The Death Dealers (15 page)

Vey said, “That will be all. You may leave now.”

Like the other one, she was reluctant to go, but had no choice. I went through the same routine, making sure she was out, then bolting the door. If Malcolm Turos got through the police screen they had set up he had to be a genius.

It didn’t take long to locate the four bugs planted in the suite. There didn’t seem to be too much effort expended in hiding them so I assumed they were there to be found and the occupants to have a false sense of security. With the electronic advances, voice pickup, even remote, was no problem and any decent expert could rig a mike hookup that couldn’t be detected. Just to be lousy I snapped the heads off the button mikes I found and dropped them in an ash tray. Vey Locca watched, a humorous smile on her mouth, apparently not unfamiliar with this sort of thing.

Kings and their cohorts always had their problems.

She walked to the walnut hi-fi set against the wall, chose a few records and placed them on the changer. “This way is even better to eliminate eavesdropping.”

I could have told her she was wrong, but I didn’t. Frankly, I didn’t care.

It was night music that came from the speaker, soft, mellow tones I had never heard before. Night music from another world, and when I stretched out on the couch and closed my eyes I could visualize fog and empty marketplaces, a stealthy figure crossing a rooftop, and the glint of moonlight on the downward thrust of a knife. It was sensual, picturesque ... you couldn’t listen without seeing the images it invoked.

I knew when Vey Locca was in the room because she was part of the image and I could feel her presence. While my eyes were closed she had dimmed the lights so that only one small lamp threw a dull yellow light through the star-shaped perforations in its shade, casting weird patterns on the wall and ceiling.

When I turned my head I saw her, not as she was at the Turkish Gardens, not performing a blending of rituals, but nude, deliciously nude, a wild, wanton, pagan nude, not oblivious to the presence of another in the room, but completely conscious of the fact, directing every essence of her nudity toward that one in a tantalizing manner as if an impenetrable wall of glass separated them so that she could taunt and torture with immunity, laying a feast of desire before a starving man who could see and smell and want, but couldn’t get through the barrier.

Her eyes were bright, moving like darts, watching to enjoy the torment she was stirring up; her lips were wet, parted to show the gleaming white of her teeth. She was wide-shouldered and with supple breasts that were swelled with passion, impertinent in their pride of freedom, her sucked-in stomach softly ridged with muscles that played like little fingers under her skin, then ran vertically down her thighs and calves until she became an artist’s study in anatomy.

She came closer to the invisible wall, tempting me with her delights, daring me, and when she couldn’t fathom my response became even more abandoned in her offering.

It was she who broke the barrier down. She had laid the feast but had given way to her own hunger and knew that the prisoner was really herself and threw herself across the space that separated us with a moan torn from her own throat, then she was a warm, slithering thing that tried to smother me with a passion she could no longer suppress.

The image was gone, the reality was there. The nudity was gone too ... she was naked now, perfumed and slippery, searching, demanding, insisting upon the absolute fulfillment.

The blood-red ruby was in my hand and I didn’t remember taking it from her.

 

Hal Randolph had waited patiently for me. He could afford to. I could have avoided him by going down the stairwell but then there would have been another time and there was no point in avoiding him. When he saw me he pressed the buzzer for the elevator and we stood there together until it arrived, then rode down silently together.

The lobby was almost deserted at that hour and those who were there were too alert to be guests and if you looked closely you could see the rise under their coats where the guns were slung. We walked out to the steps and watched the city in the only hours that it ever dozed and Randolph said, “You were supposed to stop in for a talk.”

“I intended to.”

He pulled a pack of butts from his pocket, shook one out and lit it. “We checked you out in that AmPet deal. Grady might have made a bad deal there.” His eyes took me in carefully to catch my reaction.

“I doubt it. His lawyers are as good as your tax men.”

“Maybe.” He shrugged unconcernedly. “There’s another problem. Lily Tornay. It took long enough for the story to get to us and some people are getting mad. We have the report on Edith Caine too.”

“Don’t squeeze me, Hal. I can verify every minute of my time if I have to and I don’t want to get tied up.”

“You may have to.”

“Do I?”

He flipped the unsmoked cigarette away in anger and it went out in a shower of sparks on the sidewalk. “Damn you, Tiger, it’s gone too far. We have to give in to the demands of that creep Teish because State wants it that way, but I don’t have to take too much crap from you.”

“Drop it, Randolph. You know who you want. Every department in the country has a flyer out on Malcolm Turos, not me. I almost had him for you earlier and he broke loose, but ...”

“Whatl”

I gave it to him the way it had happened, enjoying the red that seemed to explode into his face. When I finished I said, “But don’t lay it on me, buddy. I’m a private citizen and not subject to departmental orders and there is no warrant out for my arrest. You can try anything you like, but you damn well know I’ll blow the whistle to the papers and this whole deal will turn into a propaganda piece for the Reds. If you don’t think I’ll save my skin any way I have to or shove something up your tail just to be lousy, then you don’t know me any more.”

Randolph’s mouth tightened and he took out another cigarette and stuck it in his mouth without lighting it. He thought a moment, then twisted his lips in a nasty grin. “You made one mistake, Tiger. You asked for it and you got it.” He reached in his breast pocket and found an envelope, tapped it against his palm a moment and handed it to me. “Yours under protest. Temporary assignment to a section of the Army Intelligence. You do come under orders now. Sign two copies and keep one for youself.” He handed me a pen. “You’re cleared to carry that rod, but keep in mind the penalties that go with your active status now, and all I want to do is catch you in an infraction of the rules and you’ve had it.”

I laughed at him, signed the copies, and handed them and the pen back. “I’ll have to tell Teish thanks. He knows how to put the pressure on.”

Randolph ignored the sarcasm, his voice cold. “We’ll want a report on your intentions and your actions. You are to make no attempt to do more than you’re told to. Tomorrow night you’ll be at that goddamn party with the rest of us in a protective capacity only. I.A.T.S. has the full picture of Grady’s AmPet operation but you aren’t working for him now. I’m hoping either one of you make the move that gives us a chance to slam you.”

“The boys in Washington have tried long enough,” I reminded him. “But how the hell are ten-thousand-a-year clerk types going to buck the brains of a guy who can make thirty million a year? That’s the trouble with this country ... some damn petty politician or pseudo-statesman or senator who talked his way from sharecropping to D.C. thinks he can cross minds with the people who really made this country great. They hate because they’re jealous and try to stop the only ones who can keep us on top. They organize their tiny minds and legislate control of business and industries they couldn’t get a job in as janitors and the population squirms under their heels. Brother ... you have a case. The big ones are getting tired. They’re doing something about it. They’re going to make sure we win despite all the damn stupidity and fear you find in the mice.”

“But not you,” Randolph said. “You won’t have a thing to do with it.”

“Try me and see,” I said. I shoved my copy of the orders in my pocket and went on down the steps. Behind me I heard Randolph let out a laugh and didn’t like it. He should have been fuming, but he wasn’t.

From the hotel I called Newark Control and told them what had happened at the Gardens. Virgil Adams questioned me in detail, his voice sleepy, got it down on the tape for transcription later, then said, “Johnson called from London. Interpol’s all het up about the Lily Tornay thing and another agent’s on the way over.”

“It’ll keep. She told me Tedesco’s alive. What’s that bit?”

“Correct. Pete Moore made a contact and they’re both holing up somewhere in the hills. Pete took a short-wave transmitter in with him ... limited power so he only had time for one broadcast and that was terse.”

“Some local dynamite expert was knocked off. He do it?”

“Negative. That was a Soviet action. They have a team in there and are using that as an excuse to hunt down Pete and Teddy. Interpol was involved but got out in a hurry when they saw what was developing. Pete’s staying with Teddy ... he was hit in the thigh and can’t get around.”

“How does it look?”

“Rough.”

“Can they make it?”

“Pete signaled R-1 which means they haven’t a chance the way things are. All borders are clamped down and nobody wants to touch the situation. It’s a real powder keg, Tiger.”

“Somebody has to go in after them.”

“Impossible and not authorized. We can’t afford it. The only one who can change things is Teish. One word from him can stop everything.”

“Okay, Virg, you’ll get the word.”

“When? Those guys can’t hang on much longer. It’s a real scramble. If it were a city they’d have a chance, but not in hills they’re unfamiliar with and with those damn natives like bloodhounds.”

“Tomorrow night. I’ll get it for you.”

“I hope so.”

I hung up, pounding my fist into my palm. One way or another, I had to squeeze Teish. Each push had to be calculated because if it went wrong he could lean in the opposite direction. He was out after his own ends and meant to get them. He had what everybody wanted and if he thought one side was trying to take it from him he’d jump to the other for his own protection.

As late as it was I called Ernie Bentley at his home and got him out of the sack. He yawned and said, “Don’t you ever sleep, Tiger?”

“When it’s necessary. Did you get Lennie Byrnes set?”

“He’s in. It cost, but he’ll be ready. He’s been double-checking back with your girl but everything’s tight. Talbot was called off on another deal and left a woman with her who’s an agent for their embassy. Lennie didn’t want to take any chances so he got Frankie Hill to stay on the street outside. Those dupe shots of Turos help any?”

“They got me a little edge and off the hook a bit. The guy isn’t going clean like the pictures show.”

“Didn’t think he would. After you left I made up some more and retouched them with assorted hair and facial disguises. You want to pick them up?”

“Let’s expedite matters. Have a runner drop them off with Charlie Corbinet. He’ll know what to do with them. Get to it the first thing.”

“Done. Need anything?”

“Just sleep. I’ll check with you tomorrow.”

I put the phone back and started getting ready for bed. I checked my coat pockets before I took it off. In the right-hand one was the blood-red ruby and I put it on the night table. I still didn’t see how she had kept it in her navel.

I awoke with the rain beating against the window, coming in the gap at the sill in a fine spray. It was noon, but the sky was a dirty gray that roiled at the tops of the buildings, swallowing their upper levels, seeming to dissolve them before they were even digested.

For a few minutes I lay there, trying to recapture the thought that brought me into wakefulness. It had come out of the recesses of my memory, tapped me lightly demanding recognition, then fled before I could lay hands on it and lay back there out of sight like a dark blob. In front of it was the face of Malcolm Turos grinning at me. No, it wasn’t a grin, it was a silent laugh of derision.

Sometimes it happens that way. I knew that elusive thought was the end of a thread that could lead to him. Someplace it was offered to me and I had rejected it. It had come and gone in an instant, captured by an involuntary sensory process, but lost in the unconscious mind that emerged only when there was no control.

I rolled out of bed, shaved and dressed, then went downstairs for coffee. When I finished I climbed in a phone booth and called Dick Gallagher. Earlier he had gotten copies of Ernie Bentley’s retouched photos of Turos and had them distributed, but as yet there was no news.

Charlie Corbinet didn’t have anything else to add except warn me that something new was in the wind concerning the Senate committee’s investigation of Martin Grady. He couldn’t put a finger on it, but the word was spreading that the committee had an angle to work on now. I wasn’t worried about Grady protecting himself so I thanked him and hung up.

I went back to the desk and picked up the compact Ernie had sent over, signed out for it and examined the miniature recorder enclosed under the thin mirror. Lennie would have one like it on him when he was in the hotel and might be able to pick up something useful. It was an outside chance, but you had to cover all bets.

At a newsstand I picked up a morning edition of the paper and scanned through it. The front page had a shot of the body on the sidewalk outside the Stacy, listing the person as a suicide, an out-of-work man despondent and sick who somehow got to the roof undetected and stayed there until he had worked up nerve enough to jump. He had narrowly missed hitting several people walking below.