by Nick Carter
He had no way of telling how long it was before the door opened again. It must have been some time, because he felt oddly refreshed, as though he had slept. But his head ached furiously, and he was stretched out on something hard with his legs and arms outspread as if he were some kind of hide drying in the sun.
The room was suddenly flooded with light. Silveiro stood beside him, smiling down benignly, his white teeth gleaming.
"Well! The little man has had a busy few days," he said kindly. "How nice to see you resting." The friendly wrinkles suddenly vanished from the corners of his eyes. "Make the best of it. You don't have long."
"Why, Mr. Álvares!" Nick said warmly. "I can't tell you how glad I am to see you." The jovial face near him turned to a stony mask. "I'm so pleased I thought to cable my office in the States that I would probably be meeting you tonight." He knew he should not be talking, but he could not help himself. "They get so angry, when I don't let them know these things."
"What office?" Silveiro snapped at him.
"Embezzlers Incorporated, of course — what else?"
Silveiro's closed fist came down on Nick Carter's flat stomach. Nick braced himself and caught the blow with Yoga-trained muscles. Shut up, he told himself. Shut up.
Silveiro stroked the stubble on his chin and stared down at Nick.
"Where is the reporter?" he asked at last, his voice sounding like a knife blade scraping against stone. "Gone back to that same office?"
Nick looked up at him innocently. "What reporter? The one that someone — maybe you — pushed off a cliff?"
"The other reporter," Silveiro said through closed teeth. "The one who got just as nosy as you've been lately, and then disappeared. Leaving a dead man in his room."
"Oh, one of your men, perhaps?" Nick asked interestedly, willing the pain in his head to dissipate. His arms and legs were slowly relaxing, and the cords seemed less tight around his wrists. "What did he die of? Something horrible, I hope."
"The reporter!" hissed Silveiro. "Where is he?"
"I haven't an idea in the world," said Nick, conducting a quick mental search of his own person to see what was there and what wasn't. Wilhelmina — gone. Hugo — gone. Pierre — hard to say. Loose change and some odds and ends in his pants pockets. Shoes and jacket out of sight. Belt still on. "I've never even met the fellow. My contacts with the press have never been too cordial. Now suppose you tell me what in hell you think you're doing…"
Silveiro's fist slammed across his face.
"Don't play games with me. You had to be working together. Who has he gone to report to? How did he get away?"
Nick shook his head, partly to glance around the basement room and partly to get his nostrils clear of Silveiro's unpleasant-smelling breath. It seemed to him he could hear a phone ringing somewhere.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he said. "I don't know why you've got me here. I had a simple business date with Perez Cabral."
Silveiro's laugh sounded like a jackal's bark.
"Yes, you did, didn't you?" he chuckled. "But it didn't turn out quite the way you expected, did it? Did it?" His fist punctuated his words. "What were you looking for? How many of you are there? Where is Nolan? Where is the Baker woman?"
"You're crazy," said Nick calmly. Unless there was someone right behind his head — and he could sense no presence there — he was alone in this room with Luiz Silveiro. "I tell you, I don't know what you're talking about."
"Then why did you call me Álvares?" Silveiro's expression became one of genial cunning. "Who has been telling you about me?"
"No one. I just thought it suited you better." The ready fist slammed down just below his belt.
Silveiro smiled. "With each foolish answer, I will hit you just a little harder. When I start on your ribs and they begin to crack, I think you will stop trying to be funny." The hard edge of his hand slashed down on Nick's rib cage. "You will tell me all about yourself." The next blow came down like a sledgehammer on his chest. "Starting with the girl." The hand moved down and chopped viciously at his knee cap. "You think this is a gentle form of persuasion? I am a gentle man." Slam. "But determined. And when I tire, someone else will take over for me." Slash. "And if you prove to be too stubborn…" Crunch. "…You will find that this is only the beginning. You may also be interested to know that we already have the girl." Whack!
"What girl?" Nick forced his mind away from the rain of blows and concentrated on a stealthy maneuvering of his bound wrists.
"The Montez woman, of course. Who else? What other girl is there?" Thud. "That schoolteacher?"
Nick laughed. His magnificently conditioned body was absorbing punches that would have had a less carefully trained man gasping with pain. He could feel them. They were too brutally sudden to be easily willed away. And Roz…? No, surely not.
"What schoolteacher? I haven't known one since I was a kid. And Rosita! You make me laugh. She is a little, trivial plaything who knows nothing about anything, and cares less." He was annoyed to feel another grunt escaping him. "Even if I had anything to tell you, you can't get it out of me by threatening her. Do what you like with her. I don't give a damn."
"How callous you are," Silveiro said reprovingly. "But we shall see how truthful." He hit Nick once again in the midriff.
Beyond him Nick could see the twin-locked door open. A tall man stood in the entrance and watched in silence for a moment. Nick had been close enough to him for long enough to know immediately who he was. Or rather, what he was.
Silveiro went on working diligently. Nick spoke no more. He knew that if Silveiro kept up with this much longer he would be badly hurt — too badly hurt to snatch at a lucky break if it should ever come. So when the one blow came that was just a little too hard he took advantage of.it.
Silveiro's bunched hand thudded savagely into his temple. Nick let his head jerk sharply to one side, and he gave a long, shuddering groan. His eyes closed and his whole body slumped limply on its uncomfortable support. Silveiro snorted, and slapped him several times across the face.
"Enough, Silveiro," said the deep-toned voice from the door. "You don't want to damage his pretty face too soon. Save something for me. Come out here. You're wanted."
Silveiro grumbled and left the room. The other man was already out of sight.
Nick's body was pounding and aching. You have not been hurt, he told himself severely. There is no pain. You are resting. Rest, damn you. Gradually he made himself relax. For a few moments he actually did rest.
He raised his head to look around. He was alone in the room. There were no windows, and only the one door. The room was surprisingly large; the basement must be immense — but then, so was the Club. The thing he was lying on appeared to be a shelf of some kind, with a tow rung at each end to which his hands and feet were tied. The pressure at his waist was a leather band which he knew he could wriggle out of if he could free either his arms or leg's. The surface of the shelf was cold metal, solid in some areas and a series of narrow bars in others. A shelf… or a rack? He twisted his body to try to locate some sort of driving mechanism. He gave up. There was nothing to be seen from his confining viewpoint.
One wrist seemed to have a fraction more play than the other. He squeezed his hand, narrowed it, pulled, clutched at the cord with his fingers, working carefully until he could be sure that he was loosening rather than tightening it. While he worked he scanned the contents of the room. His rack. A table and six chairs. Other chairs, six more. Several standing ashtrays. A file cabinet. Another big cabinet with a heavy lock on it. That was it.
Six chairs and six more made twelve… Congratulations, he told himself ironically. But could it possibly mean anything? He had seen keys numbered two, nine and twelve. Ferret had certainly looked as though he might be at the bottom of the heap, if the numbers on the keys referred to status. And he was positive they did. Could there be an even dozen of them? If so, he'd thinned their ranks considerably. Perhaps they weren't all keyholders. Too bad he ha
dn't had time to search them all. But if they were… He counted quickly, feeling the rope loosen very slightly at his right wrist. Four dead, starting with Ferret and ending with the stranger on the corner near the Club. Sleepy-at-the-back-door, hurt, perhaps badly. The handsome one, hurt, but back on his feet with a sore head and a very stiff neck — and a hideously bruised face. Flatfoot and his driver in custody, according to the papers. That left Number One, Silveiro, Tomaz and one other — probably the one at the back door tonight — in good condition, with assists from Handsome and Sleepy.
And that was far too many.
Then he heard the voices filtering through the door. One of them was a woman's. It was raised in — fear? anger? — pain? It rose almost to a shriek and then fell to a low mumble.
His blood turned to ice water.
But the rope around his right wrist was almost pulling free.
The doorknob turned.
He closed his eyes and let his head roll to one side. His right hand stopped its tugging.
The door opened and someone stood at the entrance. There was a murmur in the background, then a high-pitched yelp of agony. Man or woman? It was impossible to tell.
"So that is all it takes before you pass out like a woman?" a voice said contemptuously.
Nick's heart turned over at the sound.
"You, Robert Milbank. I'm talking to you. Open your eyes."
Nick opened them slowly.
Carla Langley stood in the doorway.
She was beautiful in a shimmering evening gown. There was a vividness about her that was not the woman he had first met but the woman who had made such ecstatic love to him. The brilliant light brought out her subtle beauty instead of destroying it; her eyes were deep, glinting pools and her lips were red velvet — curled into a look of scorn.
"You, Carla," said Nick. "I almost knew."
"I almost knew you, too, Robert." She made the name a mockery. "What a pity, that such a wonderful body should belong to a man like you." She closed the door behind her.
"What kind of a man do you think I am, Carla?"
She walked slowly towards him, looking down at his outstretched body.
"A man who is hard when it is easy to be hard, and soft when he becomes afraid. And Silveiro frightened you, did he not?"
Nick laughed. "Did he say that? Then believe it, if it pleases you."
Carla's eyes narrowed. " 'If it pleases me.' You've said that once before. And you did please me, for a while."
"For a while? I'm sorry. I usually manage to do better than that. If you'd given me the chance, I might have."
"You might still have the chance," she murmured, "if you can give me what I want."
Her hand shot out suddenly and raked his face, first one cheek and then the other.
"So you thought you'd make a fool of me!" she hissed. "Mr. Robert Milbank didn't want to be mixed up with the police! And you walked out on me! You walked out on me!" The long fingernails lashed out again. He felt a trickle of blood beneath his eyes.
He laughed again. "Nice, Carla. Nice. I like a wildcat. Tell me something — are you the Boss Lady, or are you just Silveiro's whore?"
"Silveiro!" she spat, and the flat of her hand smarted against his face. "That slug!"
"Then you like me better than him," murmured Nick. "I can see why. Maybe we can be useful to each other… What is that chance you offered me?" His voice was calculating.
She stared down at him. Slowly, her hand reached out and touched his face, gently wiped the blood that oozed out from the scratch marks. It moved down, caressed his swollen lips, his chin, his throat… loosened the neck of his shirt, softly stroked his chest.
"The chance?" she murmured. "The chance to live. To be with me — without the thought of Pierce Langley hovering in the background."
Nick closed his eyes as if enjoying her caresses.
She fondled him provocatively. "He's dead. He's been dead since a few days after that last call to his office."
"So he did call from home," he murmured, and a jarring note explained itself away.
"Of course he did," she said, and both hands caressed him now. "He lived a day or two, or three, I don't remember how long, really. And then he died. Just after Maria Cabral, I believe it was."
"She died too, then."
"Naturally. Died hard." A dreamy look came into her eyes. "I wish you could have seen it. Pierce in one room, she in another. Down here, just like you. And each of them thinking that the other was giving everything away." She shook her head and chuckled at the remembered fun. "He was the one that broke, poor fool. He begged Silveiro not to lay a hand on me. On me! Can you imagine!" The thought was one she savored. Her probing hands moved lightly, her deep eyes blazed. "And then, of course, we didn't need them anymore. He gave us all the names, all the American spies. I didn't see them go. It wasn't practical for me to be on hand for all the… executions."
"I see your point," Nick said agreeably. The revulsion rising in him was almost choking.
"De Freitas, now. He fought so hard that poor Martín was forced to shoot him, or he would have given us all away. Brenha was driven away, with his little radio right there in his car. They worked on him for quite a while, but then his heart gave out. Appelbaum was even worse. They simply had to dump him. And then that fool de Santos, actually calling me, on the telephone, mind you, when he got back from his bourgeois vacation. A vacation, for a spy!" She smiled.
De Santos had called Langley's home. A second question had been answered.
"But how did it all begin?" he asked. "And why?"
She looked into his face as though she had forgotten that the body she was fondling had anything to do with the man who inhabited it.
"How? Why, Maria Cabral, the stupid fool, thought she had found out something about her miserable husband, and it shocked her so much that she tried to pass it on to Pierce. Of course, I read the letter. I have read his mail for years."
"Did you know what Langley was?"
Her face hardened. "I didn't know. I wondered. But when I found out, I let him know about it. Through Silveiro, until just before the end. I think he went mad, then." Her face was happy.
Her hands began to feel like maggots crawling over him.
"Who are you doing this for?" he asked. "Who would I be working for, if I joined you?"
She smiled at him with the sweetness of something that was horribly overripe.
"Does it matter very much? But I thought you knew. Our orders will be coming from Peking. And the money."
And the money. For the sex kicks and the sadism.
"But why did you kill them all? Wouldn't it have been better to keep them alive and have them watched? You would have found out so much more that way."
She looked at him fondly. "That's my spy. But you see, that wasn't the plan. The plan was to find out who they were and then to kill so swiftly and mysteriously that someone very special would have to come down and investigate. And, in that way, we would trap a Master Spy."
Music to Die By
It was almost unbelievable that any organization would go to such lengths, would kill so ruthlessly just to lure a big fish into a baited trap. But he knew the Red Chinese and the creatures who sold their souls to them. He should have realized from the start that someone with Carla Langley's insatiable appetites was typical of them.
She leaned over him and kissed him lightly on his bruised lips.
"Now it is your turn to talk," she said. "I can make it very pleasant for you." She was licking him, the bitch, licking at the scratches and the streaks of blood.
"Tell me one thing more," he begged. "No, two things. Then I'll do the talking."
"Will you, lover?" she breathed. "I think you'd better. I think you will be glad."
"I think so too," he lied. "Just tell me first — is this something that's just going on in Rio, this fishing for a so-called Master Spy? Or is it happening in other places too?"
Her eyes narrowed and he could see that she was c
alculating.
"Why shouldn't I tell you?" she asked, with a little laugh. "There's no one you can tell — unless I want you to. It's happening everywhere. And it's working like a charm. It takes a while, but eventually it works. Oh, yes, it's happening everywhere." Her face was bright with remembering.
"And that sob sister Cabral?" Nick asked her harshly. "How did you manage to make such a patsy out of him? He seemed to be so excited about that stepdaughter who hates him…"
"Of course he was excited, poor lamb," Carla said gently. "He's afraid for his beloved baby. Ever since we threatened to do the same thing to her that we did to Maria. It was easy enough to persuade him that we could get at her any time we wanted to. Silveiro explained all that to him. Oh, that poor fool is almost as crazy about Luisa as he was about her mother… And that wispy, stupid child doesn't even know it. But now it's time for you to talk, Robert my darling." The hands were wandering again. "Tell me first — where is Luisa? And your lady friend, Rosita? It will be awkward for us, if we cannot find them quickly."
"I'm sure it will," he said coldly. "But I understand from Silveiro that they've already been picked up."
"Supposing they have not been," she said carefully. "Where would they be?"
"On an airplane, flying to the States."
The hands, mercifully, stopped their probing.
"That's a lie," she said flatly. "Where are they?"
"If you don't know, I don't know," he said easily. "They told me they were going."
"No! Tomaz has checked the airports. They have not left tonight."
"Too bad," he said disinterestedly.
"Robert, I don't think you get the point. You will tell me all you know in exchange for what I can do for you. Believe me, believe me, I will make it worth your while." Carla leaned over him. Her breath seemed to singe his raw skin. "I can give you so much…"