The Simeon Chamber (23 page)

Before leaving Angie’s he had tried to call Jake Carns, but there was no answer at his apartment. Nick wondered if the urgent message he’d left at the gym would be delivered when Jake arrived there. He considered the punch-drunk quality of the voice on the other end of the phone and had his doubts. Sam would kill him if he called the cops. Except for the nervous tone in the girl’s voice and the abrupt end to her earlier telephone conversation there was no concrete information that anything was wrong. Maybe her uncle had remembered something. But Nick’s skepticism was growing by the minute.

As he stood at the back door to the shop he checked his watch under the dim light overhead:

8:08 P.M. Jeannette and anyone else who was visiting her wouldn’t be expecting him for at least another hour. If she and her uncle were alone Nick would suffer some mild embarrassment, entering unannounced through the rear of the shop, tire iron in hand. If his suspicions were correct he would at least have the element of surprise. He tried the handle of the door. It was locked. To the left was a window open several inches at the bottom, its exterior guarded by a light metal grating. Nick put his fingers through the expanded metal of the security screen and felt it give a little in the casement of the window as he pulled. Carefully he slid the tire iron under one edge of the steel latticework and held his breath for an instant, tensed his muscles and gave a sharp jerk. The grating came free from the wall and Nick trapped it with his chest against the bricks to keep it from clanging to the ground. A minute later he stood inside the rear workshop of the Jade House. He brushed dust from his clothing and closed the window behind him.

There were voices upstairs. Nick 279

couldn’t make out the words, only the resonant sounds of loud talking. He looked toward the stairs that led to the second story and then moved quickly around the workbench and the half-assembled items of furniture stacked on it. Carefully he peered through the curtain separating the public part of the shop from the work area.

There was no movement in the shop. The only light came from street lamps outside at the front of the building. Nick’s vision had adjusted to the darkness of the alley, and in the relative brightness from the lights that streamed through the windows of the shop he could see the rows of merchandise. The image of a bearded gnome peered from the headstand of an antique bed, its features carved in deep relief, taking on a nightmarish quality in the half-light. In a crouch Nick moved down the main aisle toward the front door. He worked his way around the edge of a large dining table that protruded out into the passageway.

Jorgensen generally flaunted his beer belly and rotund form. It had become an intimate part of his personality. On the theory that everyone loves a fat man, he made the most of what others might view as a disability. But inside the round form was another body, more athletic and, when required, deceptively agile.

He positioned himself behind a small rosewood love seat in one of the large display windows at the front of the shop and peered out at the limousine parked just beyond the lights across the intersection where Chinatown Lane joined a main thoroughfare. The front chauffeur’s compartment was empty. He placed one knee on the raised platform of the shop window for a better view but his eyes still couldn’t penetrate the privacy windows of the limousine.

As he backed away from the window he felt something underfoot, something soft and alive—it oozed under the sole of his shoe like a small animal crushed and rolled by his weight. Nick froze, motionless, in front of the door at the entrance to the shop and looked down. In the fingers of light streaming through the window he saw a grotesque slice of pink-white flesh trapped under his shoe. Recoiling in horror, he stepped back several feet and stared wide-eyed like a frozen fish at the object on the floor. It had no form; an amorphous slab of putrid skin, marked only by the dust left by his shoe. For several seconds he studied it from a distance and then drew 281

closer for a better look. As he did he observed that the object did have a form after all.

It had been more than twenty years since he’d seen one. It was amateur theater, but he remembered the uncanny effect—the transformation from mop-haired student to the imposing figure and Yul Brynner-like baldness of the King of Siam.

Nick reached down and carefully picked up the skull cap. Like the skin of a snake, the illusion of a slimy surface evaporated immediately on touch. The live rubber was dry, almost adhesive in its quality.

Clutching the tire iron, Nick moved quickly down the aisle toward the workshop at the back of the building.

Once behind the curtain he waited for several moments to allow his eyes to adjust to the darkness and concentrated on the sounds upstairs. He could distinguish several voices—a man and a woman and then another voice. He listened for several seconds but could not make out the words. Slowly he inched his way to the steps and began to climb toward the voices above.

Nick pressed his ear to the door and struggled to decipher words. The voices came from somewhere in another room deeper in the interior of the living quarters. With the tire iron in his left hand he grasped the handle of the doorknob with his right.

Turning the knob with the respect one would normally reserve for the clock fuse of a bomb. Nick delicately twisted, half expecting the door to be locked. It turned, and a slight crack in the door sent a shaft of brilliant light piercing down the stairway.

He was committed, there was no turning back now. He just wished that he had Jake standing behind him, or better yet, in front of him.

The voices were now clearly audible. The two men were engaged in a heated argument. A woman pleaded with one of them to stop. Nick knew that the din of the voices would cover any noise he might make opening the door. He pushed it and walked into the well-lit room at the head of the stairs.

It was a broad hallway with rooms at each end. The floor was covered with a Persian rug that served to muffle the sound of his footsteps. To the right the volume of the voices grew louder. Nick could see the shadows of figures through the half-open door at the end of the hall. He pressed himself against the wall directly across from the 3

stairs and inched his way toward the open door.

“I know who your boss is. He killed my brother and his wife. You think that I am going to help you? You are wrong. Go ahead and kill me. You will get nothing from me.” There was a strong French accent to the words.

“Please leave him alone. He’s an old man. Can’t you see that?”

Nick recognized the voice of the woman from his earlier telephone conversation. It was Jeannette Lamonge. He gripped the tire iron with both hands and moved closer to the door. He was now only inches from the opening to the room.

“I know that if he doesn’t tell me what I want to know he’s not gonna get any older. I’m only gonna ask you one more time. Then I’m gonna have some fun. What did you tell the lawyer?” The voice was raspy, the tone menacing. “The truth old man …”

“Or what?” asked the Frenchman.

There wasn’t the slightest hesitation. “I was hoping you’d ask.” There was a shrill cry from Jeannette as the shadows on the wall danced, and Nick heard the tearing of fabric.

“Leave her alone,” said the Frenchman. “She knows nothing.”

“That may be, but she’s got a nice little set of jugs, don’t you think? This is gonna be more fun than I thought. Let me ask you—does that thing really `cross your heart` or is that just Madison Avenue hype? Do you want to take it off, or should I?”

“Let me go.” From beginning to end Jeannette’s voice rose a full octave in the three words.

“Ah. You want me to do it. How sweet.”

There was a sharp snap of elastic, and Nick knew that Jeannette Lamonge no longer wore a bra. A muffled cry was followed by sobbing.

“That’s better. Don’t you think? My goodness, quite a mouthful there.”

“Very well,” the Frenchman broke. “I showed him the letter.”

“Excuse me. What was that? Oh yes. i got so caught up in my work I almost forgot what we were talking about. Where were we? Let’s see, we were talking about your conversation with the lawyer. You showed him a letter? What letter was that?”

Lamonge hesitated.

“Shall we try for the pants now, 5

sweetheart?”

“The letter from the Germans,” said the Frenchman.

“Don’t say another word …” The woman’s voice was choked off as her shadow again moved on the wall opposite the open door.

Nick knew he had to move quickly. He had no idea whether the man holding Jeannette would see him when he looked around the frame of the door —or whether he was armed. If Jorgensen barged into the room and the man had a gun Nick could get all three of them killed.

He turned and pressed the front of his body tightly to the wall, his head turned toward the frame of the door. His right eye cleared the doorjamb and he found himself looking at what under any other circumstances would have been a comical scene. A tall, burly man stood in the center of the room, his back to the door. He was clothed in a white dress that ended at mid-calf. Below the hemline one pant leg had unraveled over the man’s bare feet. Nick remained pressed to the wall, his body motionless as his mind began to fit the pieces of the puzzle into place. He looked at the black strip on the unfolding gray pant leg and suddenly it all made sense. The limousine’s chauffeur had paid a visit to Lamonge. The skull cap and the white dress were an incongruous disguise. Nick stared in stony silence at the back of the biggest Hare Krishna he’d ever seen.

The chauffeur stood ten feet away, hulking over Phillipe Lamonge, who was seated in a chair in front of him. He held Jeannette Lamonge, her neck in the crook of one of his massive arms. In the other hand was a four-inch blade sharpened on both edges and culminating in a needlelike point. The chauffeur toyed with the blade at the girl’s naked waist and dallied with the weapon toward her midsection and the button on her pants.

An instant later Lamonge made eye contact with Nick and nearly rose from the chair. Nick quickly brought his finger to his lips in a gesture for silence and the Frenchman settled back, returning his gaze to the chauffeur.

There was a clear path to the back of the big man if only he didn’t turn. If he moved or sensed Nick when he entered the room, it would be over for all of them. The large chauffeur would pulverize Nick, armed or not. The 7

old man and Jeannette would be of little help.

He guessed the man’s height at over six and a half feet and his weight at close to 250

pounds. With luck Nick would get one shot at the back of the man’s head with the tire iron. He would have to make it count.

“Where’s the letter?”

Lamonge looked to Nick and quickly his eyes darted back to the assailant who held his niece. He said nothing.

The chauffeur slipped the blade into the waistband of the girl’s pants. “Oh, good. I was hoping we would get to see more.” In one violent motion he thrust the blade out, away from her body, jerking the girl’s feet off the floor. A single button shot across the room like a bullet as the razor-sharp blade cut through the waistband. She struggled to free herself. The assailant quickly moved the blade to her midsection and slit the cloth holding the zipper. The pants fell loosely around the girl’s naked thighs, the fabric torn to the crotch.

“Very nice. Very nice indeed.” The chauffeur mimicked a good Cary Grant.

“The letter is in the desk drawer, there.”

Lamonge spoke quickly. His voice carried a tone of urgency.

“What letter? Oh that, yes. We’ll have to take a look at that in a moment, won’t we? After I’m finished here.” His hand caressed a bare thigh, moving upward to the buttock and the sheer panties that separated Jeannette Lamonge from total humiliation.

Nick looked down for an instant at the cold, hard steel in his hand, two feet in length with a slight bend at one end. He reassured himself. The tire iron could do the job. The only question now was whether he could.

With a single step he moved his body silently into the center of the doorway and gripped the iron with both hands. Each step was deliberate, in a direct line toward the man’s back. Moving like a tightrope walker, Nick closed half the distance to his target. It was imperative that the man not turn or move his arms. If he did he would block the blow and turn the attack into a wrestling match with little question as to the outcome.

Another step. Nick was nearly within striking distance. He raised the tire iron over his right shoulder with both hands on the handle. The 289

old man’s eyes opened wide as they darted to Nick and back to the chauffeur who held Jeannette by the throat in the crook of his massive arm. In another second the Frenchman’s expression would give him away.

“So round, so firm, so fully packed.” The chauffeur spouted a litany of advertising cliches as his hips gyrated in a circular motion, his pelvis grinding against the girl’s bare behind. He lifted her by the throat off her feet as she struggled with her legs to put distance between their midsections.

One more step. Each inch measured the difference between success and failure, life and death. He would get only one chance. It had to be a knockout blow. The chauffeur had to sense his presence. Why hadn’t he moved? The wide-eyed stare of Phillipe Lamonge flashed like a neon sign from the chair. Nick reached back with both hands, and with his arms coiled like springs he inched closer to his target, his gaze riveted on the back of the man’s head. Tensing the muscles in his stomach, Nick exploded, his arms bringing the tire iron over his shoulder in a high arc.

The tool was at the apex of his swing when the tip tangled in the cloth tassels of a Chinese lampshade that hung from the ceiling in the center of the room. The resistance of the material slowed his swing, and with the noise of the tearing tassels the big man instinctively flung Jeannette to the floor and in a single motion raised his right arm and shifted his body to one side.

There was a stifled cry of pain as the iron caught the man on the right shoulder, tearing through the thin fabric of the dress and culminating in a dull thud. The needle-sharp switchblade hit the floor and slid on polished hardwood under a sofa against the wall.