The Code (10 page)

Pivoting, I spiked him with my knee. His face was anything but inscrutable. Lines of pain rippled up toward his eyes and he sank into a stoop like a pigeon-toed man trying to hold a walnut between his knees.

As he reached for me, I feinted, then hit him with the edge of my right hand. The blow, which would have split a plank, caught him on the side of his thick neck. His eyes protruded and his breath whistled between his teeth. Catching him by the coat, I yanked him off balance and hurled him over my hip. He hit the floor like a piano falling two stories.

I pulled the Luger. "Now, where's Trudy?"

Alida stood up and pitched the cat at my face. I dodged and the Siamese sailed past, a ball of spitting fury. He landed on Shang's back and clawed his way up. The Chinese tried to buck him off and the cat sank his claws into the man's head.

Poor Shang screamed loud enough to shatter glass.

I rapped the cat lightly on the spine with the Luger. He meowed and sprang to a nearby table.

"You all right?" I asked Shang, but he wasn't listening. I turned on Alida and she was pulling open the drawer of a table. I had an idea the lady wasn't looking for a guest book for me to sign. I grabbed her by the back of the tight gown and it tore as she writhed away. When she wheeled, she had a .38 Beretta in her hand.

She called me a name she hadn't learned from her Chinese ancestors. It was 100 per cent back alley American. Before she could pull the trigger, I slapped her wrist with the heavy Luger and the Beretta spun out of her fingers and struck the wall.

I put the point of the Luger right between her hate-filled eyes. "The question was, where's Trudy?"

Alida took me upstairs. The girl was sitting on a bed playing solitaire. She gave me a sullen glance. "Look who's here. My lucky charm."

"I tried to keep him away from you. Take my advice and tell him nothing," Alida said.

Trudy had a day-old shiner. I walked over to her and tilted her chin. "Who did the job on you?"

"A guy named Oscar. Oscar Snodgrass."

"I don't think that was his name."

"The word is out that a Mafia
capo
got hit and a piece of the Mob's cash heisted. Moose is wild enough to pull a caper like that. And you come looking for Moose. Alicia says that's an odd coincidence."

"I'm not interested in the money. I told you the reason I wanted Moose."

The girl looked at Alida. "What am I going to do? I believe him."

"I went to see Haskell. He didn't tell me anything I needed to know. But someone has tried to kill me and now I find you and the sweet-tempered madam here up-tight. What's the story, Trudy?"

She swept the cards together into a pile on the bed. "Alida, I'm going to tell him."

Then hurry up. I want him out of here. I don't want any more trouble with the Mob."

"Two men came here last night," Trudy said. "I can't tell you their names, but I can tell you who they work for."

"The Mafia."

"That's who. They knew you had been to see me. They wanted to know what you were after. The short ugly one hit me and I got scared. I told him you were looking for Moose."

They had been following me, I thought. I'd led them here like I'd led them to Idaho. They were patient and they were tenacious and now they knew what they hadn't known before, that Moose was their heist man.

"They'll burn you," Alida said. "I hope they burn you good."

I went down the stairs. The Mighty Shang was hanging on to the arms of a chair and grimacing as the blonde in the negligee dabbed iodine in his hair. The Siamese cat sat licking his paw and eyed me balefully as I walked past. "Nice kitty," I said. He was the real terror of the Orient.

I left Los Angeles at ten o'clock in the morning, driving south. The second name in Moose's little black book was Therese and Therese was in San Diego. I hoped to be talking to her before the day ended.

The race was on now. The Mafia knew almost as much as I knew. They would be sending out soldiers to hunt down Moose. My only edge was the little black book with the seven names in it.

I kept an eye on the rear view mirror, trying to pick out the car that would be trailing me. I decided it was the brown sedan, the Buick. The driver made an effort to throw me off: he let another car come between us briefly, and when I slowed down, he forged ahead of me for a few miles.

While he was up there, I whipped off the main highway onto the first available side road. I pulled up at a service station and told the attendant to fill the Ford's tank and check under the hood. I went inside and opened a soft drink.

The brown Buick came along before the attendant finished checking the oil. Two men were in the front seat. One turned to look at the Ford, but they kept going. They still hoped they hadn't been spotted.

Still holding the pop bottle, I walked out the side -door of the station and climbed the hill behind it. The attendant called after me, but I kept going. I stopped in a clump of trees and squatted down. I could see the station clearly, but no one there could see me.

The driver of the brown car would idle along waiting for me to come into sight again. When I didn't, he would turn around and return.

I finished the drink and watched the attendant clamp down the hood of the Ford. My behavior puzzled him, but he had my car. He wasn't worried about my running out on the bill.

The Buick came back. The two thugs consulted the man at the service station. He pointed in the direction I had taken. The hoods talked it over. Then they started to run up the hill. They were afraid I had abandoned the Ford and was trying to elude them on foot.

Come on, boys, I thought.

As they drew closer, panting and cursing, I slid behind a tree. The taller man was in better shape. He led his companion by three strides. He sprinted past my hiding place, running along the fringe of the thicket. The shorter man yelled after him, "Hey, Joe. Slow down. You think this is the Olympics?"

Holding the pop bottle by the small end, I stepped from behind the tree. "Hey, Shorty," I said.

He stopped as if he'd run into a clothesline. "Joe!" he yelled.

I hit him on the head with the empty pop bottle and he dropped in a heap.

Joe had paused He looked back and saw me coming at him. His hand streaked inside his coat and reappeared with a .45. Then he hesitated. He didn't shoot.

I didn't ask why he held his fire. I tackled him.

The thug wrapped his legs around me and swung at my head with the .45. We rolled over wild grass and brush as we wrestled. I captured his wrist and wrenched. I broke it. The sound was like a dry stick snapping. The thug moaned. I hit him twice and then crawled away.

He got up and kicked the Luger from my hand. I tripped him. He got up again, broken wrist dangling, and hit me with his good hand. He was tough. He kept coming. Finally I dropped him with a right cross.

His persistence was amazing. Once again he staggered to his feet.

I was getting tired. This was the most I had exerted myself since I'd been shot and I was feeling the drain on my energies. Compared to Joe, the Mighty Shang had been an easy mark.

"The party is over," I told him. I slid Hugo down into my palm. "I was saving you for talk, but I can change my mind."

Sunlight glinted on the stiletto's blade as I weaved toward him. Joe put up his good hand. "I'm not about to try to take that thing away from you. Let's talk."

"Which of you worked on Trudy?"

"The guy you kayoed. But I would have done it. Business is business."

I stepped closer and put the point of the knife to his Adam's apple. "Who's your boss?"

"Valante. Marco Valante."

"And what did you have to tell him the last time you reported?"

"That you're looking for a heist man named Moose. We got that from the girl. Valante told us to stick with you."

I gathered up the weapons, thrust his .45 in my belt, sheathed the stiletto, and marched him back to Shorty with the Luger against his spine.

Joe looked down at his partner. "He's going to have one hell of a headache tomorrow. Valante warned us you were no pushover."

"How long have you been tailing me?"

"We picked you up in L.A., but there's been somebody on you since you got out of that hospital. Valante kept switching the troops."

Valante was a clever man. If he had stuck with one set of soldiers, I'd have noticed them.

I flipped Shorty over and extracted the gun from his shoulder holster. I straightened up and looked at Joe, wondering how much he knew. He was a young, good-looking Italian, neatly and expensively dressed. I couldn't believe he was a run-of-the-mill thug. He was too cool, too tough, standing there with his broken wrist hanging but holding back any signs of pain except the lines tightening near his dark eyes.

"I'm flattered that Valante put your kind of talent on my tail. You must be his number one boy."

"I was until this happened. Maybe I won't be anymore."

"Who killed Meredith?" I asked the question suddenly, hoping to get a reaction that would tell me if he lied.

What I got was a puzzled scowl. He clasped his broken wrist to his belly, flinching slightly. "Who's Meredith?"

"He worked at a service station in Idaho. Someone cut his throat."

"Not me. Not anybody I know. Valante was in Idaho, but he didn't see any action. It was over when he got there. He found the girl dead and you shot up. Man, you know all this. Valante stopped you from bleeding to death."

"He had a use for me. He wanted to know what I'd found out."

It had worked, too. He'd had to wait until I left the hospital and give me a loose rein, but his boys had stayed with me long enough to obtain Moose's name. The way matters stood, my venture to L.A. had proved more profitable to the Mob than to me. Hawk wouldn't be very happy about that.

"Valante may have had his own reason for helping you, but you're still alive," Joe said. "I wouldn't knock it."

"How would you like to enjoy the same privilege?"

"Living, you mean?" He laughed nervously. "I've answered all your questions, man. What more do you want?"

"So far you've told me no big secrets. Nothing Valante would mind me knowing, considering the circumstances. The tough questions are coming up." I pointed the Luger at his heart. "Think carefully now. How did Valante know about me in the first place?"

"He went to a meeting of the board, the top men in the Organization. They talked about the Frank Abruze killing. Your name was laid on the table. The board voted to turn the matter over to Valante. He had a special interest. He and Abruze were close."

"There was another man in Bonham, Idaho. He went there to hit the girl. He tried to kill me." I held the Luger steady, still aiming at his heart "What do you know about Coogan?"

"The Mob didn't send him. They sent Valante."

"What will Valante do now?"

"I can't read his mind, man." Joe was beginning to speak in a tighter voice. "I can guess a part of it. He'll ask for a meeting of the board. He'll throw down Moose's name. The word will go out to every family in the country and they'll start combing the places where the crazy bastard could be hiding."

"I take it you'd heard of Moose before Trudy gave you his name."

"Just gossip. Talk of the trade. He's a psychopath. The Organization try to steer clear of his type these days. That's the reason he operates on his own. But word about a guy like that gets around."

"That's good, Joe. You've been a lot of help." My lips peeled back from my teeth in a cold smile. "There's just one more point to cover. Which one of you tried to pick me off this morning?"

"Me or Shorty, you mean? Valante told us to stay with you, but we had no orders to make a hit. We didn't do it."

"Don't kid me, Joe. The man was a pro, like you."

Joe was sweating. "There's a joker in this deck somewhere. Meredith, Coogan — those aren't people I know anything about. The board didn't want Abruze's girl friend dead before she'd sung them a song. I told you my orders from Valante. He said stay with this guy Carter, he's smart, he may help us to find the Moose. He said I wasn't to plug you unless it became absolutely necessary. Didn't I have a chance just a little while ago?"

"Yeah," I said. "Sure, you did And you're right. There is a joker in the deck."

There had been one there ever since Bonham. A man who knew what the Mafia knew and a lot about AXE. A man who had hired Coogan, slit Meredith's throat, and set the trap for me at the motel. I lowered the Luger and left Joe and his unconscious companion on the hillside. I paid the wide-eyed attendant for the gas he'd pumped into the Ford. Then I raised the hood of the Buick and ripped out the wiring.

"They'll be along," I said. But they wouldn't get away from the station in time to catch up with me.

I drove the rest of the 110 miles to San Diego with the speedometer needle steady on the limit. By noon I was within sight of the bay. Circling gulls rode the wind with stylish grace.

While I ate a hurried lunch, I made my plans. I had to call Hawk. There was something I wanted him to have AXE sources check out.

But first there was Therese, who had inspired the second glowing passage in Moose's black book. By now I knew all the telephone numbers in the book by heart I dialed. Therese's and talked to a woman with a whiskey voice.

She cut through the preliminaries. "You want a date with Therese?"

"Yeah." The question didn't surprise me. There was a strong possibility that every girl in the book was a hooker or a call girl.

"You got any special tastes, sweetheart?"

"I'd rather not discuss them on the telephone."

She laughed and gave me an address. It was in a rundown neighborhood near the waterfront, in the middle of a street that looked as inviting as a cellblock.