The Filthy Five (KM 029), page 5
part #29 of Killmaster Series
Killmaster realized that now he was really getting into the thick stuff. She had changed her tactics to direct frontal assault. She was still lying, still doing her job for the Aussie or whoever was paying her, but now he had an idea that they were only half lies. About her profession he had no doubts; he had encountered some talented amateurs in his time, but this kid was no amateur.
Her technique, revised, was simple enough. By offering him half truth she was trying to get him to swallow a whole lie. He knew now that she did not believe his lie—that he was a simple beach bum. But she would pretend to believe it, continue to toss her sexual expertise at him, and wait to see what developed. Dona Lanzos was just a bit more clever than he had thought.
They were getting into Mayaguez now. Before he could suggest it, she moved away. He saw the lights of a filling station and a colmado—a papa-mama general store—just ahead and pulled off the road. The car needed gas and he would have to get her something to wear. The last thing he needed, at the moment, was to arouse the interest of the local constabulary. He wanted to get Dona Lanzos to San Juan—without sweat if possible—and turn her over to Hawk for interrogation.
Meantime he was still a long way from San Juan, or even Ponce, and he must watch her like a fox watches a chicken.
A youth with pimples left off talking to a fat woman and moved toward the car. He stared at the car with a mixture of awe, disbelief and snobbery, then glanced suspiciously at Nick. The AXEman, knowing the trouble, let him see a ten dollar bill. “Llenelo usted, hagame el favor verificar el aceite los neumaticos.”
“Si, Senor.”
Nick grinned at the kid and added, “And no snide remarks, muchacho! This was a good car when you were peeing in your diapers.”
The kid was a smart aleck. He smirked and said, “No doubt that is the trouble, eh, Senor?” But he set about his tasks briskly enough, after staring at Dona Lanzos for a moment.
The girl was huddled in the blanket. Nick took her hand. This was going to be a tricky bit and he would just have to do the best he could. And hope.
They crossed an open space to the little store. The fat woman got off the box on which she had been sitting and waddled after them. The store smelled like general stores everywhere, plus a tang of tropic spices. Nick gave the girl a twenty. “Get yourself what you need, Dona. But the twenty will have to do it—stretch it as far as you can.”
He lit a cigarette, and watched as the girl and fat woman conferred about a dress, shoes, cheap panties and bra. Dona was hurrying through the transaction as though she had a train to catch. Nick could guess why. A moment later he knew he was right. She gathered up her purchases and disappeared through a curtain into a back room. The fat woman remained, curiosity leaking from every excess pound of her.
Nick nodded toward the back room. “Telefono?”
“Si You wish?”
He shook his head and left the store, crossing to the ramshackle filling station. The boy was shooting air into the worn tires. Nick nodded toward the station. “Telefono?”
The boy nodded. Nick went into the station and fumbled for change. His hand was being forced. He did not like it, but there was nothing he could do about it. He was sure the girl would use the phone in the store to make a contact. To offset her call he had to make one, before he was ready. For a moment he considered calling the Missile Tracking Station south of Mayaguez, where an AXE operative was standing by, and have the man pick them up and tail them. Just as an anchor to windward. In the end he decided against it. He should, for God’s sake, be able to wangle one lone little prostitute aboard a plane for San Juan!
Hawk was staying at a plush San Juan hotel—Nick wondered how the dour old man was enjoying it—under the name of Frank Tandy. Nick hoped, at eighty bucks a day, that his boss was trying to enjoy himself. He doubted it.
Hawk answered on the third ring. There was no question of scrambling, could not be in the circumstances, and Nick resorted to free cryptic.
“Mr. Tandy?”
“Speaking.”
“This is Jim, Mr. Tandy, Jim Talbot. I’ve been looking into that property you’re interested in—that five thousand acres north of Mayaguez.”
“Oh, yes. How did it go, Jim? They interested in selling?”
“I don’t think so, Mr. Tandy. They wouldn’t talk much. Pretty secretive bunch. Don’t like trespassers. I got the idea that they’ve got some very special use for that land. They wouldn’t even let me survey it.”
Hawk cleared his throat. “Too bad, Jim. But I suppose it can’t be helped. We’ll just have to look elsewhere for a plant site. When are you coming back?”
“As soon as possible,” Nick said. “I don’t like it out here in the sticks. Too lonely. I did pick up a hitchhiker, though, for company. Pretty interesting old bird.” Hawk would understand that last sentence to mean a young woman with information. Free cryptic was pretty elastic, but was based in the main on slang, jargon and the substitution of opposites.
Hawk got it. “You want someone to meet you, Jim?”
“Yeah. Might be nice. But I don’t know just when—the car is acting up. Maybe I’ll have to flag down a crow and bum a ride myself, Mr. Tandy. Anyway I’ll be there as soon as I can. I hope you’re not sore because the deal fell through.”
“I’m not sore,” said Mr. Tandy. “But hurry. I’ve got another deal cooking, even bigger than this one, but if we don’t close it fast we stand to lose a lot. Goodbye, Jim. See you soon.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Tandy.”
Nick hung up and went to stand in the door of the filling station, lighting a cigarette. The kid was just finishing up with the car, wiping the windshield. Across the area Dona Lanzos, wearing a short red dress now, was still talking to the fat woman. Killmaster let blue smoke leak from his nostrils and frowned in thought. She had made her own call, of course. She had seen him using the phone. That did not matter. He had an excuse—the friend in Ponce. The friend that did not exist.
Nick Carter took another deep drag and walked to the car. It just might be, he thought, that he would need a friend before this night was over. There was no way of knowing, other than to put his head into the lion’s mouth and see if the beast meant to bite.
It was raining harder now. The boy finished wiping the windshield with a paper towel and grinned at Nick. “It does not do much good, Senor! But then I think nothing much will do this grandfather of a car any good. That will be eight bucks and sixty cents, Senor. I also put in three quarts of oil. You were losing it at a great rate.”
A vagrant gust of wind, stronger than any before, romped through the station area, ripping down the paper advertising pennants and moving the boy’s skinny body back a few paces. He clung to the car, grabbing at his cap.
“You know, Senor, that el huracan is on the way? A day, two days, it is going to knock the hell out of us.”
“I know,” said Nick. He flicked away his cigarette and motioned to the girl, who was still jabbering with the fat woman. It was not impossible, he told himself, that the fat woman was a contact! Maybe Dona hadn’t needed to use the phone.
He paid the kid and tipped him half a buck. “Donde esta la licoreria?”
The kid gave him a sly grin, then shrugged. “Two blocks down that way.” He pointed. “If he is still open, you comprehend. Perhaps not. Perhaps by now he is closed and getting ready for el huracan and—” he broke off to stare as Dona Lanzos got in the car. In doing so she displayed a great length of nylon stocking and a strip of tawny flesh atop it. The kid pursed his lips to whistle, then glanced at Nick and thought better of it. He did, however, have the temerity to make a certain very Spanish, and very universal, gesture.
Killmaster gave the kid a hard, unblinking stare. In slow and perfect Spanish he said: “That is very nice, eh? Good. I’m glad you approve. I will think of you when I am in the back seat with her. Goodbye, son.”
Without a glance at the kid’s crimson face Nick got in the car and drove away. Dona Lanzos, in her corner, was giggling. She had heard everything.
“You are a bad, cruel man,” she said through her giggles. “The muchacho cannot help it because he is young.”
Nick forced himself to grin at her. “He is a snotty little bum,” he said. “A kid like that bugs me.”
As he headed for the liquor store he studied her carefully. She certainly knew how to stretch a twenty dollar bill. The flimsy red dress was cheap and sleazy and everything beneath it would be the same. Even her flesh. And yet there was no denying that in her gaudy, tawdry way, Dona Lanzos was sexually attractive. She had purchased a scarf to match her dress and now wore it over dark burnished hair that had been combed and brushed. Somewhere she had gotten lipstick and powder—probably borrowed from the fat woman—and had made her face up rather skillfully. She did not, he admitted, look like a little whore at the moment.
But she was. Which was in no manner important. What was important was that something had gone wrong back there at the filling station, wrong for him, right for her. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but it was there. He was too old a hand, too experienced an agent, to miss it. In the end he knew that it amounted to nothing tangible, nothing in the way she looked or spoke or acted. It was something far more evanescent, ineffable. He could sense it, and it brought his hackles up. He was driving the car, but the I’jrl was in the driver’s seat. And knew it.
It had to be something that had happened back at the filling station. Her phone call, of course! There was nothing to do but wait—wait and see what developed.
He stopped at the liquor store and found the owner nailing boards across the front of it. The rain was heavier now, hurling gray damp splotches at the car, and the wind was constantly increasing but, as yet, only a faint harbinger of the fury to come.
The owner sold Nick a gallon of cheap wine, made in California, and hurried back to his work. His family, a covey of kids and a slatternly wife, was busily taking bottles from the windows and the shelves and carrying them to the basement.
“El huracan es muy malo,” the man said as he banged a nail into a plank.
Nick got back into the car, twisted off the top of the wine jug and handed it to the girl. She drank deeply, balancing the heavy bottle expertly. Add notes, he thought. Probably a good drinker, knows how to hold it. He took a swig of the stuff himself—it wasn’t too bad for a domestic variety—and then took the road map from the glove compartment and consulted it in the feeble light of the dashboard. He could feel her dark eyes on him and, ultra sensitive as he was, was immediately aware of a new factor. Animosity. Hate. It was as palpable as the scent of the cheap powder she had recently used. And it was new. Before she had been a pro, a whore hired for a job that probably included no more than watching him and reporting on his movements. That had changed. Now she hated him, or at least actively disliked him. Why? What had she found out over the phone back there in the papa-mama store?
Killmaster knew he was right. If for no other reason than that she was trying too hard now to be friendly.
The next little town was Harmigueros. Beyond that Nick figured it was a good 175 kilometers, or a little more, to Ponce. The stretch between was pretty desolate. There were a number of little towns along the way, to be sure, but between them the road would be dark and lonely. Anything could happen. Probably would. Nick thought of the scuba knife with distinct unhappiness; he felt a great longing for his Luger and stiletto.
He put the map away and started on. They left the dim glow of Mayaguez behind. The dim cocked eye of the car showed the gray rain, thready before, now steadily increasing to rope size. Water sloshed heavily at the windshield. By some miracle the ancient wiper still worked, but it could not combat the steady wash of rain. Now and then an errant gust of wind, only hinting at the weight to come, slammed the old car from side to side of the coastal road.
Dona Lanzos said very little for a time. She held the wine jug, nursing it, drinking now and then and passing it to him. She crossed and recrossed her legs with a hiss of cheap nylon and Nick, from the corner of his eye, saw that the scarlet dress had ridden almost to her waist. She did not attempt to pull it down. Why should she? It was, after all, her stock in trade.
When they had gone a few miles Nick pulled over to the shoulder and stopped. He had to know, and so might as well get it over with. He reached for the girl without a word, pulling her into his arms. She resisted for a moment and he felt the tenseness in her, then she went limp and soft and fell against him. She laughed and he could detect no mirth in the sound.
“You are a funny man,” she said, clinging to him. “You do not mind kissing a prostituta, Jeem? Some men do. They do everything else, but they do not kiss me.”
“I don’t mind,” he said gruffly. He ran his hands over her soft body, keeping them outside her clothing, but missing nothing. Dona relaxed and kissed him back, began to simulate passion—an old whore’s trick—but in the end he was satisfied that she was not armed. At least the fat woman hadn’t slipped her a gun or a knife.
She took her lips away from his for a moment. “You used the phone in the filling station, Jeem? Did you call your friend in Ponce? He will lend you money? You will take me to San Juan with you on the plane?”
“I called him. He didn’t like it, but he’ll lend me the money. We’ll go to San Juan and have ourselves a ball, Dona.” An easy lie now. One that would never be put to the test. They were never going to let him get to Ponce.
Forewarned as he was, the old sex gambit very nearly worked. Sex, like flattery, is an insidious weapon because it is so direct, so basic. Both appeal to the ego and the nervous system, especially sex. Pleasure is pleasure and it is hard to deny it. More especially in Nick Carter’s case at the moment, because of the part he was playing. There was no way for him to stop the woman from doing what she was doing, not short of rudely pushing her away or striking her, and that he could not risk. Not as long as there was a faint chance that he was wrong about her.
After kissing her for a moment or two, and going over her body with his hands for weapons, he got behind the wheel again and drove on. For perhaps a couple of miles, Dona chattered aimlessly about what they would do together in San Juan. Now and then she would take a sip of wine, then pass the bottle to him. The wind increased, hurling rain at the car like damp shrapnel.
A mile short of Harmigueros the road made an abrupt right angle turn to landward, away from the sea. They passed the bulky forms of road machinery, canvas shrouded against the weather. A single red lantern, still burning in spite of the wind, hung from a trestle and barely illuminated a sign: Danger—Road Construction Ahead.
That was genuine enough. Nick remembered this spot from the trip out. It was nothing, just minor repair.
Without warning, with no preliminaries, Dona Lanzos put the bottle on the floor and slid over in the seat.
“I will make good love to you, Jeem,” she said softly. “I will show you how it is going to be in San Juan.” She proceeded to implement her promise, or threat, her mouth hot and moist on his.
Killmaster was taken off balance. He had certainly not counted on this!
Delicious pangs of pleasure slashed at the cold part of his mind, trying to infiltrate and lull. He took a hand off the wheel to push her away, then hesitated at what he saw through the rain-blurred windshield: a bright wash of flares in the gloom, a large Stop For Inspection sign on a trestle, a policeman signaling with a flashlight. A policeman?
So that was it! Another old trick. But a uniform does not always make a policeman.
Nick twisted a hand in her thick hair and threw her away from him. He jammed his foot to the floor and felt the car respond with a tubercular gasp. Nick held the gas pedal down and headed straight for the trestle and lantern, seeing the man with the flashlight make a wild leap to get out of the way. If they were real cops he could always apologize.
As he smashed through the trestle and sign he saw the man in uniform draw a revolver and raise it. Something buzzed through the car. The windshield starred, a lovely glass flower. He heard the report.
Dona Lanzos was on him then, a tiger cat, fighting for the wheel, trying to get to the key and stop the car. Nick shoved her away. She clawed him and sank her teeth into his hand. He backhanded her brutally, heard her gasp of pain, then she was back again and trying to smother him with her lush body, still fighting to reach the key. She screamed at him. “Bastardo—you killed my Ramon!”
He heard her, but it did not register. Another slug went singing through the car and this time the windshield made a tinkling noise. Then he had new trouble, real trouble. They had set up a second line of defense!
The car was panting along at forty, maybe more. Then it came looming out of the drab rain curtain, very close, the big car across the road. There was no way around it. To both sides the shoulders dropped steeply away—to what he didn’t know.
There were more flares and in the fitful light, in that split second, Nick saw a man lean over the hood of the big car and level a Tommy gun at him. It spat fire. The working headlight exploded into shards.
Dona Lanzos was at him again, clawing at his face. With real pleasure he made a big fist and back-slammed it across her mouth. She fell away. Nick, his foot to the floor, careened toward the road shoulder, past the rear of the blocking car. So far, he knew they had been shooting to stop him and not to kill, possibly because of the girl. From now on it would be different.
A spate of lead stitched the back of Nick’s car as it left the shoulder and plunged down the bank. Nick was in sudden darkness, fighting the wheel, praying that the old wreck would stay right side up. If it did he still had a chance—the rain-whimpering darkness would work as well for him as for them. Even better. They would have to use lights to find him.
