Hazard (21 page)

Four hours later the string went suddenly taut, cut into Hazard's hand and broke. He sat up quickly to see the white Rolls pulling away. He drove after it and was soon right behind it in the thick rush of London traffic. He wasn't yet fully awake, so everyone and everything along the streets seemed abnormally accelerated to him. He lowered the window, stuck his head out. It helped clear him, the rain on his face. He'd become fairly accustomed to driving on the left side of the street from the right side of the car, but to be sure he fixed on the white Rolls just ahead and played follow the leader.

All the way across the rain-slicked, car-logged heart of the city. To High Holburn, Newgate, Cheapside, down King William Street, over Eastcheap, and on to Trinity Square. There on the right was the Tower of London, hard gray and soft green. Then a sharp left into a maze of shorter narrow streets with such unlikely names as Savage Garden and Crutched Friars.

On one called Seething Lane the Rolls pulled over and stopped. Hazard continued on a short way and stopped. In the side-view mirror he watched Badr cross the street and enter a building.

Hazard got out and walked back to inspect the building from across the street. It was a brick structure about four stories high, and windowless like a warehouse. It occupied nearly half the entire block, was larger and not in keeping with the other buildings in that area of older London. The others were places of business but had the appearance of well-preserved residences.

From the outside there was no way of telling what purpose the building served. The only hint was a painted metal plaque, the seal of the British Commonwealth, bolted to the wall near the entrance, which appeared to be the only way in or out. It had clearance to accommodate a large truck or van. At the moment it was wide open.

Hazard strolled across the street and into the building. He entered a large, high room where bright overhead lights shone down on rich hues and intricate patterns.

Oriental carpets.

They were arranged in stacks, spread out and layered one on another. Hundreds of such stacks, some reaching as high as six to seven feet. Literally thousands upon thousands of Oriental carpets all in this one place.

It was a clearing depot under the jurisdiction of Her Majesty's Customs and Excise Tax Department. This particular building served as the gathering point, the Mecca for nearly every Oriental carpet destined for sale in the Western world. They came from all parts of the Mideast and Far East. Carpets of every size and quality, ranging in value from thirty to ten thousand pounds, new and antique, some machine-loomed in the factories of Istanbul, Izmir, and Tehran, others made in the large private workshops at Kerman, Nain, Isfahan, and Tabriz. The majority, though, were produced in the remote regions of Persia by individual families. Created by them in the ancient painstaking way of tying knot after knot day after day, month after month, reproducing symbolic patterns that had been handed down through so many generations that their original meanings were by now unknown. Once out of those patient fingers the carpets brought profit after profit for middleman after middleman and, finally, accumulated into large lots, they arrived at this building on Seething Lane. Usually the Arab dealer or his representative accompanied the carpets to London. Hardly ever did a shipment arrive without an Arab escort to keep watch over it.

When Hazard entered the building he felt suddenly outnumbered. Twenty Arabs and no smiles. Silent, practically motionless, the Arabs sat crosslegged on small prayer rugs. Each in front of his stack of carpets.

At that moment Hazard thought it might indeed have been more prudent if he'd waited in the car. He was tempted to retreat but went ahead, between the rows of stacks, trying to ignore all those Arabs who might be comrades of Badr.

Badr? Hazard didn't see him anywhere in that first room, so he went on to the next, which was equally large and contained many more stacks of carpets. And watchful Arabs.

This second room was L-shaped because part of it had been sectioned off for an office area. Inside the office were three uniformed customs officials. One glanced out through the glass partition, saw Hazard, and came out to him. He was British polite. “May I be of some assistance, sir?”

“I'm looking for a friend.”

“Several visitors were in earlier on, sir. Perhaps you missed him.”

“No, he's probably running a little late.”

“We'll be closing up here in a half hour.”

“Mind if I wait around?”

He didn't mind, went back into the office, and Hazard continued looking for Badr. He didn't find him there but noticed some wide stairs and took them up to the same sort of brightly lighted room, but not as many stacks—or Arabs. In several places carpets were rolled, wrapped with brown paper and piled high like long logs.

Hazard wondered if somehow he'd missed Badr. It was a large place and with all the islandlike stacks he could easily have not seen him. Possibly Badr was already gone. For Hazard that would mean lost. He continued on down the length of the room between two rows of stacks and was about to go back between others when he heard a voice: “It's you!”

Hazard turned. There was Badr, grinning. “My friend, the dice player.”

For a moment Hazard pretended not to recognize Badr.

“I won you money,” Badr reminded.

“That's right,” Hazard said. He sensed what Badr was about to ask so he beat him to it. “What are you doing here?” As though he belonged there and Badr didn't.

“This is my business, carpets. Is it yours?”

“No, I'm only a sort of collector. A friend of mine in New York told me about this place, thought I should see it.” Hazard glanced around as though he found it all interesting.

Badr's smile was contradicted by the suspicion in his eyes. “Last night, and now here.”

“Lucky for me,” Hazard said amiably. “I was hoping to learn a few of the finer points about carpets. No doubt you're an expert.”

Badr nodded, apparently satisfied. “I received a shipment today from Tabriz.” He gestured to the near corner, where an Arab helper was in the process of unwrapping and unrolling carpets to form a stack. Evidently Badr had also been hard at it. He had his jacket off, tie pulled down, and his shirt was splotched wet with perspiration.

Badr went to the corner, obviously intending Hazard should follow. Hazard took the opportunity to survey the immediate area. There was no one close by except the helper, who said something in Arabic to Badr. Badr dismissed him with a backward wave and the man departed, his working day over.

“Look,” said Badr. He removed three carpets from the stack, good-sized, heavy carpets, but he did it easily, a casual display of strength that didn't go unnoticed by Hazard. Now on top was a carpet of beige and ochre hues woven into a graceful, intricate floral pattern. “This is a rare one,” Badr said proudly, running his hand over the carpet and stepping back to admire.

The carpet was truly beautiful, had a lustrous, silky sheen. Badr bent to it again, turned it over to show its reverse side. “A half million knots to the yard,” he said and looked up for Hazard's reaction.

Hazard thought how easy it would have been just then to put a bullet into the back of Badr's head.

“Perhaps you really don't appreciate carpets,” Badr said as he stood.

Hazard didn't know much about them, but once in Brentano's in New York he'd thumbed through an illustrated book on the subject. “That's a really fine Kashan. Best I've ever seen.”

That seemed to reassure Badr. “I have many even better.”

Actually, the Kashan was the best of the lot, the showpiece. Most of the others were quite ordinary, and some had been purposely bleached to make them appear older—a common practice.

“Maybe I'll buy one,” Hazard said.

“One?” Badr explained the dealers there only sold by the lot. They'd never consider selling just one carpet.

Hazard, pretending interest, asked why.

Badr explained that each piece of every lot was numbered in sequence, had a bonded customs seal attached to its corner. If a dealer sold a carpet from the middle of his lot the missing number would be noticed. Not by the customs people; they never bothered with one carpet more or less. But a potential buyer would make a point of looking to see if a lot was complete. If a buyer saw even one carpet missing he'd claim that one had been the best of all and use that to bargain down the entire lot. Naturally, the carpets that happened to be the first and last of a lot could be sold off without any problem.

Hazard glanced at his watch. The place would be closing in ten minutes. He had to decide what to do, at least where to do it. He could just leave and keep tailing Badr and hope it led to some suitable, isolated place. But that would be taking the chance of losing him. To hell with that. Besides, Hazard decided, he'd done enough following and waiting.

Looking down the row of stacks, Hazard saw that several of the Arabs had gone by now and the rest were getting ready to leave.

“How much would you spend for a carpet?” Badr asked, no doubt recalling how much he'd seen Hazard win at dice.

“What about this one?” Hazard indicated the Kashan.

“Impossible,” Badr said. “It's in the middle of the lot. I just told you—”

“But it's not perfect. There's a small hole …” Hazard pointed vaguely.

Distressed at such a possibility, Badr bent over to examine the carpet.

Hazard's right hand moved beneath his jacket and drew the Llama down and out. He pressed the muzzle of its silencer to Badr's head, just behind the ear.

Badr immediately realized what it was. He remained still.

“Over there,” Hazard said.

Badr cautiously straightened up, and Hazard kept the gun on him as they went around the stack to the corner close to the wall.

“Down.”

Badr squatted behind the stack. Hazard was right beside him.

“Why?”

“Quiet,” Hazard said, but decided he wanted to tell Badr why before he killed him.

It was now a matter of waiting there until everyone was gone. Hazard figured they'd lock up the place to prevent anyone from getting in, not out. The few remaining Arabs were leaving now, chatting gutturally as they went down the stairs. Then silence.

Hazard could hear Badr's breaths, short with fear. His own breathing, he realized, wasn't much different. He concentrated on the gun, ready to pull the trigger if Badr made a move.

After a few minutes the silence was broken by someone coming up the stairs. Whoever it was paused momentarily at the top and walked down between the stacks in the direction of the corner. Heavy footsteps came closer, then stopped on the other side of Badr's stack.

Hazard jabbed the gun at Badr, maintaining pressure while he looked around the corner.

Gabil. The big one with the broken nose. Evidently he'd come to meet Badr. He'll assume Badr's gone, Hazard hoped. Gabil scanned the area and then walked away, from the sound of his steps on down the stairs.

Relieved, Hazard took a deep breath.

Cologne and perspiration made him suddenly realize he'd forgotten about Badr's jacket. It was out there somewhere and Gabil might have seen it. Hazard looked over and spotted the jacket lying in plain view on top of an adjacent stack. It seemed incredible that Gabil could have missed it, yet evidently he had or he wouldn't have gone.

It was 5:30 now. Closing time, according to what the customs man had said. Hazard hoped the British reputation for punctuality wasn't an exaggeration. A moment later there was a sliding rumble below. The large entrance door being lowered. Hazard listened for any further sounds from inside the building. It seemed everyone had gone, but he decided to give it a few more minutes to make sure. He looked at Badr and thought the man didn't seem as apprehensive as before. In fact, Badr's face showed no emotion; his eyes were fixed straight ahead. Hazard guessed Badr had fatalistically accepted that he was going to die.

Badr was waiting. But not for death, for darkness.

The lights went out.

Badr jerked his head away, just before Hazard pulled the trigger. Hazard pulled off a second shot in the dark, aiming lower, thinking Badr might have gone to the floor. But the moment the lights went out Badr had moved back and away. Hazard didn't know, couldn't see that Badr was standing flat against the wall no more than eight feet from him.

The two men remained frozen still, each listening for the next move of the other.

Badr made it. He dove onto the partial stack. He landed stomach down, rolled across and onto the floor where he wedged himself against and under the front edge of the stack.

Hazard had no chance to get off another shot. Anyway, it would have been a wild one in that darkness. Hazard figured Badr would head for the stairway, so he went as quickly as possible along the wall, between the wall and the stacks, feeling his way. As he neared the stairs he saw light coming from the floor below, dim but helpful. Probably, he thought, the customs men had routinely left a light on in the office.

He chose the stack that was most strategic, overlooking the stairs. He climbed up on it and lay there, not sure from which direction Badr would come.

Badr had the advantage. He knew the place. When he heard Hazard moving along the wall he went to where he'd left his jacket. He didn't pick it up, took no chance of something dropping accidentally from it. He felt for and found its inside pocket. Carefully he slipped out the revolver, a snub-nosed .38. He would enjoy drinking the blood of this Jew.

Hazard's eyes were beginning to water from trying to find and focus on something in the dark. Once he thought he saw a movement between the stacks opposite and down a way but it could have been his imagination, or his eyes. He cursed the place for not having any windows. It was still daylight outside but almost pitch black in there. Badr must have known about the lights, known they'd be turned off by someone. Who? Everyone had left the building by then. Had the lights gone off automatically? Probably, but what difference did it make anyway?