The Nicholas Linnear Novels (133 page)

Croaker looked both ways before he reached again for her hand. But Alix was shaking her head. “No,” she said, “I can’t go on. It’s useless. Like you said, wherever we run, he’ll find us.”

“Get up!” he said fiercely.

She shook her head again, her spun-gold hair obscuring her face. “It’s no good. I haven’t got the strength.”

“Well, for the love of God find some!” he hissed at her, bending over and hauling her to her feet.

“I’m tired, Lew.” Her eyes were hooded. “I just want to sleep.”

He saw the lassitude flooding her body and wondered if this was how she had felt in the moments before she had hurled her body into the turquoise ocean that day aboard her boat.

He grabbed her cheeks in the pincer of his thumb and massed fingers. “Listen, you,” he said, his face close to hers, “you’ll sleep when I tell you to and not a minute before.”

“Christ!” she cried, teary-eyed, “you’re a goddamned knight without a lady. Can’t you see that I just don’t care anymore?”

“But I do!” He jerked at her. “Now come on!” He skidded them to the left as another bullet whined into the stone just behind them and to the right.

“What’s the use,” she said as they ran. “He’s got the gun.”

“Yeah, I noticed that.”

“I hate guns,” she said.

And Croaker had to laugh. “Yeah,” he said. “Me, too. Especially when I don’t have one.” But the fact was that she was right. The Blue Monster had an edge Croaker could not possibly overcome. A gun against nothing, not a particularly fair fight. But then nothing much was fair in life anyway.

As he ran he recalled Nicholas telling him that he had never used a gun. Yet Croaker knew his friend to be one of the most dangerous men on earth. What, then, was his secret? When he had asked Nicholas that question he had merely smiled enigmatically and said, “There are ways.”

Now what the hell did he mean by that? Croaker wondered. I sure could use one of those secrets now. As the third shot rang out, barely missing him, he berated himself, Think! Use the brain your old man bequeathed you!

There was nothing around them but stone, metal, and glass. What could he…Ah! He had it! There was no time to think of whether or not it was a good idea; it was the only one he had and the Blue Monster was right behind them, closing in for the kill.

He ducked them around a corner, dropped Alix’s hand, and sprinted ahead. Just around another right-angle turn, he slid to a stop and pulled his shirt over his head. Wrapping it around his left hand, he shot the swathed fist forward into a sheet of glass.

Alix gasped at the sound as she came hurtling around the corner. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Get back there!” he said, waving her behind him. “As far as you can without losing sight of me.” Alix did as she was bade and he knelt down, searching among the glitter of glass shards. Somewhere in the dim recesses of the store a ringing was sounding and he knew that this was strictly shut-ended now because as soon as he had tripped the alarm by breaking the window, a new element had been added: the police. And he had as much stake in keeping them out of this as the Blue Monster had.

Croaker found what he needed, both pieces, one a narrow, long strip, the second a shorter, jagged one. With extreme care, he placed the smaller piece in his right hand, keeping the razor-sharp edges away from the web of his hand. Now he took up the larger piece in his wrapped left hand.

He moved to the inner edge of the corner, keeping his body flat against the column and away from the bright fingers of shattered glass still in the windowframe.

Now came the moment of truth. He could stick his head out to see where the Blue Monster was like all the cops on TV did. But then he’d probably get his head shot off; the Blue Monster wasn’t firing blanks. Real life presented problems Hollywood scriptwriters never seemed to address.

“Hey, buddy!” he called from his place of concealment. “It’s all over. The cops’ll be here any minute! You’d better be six miles away from here by then!”

“You ’n’ me both,” came the voice from around the corner and Croaker thought, I’ve got him!, using the aural fix and bringing his left hand back in a tensed arc, the muscles quivering with the strain of anticipating the hairtrigger release, the forebrain acknowledging the existence of only one chance.

Then Croaker was holding his breath, striding his left leg forward in a blur, shooting his upper torso forward, closing his mind to the thought of himself as a target and the forearm already coming forward with rocketing speed, the swathed fingers releasing their burden at the far apex of the arc when momentum combined with Croaker’s own strength to turn the shard of glass into a glittering missile.

“That’s what you think, buddy!” Let it all out in a harsh rush, providing twin stimuli for the Blue Monster’s brain to chew on during this moment of extreme stress.

He saw a blurred glimpse of the Blue Monster jerking back at the sight and sound, the glass shard already upon him, cracking in two across the bridge of his nose.

Croaker had no time to wish that his aim had been more accurate. Blood was streaming from the Blue Monster’s face and both his hands were up, trying to free his vision.

But there was nothing at all wrong with his hearing and his gun hand leveled on Croaker’s stomach as he heard his adversary coming on. He squeezed off one shot, two, then swung the barrel of the gun into the oncoming head.

It was a lucky blow, coming in blind as it did, landing just behind Croaker’s left ear. Croaker staggered, off balance from having swerved away from the gunshots, in the midst of transferring the smaller shard of glass from his right hand to his left, missing the first stab. Now at close range with the Blue Monster’s sight back he could imagine the hole the .357 slug would tear into him. There wouldn’t be much left of his insides.

And as the Blue Monster’s finger began to squeeze the trigger Croaker put aside the pain flashing through his head and through sheer force of will made his motor functions return to life, swinging his left arm in a shallow arc inside the muzzle of the pistol, stabbing inward and up with all his might.

He gave a mighty groan at the pain that shot through him and dimly he felt flesh and sinew giving way beneath the pressure he was exerting as he jammed the glass shard into the Blue Monster’s chest. Blood flowed from his own palm, mingling with that of the Blue Monster.

He pushed at the body as the gun went off in reflexive response, scattering plaster off the ceiling high above. Croaker became aware of something pulling at his arm, soft breath on his cheek, and a voice, as insistent as a bee, in his ear.

“Come on!” Alix begged him, pulling at him desperately. “Oh, God, Lew, they’ll be here any second!”

He rolled heavily, only dimly aware of who she was and why she was bothering him now when he was so tired and only wanted to close his eyes and…Get up! his mind screamed at him. Get her out of here before it’s too late! Too late for what…Just want to turn over and close my eyes and…For God’s sake stay awake!

On his hands and knees now, bleeding all over the clean, shiny surface of the arcade floor, Alix tugging at his arm, pulling him dizzily upward, the corridor beginning to be bathed in pulsing crimson light, the sounds of sirens blossoming in his ears. He turned with her now, allowing her to head him out of the labyrinth, loping, willing his stiff legs to work, trying to ignore the pounding in his head, the roar of his own pulse, the acrid coppery taste in his mouth making him want to gag.

Red, black, red, the illumination revolving, until gradually the red began to grow dimmer and then he felt the cool incredibly soft night breeze on his hot cheeks and he had the presence of mind to tell her, “Keys. Alix, get the goddamned car keys!”

Nangi turned his torso over in the bed, ignoring his useless legs. He reached out in the darkness and touched the slim shoulder of the second Chinese girl on the beach. Nangi shook her with some power. He leaned his head in toward the curtain of night-black hair and said, “Wake up, sleepy one,” directly into the hollow of her ear. He was greeted with nothing more articulate than a snore.

He rolled away from her and sat up. Good. The bit of white powder, tasteless and odorless, he had put in her champagne had done its work nicely. Now it was time to go to work.

The villa was silent as he quickly dressed in shirt and trousers. He left off his shoes and socks, transferring several small objects from a deep pouch hidden within the silk folds of the lining of his suit jacket into his trousers’ pocket.

Across the room, ribboned in bluish shadow, he took up his walking stick and carefully opened the door. The hallway was dark and silent and slowly he crept awkwardly along it, turning his mind from thoughts of powerful athlete’s legs, which in this situation would have served him in good stead.

When he reached the closed door behind which Liu and the tall girl had disappeared not more than fifteen minutes ago, he paused. Unscrewing the white jade dragon at the head of his walking stick, he inserted one of the small objects in his pocket. He pressed a stud, peered at the inside mechanism, satisfying himself as to its working order, and slowly, using infinite care, turned the knob on the door before him. He froze as a sliver of pink lamplight slithered out the tiny crack between door and frame.

When nothing further occurred, he continued pushing the door inward. It was time to see if the sensation he had picked up from Liu at the moment he watched the tall girl earlier on the veranda had any validity. Now he could discern the faint, floating lilt of the Chinese. Surprisingly, it was not Cantonese. Nangi had enough ongoing business in Hong Kong so that he had made himself learn the language because he never quite felt secure leaving his business fate to interpreters. But this was a dialect he was not familiar with.

It was not so much that Liu would be speaking it. He was a Communist Chinese from the mainland, where Cantonese was certainly not the lingua franca. But these two beach girls—surely they were local. Of course they could be Chiu Chow or originally from any number of other provinces. But still…

Nangi set his walking stick, point first, along the carpeted floor and slowly slid it through the gap in the door, extending it to its full length. Then he settled himself to listen. After a long while he picked up a word he knew and his heart began to race. But cautious man that he was, he waited for another word or phrase that would give him confirmation.

When it finally came, he gave a tiny inward sigh. They were speaking Mandarin, there was no doubt of it. It was extremely unlikely that Liu would find a street girl in the Crown Colony whose native tongue was the same as his own.

Nangi, crouched uncomfortably in the hallway, waited patiently through the grunting coupling and the languid aftermath when the conversation picked up again. When at last he heard the soft slide of bedsheets, he withdrew his walking stick. The barely discernable pad of bare feet came to him as he was closing the door, forcing himself to do it slowly, a millimeter at a time, lest either of the occupants discover the movement.

At last he rose and went down the corridor to the back of the villa. There he opened the door and went out. Earlier in the evening the stars had been visible but now the clouds had come, occluding all light. The air was heavy with incipient rain as he took out a cigarette and lit it. He took the smoke deep into his lungs, let it out with a long, satisfied sigh. Then he threw the thing into the sand and went down the stone steps and across the winding road.

Within the deep shadows along the far verge he found the small red Alfa run up beneath a pair of enormous leafy trees.

“You’re going to catch your death of cold,” he said in idiomatic Cantonese.

“Eh?” The driver of the car turned his head as if he was only now aware of Nangi’s presence.

“It’s going to rain in a moment,” Nangi went on. He gestured toward the car. “You’d better get the top up.”

They watched each other for a moment, a pair of wary animals about to enter into a contest of territory.

“I fear you’ve picked the wrong car to follow anybody in.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man said, using the most abusive inflection.

Nangi bent down so fast the other man had no time to react. They were face to face. “I know who you are,” Nangi said in a rush, “or, rather,
what
you are. Either the Communists hired you—”

“I spit on the Communists,” the man broke in.

“Then you’re working for Sato.”

“Never heard of him.”

“I’m the one who’ll pay you, eventually.”

The whites of the man’s eyes took on a slight sheen as they shifted toward Nangi. “Are you telling me he won’t come through with the rest?”

“What I’m saying is this. You do what I tell you from now on and I won’t inform Mr. Sato of your clumsiness.”

“What are you talking about?” the man protested. “D’you think those sea snakes know I’m here? They damn well don’t.”

“But I do,” Nangi said. “And you were hired to follow me.”

“What if I was?”

“Let’s see if you’re really any good,” Nangi said, unscrewing the head of his walking stick. He extracted a small plastic cassette and held it in his palm like a priceless jewel. “Can you speak Mandarin?”

The man looked up at him. “No sweat.”

“‘No sweat’? What books have you been into?”

“I read Raymond Chandler.”

Oh, Madonna! Nangi thought. He probably thinks of himself as a private eye. He gave the man a judicious look, wondering whether or not he could trust him.

“Listen,” the man said, shifting uncomfortably in his leather bucket seat. “Give me the tape, I’ll get it done. You want it first thing in the morning, that’s exactly when you’ll get it.” He glanced upward. “The gods assure it. Look. It hasn’t rained here in three weeks. Now the heavens are about to open. Guaranteed.”

“All right,” Nangi said, making his decision. He didn’t see that he had much choice. He did not want to involve Allan Su at this stage and there seemed to be no other alternative. He dropped the microcassette into the other man’s palm. “Bring it to my room at the Mandarin at seven
A.M.
That give you enough time?”