The Death Dealers (12 page)

I dropped my hands and felt my lips pull tight across my teeth. “Three people were knocked off on that deal, sugar.”

“True, and one of those killers escaped. You were there. People like that can be wasted if the results were worth it.”

“You know damn well we don’t operate like that!”

“I just want to hear you say it.”

I nodded and tried to loosen myself up. It wasn’t easy at all. “Okay, I’m saying it. I spotted the kink in that action and straightened it out. It was on the square.”

She saw what had happened to me and reached for my hand. “I’m sorry, Tiger. I had to ask. It’s my job too.”

The tenseness seeped out of my shoulders and I let her have the smile back. “Forget it. My luck was running strong. You still supposed to stay on my tail?”

“I’d like to, but is it worth trying?”

“None of you can make it if I don’t want you to.”

“Then you tell me what to do.”

“Are you going to that party?”

“Certainly, since you’ll be invited.”

“All right, but lay off me. Stick close to Vey Locca especially when she’s in conversation with Teish or Sarim Shey.”

“They don’t talk to each other in English,” she said.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of that.”

“And what will you be doing?”

I kissed the tip of her nose and said, “Does Macy’s tell Gimbel’s? I’ll clue you in later.”

“But ...”

“You stay on your toes. I’m going to take Lennie off you, so have one of your own people give you cover in case Turos tries for you again. Just don’t be alone, got that?”

Rondine nodded seriously. She was well trained and knew the implication of what I was saying. “Very well, my Tiger.” Her hand tightened around my fingers. “Do I have to be worried about you?”

“If you do, you’ll be the only one. When is the party?”

“Tomorrow night at the Stacy.”

“I didn’t get any invitation yet.”

“You will,” she told me impishly. “It will probably come through Vey Locca when you see her tonight.”

Softly I said, “Damn!” Then, “Who was the lip reader in that room?”

“One of our embassy people behind a panel.” She made a puckish mouth at me and added,
“That’s
what I meant about being worried about you.”

I shrugged, tilted her chin up with my hand, and said, “When things happen in the line of duty...”

“Duty be damned,” she interrupted with laugh. I kissed her again and gave her a shove back toward the vanity to finish dressing and went out to Lennie.

He had completed his call to Newark and Virgil Adams had to admit a negative on Malcolm Turos. The guy had covered himself well and wasn’t exposing his identity in any fashion. Men had been posted around the Russian-speaking sections of the city, the opera house and the three Broadway musicals were staked out, the specialty food houses alerted and word well spread about the price on his head. If he showed at all he was going to be nailed, but I wasn’t putting too much hope on that end. That kind of net wouldn’t have nailed me either. I didn’t expect Turos to fall into it.

Ernie Bentley was still in his lab when I called and when I verified myself with our code he knew something was coming up. His field work was confined to the loft where he worked, but it was his world and he was an expert in it.

I said, “How small can you make a tape recorder?”

“How small do you need it?”

“Woman’s compact?”

“Hell, Tiger, I have one in stock.”

“Send it over to my hotel by messenger right now. Then get hold of Louis Wickhoff who does the hiring at the Stacy and arrange for him to put Lennie Byrnes on as a waiter. I want him to cover the suites Teish and Sarim Shey are using.”

“Come off it, they’re using regular agents on that one.”

“They make sloppy waiters.”

“You figure it out then.”

“I’ll call little Harry and have him make up some of that native slop they eat in Selachin and have him prompt Lennie on how to serve it. They have a regular ritual for that stuff and those agents won’t want to expose themselves by their ignorance. One of them may go along with him into the suite, but I don’t care. Have him fixed with a recorder too. Anything we pick up Harry can translate for us later, but just get Lennie in there. Louis will make him up an identity card and you fix him with the union bit. Backdate his employment for a year or so. A little loot in the right hands can kill any beefs.”

“Okay, don’t tell me my business.”

“Just a gentle reminder. You’re glued to a microscope so much I’m afraid you’ll forget things.”

“Yeah, picture that with you around.”

I hung up, dialed Jack Brant, got him to call Harry on the phone and put the situation to him. He knew just what I wanted and knew the impression it would make, but it was going to take him awhile to get the necessary ingredients together.

Before I put the phone back he said, “Mr. Tiger, sir ... I have been thinking.”

“What is it, kid?”

“When I left the hotel ... as I was getting into the elevator, I see a man knock on my door and try the knob. I do not know anybody, so why should that be? Did you send someone?”

I felt the ice again. “What did he look like?”

“Oh, nothing, I guess. Plain man in a suit.”

I tried not to let him know the fear in my voice. “Probably trying the wrong room. See you later.”

Lennie was watching me carefully. “What goes, Tiger?”

I turned around and picked up my hat. “Make sure somebody’s with her—” I nodded toward the bedroom—“before you leave. Then check with Ernie. You know what to do?”

“I got the picture, but what’s this angle?”

“When I left the Stacy I think I was followed. Damn, what a jerk I can be sometimes!”

The doorman whistled me up a cab and I climbed in, telling him to make it fast over to the Taft. He fought the traffic and earned his five bucks and I took the elevator up to Lily Tornay’s room cursing the stops on the way. When I got out the door shut behind me and I ran down the corridor, around the bend and stopped in front of her door. Inside, the TV was rattling off a comedy program and I turned the knob. The door wasn’t locked ... it swung open and I went in fast with the .45 in my hand remembering every detail of where somebody could be waiting for me and ready to take a big one myself if I could blast just a single slug back.

I didn’t have to. Except for Lily Tornay and the shadow people on the TV tube, the room was empty. And Lily was dead.

The nylon cording had been tied in the same fashion, but she hadn’t been lucky enough to be jammed in a position that didn’t allow her to move the way Rondine had. She was sprawled on the floor, hands and feet twisted up behind her back and the noose around her throat had been jerked taut by her frantic thrashings to free herself. Her nakedness was almost obscene now, her face mottled and her blond beauty gone.

Lying beside her was the note, the paperweight that held it down, her Beretta, and the message was simple. All it said was,
A Gift for a Gift, Tiger Mann.

And it was me. I did it to her. I didn’t have to be a wise guy. I could have let her clear out and she’d be alive. She passed Teddy’s Skyline signal on to me and I let her die for it.

Well, she was going to have company. Soon.

I picked up the note, burned it and heeled the ashes into the rug. When I left I wiped the knob, walked down two flights before I picked up the elevator again and got back on the street. Deliberately, I left myself wide open for a tail, hoping Turos would make the mistake and try it. There wasn’t a single device I didn’t use to spot anyone following me, but after a few blocks I knew it wasn’t any use. I just didn’t have that feeling. If he had been there I would have known it.

Malcolm Turos was wasting his time. He had other things in mind and I would come when he was ready. On Broadway I called Charlie Corbinet and told him where to find Lily. Since she was connected with the over-all affair they’d keep it quiet until it was finished, but I was going to have some talking to do later. I could alibi myself out of it all right after the time of death was established but I didn’t want any interference. Charlie said he’d go as far as he could, but not to expect any miracles.

That was enough. Time was running out fast and I was running with it. I went back to my hotel, showered and changed, told the desk clerk that any packages delivered to me were to be kept in the hotel safe and started walking across town to the Stacy.

 

They were waiting for me at the desk when I asked for Vey Locca, two more of the young ones with the stamp of the Washington agency on their faces. They were smiling and bright, except for their eyes, and there I could see the training they had and the mark of the orders they received. A little puzzle was there because they knew me too and couldn’t figure how I fitted in at all.

My admittance was by personal invitation and they meant to see that I kept it, and that only, and were very happy to show me to Vey’s room. There were more of them by every door and exit, with several carefully spotted in strategic places so that nothing went unobserved.

In the elevator they were quiet and I didn’t offer them anything more than a knowing grin just to bother them a little. When we reached the door of the suite the one on my left touched the buzzer, waited until a hotel maid opened it and said, “Mr. Mann to see Miss Locca.”

I watched the way the maid looked me over and knew her primary employment wasn’t with the hotel. The police had this job locked. “She’s waiting for him,” she said. “Please come in.”

I waved so long to the agency boys, handed the maid my hat and said thanks. With a look of casual disdain she tossed the porkpie on a table and led the way.

They hadn’t spared any expense to make Teish El Abin’s entourage comfortable. The luxury of the place rivaled a king’s palace in every detail down to a private bar in the living room that matched that of any saloon in town. The maid waved her hand toward it and said, “Help yourself,” with a tone no genuine maid would ever use.

Before I could mix one a cool voice from across the room said, “And you may make me one too, Tiger. Something refreshing.” Vey Locca stood in the doorway smiling at me and all I could think of was that she’d never play on Broadway because she couldn’t quick-change. After all this time she had finally reached the fluffy housecoat stage and that was all. She waved at the maid, a small gesture of dismissal. “You may leave now.”

“But, madam...”

Vey Locca looked at her as if she didn’t exist at all, but her voice had a hard tone of command reserved for disrespectful servants. “I said you may leave,” she repeated.

This time I walked her to the door. “You do that,” I told her, and when she glared at me, said, “Give my regards to the Lieutenant,” and locked the door behind her.

I made a light highball for myself, a tricky bit in an old-fashioned glass for Vey, and stood swirling the ice in the glass. I heard her call out, “Bring it in here, please.”

There was a full-length mirror on the wall and she stood in front of it, twisting and turning to see herself, pirouetting the way a kid would when she thinks she is alone. The brilliant white of the housecoat was a lovely contrast to the darker sheen of her skin and her hair lay like a black cloud on her shoulders. The lights on either side of the mirror silhouetted her through the sheer fabric so I could see all of her at once, a teasing vision in a deliberate pose and to make her stop I put the drink in her hand, raised my glass and said, “Lovely.”

Her eyebrows arched even further, the Oriental cast to her eyes showing mock surprise. “That is all you can say?”

“Tigers don’t talk much.”

“Ah,” she smiled, “then you
have
heard the story.”

I took a pull of the highball and didn’t answer her. She took a step nearer, a look of amusement crinkling the corners of her eyes.

“What do tigers do then?” she offered.

The challenge was neat and I didn’t let it stand there. I grinned at her over the top of my glass and before she could move I had the neckline of that flimsy thing in my hand and tore it off her with a single wrench and it ripped with a soft sigh into a mound on the floor.

Vey Locca was one of those women who could never be called naked. She was a nude, a beautiful, provocative nude that was all high-breasted pride that swept into a gentle concave belly and serpentine thighs that swayed enticingly with an almost erotic movement. She was a tawny color, the black of her hair enriching the shade of the muted satiny texture of her skin. She seemed to ripple then, a subtle, flowing muscular movement that started at her shoulders until it came to the center of her stomach.

“You said I am a tiger too. I am a cat.”

I never took my eyes off her. I said, “In the cat family the female doesn’t give. The male takes. When he’s ready.”

She gave me an impertinent little smile of amusement again, stretched herself as though she were clawing for the ceiling and said, “You are a Tiger.”

But the game was over. I was already halfway out the door headed for the bar.

I realized she had planned the whole thing when she came back before I had finished a fresh drink, a shimmering green gown molded to her body, a white mink stole hung carelessly over one arm. The only jewelry was a small diamond pendant that threw pinpoints of light from the base of her throat and her hair fell in a natural curve down onto one shoulder.

When she took the drink I made her I fingered the single diamond speculatively. “The ruby made more of an impression.” I grinned into her eyes. “How do you keep it there?”

“Supposing you find out later.”

“You’re an engaged woman, Vey. Murders have been committed for less.”