the fresh blood, the playboy in the AXEman had vanished. Now he was all professional tiger.
The Dragon Club had been torn apart. Ripped to pieces by parties unknown who had been searching for something. The something, Nick thought, would be a film or films. He had duly noted the screen and projector and had found a cleverly hidden camera. No film. The searchers had found what they sought.
Killmaster went back to where the naked body sprawled before the big sofa. He felt a little sick again, but fought it off. He had seen worse than this, though not often and not much worse.
The dead man’s clothes lay in a bloody heap nearby. They were soaked with blood, as was the sofa and the floor around it. The man had been killed first, then stripped and mutilated. Nick felt nausea rising as he regarded the mutilated genitals—someone had cut them off and stuffed them into his mouth.
It was a nasty sight. Nick, fighting back the urge to retch, switched his attention to the pile of bloody clothes. The mutilation of the genitals, he considered, had been intended to make it look like a sex crime of some sort. A kookie killing. He didn’t think so. There was no mutilation of the features, no frenzied beating of the corpse. Just a clean, professional throat cutting with the genital slicing apparently thrown in as an afterthought.
A large pigskin wallet was protruding from the hip pocket of the bloody trousers. Nick, a handkerchief over his fingers, drew the wallet out and flipped it open. He thought he knew who the dead man was, but the wallet should clear matters up.
It did. Nick extracted a plain white card, one of a dozen, and read it: Captain Theodore Blacker. In smaller print, in the lower right hand corner, he read: Her Majesty’s Ulster Rifles.
He flipped through the wallet. It was Blacker, right enough. Driver’s license. National Health card. Library card, Automobile Club card, all the rest of it.
Nick dropped the wallet to the floor, keeping only the white card. He drew another identical white card from his pocket and compared them. A grim little smile touched his lips. The second card had come from the Princess da Gama’s purse, which he had searched after putting her to bed in his flat. He turned the card over and looked again at what was written on the back, in red ink, in a furious hurried scrawl. Dragon Club. Kill him! Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!
Nick Carter dropped both cards in his pocket. His smile vanished and only the grimness remained. When the girl had written those words, if she had written them, she had intended murder. There can be a lot of truth in a doodle.
Nick reached into his other jacket pocket and took out the neat little .22 automatic pistol. Deadly toy. A Webley Lilliput and, at close range, just as lethal as his own Luger. And with a silencer yet Nick put the little pistol back in his pocket with a hard grin. Amazing the things you could find in a lady’s purse sometimes. Especially this lady, the Princess Morgan da Gama, now sleeping it off in his flat in Prince’s Gate. The lady was going to have to answer some questions.
Killmaster made for the door. He had been in the club too long now. No point in getting mixed up in a nasty murder like this. Part of his own curiosity was satisfied—the girl couldn’t have killed Blacker—and if Hawk ever found out about this he would go into convulsions and have nine different kinds of kittens! Get out while the getting was good.
He had found the Dragon door ajar when he arrived. He closed it now, using the handkerchief. He had touched nothing in the club except the wallet. He went swiftly down the stairs to the small lobby, thinking that he could walk around to Threadneedle Street by cutting through Swan Alley and find a taxi there. It was the opposite direction from which he had arrived. Just as well.
But when Nick peered through the big, iron, latticed glass door he saw that the getting out was not going to be as easy as the getting in. Dawn was imminent now and the world was suffused with mother of pearl light. He could see the big black sedan parked across the entrance to the mews. There was a man at the wheel. Two other men, big men and roughly dressed, wearing the scarves and cloth caps of costermongers, were lounging against the car. The AXEman could not be sure in the faulty light, but they looked like Negroes. That was a new one—he had never seen a Negro costermonger before.
Nick made a mistake. He moved too fast. They saw the flicker of movement behind the glass. The man at the wheel snapped an order and the two big men started down the mews toward the front door of Number fourteen. The AXEman turned and ran lightly toward the back of the lobby. They looked like hard cases, those two, and except for the Lilliput taken from the girl’s purse he was unarmed. He had been having a fun time in London, using a cover name, and the Luger and stiletto were under a floorboard back at the flat.
Nick found a door leading out of the lobby into a narrow passageway. He put on speed, dragging the little .22 from his jacket pocket as he ran. It was better than nothing, but he would have given a hundred pounds for the familiar heft of the Luger in his hand.
The back door was locked. A simple house key. Nick clicked it open, slipped through taking the key with him, and locked it from the outside. It would delay them a few seconds, more if they didn’t want to risk noise.
He was in a littered courtyard. The light grew with every second. A tall brick wall, glass shard topped, fenced the rear of the courtyard. Nick yanked off his jacket as he ran. He was about to toss the jacket over the broken bottle glass, set into mortar, when he saw the foot protruding from a pile of garbage cans. Now what the hell?
Time was precious but he wasted a few seconds. There were two of them hidden by the garbage cans, Cockneys by their looks, and both had their throats neatly cut. A beadlet of sweat rolled into Killmaster’s eyes. This thing was taking on the aspect of a massacre. He gazed for an instant at the dead man nearest him—the poor bastard had a nose like a knife and his right hand was clenched around brass knucks that had not saved him.
There was noise now at the back door. Time to go. Nick put his jacket over the glass, vaulted, let himself down on the other side and dragged down the jacket. Cloth ripped. He wondered, as he shouldered into the torn jacket, if old Throgmorton would allow it on his AXE expense account.
He was in a narrow passage that paralleled Moorgate Road. Left or right?
He chose left and ran for it, heading for a rectangle of light at the far end of the passage. As he ran he glanced back, saw a dim figure astride the brick wall, its hand raised. Nick ducked and ran faster, but the man did not fire. That figured. They didn’t want noise anymore than he did.
He made his way through a maze of passages and mews to Wormwood Street. He had some faint idea where he was now. He cut over to New Broad Street and so into Finsbury Circus, looking all the time for a cruising taxi. Never had he seen the streets of London so deserted. Not even a solitary milkman was to be seen in the steadily growing light, and certainly not the welcome silhouette of a Bobby’s helmet.
As he entered Finsbury Circus the big black sedan rounded a corner and purred toward him. They had lucked onto him. And now there was nowhere to run. It was a section of homes and small shops, all locked and forbidding, all mute witnesses, none offering succour.
The black sedan eased to the curb beside him. Nick continued to walk, his hand on the .22 in his pocket. He had been right. All three were Negroes. The driver was a small man, the other two were huge. One of the big men was riding in front with the driver, the other man was in the rear.
Killmaster walked rapidly, not looking directly at them, using his marvelous peripheral vision to case the scene. They were observing him just as closely and that he did not like. They would know him again. If there ever was an “again.” Right now Nick wasn’t so sure there would be. The big Negro in the front seat was pointing something at him and it wasn’t a pea shooter. The AXEman nearly made his own ploy then, very nearly fell and rolled away to an areaway just ahead, nearly went into action with the .22. His muscles and his reflexes were ready, but something halted him. He gambled that these men, whoever they were, didn’t want an open, noisy showdown right in Finsbury Circus.
Nick kept walking. The Negro with the gun said: “Stop, Mister. Get in the car. We want to talk to you.” There was an accent that the AXEman could not place.
He kept walking. From the corner of his mouth, speaking like a con, he said: “Go to hell.”
The man with the gun said something to the driver, a spate of hurried words falling over each other, in a language Nick Carter had never heard before. It reminded him a little of Swahili, yet it wasn’t Swahili. But one thing he knew now, one thing he had gained—that language was out of Africa. But what in hell could Africans want with him?
Silly question, simple answer. They had been waiting outside fourteen Half Crescent Mews. They had seen him there. He had run. QED. Now they wanted to talk to him. About Mr. Theodore Blacker’s murder? Probably. About what had been taken from the premises, something which they didn’t have or they wouldn’t be bothering with him. Again probably.
He came to a corner and turned right. The street was blank and deserted. Where in hell was everybody? Nick was reminded of one of those stupid movies where the hero runs endlessly through lifeless streets, never finding a soul to help. He had never believed those pictures. He did now. He was walking right in the middle of eight million people and he couldn’t find a one. Just the cozy four of them—himself and the three Negroes.
The black car had turned the corner and was following again. The Negro in the front seat said, “You better get in, man, before we have to get rough. We don’t want that. All we want is to talk to you for a few minutes.”
Nick kept walking. “You heard me,” he snapped. “Go to hell. Leave me alone or you might get hurt.”
The Negro with the gun laughed. “Oh, man, that is so funny.” He spoke to the driver again in the tongue that sounded like Swahili but wasn’t
The car spurted ahead. It went fifty yards, then swung into the curb again. The two big Negroes in their cloth caps and costermonger’s disguise leaped out and started walking back toward Nick Carter. The smaller man, the driver, sidled across the seat until he was half out of the car, a stubby black automatic in one hand.
The man who had spoken before said: “Better come and talk, man. We don’t want to hurt you, true. But if you make us well fix you good.”
The other Negro, he never spoke the whole time, was a step or two behind. Killmaster knew instantly that here was the real trouble and that he had to make a decision and make it fast. To kill or not to kill? He decided to try not to kill, though it might be forced on him. The second Negro was about six-six and built like a gorilla with enormous shoulders and chest and long dangling arms. As black as the ace of spades, with a battered nose and a face full of puckered scars. Nick understood that if the man ever got to close quarters, ever got him in a bear hug, he would be finished.
The leading Negro, who had put his gun away, took it from his pocket again. He reversed it and menaced Nick with the butt. “You coming peaceful, man?”
“Coming,” said Nick Carter. He took a step forward, leaped high and turned in midair for the savate kick, meaning to put his heavy shoe into the man’s jaw. The man knew his job and his reflexes were fast. He swung the pistol in front of his jaw, guarding it, while he tried to grab one of Nick’s ankles with his left hand. He missed and Nick kicked the gun out of his hand. It fell with a clatter in the gutter. Nick fell on his back, cushioning the impact with both hands at his sides. The Negro lunged down at him, trying to grapple and close so the bigger and tougher man could do the real work.
Killmaster’s actions were as controlled and fluid as mercury. He hooked his left foot behind the man’s right ankle and kicked hard at the knee. Kicked as hard as he could. The knee broke like a weak hinge and the man screamed loud in the morning. He rolled into the gutter and lay there, silent now but for curses, holding his knee and trying to find the gun he had dropped. He did not, yet, realize that the gun was beneath him.
The gorilla man came in silently, his little bright eyes intent on the AXEman. He had seen and understood what had happened to his mate. He came slowly, arms outspread, hedging Nick back in against the front of a building. It was a shop front of some sort and there was an iron safety grille across it. Nick felt the iron against his back now.
Nick stiffened the fingers of his right hand and jabbed at the huge man’s breastbone. Much harder than he had jabbed Sir Charles in The Diplomat, hard enough to maim and cause excruciating pain, yet not quite hard enough to burst the aorta and kill.
Nothing. His fingers hurt. It was like jabbing a concrete slab. The big Negro’s lips moved in what might have been a grin as he moved in. Nick was nearly pinned against the iron grille now. He kicked at a knee and hurt the man, but not enough. One of the giant fists clubbed him and the world rocked and spun. His breath was coming harder now and he could hear himself beginning to sob a little as air whistled in and out of his lungs. He jabbed at the man’s eyes with his fingers and got a second of respite, but the gambit got him too close to those huge arms. He backed off, trying to sidle off to one side, to get out of the closing trap. No use.
The AXEman stiffened his hand, his thumb at a right angle and slashed at the other’s jaw with a murderous karate chop. The ridge from his little finger to the wrist was rough and calloused, as hard as the boards he could break with one blow, but the big Negro did not go down. He blinked, his eyes went a muddy yellow for a moment, then he came on in contempt. Nick hit him again with the same blow and this time he did not even blink. The long, thick, hugely biceped arms closed around the AXEman like a boa constrictor.
Nick was frightened and desperate now, but as always his superb brain was functioning and he was thinking ahead. He managed to get his right hand into the pocket of his jacket, around the butt of the .22 Lilliput. With his left hand he clawed at the massive throat of the Negro, trying to find a pressure point, to cut off the flow of blood to the brain that now had only one thought—to crush him.
Then, for a moment, he was as helpless as any baby. The mammoth black man set his feet wide apart, leaned back a little, and lifted the AXEman from the pavement. He pressed Nick against him like a long lost brother. Nick’s face was mashed into the man’s chest and he could smell him, sweat and pomade and flesh. He was still trying to find a nerve in the man’s neck, but his fingers were weakening and it was like trying to delve into thick rubber.
The Negro grunted softly. The pressure grew—and grew—and grew. Slowly the air was forced out of Nick’s lungs. His tongue was hanging out and his eyes popping, yet he knew that the man was not really trying to kill him. They wanted him alive, to talk. The man only intended to squeeze Nick into blackout—and break a few ribs in the process.
