The Death Dealers Read online

  The one who let us in bowed, spoke a greeting in a terse tongue and led us to a table. I could feel the excitement going through Vey, saw it in the set of her shoulders and the sway of her hips. Her head bobbed to and fro with the tempo until she sat down and when I saw her face there was a wild exhilaration there.

  As lovely as she was, as many as were there, nobody turned to look at her. Every eye was riveted on the dancer that snaked her way across the floor, the last piece of her costume clutched in her hand like a token of victory. She was a big girl, lusty, heavyset, glistening with sweat that made her skin shine as she made every muscle in her body tremble to the increasing pace of the music. There were bells on her fingers and toes accentuating every studied movement, their tinkling almost too rapid to believe.

  Little by little the music reached a feverish pitch before it touched a climax of madness and left the dancer on her knees, body arched and her head nearly touching the ground while she performed the final ritual with no movement except the undulation of her stomach.

  The audience was explosively silent a moment, a hushed gasp of approval before they were back to reality. But they hardly had time to clap their appreciation before someone moved at a table and another woman was on the floor.

  This one was no professional, but as much a part of the performance as the other. She had been caught up in the wildness of the moment and it was coming out of her as she took the beat of the drum and began to writhe with some hidden ingenuity that belonged only to the few that had a complete understanding of the passion that flowed from the musicians behind her.

  Twice, she circled the small dance area before she made a languid move toward the buttons at the back of her dress. One by one she flipped them open, snaked herself out of the encumbrance, and stood there briefly, arms outstretched, her entire body a blur of motion. At the tables each pair of eyes took in every movement, nodding appreciatively at each new variation, waiting patiently for another development, and when she loosened her brassiere and let it fall there was a murmur of satisfaction.

  Nothing was disappointing about this one. She was full-blossomed, with breasts that were firm, individual things of beauty that gyrated in a dance all their own, flaring hips that twitched and jerked, and willowy legs that bent slowly until the floor was her bed and she was in the throes of some grandiose dream.

  Each second the music grew until her movements became spasmodic and a silent scream formed her mouth, eyes wide and glassy. Someone at the tables began throwing bills and others followed, bills of all denominations, some fluttering to drift lazily across her bare stomach, some to float carelessly to the floor. And once again the music ended in a wild, pulsating clash of brass and flutes with the drum a mad overtone behind it.

  Nobody clapped. It was as if they were drained of emotion. They sat there. while the dancer left the floor and another woman picked up the pieces of her clothing to take to her. I must have ordered drinks unconsciously because a waiter set down two on our table and picked up the bill I left there. Just as unconsciously Vey took hers, sipped from it as the band started again, then suddenly spilled it down her throat as if she were parched.

  Something had happened to her eyes. They were narrow slitted, the cant of them more pronounced. Her lips seemed fuller as if she had them between her teeth, and her breasts rose and fell deeply with each slow breath she took. A faraway flute came in then, the eerie sound of it muffled at first before becoming more pronounced. There were more bells, a cymbal, and some strange woodwind that called until it was heard. The lights changed, dimming to a pale blue, and those at the tables around the floor waited expectantly, knowing that it would happen, not impatient, just waiting.

  The flute called again and Vey Locca rose from her chair.

  I didn’t try to stop her.

  Hers was not a dance like the others. There was a blending of the cultures in this one, a new factor that was sensed at once. The mark of the Orient was there all right, the wild purity of each studied action belonged to a world far away, but it was the blending of the tribal rituals that made it so different.

  She stood in the middle of the floor, eyes closed, her mouth glossy wet and partly open, never seeming to move her feet, yet slowly going through a classic series of postures, each one designed to put the fire of the music, the heat of the dance inside you. Somehow the dress slipped down her shoulders, then with a shrug she dropped it and her breasts were bared, orange-tipped against nearly purple skin in the blue light.

  Under my feet I could feel the floor tremble as the audience tapped out the rhythm, bodies moving as Vey exposed each new delight to their rapt gaze. Slowly the dress fell further, then dropped down her hips as her torso bowed backward and her hair tumbled until it touched the floor.

  In her navel the blood-red ruby looked bloodier than ever as it winked its evil eye at the hundreds of eyes watching and as she turned I had the feeling that it was watching me alone.

  It was too intense a moment to prolong. It had to end and it stopped on a death note of the flute that drifted back into the shadow where it had emerged from. She didn’t walk away. She stood there long enough to slip her arms back into the dress and go through the conjurer’s motion that clothed her in a single instant. Only then did she walk out of the lights back to the table to the silent applause of the crowd that watched her.

  When she sat down her breath came fast, but not from the activity on the floor. There was more there and it showed in her eyes. She took the other drink I had ordered, swallowed thirstily without tasting it, and only then did she see me across the table and smile like a woman who has just been made love to.

  “You were great,” I said.

  Her tongue passed over her lips and she ran her fingers through her hair to make it swirl across her shoulder again. “It has been a long time,” she mused. “There are many things

  ... I have missed. You were truly pleased?”

  “Truly.”

  “I can .. , do better.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “But you will, my Tiger, I will dance alone for you one time. Soon.”

  The men on the bandstand left their places and others took over. There was still a foreign flavor in their renditions, but not the frantic passion there was before. Someone started singing, others joined in, then the calls for drinks had the waiters scurrying during the musical intermission.

  It was a stout bald-headed man who made me turn around. He shouted something in Greek, stood up and began to clap madly while the rest at his table took up the cheers. I had to lean out to see around them and spotted the loner at a tiny corner table hidden in the darkness. Whoever he was, he had the approval of one bunch anyway.

  The one handling the baby spots swung the fresh pink light his way and cut through the shadows and I could see him plainly, a sharp-featured guy under a shock of thick black hair with a drooping mustache dressed in a beat-up brown corduroy coat and turtle-necked sweater.

  For once the Greek turned to English as they started to shout, “Sing! Sing! The Bocallo ... sing!” clapping madly to make the guy turn on his voice. He waved them off with a faint smile, trying to get out of the lights, but they were too insistent. The stout Greek left his table, half ran to the comer and tried to pull the man to his feet, then turned around and yelled to his friends, “It is he! Paris, Madrid, Moscow...” The rest was lost in Greek, but the occasional words they spoke made it plain enough that they had a famous baritone among them.

  And this one wouldn’t sing.

  He couldn’t. He had a hole in his throat.

  I tore the .45 from my belt and cocked it as I shoved my way through the packed crowd that surrounded him. Under their eager hands the turtle neck of the sweater came down and I could see the scar just as he saw me. In wild desperation he burst through those nearest to him, cut across the dance floor while I fought to get a clear shot at his back.

  There were too many people there, too many wondering what was happening and pushing in for a
closer look. He was swallowed in a group by the door before I got there and when I reached him it was hissing shut slowly on its pneumatic dampener. It took a look at the rod to get them out of the way and I scrambled down the stairs to the street, taking the steps three at a time.

  My luck wasn’t with me this time. The red taillights of a taxi were disappearing down the broad expanse of the avenue and there wasn’t another one in sight.

  Malcolm Turos had stepped out for an evening of his favorite entertainment and almost stepped into his own grave. But I knew one thing now. He wasn’t that smart after all. There was a nick in his professional technique and that chink in the armor was going to kill him. I stopped, and put the gun away and thought about it. Someplace he had already exposed himself.

  I had the manger tell Vey I was waiting for her outside. He was glad to do it. He didn’t understand what had happened and didn’t ask for an explanation. All he wanted was for me to be out, although he watched Vey Locca go reluctantly. I took her hand and led her down the stairs, went to the corner and whistled a cab over.

  Once we were inside she said, “You will tell me now why you did what you did?”

  I let the anger that was seething inside me ease out. If the Turkish Gardens hadn’t been my own choice I would have spelled it out trap and Vey Locca would be somewhere in a soundproofed room talking her head off to beat the pain of what I’d do to her. But it had been my choice. Coincidence was not the factor. It was the same set of primary impulses working toward a common end. Two people from another continent sought a mutual pleasure and chance dropped it into my lap.

  “That man was Malcolm Turos,” I said.

  Vey Locca was lighting a cigarette, holding the tip of the flame from a gold Ronson to the end of the holder. When I mentioned his name it never flickered; there was no involuntary start of fear or surprise on her part at all, and she was either a great actress or a cool woman under pressure. “He’s the one who tried to kill Teish,” I added.

  The lighter jumped then. She snapped it shut, inhaled and looked at me sharply. “You ... knew he’d be there?”

  “No.”

  “Then how ... ?”

  “He’s in a strange country. He has time. He’s waiting. He won’t frequent the usual places you might expect him to, but boredom finally caught up with him and he went for one of his oddball kicks. The Gardens feature things that are native to Europeans, are off the general tourist trail with something to his liking. He never expected to be recognized there, even in a wig and mustache, but that sharp-eyed Greek spotted him and remembered when he was an outstanding singer overseas. That, baby, was pure luck that I blew. Damn it, I could have had him cold if I could have gotten through the mob. One shot would have brought him down and I couldn’t make it.”

  When she was quiet for a long minute I knew I had said too much. Without looking at me Vey asked, “Who are you really, Tiger?”

  Right then I jumped back into my act again. “Sugar, in this business of high finance you don’t slouch around in an office. You work the fields and the city streets. I’ve been in as many revolutions as I have legal conferences and too many times you stay alive because you’re first with a gun out and ready to gamble. AmPet has located and developed sixteen new oil fields in seven countries within the last seven years and done reclamation work previously thought impossible. We have processes that are years ahead of everybody else’s and to stay ahead we have to fight everything from governments to gun-men to stake a claim or hold it. To be an executive with us means you have to know every phase of the operation and if ever the theory of the survival of the fittest was proven, it’s in our racket.

  “I’m just the guy you see, honey, no more, no less. Maybe I sneaked in the back door, but I’m here and here I stay. I don’t think anybody is fooling anybody any longer. There’s a pressure play going on and a lot of people are in on the bite. When you’re dealing in power or money you’re dealing in death and anyone near the scene is a target. I just happened to be better equipped than most.”

  Vey’s hand ran down the side of my leg and she smiled, the Manchurian slant of her eyes like arrows in the semidarkness. “Tiger,” she said, “I don’t think I believe you.”

  “And I don’t give a damn, either.”

  “That I believe.” She squeezed my leg, then patted it.

  “Tell me about you,” I said abruptly.

  Amused, she let out a little chuckle. “The truth, or would you like a wonderful lie? I think I prefer to tell you a beautiful story about me because I enjoy that best.”

  “Suit yourself. If I wanted to know about you I’d make one phone call and twenty-four hours later I’d have every detail of your life from the day you were born.”

  “Then perhaps I should save you the trouble.” She tapped the ashes from her cigarette to the floor. “My mother was half Chinese, half Russian, my father was Irish-Japanese, and if you can find a more quaint amalgamation of the races, I can’t picture it. Would you like the sordid details of my early life?”

  “Not especially. When did you meet Teish?”

  “Three years ago. I was in Morocco. He was looking for a wife and his agents saw me dance. There is more to it than that, but that is sordid too. I agreed to his terms and they took me to Selachin. Let us say I was satisfied with the prospect and stayed.”

  “He had a wife then.”

  “I was employed as his secretary until she died.”

  “Well planned,” I said.

  “They too took their chances. As I said, there are customs still in existence that seem abhorrent to ... foreigners. No outside influence will ever change them so they must be accepted. In spite of all the religious indoctrination of the Western world the Haitians still practice voodooism. In places there is still human sacrifice, slave trade and head-hunters. Are we so different?”

  The cab pulled to the curb in front of the Stacy before I could answer her. I got out, paid him off and took her arm up the steps. The two men apparently engaged in casual conversation stationed there watched us, then followed us until we were on the elevator. Another stepped in with us but didn’t get off at our floor. He didn’t have to. Hal Randolph was sitting in a straight back chair talking to Dick Gallagher and making a great play of totally ignoring us.

  I took the key she had given me earlier, opened her door and let her pass inside. A new maid was there this time, a tall heavy-set woman with tight iron-gray hair and an expression that comes from working the tough end of town where the sweet-girl type could suddenly jump you with a knife and emaciated punks edgy for a blast of H in their veins could erupt into pure hell when they thought they were going to be cut off.

  Vey said, “That will be all. You may leave now.”

  Like the other one, she was reluctant to go, but had no choice. I went through the same routine, making sure she was out, then bolting the door. If Malcolm Turos got through the police screen they had set up he had to be a genius.

  It didn’t take long to locate the four bugs planted in the suite. There didn’t seem to be too much effort expended in hiding them so I assumed they were there to be found and the occupants to have a false sense of security. With the electronic advances, voice pickup, even remote, was no problem and any decent expert could rig a mike hookup that couldn’t be detected. Just to be lousy I snapped the heads off the button mikes I found and dropped them in an ash tray. Vey Locca watched, a humorous smile on her mouth, apparently not unfamiliar with this sort of thing.

  Kings and their cohorts always had their problems.

  She walked to the walnut hi-fi set against the wall, chose a few records and placed them on the changer. “This way is even better to eliminate eavesdropping.”

  I could have told her she was wrong, but I didn’t. Frankly, I didn’t care.

  It was night music that came from the speaker, soft, mellow tones I had never heard before. Night music from another world, and when I stretched out on the couch and closed my eyes I could visualize fog and empty mar
ketplaces, a stealthy figure crossing a rooftop, and the glint of moonlight on the downward thrust of a knife. It was sensual, picturesque ... you couldn’t listen without seeing the images it invoked.

  I knew when Vey Locca was in the room because she was part of the image and I could feel her presence. While my eyes were closed she had dimmed the lights so that only one small lamp threw a dull yellow light through the star-shaped perforations in its shade, casting weird patterns on the wall and ceiling.

  When I turned my head I saw her, not as she was at the Turkish Gardens, not performing a blending of rituals, but nude, deliciously nude, a wild, wanton, pagan nude, not oblivious to the presence of another in the room, but completely conscious of the fact, directing every essence of her nudity toward that one in a tantalizing manner as if an impenetrable wall of glass separated them so that she could taunt and torture with immunity, laying a feast of desire before a starving man who could see and smell and want, but couldn’t get through the barrier.

  Her eyes were bright, moving like darts, watching to enjoy the torment she was stirring up; her lips were wet, parted to show the gleaming white of her teeth. She was wide-shouldered and with supple breasts that were swelled with passion, impertinent in their pride of freedom, her sucked-in stomach softly ridged with muscles that played like little fingers under her skin, then ran vertically down her thighs and calves until she became an artist’s study in anatomy.

  And all that while the blood-red ruby in her navel was a focal point that kept calling and she waited for me to move.

  She came closer to the invisible wall, tempting me with her delights, daring me, and when she couldn’t fathom my response became even more abandoned in her offering.

  It was she who broke the barrier down. She had laid the feast but had given way to her own hunger and knew that the prisoner was really herself and threw herself across the space that separated us with a moan torn from her own throat, then she was a warm, slithering thing that tried to smother me with a passion she could no longer suppress.