by Nick Carter
"Up with the hands!" he rapped. "Get over to the wall!"
Ferret swung around, his eyes blazing surprise and fury, his hand reaching for the lump in his pocket.
"None of that!" said Nick. "Get those hands up or I shoot!"
Nick twisted his body aside as Ferret fired low from his pocket. Wilhelmina spoke sharply in return. Ferret gave a small, animal scream and clutched his gun arm with his free hand.
"Next time," said Nick, "listen."
His quick, light stride took him over to the stranger. A swift hand dug at the oozing pocket and came out with a snout-nosed automatic. Ferret cursed and lunged at him. Nick slammed the man's own gun down agonizingly hard on the bridge of the ferrety nose and stepped back swiftly, thrusting the gun into his own pocket.
"Now let me see those hands in the air," he said in fluent Portuguese, "or I'll blow both of them off."
Ferret swore but raised both hands. Blood trickled over his right cuff.
"You wouldn't dare," snarled the man with the predatory face. "Think of the noise. You'd have everybody in this hotel…"
"You think of it," said Nick. "This is my room, remember? And that brings up an interesting point — just why are you in it?"
"Why do you think?" the man said, and spat on the carpet. "Friendly visit? You make a living your way; I got mine. Why don't you just call the police?"
His eyes darted about like the tongue of a venomous snake. Windows, door, desk drawers, floor lamp, sofa… exits, weapons, assistance…?
Covering him with Wilhelmina, Nick double-locked the door.
"Now," he said softly, "you're going to tell me exactly why you're here and what fascinates you so much about those notes and papers. And don't try to tell me it's just money you're after. What do you want with the paper in the typewriter? Want to show it to someone?"
Ferret made a snickering sound that was almost a laugh.
"I collect souvenirs from all my clients," he tittered. "What's so special about the thing in the typewriter, anyway?"
"I'll ask the questions," said Nick. "Get away from that desk."
"Well, you won't get any answers," sneered Ferret. "What's the matter, you afraid of the law? Why don't you…"
"Move! Put your hands up against the wall."
Nick walked toward the ferret-faced man, Wilhelmina held lightly but surely in his grasp. His face was a hard mask of determination. Ferret turned and pressed his hands high up against the wall.
Hugo came out of his hiding place. His vicious, icepick blade clicked open. Nick slashed at Ferret's jacket. The two halves separated and revealed the back of a soiled but expensive shirt. Ferret's cursing became loud and fluent.
Hugo attacked the shirt next, ripping it neatly down the back without being too careful of the pitted flesh beneath. Ferret flinched and used a word Nick hadn't heard in years. Hugo found a place at the base of Ferret's bare neck and stroked it lightly.
"Now," said Nick, very quietly, "your name. Who sent you. What for. Why are you so interested in two dead men? Better talk fast." Hugo bit suddenly into the knotted neck. "Like it?"
"Ugh!" The sound forced itself out of the man's throat and the muscular shoulders bunched. "You swine!"
"I thought you would," Nick said amiably. "More?" Hugo jabbed again, a little deeper. "Start, friend. I haven't got all day. But I've got enough time to hurt you very badly."
"You sure of that?" Ferret said unexpectedly. "You so goddamn sure?"
"I'm sure," said Nick. Hugo bit and twisted, withdrew, and briskly pierced the lower back. "Why shouldn't I be sure? Hurts already, doesn't it? What's worse, you don't know where I'm going to prick you next. How about somewhere up here? We haven't done that yet." The stiletto traced a surface pattern on the bared right shoulder which flinched in expectation of the blow. Hugo leapt back and nipped hungrily at the lower spine. "What's your interest in my business, ratface? What brought you here? Perhaps you killed de Santos, is that it?" Hugo described a slow, neat zigzag just below the left shoulder blade. The tiny slits and pinpricks were starting to ooze blood. Sweat bubbled up at the back of Ferret's neck. He was making noises that were not quite human.
"I wonder how long it takes for a man to bleed to death," Nick said conversationally, "if the blood comes out one drop at a time? We may soon find out. Talk!"
Hugo bit again, a neat half-circle in the flesh, and paused.
"Bastard!" Ferret snarled. "You wouldn't think you had so much goddamn time if you knew what is going to happen to Carmen de Santos if you don't let me out of here. And then, by God, when I get back…"
He half-turned his head as he spat out the words, so that his malevolent profile was turned toward Nick. Wilhelmina's long hard barrel whipped against the battered nose and Ferret's head jerked back into position.
"So you do know something about de Santos?" Nick purred, but his thoughts were racing. Was this some kind of bluff? Maybe. But it was also some kind of breakthrough. "What do you know? And when you get back where?"
Hugo made a nice figure eight on Ferret's colorful back. Little trickles of blood soon spoiled the cleancut outlines.
Ferret made an obscene sound. "Just a streetcorner. They'll be watching to see if I get back. If they don't see me they'll start working on that de Santos woman, so you better get going if you want to be any use…"
"What streetcorner? Who's they?"
Christ, what were They doing to Carmen de Santos? And to the baby? This had to be a bluff.
The figure of eight started to dribble into Ferret's waistband.
Hugo edged his way beneath a skin flap and started exploring.
"Where? Who are they?"
Ferret's tortured body writhed.
"Corner of Branco and Vargas. Stop that, damn you, stop!" His breath came in short, agonized gasps. "Just a corner. They'll be watching for me. If I'm not there in half an hour they'll kill her and they'll come here, and then you'll see by Jesus what they'll do to you!"
"Who are they?" Nick's voice lashed at him like a whip. Hugo dug deeper.
"Álvares and Martín! Álvares and Martín! I don't know any more, I tell you! I do jobs for them, I don't ask why! If you don't let me alone, I tell you they'll get at her!"
"You don't know any more!" Nick's voice mocked him, while the voice at the back of his mind urged him to get going and find out what was happening to Carmen de Santos. And Rosalind, for the love of Christ! If she'd run into, anything similar to this, God knows how she'd be making out. "You know that they're trying to get at her, but you don't know any more?" Hugo probed around in the raw flesh. "Where do they hang out? What do they want with her?" He made Hugo do a little jig inside the wound.
Ferret screamed and flung back his arm at Nick. Hugo landed on the floor and Nick stepped back swiftly as the man, his eyes mad with pain, drew himself into a leaping crouch.
Nick's mind worked like lightning. Prolong this and take a chance that the Carmen de Santos bit was a bluff? Come back later?
Wilhelmina bashed Ferret's temple. There was a hideous scrunching sound, and the man with the furtive face dropped like a sack of cement. Nick caught him as he fell and hit him once more under the chin. He bent over the body in a rapid search, finding nothing to identify the man. He did find a pack of strong Brazilian cigarettes, his own alias and part-time address scribbled on a matchbook taken from the Carioca Club, and a small bunch of keys. One of the "keys" was a device well-known to Nick: a versatile little object designed to open a great many doors. There was also a small quantity of a silvery powder in one of the pockets. No time to wonder about that now. He transferred all but the powder and his own typewritten notes into his own pockets. The notes he tossed into a desk drawer. As he transferred the keys he saw that another of them was slightly different from the others: it was smaller, pale gold in color, and heavy. On the back, in a circle, it bore the number 12.
Nick worked swiftly. He unlocked the connecting door to Mrs. Marlene Webster's room. By the time he cautiously opened
his own front door, Ferret-face was securely bound and gagged and quietly bleeding onto his torn jacket in Mrs. Marlene Webster's locked closet. Michael Nolan's own room had been restored to an order that would deceive all but the trained eyes of the police.
An elderly couple was waiting for the elevator. Nick joined them, and stepped with them into a half-filled downward car.
The second and less obtrusive of his hired cars was parked a block away.
Less than ten minutes were left of Ferret's half-hour. If it was a bluff, he was making a fool of himself. But a phone call to check on Mrs. de Santos would be useless — obviously her wire was tapped. God. If Rosalind was in trouble, she'd just have to fend for herself.
* * *
Three-thirty. Nick wasn't going to come at all.
There was a knot of pain in the pit of Rosalind's stomach as her false face nodded at the big man beside her.
"I really don't know, Dr. Tomaz," she said, for about the fifteenth time. "I don't understand it either, but it must be some sort of amnesia. I'm sure he'll turn up again soon. And now, you know, I really must be going. I think my friend must be waiting for me somewhere else."
Somehow, she had made him leave that small, claustrophobia-inducing alcove, bubbling over with enthusiasm at meeting someone in a related field. Having energetically waved her letter of introduction and Brenha's monograph in front of his face, she saw the gleam vanish from his small eyes and change to something closer to bafflement. He had followed her — too closely for comfort — to the main hall and the passageways lined with great glass cases. Then he had questioned her, and she had countered his questions with her own. Her main difficulty was to conceal from him her knowledge that he was completely ignorant of ancient signs and writings. Perhaps she should throw it in his face and see how he reacted. No. He was too big and vicious looking. They were deadlocked.
"Where do you think your friend might be waiting?" asked Tomaz, his voice echoing through the glass-lined passages.
Rosalind glanced at him in some surprise "Why, we have a favorite little café where we've been meeting lately. Why do you ask?"
"I just thought it was a little strange," rumbled Tomaz, "that a gentleman friend would forget where he was meeting such a lovely lady." He smiled insincerely. "I certainly wouldn't. Who is this absent-minded friend?"
"Why, Doctor," she giggled coyly. "Just a friend. Mustn't get too personal!" Damn and goddamn, she said to herself. Now I've got him on my hands and I don't know what to do with him. "But I must be going. If he's waiting he may leave before I get there."
"You'll let me take you," said Tomaz, and it was not a question. "My car is in the driveway."
There were several cars in the driveway. Rosalind thought rapidly. There was no one in sight. The Indian Museum seemed to be the City's least popular place of entertainment, at least on Mondays. It was very quiet. Ominously quiet, she thought. At least outside there would be daylight and surely a few people.
"That's very kind of you," she said.
He took her arm a little too firmly and led her through the main door. Sunlight blazed at them. Strips of garden lined the curving driveway, with here and there a bench nestled in the grass. Rosalind made her decision. She was not going to get driven off to some unknown destination or sit endlessly at some café with this hulking, sinister man. And she was not going to let him get away without one final effort.
"It's a lovely day," she said, surveying the scenery. "Perhaps we could sit in the sun for a few minutes and then go on."
Tomaz smiled unpleasantly. "What about your friend?"
"I've changed my mind," she said airily. "Woman's privilege. He can call me later and explain where he's been all afternoon, the idiot."
She made purposefully for a bench midway down the driveway. Tomaz strode along beside her, a faint look of satisfaction on his unscholarly looking face.
Rosalind sat down and drew cigarettes and a rather bulky lighter from her capacious purse. Tomaz sat down beside her as she lit a cigarette, keeping the big lighter in her hand.
"Dr. Tomaz," she began. "Do you mind if I ask you a very blunt question?"
The big head cocked to one side and the eyes again became narrow slits.
"How do I know until you ask?" His lips twisted into a half smile.
"Well," she said, with a nervous puff, "I couldn't help noticing that you're not really very expert in Dr. Brenha's field, are you? But you do want to know all about the people who seem to be interested in him, and you've asked me an awful lot of questions this afternoon. You're not a scientist, are you? You're investigating his case? Police?"
The little eyes glinted.
"That's very clever of you, Miss Baker. I wondered why you didn't ask me why I knew so little. Yes, I am trying to find out what's happened to Brenha. And so are you, I take it?"
"Why, no," said Rosalind, eyebrows raised in surprise. "I was interested in meeting him, and naturally I'm concerned about what's happened to him. Why didn't you mention that you were investigating? I would have answered your questions much more freely, instead of just thinking you were being rather nosy."
He stared at her.
"Which questions, Miss Baker? What do you know about all this?"
Rosalind made herself look flustered.
"Why, nothing. I just meant that then I wouldn't have thought there was anything funny about you…"
"And now you do. Well, perhaps we'll make more headway if we look for this friend of yours and see what he's got to say. Or perhaps you'd prefer to come with me to headquarters. We'll just do a routine check on your identity." He leered down at her and reached for her arm. Her cigarette dropped to the grass as she drew away from him.
"Just a minute, Tomaz, or whatever your name is," she said crisply. "I've had all kinds of pickups tried on me before and yours isn't any better than most. First you're a scientist who doesn't know his subject and now you're a cop with the feelies. No, keep your hands away from me. Headquarters, indeed! Where's your identification?"
From the corner of her eye she saw a gardener stroking lazily at the grass some fifty feet away. A youngish couple was walking down the steps of the museum.
"Identification?" said Tomaz thoughtfully. He reached into his jacket.
It was identification, all right — a blue-nosed Beretta pointing directly at that tense spot in the pit of her stomach.
"So that's the way it is," she said softly. "Why? Who are you?"
He laughed unpleasantly. "Come on, Miss Baker — or whoever you are. My little persuader can make a very ugly hole if you don't do as you're told."
"Yes," she agreed, rising from the bench with her lighter pointed toward him. "And it makes a very ugly noise, too. Which is more than you can say of my small friend. I'll leave you now, Tomaz, and I'll find my own way to headquarters. You won't shoot — but I will."
He leapt to his feet and reached for her, snarling. She backed away hurriedly, her voice rising with indignation.
"Doctor Tomaz, please! Will you kindly let me go! Take your hands off me! Don't you dare bother me any more!"
The young couple stopped in their tracks and stared at the tableau. The gardener stopped his raking.
"Why, you stupid bitch!" Tomaz hissed. "If you think you can get away…"
"That's enough!" she screamed hysterically. "I won't have you threatening me. You dirty old man!" Her hand with the fighter drew back and slammed against his face. "And if you try to follow me I'll go straight to the police."
She turned her back to him and stalked away down the driveway.
The young couple glared. Somewhere, a window opened.
Tomaz stood there, swaying with the impact of her small hand and the heavy fighter, hiding his own gun with his big hands. Slowly, his head down, he started walking.
Rosalind ran down the driveway and into the street.
It was some time before she heard the footsteps, before she realized that they were getting faster — and closer.
; A Siege, a Chase, and a Golden Key
Little Joe gurgled happily in his playpen. The house on Vasco da Gama Drive was a haven of peace and sanity, except for the shadow of inexplicable death that hung over it.
But Carmen de Santos and little João were safe. So far.
The purring of a smooth motor sounded from the road outside and then faded away.
A sense of urgency crept up on Nick like a rising tide. Either Ferret's gambit had been a bluff, or he was still one jump ahead of the faceless enemy. He looked into the pain-dulled eyes of Carmen de Santos and wondered how much she understood of what he'd said. To her he was still the enquiring reporter, like João.
She stared back at the slouching, bearded man in her comfortable living room and sighed.
"Diga me que jazer," she said hopelessly. "Tell me what I should do. I have told the police everything, but so far they have told me nothing. I do not understand why I should be in danger. But if you can help me find out about João…" Her voice trailed off and her appealing eyes wandered over his face.
"I'll do everything I can," Nick said seriously. "And what I'd like you to do is leave the worrying to the police and to me. I think what you've told me is going to be a big help. And now I'd like you to do one more thing. You may not like it, but it's important and I think you should do it right away. You and little Joe."
"Little Joe?" The dull eyes took on a gleam of life. "What is it that he can do?"
"You can move out of here, both of you, and either go to relatives or to some hotel. You needn't worry about money. I'll help you. But for the next few days I think you'll be more comfortable somewhere else." His tone was crisp and decisive.
"That is not a suggestion, is it, Senhor?" She gazed at him thoughtfully. "It is a command, I think. Why do you command?"
Nick forced patience into his tone. He liked the woman; he sympathized with her. But he wished she would recognize the urgency.
"Because I believe your husband was on the point of finding out something very important, and that you may be in the same danger as he was. I do not like to be so blunt, but you must leave this house. Tell only someone very close to you, and the police. It is most urgent that we leave here now. Take what you need for tonight, and I will arrange to pick up the rest later. But as you honor your husband, please do as I ask."