The Killer Touch (13 page)

A scream split the night air. Burt lunged and jammed his shoulder into Rolf's stomach. The gun exploded and spat a yellow tongue of flame which burned Burt's cheek. Rolf fell back against the ledge; the ancient mortar crumbled. Rolf teetered a moment, then disappeared.

The scream came again and again; the senseless ululation of a woman in terror. Burt left the tower and ran downhill, falling once in a headlong dive, peeling the skin off one forearm. He reached the club as the screaming changed to a low, sobbing moan. He saw Joss staring at the bench. There sat Boris with his whispy goatee on his chest, his eyes half-closed, staring at the floor with a morose, pensive expression. But he was neither morose nor pensive; he was dead. The cutlass had been swung with tremendous force, lopping off his right arm at the elbow and penetrating three inches into his side. The redhead's body was gone.

“Burt … Oh, Burt. Look, I woke up and I … I …”

She was suddenly sick on the floor. Burt saw Godfrey and Coco standing white-eyed beside the bar.

“Coco, you and Godfrey run up the hill and start a signal fire. We'll need—”

“Hold it. Nobody leaves.”

Burt turned to see Ace holding the over-under gun. Hoke stood beside him with the shotgun resting on the railing.

“Let's have your gun, bird lover. Lay it on the floor and step back.” When Burt hesitated, Ace said: “These shotguns throw a helluva shower of lead. If we didn't get you we'd get the lady or one of the niggers.”

Burt did as he was ordered; Ace came forward, picked up the gun, and shoved it in his pocket. He jerked his head toward the body of Boris. “His own fault he got it. I thought I hit him hard enough to lay him out for a hour. But he woke up and jumped me.” Ace touched a purple swelling above his eye. “I had to kill him. I was told to get rid of the body without being seen.”

“Rolf's orders?” asked Burt.

Ace gave a twisted smile. “Did you think Bunny was running it?” He stepped back to the railing. “All right. Everybody on the floor, flat on your backs with hands above your head.”

Everyone obeyed except Burt. Ace jabbed the gun in his direction. “You too, birdman. You ain't privileged.”

“How do you know I'm not?”

Ace glared at Burt, then called over his shoulder. “Hoke, go find the boss. I wanta know what he wants done with this character.”

“Kill him,” said a voice from the darkness.

A second later Rolf stepped into the club. His clothes were torn. Blood ran from a long cut across his forehead and dripped from dirt-crusted eyebrows. He was holding his right forearm in his left hand, and Burt saw that his wrist was impossibly twisted. His mouth was open, his lips drawn back so tightly that a white rim showed around them. Each perfect white tooth had an outline of blood, and his eyes held a remote, glassy look. It was obvious that Rolf had lost the hard glaze of self-control.

“Did you hear me? I said
kill him!”

Ace lifted the rifle. “Sure. You mean, right here?”

“Didn't I say—? No, wait.” Rolf strode to the body of Boris and jerked out the cutlass. It made a soft sucking sound. Joss moaned and closed her eyes.

Burt backed away as Rolf approached. Why didn't those idiots run, Coco and Godfrey? No, they had to lie and gape like a pair of fools and Joss was out cold—

His back struck the bar just as Rolf swung the cutlass high over his head with his left hand. Burt leaped aside and the cutlass buried itself in the mahogany rim. Rolf tugged at it frantically with one hand. He seemed crazed with pain, half-sobbing the words: “—I gave you a chance, I tried to be friends, I asked you to come in with me—”

“Rolf, listen—”

He raised the cutlass again. “—you tried to kill me, broke my arm—”

“—and hid your diamonds!”

Crash! The cutlass gouged a two-foot splinter from the bar. Ace ran up and seized Rolf's arm. “Boss, listen! Listen to what he said!”

Rolf shook free, started to swing again, then stopped and gazed around the room as though he'd just awakened from a long sleep. He blinked at Ace. “What?”

“He said something about the diamonds.”

Rolf looked at Burt. He was breathing heavily, but the glaze was gone from his eyes. “You found them?”

“And stashed them again. If you kill me you'll never find them.”

“Hoke, go check the barrel.” The big man left, and Rolf tossed the cutlass to the floor. “Cover these people, Ace, especially him.” He walked over to Godfrey and jammed a toe in his ribs. “Get me a pan of water and a cloth.”

The boy scrambled toward the kitchen. Rolf slumped in a chair and passed a shaky hand across his forehead. He moved his wrist slightly and went pale.

“Broken, I think. I'll have Bunny splint it.”

Godfrey brought the water and stood holding it with hands which trembled so violently that the water rippled and splashed. Burt felt dismay as he watched Rolf calmly wash the blood and dirt from his face. The others had missed their chance; now Rolf was once again in control of himself.

“I'm glad you stopped me, March. That isn't my scene, to kill in anger. I must have lost my head while I was wedged in that crevice below the tower.” He rinsed out the cloth and watched the water turn a dirty brown. “I like to talk to a man, learn how his mind works, learn some of his background. Then when I kill, I am he. I am both victim and killer. Maybe I have a drive toward suicide, since I tend to identify with the victim. Fortunately my survival drive is stronger—”

Hoke clomped onto the plank floor of the club. “The box ain't there.”

Rolf closed his eyes, then looked at Burt. “You're spoiling my time-table, and this makes me angry. Better tell where it is.”

“I'll mail you a postcard from the States.”

Rolf smiled thinly. “That earns you a few more hours of life, Burt. But you won't enjoy them.” He waved at Ace. “Take him to cabin two. Then wake up Bunny. She'll enjoy this bit.”

Burt walked ahead, listening to the footsteps of Ace and Rolf behind him. They were away from the club now, entering the deep velvet shadow beneath the palms. Burt took a deep breath, then took off in a low crouch. He heard Rolf shouting behind him: “Don't shoot! Don't shoot!” He veered off into the low bush between the cabins, saw a white shape loom in front of him. He tried to sheer off, but his weak leg buckled and he crashed against the figure. He heard Bunny's high squeal of surprise, then they were both on the ground and Burt was entangled in perfumed limbs, trying to fight free of her beach coat. Something struck him behind the ear, so heavy and solid that he knew, in his last moment of awareness, that he'd been clubbed by a shotgun butt.

NINE

“Take off his shirt, Bunny.”

Rolf's voice dipped into the well of unconsciousness and drew Burt upward. He felt fingers clutching at his shirt like a tiny trembling animal. He caught the aroma of perfume and another heavy, musty odor. His chest was laid bare and caressed by the quick moist breath of the woman. Her fingertips left damp tingling tracks on his flesh and he could smell the high electric tang of her sweat. She was trembling, excited at this approaching opportunity to mortify a man's flesh. Her nails raked his shoulders needlessly as she pulled the shirt from beneath him; he heard the voiced exhalation from her nostrils and felt his stomach harden.

“I think,” said Rolf musingly, “that I will let Ace begin.”

“But he ain't awake.”

“He'll wake up when you begin.”

Still Burt kept his eyes closed. A spot of warmth touched his stomach, then pain gouged his nerves and ripped a blazing path to his heart. His eyes flew open; he saw Ace with sweat beading his forehead, bending over him with a lighted cigarette. Bunny knelt on the other side, her lips slightly open. She was bent forward at the waist, pressing her palms to her stomach as though in pain. Rolf sat in a chair and looked down at Burt through half-closed lids. His taped wrist hung from a sling around his neck.

“What did you do with her?” asked Burt.

Rolf raised his brows. “Typical cop. With his first breath, lying flat on his back, he begins the interrogation.” He paused. “Do with whom?”

“With your wife.”

“You've got a problem, haven't you, Burt? Can't you get my wife off your mind? Okay, let's trade information. I'll tell you where she is, and you tell me where the diamonds are.”

Burt shook his head, and Rolf waved his hand at Ace. “Go on. Who told you to stop?”

Again came the fiery jolt of pain, and it took all Burt's energy to keep from crying out. He sent out the tendrils of his thought, gathered up a thousand red-hot needles of pain and drew them up into his brain. He compressed them into a ball and probed it, gauged it, rolled it around, felt it loosen up and flow through his mind with a syrupy sweetness. His fingertips went hot and tingling, as though they were shooting off electricity. The room rippled in the yellow lamplight, then resolved itself into a pattern of glowing lines. The lines dissolved and flowed into a redness so brilliant it hurt his brain; the redness became purple, then green, blue and yellow, as though a series of colored silk veils were being drawn across his eyes. He felt himself sinking into a sweet, warm bath. He was a mind and no more; his body was cold unfeeling clay.

Rolf's voice reached down again:

“I envy you, Burt. I don't fear death, but pain drives me insane. How can you ignore it?”

Burt fought to avoid returning, but the act of fighting defeated him. His chest felt as though a thousand burning splinters were stuck into it. The concrete floor beneath his bare back was slick and cold with his sweat.

“You don't … ignore it,” he gasped. “You … change it.”

“Interesting,” Rolf mused. “Hold on a second, Ace. I've got an idea. Bunny, go get that overgrown adolescent, the daughter of the cleaning woman.”

Burt tried to sit up, but his hands were bound above his head and anchored to something immovable. His feet were stretched wide apart and tied to the bedposts. He was trussed up like Gulliver in Lilliput. He lay back amid a fresh outpouring of sweat.

“What … do you want with her?”

Rolf smiled at him. “Obviously pain isn't your weakness. But you have another vulnerable point; you're emotionally hung up with other people.” Rolf laughed. “That's a weakness I don't have. Go on, Bunny.”

The woman sighed and rose from her knees. “You've hardly started with him.”

“He won't talk, Bunny. Keeping quiet is his life insurance.”

“Can't Ace go?”

“Go, dammit! You won't miss anything.”

When the door closed behind her, Rolf waved to Ace. “Light another cigarette.”

Ace frowned. “I don't get it. You said—”

“I said he wouldn't talk. From March I want something else.”

“This is crazy,” grumbled Ace as he lit a new cigarette off the old one. “What else can you get out of him?”

“He knows. Don't you, Burt?”

The pain came again, and through a mist of shifting colors, Burt thought: Sure I know. You want to hear me yell and plead. But when I do you'll lose interest in me; you'll be disappointed because another person had turned out to be weak and controllable. And you'll go on looking until you find a man who's stronger than you, and you'll say to him what you've been saying to everybody else. Kill me if you can. And you'll be relieved as hell when it finally happens …

The pain was gone, and Burt heard Rolf repeating his question. “You know what I want, Burt?”

Burt said, “You want to make me mad.”

“Oh, very good, And why?”

“So … so I'll try to kill you.” He tugged at the ropes. “Turn me loose and I'll give you a show.”

“Not yet, March. You'd mark me, and I have to meet some people tonight. After that … there's nothing I enjoy more than a fight to the death.”

Burt curled his lip. “You and a lot of other people. As long as there's some guarantee it won't be your death.”

“I can guarantee that myself,” said Rolf.

“You … you're disgusting, Rolf. You strip yourself of ten thousand years' civilization and call yourself a higher being. You're a throwback; your only advantage is that other people are civilized. In a primitive society the tribe would've stoned you to death.”

“Or made me king,” said Rolf quietly. “Let's leave off the cigarettes, Ace. The smell of burning flesh is beginning to annoy me.”

Ace sat back on his haunches. “I watched him in the club while I waited to snatch Charlie's body. Rats drive him nuts.”

“Do they?” Rolf eyed Burt a moment, then shook his head. “No, it would require too much apparatus; a live, starving rat and a metal box. Besides, the idea of using animals to torture men offends me somehow. Only man has earned that privilege—”

A scream of pain cut him off. Burt stiffened, then realized it was a man's voice. The scream came again; faded to a low sobbing moan. Rolf looked at Ace and jerked his head toward the door. “Get him quiet.”

After Ace had gone, Burt said, “Charlie's nightmare is still around, it seems.”

Rolf frowned. “Another hitch in the plan, I'm afraid. We had a young man driving the car. He caught a bullet from one of the ambassador's bodyguards.”

Ace came in panting. “He's out of his head, boss. I found him outside; he didn't know he was on an island. He was gonna give himself up and get a doctor to look at him.” Ace shrugged. “He pulled the bandage off and got the blood going again. I don't think he'll make it through the day.”

Rolf chewed his lip a moment, then stood up. “Stay with March. I'll see if I can help the kid.”

Ace sat on the bed and smoked in short, nervous puffs. Burt watched him, reflecting that Bunny had been gone a long time. He hoped Maudie had followed orders and gone to the cave.