The Code (17 page)

The knife flashed as he thrust it up for my throat. I jerked aside and caught his wrist in two hands and started bending his arm backward. He fell away and pulled free, driving a fist into my ribs. Then he slashed with the knife again, cutting a long rent down my trousers leg as I rolled away.

We faced each other in the hallway, both of us panting. He was on his knees and I was on mine and the rifle I had dropped lay on the floor between us.

"Pick it up, Carter," he said. "Try to pick it up and I'll slice off your hand."

I had retrieved Hugo before I left Barbara's apartment. I slid the knife down into my palm and when Rossi saw it, he raised his arm to throw his own knife.

Barbara shot him. She had come into the house and was standing at the end of the hallway. She raised the Luger and held it firmly in both hands and blew the back of his head off. She walked slowly toward us and stood looking down at the dead man. Finally she turned to me with an abstracted expression on her face and said, "The code... he broke the code of the Brotherhood... the bastard."

She was wearing black when we said goodbye the next morning. She had her long hair done up in the chaste bun behind her neck and there was no makeup on her pale face.

"I suppose you're going on to Las Vegas now to try to pick up Moose's trail," she said.

"I have a feeling he'll be there waiting for me."

"Did you read the newspapers? The police can't figure out what happened. They think some kind of gang war is under way."

"We pulled out just in time," I said.

"Nick, there's something I have to say."

"You mean something like maybe we'll meet again when the circumstances are better?"

"I guess I don't have to say it at all."

The number Moose had written down for Cora in Las Vegas was the number of a ranch, a legal brothel run by a woman named Arlene Bradley. When she learned that I didn't want to sample the talents of her girls, the Bradley woman led me into a sparsely furnished office and sat down in a swivel chair.

"Cora left here some time ago. She wasn't meant for this and she found herself another life."

"Do you remember a man called Moose?"

"He and three others came here to see Cora. Naturally, I didn't question them. But I thought they were people she shouldn't have been involved with. As I said, I liked her. She was a nice girl and out of her element in a place like this."

She took a snapshot out of the desk drawer and handed it to me. "I took this. Is she the girl you're talking about?"

It was Sheila Brant.

"Just what are you after, Mr. Harper? What is the object of these questions?" the woman asked.

"Cora's dead. Like you said, she got involved with the wrong people. Only I knew her as Sheila Brant."

She blinked. The news seemed to hit her hard. When she spoke again, her voice was hoarse. "You should have told me sooner. I said I liked her and I meant it. Was the man known as Moose responsible for her death?"

"Yes."

"He is in Las Vegas. I saw him in a casino last night."

"If Moose shows up here, would you call me at my hotel?"

"Of course."

I hunted for Moose that night in the casinos and clubs and hotels, but I didn't find him.

Arlene Bradley called me while I was eating breakfast. "He got in touch with me. Can you come out?"

I drove through the broiling sun to the ranch. My pulse was fast and the adrenalin was flowing. My search was finally near an end.

"They asked about you, just like you asked about them. I said you had been here and were coming back. They want me to set a trap for you," Arlene Bradley said.

"Did you accept the proposition?,"

She smiled for the first time. It was a thin smile, hard and controlled. "I guess they think anyone in my business couldn't object to theirs. They offered me $10,000 to get you alone so they can kill you"

"They must have found the money."

"The money?" she said, frowning.

"Never mind. Tell them you'll do it. Tell them you'll set their trap."

"And you'll trap them instead."

"I'll try," I said.

I had passed an old ghost town on the way to the ranch. We drove out to it and I plodded through the dust until I found a building that looked right for what I wanted. I took the rifle out of the car and hid it on a rafter near the door.

"Am I permitted to ask the reason for your doing that?" said Arlene.

"I'm carrying a sidearm, which is enough protection at close range. But they may try to pick me off from a distance."

She gazed down the deserted street. Although the air was shimmering with heat, she shivered. "A perfect place for a shootout. Like in the movies. Only this isn't make believe."

"You've got some horses at the ranch. Tell Moose you're going to take me out for a ride this afternoon. You'll lead me here, then run off with the mounts and leave me on foot."

"It sounds perfect. For them."

"That's what I want them to believe. When are they going to get in touch with you again?"

"Moose said he'd call at noon. The timetable will suit him fine. So will the part about my stranding you here with no horse."

Back at the ranch, she poured me a drink and touched her glass to mine. "To success."

"To crime," I said.

She smiled for the second time since we'd met. "I keep up a facade of hardness because it's better for business. But I can feel strongly for people. Like Cora. Like you."

I poured us another. "To friendship, then."

We rode out to the ghost town in a sun so hot my shirt was plastered to my back. I dismounted.

"Do you see them, Ned?"

"I saw a glint of sunlight. They're probably watching through fieldglasses. Go ahead and take off. They'll be along. They wouldn't want to miss their appointment."

She pounded off, leaving my horse. That wasn't a part of the plan. But it didn't matter. Moose would still come. I knew I could count on that.

I sat down on the sagging porch of one of the long-abandoned stores and smoked a cigarette. Then I saw the car — a familiar Lincoln. It stopped at the end of the street and a man got out. A big man. He stood looking at me and I felt my heart lurch.

My horse made a noise. I glanced toward the animal and saw the other thug approaching from the opposite direction. He was walking, leading a mount. His feet kicked up dust in tiny spirals.

They had planned to catch me in a crossfire.

I threw the butt of my cigarette down. I got up and moved between two buildings. Standing against the wall of one of the shacks, I waited for my stalkers to make their move. It didn't take long. Moose came around the corner.

"How did you like my girls, Harper?"

"A couple were all right/*

"But not as beautiful as Sheila? She was a sweet thing, that one. I'm really sorry I broke her neck. We'd had some times together. But big money will turn a woman's head, twist up her thinking."

"She didn't rob you."

Moose moved closer. "Then who did? I got her the job in Arlene's house, but I never told anybody else about the money. So how could it disappear like she said?"

My arm was hanging at my side and I had turned so that Moose couldn't see my hand. I moved, brought the Luger around, and Moose's mouth dropped in surprise.

"I guess she made the mistake of telling Arlene," I said.

"Drop it, Harper!"

The other man had circled around the house and come up behind me. He was standing in a crouch, his gun pointed at me. "I said drop it, sucker."

"Don't shoot him," Moose yelled. "I want to hear what he has to say about the money."

I dropped the Luger and backed toward the shack. "Arlene won Sheila over and got her trust. She told me you offered her $10,000 for this setup. Is that right, Moose, or did she tell you it was a favor for an old friend?"

"She said it was a favor."

I turned and dove through the open window of the shack. I hit my shoulder on rotten boards and they gave, spitting up dust. I could hear Moose and the other man yelling at each other. I got up and ran to the rafter and reached for the rifle I had catched there. I should have known it would be gone. Arlene had come back and moved it. She had set me up for real.

The trouble was that I hadn't realized that she was involved until Moose brought up the money again. Moose had said he got Sheila the job in the house, which made Arlene a liar once, at least by sin of omission. Moose had said he still hadn't found the money, which meant he couldn't have offered Arlene the $10,000. That made her a liar twice. And she had given me that line about how strongly she felt about Sheila and about me. She had told me she would be waiting if I came out of this trap alive. With a gun, probably.

Moose came running along the porch of the house. He sounded like a buffalo. He charged through the door without stopping and fell through the floor. His weight was more than the rotten boards could take. He was pinned in the hole. He cursed and writhed, looking around for me.

I stepped toward him and hit him in the face with a loose board I had picked up. The blow was so hard the board splintered.

The other man was climbing in the window. I threw the stiletto at him, but my move was hurried and I missed. I dodged through the door. If Moose's friend hadn't picked it up, my Luger would still be lying outside.

I turned the corner at a trot. The gun was still there, but I didn't lean over for it. Arlene was standing between the building, the reins of her nervous horse in one hand, a middleweight Mauser in the other.

"Go ahead and pick it up. I came back to help you," she said.

"No, you came back to check with the boys and see if everything went according to plan. It didn't. I'm still alive and they know the truth. You stole the money from Sheila. She ran when she found it missing, never guessing you had it. She trusted you."

She fired the automatic.

I dropped fiat in the dust. I raised my head in time to see Moose's companion lean out the window and fire at Arlene. The bullet was a .45 and it tore her face apart.

I let out a yell and lunged for the man, pulling him out of the window. I slugged him in the face and clamped onto his gun hand as we rolled over in the dusty street. Moose lumbered around the corner. He picked up a boulder, raised it over his head, and stepped toward me.

The man under me was trying to get his gun pointed in the right direction, but I had hold of his wrist. I hit him again. I knew Moose was coming. At the last minute, I rolled away. Moose had turned the boulder loose. The other man was sitting up and the boulder hit him with a terrible sound, like a cleaver whacking meat. There was no doubt in my mind that the man was dead. No doubt at all.

Moose looked bewildered by the turn events had taken. He shook his huge head unbelievingly. Then he walked over to his friend. He wrenched the .45 out of the man's fingers.

I had crawled to the Luger. Turning, I shot Moose in the chest. Twice. I shot him a third time when he stood up, eyes wild, mouth working as if he wanted to speak.

Finally he fell and lay still in the dust. I rose slowly to my feet. The ghost town seemed almost soundless, like a cemetery. I was the only person in it who was left alive. The long hunt was over and, except for telling Hawk about the infiltrators in AXE bases, my job was done. But tomorrow there would be another.

I found Hawk by the side of the pool of his club in the green Virginia countryside near Washington. He was taking a much-needed sunbath. His bony elbows and knees looked like ivory doorknobs.

"How did the cleanup go?" I asked.

"It's all taken care of. We had to close down the Carolina and the Denver bases, but we got ride of all the Mafia plants. Fortunately the operation was in an early stage and they hadn't passed on any information of much value."

"The Mob as a whole didn't know anything about Rossi's deal with the Communists or that he was involved in spying on AXE. Abruze probably didn't know much either. He was just suspicious. But suspicions can be deadly when you're mixed up with people like Lew Rossi."

Hawk cracked one eye.

"It was a costly and bloody affair, Nick, but that's our line of work, yours and mine. The dirty business they give no medals for."

"I know," I said.

"Are you ready to leave for London tomorrow?"

"Yes, sir."

"Nick," he called as I moved away. He sat up in the deck chair. "Who's the broad waiting for you in the car?"

"A reliable informant."

"You mean Valante's daughter?" he said.

Barbara was waiting impatiently. "Let's go somewhere and go to bed, Nick. Tomorrow will come awfully fast." She slid closer to me as I drove away from the club. "Was your boss surprised?"

"Oh, sure," I said. "He was almost speechless."