The Death Dealers (11 page)

It was my turn to laugh. Randolph had been trying it for a long time but the knot kept coming untied. “No sweat there. Randolph has to go by the book and when a page is torn out he can’t move. I’ll report through Newark Control later. Anything you think I should know?”

“It’s your project, Tiger. You’re getting too old to advise any more.”

“Thanks a bunch,” I said. “I’m still waiting for word on Pete Moore.”

“Hang on a minute.” Somebody else had come into the office and I heard a few muffled words and the soft rustle of papers. When Grady came back on again he laid out the Selachin situation as briefly as he could.

So far Pete Moore had not made contact with our people in Selachin, but rumors were out already about some peculiar business in the area and behind the Iron Curtain there was a lot of consternation in Soviet circles that had a hand in the project. As for Teddy Tedesco, there was no word. We were going to have to wait until Moore located him.

When I hung up I flagged a cab and had the driver take me to the Taft. I took the elevator up to Harry’s room, tapped on his door and called out that it was me. Still cautious, he opened the door on the chain first before he was satisfied and let me in. He still hadn’t gotten over the shakes and grinned sheepishly when I noticed it.

“It was not the excitement, sir,” he told me. “It was the worry that I would be caught, then I would be back in the desert and soon thereafter my head would be off.”

“You’re out of it now,” I reassured him. “Look, you were with that guy in the beard that belted the TV man.”

“Yes. From when he came in.”

“Notice anything about him?”

“He was not American. His voice ... it was very strange.”

“The tone or the dialect?”

Harry studied the ceiling a second, thinking. “Mostly his voice. Maybe he ... he had a cold?”

“He had a hole in his throat I put there once. What did you talk about?”

“Trifles. We discussed the beauty of the lady Vey Locca, the emergence of the lesser kingdoms into national prominence, the war in Viet Nam, but that was all.” He walked to the window, looked out, then turned around. “He knew when Teish would be leaving the main room. He was right there to go in, but he did not wish to go to the front Neither did I, so the arrangement was satisfactory.”

“Any talk about himself?”

“None.” Harry paused and reconsidered. “Once he commented that he did not like New York. He abhorred the odor of
litchi nuts.
I did not understand.”

“A Chinese delicacy,” I explained. “They used to have bowls of them in Chinese laundries for the customers. That was all?”

“It was not talk to think upon, sir. It was ... nothing talk.”

“He knew what he was doing.”

“But I heard more,” Harry offered. “It was after the ... the event. I was pushed to one side and was close to Teish and Sarim Shey when they were talking. The excitement was too great for Teish and Vey Locca gave him a pill. It was I who brought the water and at that time Sarim Shey was telling him that it was an American plot to kill him so that they could install their own king in Selachin. He was very insistent and Teish was inclined to listen.”

“They didn’t spot you, did they?”

“It is inconceivable that one would understand our language. No, they made no attempt to hide what they were saying. Yes, there was one other thing ... Teish was pleased with you. I don’t think he really wanted to believe what Sarim Shey was telling him.”

I perched on the edge of the table and thought about it. Even if Teish didn’t believe it, Sarim could make it look plausible, an American assassination attempt stopped by an American deliberately to make it look as if it had come from another direction. Men were expendable and there was nobody to prove otherwise. It had happened like that before when the stakes were big enough.

I said, “Okay, Harry, you did your job. Sign out of the hotel and head for the barn. I’ll take it from here.”

“Please, sir, I prefer to stay.”

“Uh-uh. It’s a rough game, my friend, a business for pros only. If I need you again I’ll call you. They’ll be checking every face that was at the reception and don’t think there weren’t cameras going somewhere. I don’t want you picked up.”

Listlessly, he said, “Very well, as you say.”

I picked up the phone and asked the operator for Charlie Corbinet’s number. He wasn’t at the first one, but the girl told me where he could be reached and I got him at the restaurant he usually frequented, a little annoyed at having his supper interrupted until I identified myself.

“I suppose you heard, Colonel.”

“Who hasn’t? You’re twisting a lion’s tail, you know.”

“Too bad. You have anything on the lab report?”

“Unofficially, yes, but I don’t think it will surprise you. That needle was loaded with
condrin.
Teish would have collapsed and died of an apparent heart attack in twenty minutes all nicely blamed on the excitement of the reception and seeing himself on TV. I doubt if a doctor would have spotted it. The stuff doesn’t leave a damn trace in a body for chemical analy sis.”

“Any source of it in the States?”

“I doubt it. The stuffs native to one area in South America. A tribe of natives use it for killing game or their enemies. It’s a natural plant product and can’t be synthesized chemically.”

“It fits then,” I told him. “Malcolm Turos’ last project was centered in Brazil. He could have picked it up there.”

“No doubt. Incidentally, I saw the report on the other two bodies. The guy who posed as a TV man was Parnell Rath. Two convictions for manslaughter and suspected in five homicides. He only got out of the pen three weeks ago. The one on the roof was a goofy guy he palled around with. They checked out the room Rath lived in and found a thousand bucks in small bills stashed under the window sill. Nobody’s talking on this and don’t you do either.”

“You know me.”

“Sure, that’s what I’m afraid of. You pulled a cutie by locating Turos’ photo. It eases some of the pressure on our relationship, but I wouldn’t push too hard if I were you.”

“I have no choice.”

“Then a word to the wise ... nobody, but nobody, is going to get near Teish again, that’s how well they have him covered.”

I laughed at him and said, “Want to bet?” and hung up while he was still firing a question at me. One of his old axioms was that the aggressor always had the advantage. I said so long to Harry, ignoring his wistful expression and went back to the elevator.

Lily Tornay’s room was three floors below. I got out there, rapped on her door and identified myself when she asked who it was. This time she didn’t bother hiding a gun under a towel. She couldn’t have. It was all she had on. Her hair was wet and her neck and shoulders pink from the shower and she smelled deliciously soapy. “I’ll wait outside if you want me to.”

“Don’t be funny,” she snapped, not liking the grin I was giving her.

I closed the door and stepped inside. Like all dames she couldn’t keep a hotel room neat to save her hide. Clothes were scattered all over the place and her Beretta was lying right in the middle of the pillow. At the foot of the bed she had a suitcase open and partially packed. “Going someplace?”

“I have orders to return. Since your latest escapade there seems little need for me to remain here.”

“News travels fast.”

She came over with a drink and handed it to me, the ice clinking against the glass. “My time here wasn’t exactly wasted. I had an opportunity to inquire further into your background.”

“And what did you find out?”

“The probable answers to several puzzling questions Interpol has fretted over. Your Martin Grady has facets to his organizations we didn’t realize.”

I didn’t commit myself with any answer at all.

She took a sip of her drink and put it down beside her. “I do have one thing you might be interested in hearing.”

“Oh?”

“We have two men in Selachin. A few hours ago they found the body of a man who was a local explosives expert. He had been shot in the head with a .38-caliber bullet of American origin. Besides Tedesco there has been another American operating in that area and he is suspected of the killing.”

I still didn’t say anything.

“Peter Moore, his name is,” she continued. “If the dead man started the landslide that killed the technicians your country had there, he revenged them well.”

“Honey,” I said slowly, “did it ever occur to you that maybe the Soviets knocked him off so he couldn’t talk? Thirty-eights aren’t hard to come by and they’d have a lovely excuse for murder if they knew Pete was stalking them as well and looking for Tedesco.”

Lily picked up the glass again, studied it, then took another small sip. “Possibly. But I think we’ll know for sure before long.”

My hand froze around the glass halfway to my mouth. “Why?”

She smiled enigmatically like the Mona Lisa. “Because our people have located Tedesco’s hiding place and are laying a trap for the other one.”

“Damn, he’s alive!”

“It seems that way.”

I couldn’t stop the pure feeling of pleasure that went through me. My mouth stretched in a grin and I started to laugh. It took a good thirty seconds before I could stop.

“Does it seem that funny?” she asked me.

“Hell yes, sweetie. Those guys can make any trap backfire your boys try to set.”

“Not when those hill people of Selachin are helping them,” she added tartly.

I eased the glass down and left it there. “Honey, do you know what will happen if our men get picked up?”

“Certainly. There will be a trial and ...”

“Nuts. They’ll catch it on the spot. They’ll subject them to local law and neither Interpol nor anybody else can do anything about it!”

“They put themselves in that position,” she said.

Quietly, I said, “Did they?” then walked to the bed. I began to throw her stuff into the suitcase until it was filled, dumped the shells out of the Beretta so she couldn’t object and snapped the bag shut.

“What are you doing?”

I reached out and stripped the towel off her with one yank and shoved her down on the bed with a scream stifled in her throat. She was all lovely and white and naked and too damn scared to even try to cover it up, her blond hair tumbling out on the covers like spilled vanilla ice cream. “You’re not going anywhere for a while,” I said.

“Damn you! If you think ...”

“Remember what I told you might happen, kid?” I gave her the nastiest grin I had and she knew what I was talking about. She reached over, grabbed the spread, and flipped it on top of herself, for the first time letting a blush color her face. “Behave yourself and maybe I’ll let you have your clothes back. In the meantime you stay put. I might still be able to use you.”

Her voice was almost plaintive. “H-how?”

“Not like you’re thinking, baby,” I said.

Downstairs I checked her bag under my own name, picked up the ticket and left. Time was getting short before I called on Vey Locca and there was somebody I wanted to see first.

The big doorman greeted me with a wink and after a quick look up and down the street joined me in the lobby of the building. Rondine and my friend were still upstairs and so far he hadn’t seen the man he was watching for. When I showed him Turos’ photo he made an immediate identification, fixed the face in his mind and went back to the sidewalk.

I called upstairs on the house phone and told them I’d be right there, got in the automatic elevator and punched the button for Rondine’s floor. Lennie Byrnes coded me through the door first before he opened it and was putting away a snub-nosed .38 as I came in.

The first thing he said was, “Talbot called Miss Caine with a report. You sure have all the luck.”

“I hope some of it rubs off on Tedesco and Moore. Where’s Rondine?”

“Rondine? Oh ... Miss Caine. Getting dressed.”

“Any action at all?”

“Nothing.”

I handed him the Turos photo to study, then put it back in my pocket. “If he knows he’s identifiable by face he’ll disguise himself. The only thing he can’t change is his voice,” I said. “You get through to Virgil Adams and see if our informants have come up with anything. We’re paying ten grand for any lead and that kind of money will buy a lot of poking around.” I gave him my approximate schedule, made sure he wasn’t to move alone if Turos was spotted and when he went to the phone I walked over to the bedroom door and pushed it open.

She smiled at me in the mirror, a funny little smile that meant a lot of things, then swung around on the bench in front of the vanity dresser and stood up, her arms reaching out for me. The soft song of London in her voice was deepthroated and full of that wild excitement that put me on edge and with the light behind her, throwing a halo around her hair, it was like wiping out twenty years and she was her older sister, the real Rondine who had tried to kill me even while she loved me. I had to wipe the memory away fast, because even though some crazy habit made me call her Rondine too, this love was genuine and honest, full of the giving that only that kind of love could bring.

I took her in my arms and touched the wetness of her lips, felt her mouth open under mine until we satisfied each other with our nearness, then I held her off and looked at her with complete satisfaction. There was still a red welt around her throat that makeup couldn’t hide and when I touched it she winced and bit her lip.

“You all right?”

“A little sore, that’s all.” Her eyes searched mine carefully, then: “I had a report on the reception.... Will you answer me something truthfully?” This time there was a careful note in her voice and I frowned at her.

“Don’t push me, kid.”

“I won’t.”

“Then ask.”

“Mere is some speculation that the attempt on Teish El Abin’s life could have been set up by your organization. Teish was impressed by your performance and has asked that you be his guest at the party being given for him by your government. Looking at it sidewise, and knowing the Grady methods, they consider this a strong possibility.”