The Code (5 page)

She hesitated, then obeyed me. She slid under the steering wheel and over to the passenger's seat with her skirt climbing up her legs. I grinned at her, holstered the Luger, and got in. Then she punched her .38 into my ribs.

"I know this is a poor way to show my gratitude," she said, "but a girl has to look out for herself."

I had violated one of the longest-standing rules in my own book. A smart agent never holstered his gun while someone else was holding theirs. Now I was in what was at best an embarrassing position. At worst it could turn out to be fatal.

"I deserve this for being careless," I admitted to the girl who was nudging the revolver into my ribs, "but I would like to have it explained to me."

"The keys, Ned. I want the keys to your car. Then I want you to get out. I'm not going back to Bonham. Someone might be waiting for me there."

"You intend to ditch me and take off alone again?"

"I'll take my chances. I've survived so far."

"You'd have had a hell of a time surviving tonight if I hadn't shown up."

While I argued with her, I was assessing my situation. My right hand, the one nearest her, rested lightly on the steering wheel. I knew how fast I could bring that hand around in a karate blow that would strike Sheila Brant's lovely white throat like an executioner's ax. But I couldn't run the risk of serious injury to the girl, and also the blow might cause her to jerk the trigger of the revolver and piledrive a bullet into me at close range. I didn't like either of those possibilities.

Sheila's voice rose higher. "I'd rather not shoot you. But I'll do it if I have to."

"Shoot away, baby," I said. "I'm not giving you any keys."

We sat there, neither of us moving, while she decided if she was going to pull the trigger. I felt a tiny drop of sweat forming along my hairline.

I didn't know Sheila Brant well enough to place my life in her hands. She might have been involved in the death of AXE agent David Kirby; she might be panicky enough to kill me out of fright; hell, for all I knew, she hated all men and would enjoy sending a slug ripping into one. But I couldn't let her get away again. Inside her head was something I had to have, a secret so important that someone was determined to see that Sheila never shared it with AXE.

"You've got a lot of nerve," she said finally.

With a ragged sigh, she pulled the gun from my side and sank back against the seat. "I guess I'll have to string along with you. I don't seem to have what it takes to kill you."

"I'm glad to hear it." I took out my keys and turned the car around.

"Where are you going to take me?"

"Right now, back to Bonham. As soon as I can make proper arrangements, to a place where your life won't be in danger."

Bouncing across the field, I drove past Copper Beard, who had started to crawl toward his friends, dragging his wounded leg. Scarface was sitting at the side of the road cradling his broken arm and the man called Georgie lay curled in a motionless ball. A splendid group of All-American boys, I thought. As the car lurched across the ditch and into the highway, Sheila said, "Aren't you going to look at the man you shot, to see if he's dead?"

"No," I told her. "I know he's dead "

I gave the accelerator a shove and my battered car took off like a streak. The little AXE mechanic would have been proud of the way his baby had performed tonight, I thought. In fact, the car was about the only thing that had worked according to Hawk's well-laid plans.

I wanted to get Sheila to some secure spot under AXE jurisdiction, but first I had to call Hawk and set it up. I also had to find out what had happened to Meredith, why he had failed to show up at the hotel.

"I've never used this gun," Sheila said. "I never shot anyone. Maybe that's the reason I couldn't shoot you."

"I was hoping you had another reason. Like maybe you were growing fond of me."

"Not yet," she said. "But I suppose it could happen."

My hand touched her warm thigh. She didn't seem to mind. "Give me the gun," I said.

After a moment's hesitation, she dropped the weapon into my palm. A token of trust, I thought I was making some progress.

"Why do you want it?" she asked me.

"Just a precaution. In case you get panicky enough to point it at me again."

I slid the .38 in my left-hand pocket. The speedometer needle trembled on 70 as we raced back toward town.

"Those three men. Were they sent to kill me, Ned?"

"Their leader said no." I couldn't make out her expression in the shadowy car. "He said all they had in mind was a little friendly rape."

"And what do you have in mind for me?"

"Several things." I took a long curve without slackening speed. "Rape isn't one of them."

"Under the proper circumstances that wouldn't be necessary."

I grinned in the darkness. "How did you happen to hook up with Frank Abruze?"

"I was down and out in Vegas after failing to make it as a showgirl. He came along. He was old enough to be my father, but he had money."

"Did you know what line of business he was in?"

"I wasn't born yesterday." She was silent for a long moment. "There are a great many good-looking girls in Las Vegas scrambling for a break. I was just one of a crowd. When I found out my face wasn't my fortune, I started using my body."

I dimmed my lights as a Greyhound bus passed us, going the other way.

"I wish I was on that bus," Sheila said. "All right, Ned, I told you part of my story. Don't you think you ought to tell me yours?"

"Which part would you like first?"

"Who you are, why you came galloping out of nowhere and into my life, and how you happen to know about my relationship with Frank Abruze."

"Let's just say I work for an organization that's interested in locating Frank Abruze's killers."

"But you're not in the Mob." It was half a question.

"No. Maybe you remember a man named David Kirby. He was a friend of mine."

"I remember the name. He came to see Abruze. That happens to be all I know about your Mr. Kirby. I didn't ask Abruze questions about his business."

"Four people were killed in that cottage in the keys, but you walked out alive, Sheila. How did you manage it?"

She didn't answer me. Instead, she said, "You want me to finger the killers. In return, your organization will promise to protect me. Is that the deal?"

"That's the deal." I spotted the lights of Bonham ahead and slowed down. "What do you say?"

"I'll think it over."

"The way I see it, baby, you don't have any choice."

The town went to bed early. Only the restaurant, the bar, and the hotel remained open for business. I stopped at the darkened gas station. "What time do these people usually close?"

"Around eight o'clock. Why do you ask?"

That meant Meredith had been at least an hour and a half overdue before I left the hotel to chase the cyclists. With a flashlight in one hand and the Luger in the other, I got out of the car and prowled around the station. I finally found Meredith lying in a patch of weeds about fifteen steps beyond a pile of abandoned oil drums.

He had said he'd be careful, but he hadn't been careful enough. His throat was slashed.

Sheila came up behind me. She gasped when she saw the huddled body pinned in the beam of my light. "I know that man. He worked at the station."

I clicked off the light. "Yeah."

"But he hadn't worked here long. Who was he really, Ned?"

"Another friend of mine. He'd been watching you."

"And now he's dead." Her voice rode high, panic in it. "How are you going to protect me when your own people aren't safe?"

It was a fair question, I thought.

Sheila turned away from me and ran across a vacant lot, through knee-high weeds. Chances were she didn't know where she was going. She only knew that she wanted to get away.

I sprang after her. Wet weeds slapped my trouser legs as I ran. I could hear the girl's breath pumping loudly before I caught up with her. Lunging, I grabbed one of her arms and yanked her back toward me.

"Let me go," she panted, struggling. "I don't want your protection. I'm better off without it."

Her fingernails clawed for my face, but I caught her other wrist. Her breasts heaved against my chest and her breath was hot on my throat as she tried to wrench away. I wrapped my arms around her and forced her to stand motionless.

"Meredith made a mistake. I won't make one." I was talking softly, hoping to calm her. "I'll get you out of this town tonight. We'll go to your place and I'll make arrangements and then we'll put Bonham behind us."

"Ned." She spoke my name in a voice as low and as soft as mine. "I know what a man likes." Struggling no longer, she stood with her breasts against me, her thighs to mine. "I'll be nice to you. Oh, so very nice. But please let me go."

I wasn't insulted by her offer. She was desperate, and had resorted to her best pitch, and I couldn't blame her for that.

"You make it sound attractive. But my job is to find out what you know. I couldn't let you run off alone anyway. It would be throwing you to the wolves. Someone is very serious about putting you out of the way. Serious enough to knock off Meredith and to try to do the same with me. Serious enough to send an assassin after you, Sheila. I ran into him today in the hotel. He was packing a rifle and he intended to pick you off from a hotel window when you arrived for work."

She froze in my arms. "You think Abruze's killers did all that?"

"It figures. You are the only one who could identify them."

A bitter laugh spilled out of her. "I don't have the slightest idea who sent the assassin, but I can tell you one thing for certain. It wasn't the men who shot Frank Abruze and Kirby. No, indeed. They want me alive."

"Baby, you are full of little surprise." Fingers wound tightly around her wrist, I pulled her toward the car and shoved her into it.

I hated to leave Meredith's body where it was, but his killer might still be around, looking for us. I had to get the girl to a safe place as quickly as possible.

"Tell me about it, Sheila," I said as I started up the car.

"You won't be pleased."

"I probably won't. Tell me anyway."

"Frank Abruze didn't pick me up in Las Vegas by accident. I was introduced to him. This man I knew came to see me and said Abruze was in town and liked my type. He said he could arrange for us to get together. Which he did. Only later, after Frank decided he'd like to keep me around, this man got in touch with me again. He said I owed him and he was ready to collect."

"You think he planted you with Abruze so you could spy for him?"

"Something like that. He knew the Mafia was going to deliver $200,000 to Abruze at the cottage. He demanded that I let him know when the money arrived. He said it was going to be a holdup, but one one would get killed. I believed him. I was afraid he'd blow the whistle on me if I didn't do as he said. So I called him when the money got there."

I digested her story as I drove to her house.

"You know what I'm saying, don't you?" she asked in a savage voice. "You know what it meant when I made that call."

I unlocked the door of her house and put on the light in the living room. The Luger in my hand, I glanced around, then walked to the telephone.

"I set Abruze up," Sheila said. "They came and they killed him and his bodyguards and the man named Kirby. They shot them all. It was a slaughter."

"You didn't know what they were going to do," I told her.

I gave the long distance operator an emergency number. No matter where Hawk traveled, and that covered a lot of territory, the girl who answered the telephone at the emergency number knew how to get in touch with him quickly.

Sheila yanked open a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of bourbon. "I've told myself that. But it doesn't help a hell of a lot. Frank Abruze was a hood, but he treated me decently. I got him killed." She held up the bottle. "Do you want a shot of this?"

I shook my head. I had Hawk's girl on the line. I spoke the code words that assured her I wasn't an imposter, "Aberdeen blue." I told the girl I wanted to speak to the man.

"I'll relay the message, N3," she said in a crisp, efficient voice. "Give me your number and hang up. He'll call back within fifteen minutes."

"Hurry it up. Time is burning my coattails."

I hung up. Sheila had taken the bottle into the kitchen. I followed, and found her standing at the sink crying.

She rubbed at her eyes. She took down a tumbler, poured two fingers of bourbon and downed it like a drink of tea. "This Kirby. How well did you know him?"

"We were friends."

"He picked the wrong day to visit Frank Abruze." She dropped the glass and it splintered on the floor. She buried her face in my shirt front. "Who could have sent the assassin, Ned? The Mafia?"

"Maybe. Maybe they found out you set up their esteemed elder statesman."

"I was afraid they would. I was running from them and from Abruze's killers." Her fingers dug into my sleeves. "You blame me for those four deaths, don't you?"

"Not as much as you blame yourself."

She tugged at me, placed her mouth on mine. Her lips were warm. "Ned, take me to the bedroom."

"I'm waiting for a phone call."

"You've been thinking of making love to me. Do it now. I need it now."

It was true that the thought had occurred to me a few times. Like about a dozen. The first time had been when I saw her in the film Meredith had shot. But there were questions still unanswered between us.

I stroked Sheila's soft blonde hair. "Later."

"It would make me feel better. Please."

"Later," I promised again. To prove I meant it, I lowered my mouth to hers. I felt her moist lips part, felt her darting tongue. My hand crept up to cup her round breast. She was wearing no bra.