The Death Dealers Read online

  I said, “Cool it, baby. No more talking.”

  She shook her head, watching me closely. “You ... know who it was?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What are you ... ?”

  “I’ll take care of it my way.” I got up, walked to the phone and dialed the Calvin. I got Lennie Byrnes on the phone, gave him the address and told him to get over as fast as he could.

  The big doorman was watching me, taking everything in. I took him to one side and said, “Anybody with a screwy voice say anything to you at all?”

  He hunched his shoulders, then shook his head. “Nope.”

  “See anyone with a briefcase? Tall, thin ... average guy?”

  “Maybe six or eight. A lot come in here like that.” He paused, scowled again, then added, “Come to think of it, them what had briefcases been here pretty much before. Like they got clients or somethin’ in the building. Only one guy I never seen. Yeah, I remember that one guy now because he looked up at the marquee like he was checking the name of the building and he had a pink scar on his throat about the size of a nickel. He came right in behind the Wheelers. They was getting out of a cab and he came walking.”

  “You’d recognize him again?”

  “Sure would.”

  “All right, then I’ll give you some information and it’s to stop right where you are, understand?”

  He nodded and grinned. “I get the pitch.”

  “If he comes in here again you stop him cold. The hard way. Do it out of sight. Get him in the lobby or in the elevator. The guy’s armed and dangerous so watch yourself.”

  “I’ve had ’em like that before.”

  “Don’t press your luck on this one. This is more than a city police matter. If he gets away from you, or you can’t get to him, call the local precinct station and make it an emergency because that’s what it will be.”

  “Got it.”

  I took out my pen, wrote the phone number of Charlie Corbinet and the I.A.T.S. offices down and put mine on the bottom. “These are Federal Agency people. You get everybody you can on this if it comes up. My number is the last one. You may not be able to reach me, but try anyway. I’m assigned to this job and will be right with it ... but remember, in an emergency, you go directly to the police and these numbers.”

  He took the card, checked it and stuck it in his pocket. “Can I ask you one question, Mac?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Who’re you?”

  “My name’s Tiger Mann. It won’t mean anything to you.” He stared at me through squinting eyes, then started a slow grin. “Like hell it don’t.” The grin got bigger. “You ain’t no real cop either.”

  “Oh?”

  “Remember Maxie McCall?”

  “Sure. He still fighting?”

  “No more. He’s running a gym. Him and me used to be in the army together. Plenty of times he told me about you. Damn, I thought he was makin’ it all up.”

  “He probably did.”

  The guy gave a sidewise glance toward Rondine on the couch. “Not after this. I believe everything he told me now.”

  “Keep it to yourself,” I said.

  “I learned how to shut up a long time ago, Tiger. I better get back downstairs.”

  It took Lennie fifteen minutes to get there. I had time to reach Charlie Corbinet, give him the layout and tell him to alert I.A.T.S. and the C.I.A. that Malcolm Turos had arrived but to keep his source quiet. He didn’t like it, but went along anyway.

  Lennie got the picture in a hurry, glad of being involved even if the big action was already over and nodded at my instructions to stay with Rondine every minute she was here. He was to escort her to work and back and stay on tap at the U.N. buildings within reach, even if it was unlikely another try would be made for her there.

  I went over and took her hand. “You feel all right?”

  “Yes. Do you ... have to go?”

  “I’ll be back.” I squeezed her fingers gently. “I’m sorry you were caught in the middle, kid.”

  She smiled at me, her eyes coming back to life. “I understand.”

  “Not yet you don’t, but let me put it this way. You had basic training with British Intelligence. You were told to expect things like this. You’ve seen it happen before and now it’s happening again. What’s going on involves the security of your country and mine both. What happens in the world can hinge on the outcome of this operation. We have a side angle with them making a try for you but it ties in with what they’re after. You’ll have to stay on your toes. You’re cleared to carry a gun if you have to and I want you to keep a rod handy. Your embassy will be notified by now and they’ll keep a cover on you as well as me. Later we’ll arrange a contact and I may even dangle you as bait if I have to. I don’t want to, but I may have to.”

  “Is it ... really that big?”

  The nylon cord was still on the floor where I dropped it. I picked it up, stretched it out and showed it to her. “These aren’t ordinary knots. They’re specialty jobs designed for torture, then death. We’re playing in a big pro game and any time you forget it take a look at your souvenir.” I dropped the nylon in her hand. She fingered it once seriously, then looked up at me again.

  “There won’t be any forgetting, darling.”

  I leaned down, kissed her mouth gently, then stood up. Lennie was watching me. “Take good care of her, boy,” I said.

  “Don’t worry.”

  “I’m not.”

  Downstairs I found the doorman on the curb, back opening cab doors. When he was alone I said, “Get the lock on Miss Caine’s door fixed, will you?”

  “I already checked with the maintenance man. He’s coming right over.”

  “Anybody hear the shot?”

  “So far nobody complained. You can’t hear nuthin’ on the other floors and both parties down the other end of the hall are out. Nope, I don’t think anybody heard a thing.”

  “Good. You yell if you see our boy again.”

  “I’ll do better’n that,” he told me, bunching the muscles under his coat again. “I don’t like my tenants molested.”

  “Just save a little piece for me,” I said.

  “Sure. Just a little hunk.”

  chapter 4

  From the hotel I called Newark Control and put my report through. Virgil Adams was on the desk there, got it all down and said, “Want us to start a run on Malcolm Turos?”

  “Go ahead. See if you can get him located. He probably came in on a forged passport or through the Cuban screen like they’ve been doing lately. Any identification on him will be through his voice. This guy can handle a disguise pretty well. You have any photos on him over there?”

  “Nothing late and nothing clear. I don’t think they’ll do you any good.”

  “Send them over anyway. You might try the Brazilian end. He operated there under the name of Arturo Pensa.”

  “Isn’t that the guy you shot?”

  “The same. If he was in a hospital there they might have photos. The local police would have been in on it. Besides, you never can tell what you can find in a newspaper morgue. The place was full of flashbulbs popping that night.”

  “We’ll give it a try.”

  “Anything new on Teddy?”

  “Not a thing. Pete hasn’t reached us yet either. Martin Grady’s getting a little edgy and you know what that means. If we don’t get anything in a couple of days he’ll throw a team out. That situation is too touchy to move in on yet so I hope he goes slowly.”

  “He knows what he’s doing.”

  “Yeah, but with the investigation going he can’t afford to lose control. We have a man inside of Interpol and we may come up with something on that end. If Tedesco is still alive and they can reach him they’ll break him loose. We can hold any charge they make if we have to as long as they save his skin. I wish you were over there, Tiger.”

  “So do I.”

  “Don’t lose hope. You might go yet.” He paused, said, “Hang o
n a minute,” and after I heard papers shuffling, came back with, “Okay, the action on Turos is started. They’re contacting our people now. There’s a ten grand going price on his head and we can up it if we have to.”

  “I’ll keep in touch. I still have the feeling he’ll make the try for me.”

  “One word of thought, Tiger.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t kill him.”

  I said, “If he has anything to say I’ll make him talk first. Don’t I always?” Then I hung up.

  At a quarter to eight I was at Ernie Bentley’s soaking in a tub of dye. I came out of it three shades darker than the tan I already had, and with a hairpiece to fit over the wig, the dark glasses and a native costume I could pass in a crowd for one of the Saudi Arabian boys if nobody looked too closely. Ernie was putting the finishing touches on with makeup when Tom, Dick and Harry came in behind Jack Brant. They weren’t wearing their grins any more. Apparently Jack had filled them in pretty good and they knew what was in the wind.

  All of them looked at me, the three guys a little dumb-struck, and when I checked myself in a mirror I could see why. Jack shook his head, laughing at me in the glass from behind my shoulder. “Damn, if you don’t look like a seventh son. You sure you’re not a eunuch?”

  “I can get affidavits to prove it, buddy.”

  “Never mind. I can remember a few incidents....”

  To shut him up I nudged his gut with my elbow. “Everybody set?”

  “Better than you think. Some of the boys on the dock are friends of mine. We’re going in unannounced and you’ll get first crack like you wanted.”

  “Every little bit helps.”

  In a low tone Jack said seriously, “You sure there won’t be any trouble? That’s the only thing that shook the boys, but one way or another, they’re still willing to go along.”

  “Then they can stop sweating.”

  “Good enough. Let’s go then.”

  The city is funny. Look normal, get the standoff. Be a little bit different, carry a clipboard, use a gimmick, do anything not normal, and nobody will ask a question. We passed the single police guard covering the side exit when he couldn’t understand Harry’s polite chatter but didn’t want to take the chance of getting involved with possible international diplomacy and its repercussions. We were on the ship before the passenger gangplank was down, through the crowd behind a white-coated steward while the police cordon was being formed on the dock below. Harry’s hundred out of my pocket got us straight passage to the luxury suite where the steward knocked gently and the voice behind the door called to come in.

  Like chameleons, my three friends changed. They stood there bowing politely while I followed their motions, their soft voices murmuring the amenities of the East, their meaning not quite reaching me. And it happened like I expected it to, the recognition, the taking to the bosom, the almost instant friendship ... reserved, but pleasant.

  Teish El Abin rose from his chair, a small, wiry man apparently in his early sixties, brown as a walnut left over from last season, but with bright snake eyes that could look right through you. He showed his Western indoctrination and shook hands with all of us, turned and introduced us to the taller saturnine man in the closely fitted English-cut suit, and I was the last to shake hands with Sarim Shey.

  There was something slimy about this one. He was a little too sincere. He could smile with his mouth and not with his eyes and his hand was that of someone soft only in the palm while the rest of him was hard as nails. I had known killers like that who could wield a knife or trigger a gun with manicured fingers that an hour before and an hour later fondled a woman with never a thought to the interim between or the blood that ran or the voices that screamed.

  Sarim Shey was a man to watch closely. His fawning attitude toward Teish was only a guise. He was a power within himself and knew it. His features were fine and sharp, his skin lighter than anyone else’s, and his voice had a deliberately cultured British accent. When he walked he had the grace of a cat or a person well trained in the deadly arts of Oriental death.

  I knew he was watching me. So was Teish El Abin. They seemed to accept the fact that I was mute from birth because where they came from it wasn’t at all uncommon. It was my size they were looking at, my mannerisms, trying to decipher something that was just a little unreal. But my three friends caught it too and carried the play away from me, keeping me in the background while they made the pleasantries.

  I knew our time was almost up. Five minutes was as much as we could ask. Then she came in. Nobody had to tell me who she was.

  Vey Locca.

  You could feel her presence even before you saw her, sense the aroma of musky perfume before you smelled it. Although her eyes never moved she saw everyone at once the way a woman can and above their heads our eyes met briefly before I bowed automatically in the fashion of the others and I knew it was me she was watching.

  She wasn’t tall, but she gave the appearance of height. Vey Locca was a Eurasian with a proud tilt to her head, hair black as an arctic midnight matching her eyes even to the glints and highlights that shone there. Her mouth was full and luscious, accented by the inherited cheekbones of her forebears. She was a high, full-breasted woman who walked with a deliberate stance that thrust her beauty forward provocatively, each lithe step outlining the youthful swelling of her thighs. Every mannerism seemed to be a combination of the graces of two continents, from the minute finger movements to the demurely subtle facial gestures that made her appear to be both subservient and dominant at the same instant.

  Like the men, she held out a delicate hand, clasped each person briefly, and when she came to me lingered just a little longer, ostensibly because of sympathy for my incapacitation. In her own tongue she welcomed me aboard, then, as if it were something offhand, asked if I enjoyed the United States. I caught just enough of it to understand the question, nodded quickly with a smile, took my hand away and made a typical “okay” sign with my thumb and forefinger. The puzzle in her eyes was there and gone almost before it could be recognized, but I caught it all right. Of the three she was the only one who thought me out of place and now she couldn’t be sure. She turned away, spoke to the others, then we went through the bows again and left.

  As we went out Hal Randolph and four I.A.T.S. men were converging on the corridor, stationing men about quietly. They glanced at us briefly as we passed, but said nothing. Only when we reached the gangplank area did a plainclothesman stop us, but a little bit of gibberish from Harry, broad, friendly smiles and a bow got us waved on impatiently.

  We left the same way we came on, were passed through to where Jack waited nervously, shucked our clothes and got back to normal again. We hopped a cab at the comer and I told the driver to take us over to the Blue Ribbon on Forty-fourth Street. I wanted George to take a look at me done up in brown.

  It was too early for the lunch crowd to be in, and after a double-take George led us to a table in the back and sent a round of drinks in. Jack said, “Okay, how did it go?”

  “I saw what I wanted to see. They’re trouble, all right.”

  “If the customs boys ever find out what we pulled the stink will go pretty high.”

  “Quit worrying.”

  “Then what’s the next move?”

  I nodded toward Harry. “This boy knows his way around. If you can break him loose a few days and I can use him, he might pick up some good bits and pieces. I only catch the loose ends of the language and if they want to converse it will be in their own dialect.”

  “Interpreter?”

  “Just about.”

  “Won’t they know him?”

  “I think Ernie can do a reverse job on him that will take. I saw it done before. Either that or we’ll pass him off as being from another country.”

  “Suppose they get wise?”

  “Our meeting was pretty damn brief. By now they’ll be shaking hands with dozens more and in another day they won’t be remembering ind
ividuals.”

  “You hope.”

  “Put it up to Harry.”

  Jack grinned at me and waggled a thumb across the table. “I don’t have to. Look at his face. He’s having a ball.”

  “Tell me, Harry,” I said.

  In a surprising Brooklyn accent he said, “The king you met is a cruel man, my friend. He had killed two of my family. The people living under his hand do not live well. I can tell you this ... whatever he is planning is not for the good of the people, but only for himself. I will do whatever you want because I have learned many things in this country. I know why it is you do the things you do too. It is my desire to help.”

  “Then you’re in, buddy. And thanks.”

  “I thank you, sir,” he said seriously.

  “Go over and get registered in at the Taft. Your last name’s unpronounceable, so use Smith.” I handed him a couple of bills across the table and said, “Get yourself a tux and keep it ready and stay there until I contact you.”

  “Yes, Mr. Tiger.”

  “One more thing ... if there’s any rough stuff, stay out of it.”

  “Please ...”

  “What?”

  “I am quite capable, sir. I have fought in an army several times.”

  “This isn’t a desert war, feller.”

  “All killing is alike. It is merely a matter of location and method. I would rather you thought of me as not being helpless.”

  “You bought it, Harry.”

  We finished the sandwiches George brought us and split up there. I let them go out first, then followed after I finished my coffee. The noon crowd was just beginning to filter in and I went out through the bar, waving so long to big Jim.