by Nick Carter
Those goddamn probing fingers started feeling around again. They almost felt good, for a moment. Inside himself, Nick pulled himself together.
"You can start by getting these damn cords loose." His voice was irritable. "I can't talk lying down."
"Can't you? You've managed it before. I can't do that, Robert, you know that. Tell me just one thing, tell me who sent you, and then I'll know that I can trust you. Who are you?"
"My name is Robert Milbank," he said distinctly. "I had a little luck on Wall Street and I picked up a girl so I could have some fun in Rio…"
"Stop that! Stop that!" Carla slapped his bleeding face. His thoughts flew. Tell her that she didn't have much time, that someone else would follow him in a matter of hours? No… why die until it was absolutely necessary… why warn her… maybe get her yet… be sure that Rosalind was safe… a woman on a job was always a lousy added problem… Goddamn it, where was Rosalind? It was past the time for her to be here. Please God let her be all right.
"You don't have much choice," Carla was saying. "You can turn me down once more, and only once. Or you can accept everything I have to offer. Money, love, excitement…"
"Money!" He barked with laughter. "I have that, and with it I can buy all the rest. Make it better, Carla."
She swayed beside him, trembling with suppressed passion.
"I'll make it better," she said very softly. "Life with me or death with nothing."
"I'll think about it," he said reasonably.
"Do that," she answered quietly. "It's this…" and her predatory hands roamed casually up and down his thighs. "Or this!" And her hand darted down suddenly and did a very painful thing to him. He gasped. "There now… that was good, wasn't it?" Carla murmured seductively. Her lips were twisted into a parody of a smile. "I'll leave you now — but with something to remember me by."
Her hand reached for something at the foot of Nick's rack — and a low humming sound filled the basement room.
"It usually takes about twenty minutes," she said conversationally, "before they start to scream. It's a little exercise machine, you see, that Luiz and I adapted. But I can slow it down for you." And now her smile was like the Death's Head he had seen in Red China's Forbidden City. "I want you to take it slow and easy… and call when you want Carla. And do be sure to call in time. Or you'll stretch and stretch like a rubber band… and finally you'll snap. Arms first, usually, and then the legs. It'll hurt, lover. And you won't be able to do any loving any more. That would be an awful pity."
For an eternity she stood there watching him. He could feel the loose cord at his right wrist begin to tighten slowly. Tighter… tighter… tighter…
At long last she sauntered over to the door, the form-fitting shimmer of her evening gown revealing every nuance of her languid walk and every beautifully molded line of her exquisite frame. Reddish highlights glimmered in her hair and the eyes now seemed to be glowing with green fire. Nick wondered how he could ever have thought her colorless. But she took on color with excitement, and a curiously compelling kind of beauty. The green eyes wanted something very badly.
His ankles began to feel the pull.
"There's something so restful about the dark, isn't there?" she crooned mellifluously. "Think well, Robert. I'll be waiting for you."
The light switch snapped off and Nick's right hand went into instant, silent action.
Carla stepped out and closed the door. Nick could hear the padlock click. Then there was nothing but the absolute, pressing darkness and a silence that was not absolute. Someone in another room was groaning.
Nick maneuvered feverishly.
* * *
It was just as well that Rosalind had Luisa up and ready long before Nick's call, because Nick's call never came. Instead, visitors showed up at the Milbank-Montez suite.
If she had not gone into their main living room Rosalind might not have heard the sound until it was too late to do anything about it. But as it was, she heard the old familiar sounds of someone trying to pick a lock just as she was leaving the room and stepping back into the inside hallway. She paused only long enough to be sure of what she was hearing and then darted down the hallway locking every door she came to. By the time she had bundled a startled Luisa into a back passage leading to another exit to the landing, there were two firmly locked doors between them and whoever might be looking for them. Not to mention a number of other temptingly locked doors along the way.
"Here, hold this," she whispered to Luisa. "But for God's sake keep it pointed away from me."
Luisa smiled faintly and watched Roz swiftly place a chair under the transomed door.
"Don't worry about me," she said. "When I was a little girl we had a ranch and my father taught me something about rifles and handguns. This is a pistol I am familiar with."
Roz stood on the chair and peered out of the transom, feeling a flood of relief that Luisa not only had herself so well in hand but might possibly even prove to be a help. She'd better, since she'd insisted on coming along.
A man was pacing up and down the corridor outside the Milbank suite. He looked very pale and ill, and the hat that he wore pulled down low over his eyes did not completely conceal the bandages that swathed his neck and one side of his face. Rosalind grinned to herself. Nick's trademark, she thought appreciatively.
Somewhere inside the apartment, doors were opening and closing. Rosalind chose the simplest way of getting rid of the intruders: She called the management and begged them tremulously to send up the house detective and one or two strong men to help. Mr. Milbank was out, and there were people prowling through the apartment, and she was so frightened. Would they please hurry…?
They were very prompt. Robert Milbank would be more than generous when it came to expressing his appreciation. Rosalind was watching through the transom when she saw the bandaged man cock his head at the sound of the elevator. A moment passed, then he let out a low, fluting whistle. Two extremely brawny men passed him in the passage. And then one of them suddenly turned on his heel and rapped a question at the bandaged man.
The pale face was startled and the lips stammered out an unconvincing explanation of why he was there. Then he made his mistake. He ran.
One of the brawny men caught him easily. The other raced for the door of the suite and pounded on it. Doorknobs rattled all over the apartment and Rosalind heard someone cursing. A chair fell over. There was a shout. Something stumbling heavily. A shot. Another shot. A cry and a thud. A second pounding on the front door of the suite.
After that, it was surprisingly easy to persuade the hastily summoned assistant manager not to get the Milbank ménage involved with the police.
"I shall say that we intercepted them as they were attempting to enter the apartment," he said unctuously. "That way, you will not be bothered at all, and we… well, we… uh…"
"Won't be accused of falling down on the job," said Rosalind bluntly.
"Uh… quite."
"Well, you can say whatever you like," Rosalind said generously, "as long as you can assure me I'm not going to be bothered any more tonight. By anyone," she added threateningly.
"Oh, heavens, no. Oh, absolutely, no!" He raised his hands in horror at the thought. "But just let me ask you if you have ever seen these men before. It is a question of identification, of motive…"
"Of simple stealing," Rosalind cut him off. Nick had still not called. She had to get to him. She cast a cold eye over the two handcuffed and disheveled captives. "No, I've never seen them before," she said. "Although the big one with the piggy eyes does look rather like an acquaintance of mine, Dr. Nilo Tomaz of Lisbon." She laughed liltingly. "But it couldn't very well be him, could it?"
The assistant manager laughed companionably. "One wouldn't think so," he agreed. He was relieved that this Montez woman was taking it all so well. She could have raised the most awful fuss.
The man with the piggy eyes nursed his bleeding arm and scowled at Rosalind. All at once the light of recognition
flashed across his face and he started forward with the beginnings of a snarl.
"Come on, get us outa here," whined the bandaged man. "What's to wait around? I'm sick."
Tomaz was looking rather ill himself.
The convention left the room.
The two slight figures that quietly slipped out of the Copa International a few minutes later were much too casually dressed for an evening on the town, and yet they were headed for the Carioca Club.
* * *
His spine seemed to be expanding. The rough cord bit viciously into his extended limbs as the cruel stress grew noticeably stronger. From somewhere above him he could hear the rhythmic rumble of drums and sporadic clashing of cymbals. If he were to scream his heart out no one would hear him except those who waited in the next room.
The surface beneath him was curving slowly upward, forcing his back into an arch of agony. He put every ounce of energy and concentration into that one cord that he had almost loosened and that now was even tighter than ever. But the tightness, now, was different. It was tight because his arms were stretched out to their limit… and there was something faulty about the knot. The very strain was beginning to work for him. He stiffened his fingers and tugged. The cord dragged like rough, hot coals against his hand. The darkness turned from black to swirling red. His body screamed for mercy. As the rack extended he could feel each single savage blow of Silveiro's like a separate knot of pain, and then the knots merged into one great blob of agony. And he, Nick Carter, was that blob. But pain was an illusion. It did not exist. The only thing that did exist in that red-black world of thumps and thuds and drums and cymbals and roaring in the ears was one mightily straining hand and the rough cord that tore at it… forced its way, too slowly, much too slowly, past his wrist… caught at the heel of his thumb… dragged over it like a noose trying to tear off a man's head… and suddenly whipped free. His hand dropped like a dead thing.
He worked his fingers frantically, forcing the life back into them. His body was making little snapping sounds — of something beginning to give. A louder sound came from the room beyond the twin-locked door.
"I don't know and if I did I wouldn't tell you — aagghh!"
Cabral's groaning voice.
Nick's tortured fingers fumbled at his belt buckle. Goddamn you useless fingers work you bastards move open it open it open it!
His left arm took all the aching strain of his upper body and pulled relentlessly away from its companion leg. For a wild, blurred moment, while his fingers groped stiffly with the buckle, he thought the arm had come off altogether and was dangling, stump down, from the rail behind him. Then his brain cleared and the thick metal buckle clicked open. The trembling fingers removed a fine-honed blade. His mind a scream of agony and his hand a barely controllable lump, he brought up his free right arm and slashed away at the cord that strangled his left wrist. He wondered irrelevantly why they had not used leather straps instead. Rope hurts more, he decided, slicing into his hand. The bite of clean steel was like a loving kiss compared with the wrenching and tearing of his body.
He brought his left arm down and let it drop beside him to let the blood flow back into his paralyzed fingers. He lay there gasping. He found the strap across his waist and slashed at it with the blade. It snapped away. The body that had felt like a dried-out starfish seconds before seemed to contract and flow back into something like its normal shape. His back crackled sharply as he made himself first sit up and then lean over to attack the cords that bound his feet. He wiggled them even as he worked, commanding them to live again.
One foot was still caught in its vise of rough rope when he heard the movements at the door. A trumpet thinly wailed the blues from the lavishly decorated room upstairs. He attacked his left foot frantically. The padlock clicked as the last thread parted and he leapt clumsily off the rack, taking in deep gulps of the musty air and willing his pulled muscles to do their work.
Two of them, he thought suddenly. There will be two of them. He flung himself against the wall beside the door and scrambled feverishly for anything he could use as a weapon. Nothing. Nothing but the blade that dripped with his own blood.
The door opened. The light from the outside room shone down upon — three people! His befuddled brain moved as clumsily as his uncertain feet. Three? One big, with a handsome battered face. One in a clinging, shimmering gown. And one a small slight figure…?
What happened next seemed to happen in slow motion, though reason tried to tell him that he was the only one who moved too slowly.
And the Little Old Lady Screamed
"The light, Martín. You will enjoy the sight of his face. It is even worse than yours!" Carla gave a throaty chuckle.
The big man stepped into the room and reached for the light switch. Nick swung away from the wall and leapt, the deadly little blade outstretched. He struck more swiftly than he knew — not at the groping hand, but at the firm-muscled throat. The heel of one torn hand jolted up beneath the rugged chin. His left hand slashed the blade deep into the side of the neck — once, twice, three times, in swift succession, before Martín could do more than gasp with surprise. Then he gave a scream of animal anguish and struck out wildly. Nick slashed once more, giving it all the desperate energy he had. He sidewheeled clumsily to escape the hands that came at him with surprising strength, lashing as he dodged, praying desperately that the power would flow back into his own mangled muscles. Martín's wild, dying blow struck the small blade from Nick's thrusting hand. It clattered to the floor somewhere in the dark.
He drove the hard edge of his palm into the bleeding neck with all his strength and Martín crumpled for the last time. Nick crouched beside him and hunted feverishly for a weapon. None. The confident swine must have left it in the other room.
He was aware, as the moment plodded by, of the hideous bubbling sound in Martín's throat. He saw the two figures swaying at the door, and he knew that someone was shouting. And then his dazed brain clicked sharply into focus.
It had bad news for him.
He leapt over the body of the once-handsome man and threw himself into the outer room at the two struggling figures. One was Carla, as he knew. The other was Luisa. Carla s hands were at her throat and Carla's mouth was spitting filth and hatred.
"Let her go!" Silveiro shouted hysterically "Get out of the way!" Another voice screamed: "No, Carla, no Carla, no!" A chair fell over with a crash. Cabral was in it, trussed up like a turkey but still kicking.
"You loud-mouthed, useless fools, all of you!" Carla shouted. "I'll break her neck, Milbank, right in front of your eyes!"
Nick slammed his fist into the side of her face and tore the clutching hands away from Luisa. He snaked his arm around Carla's own lovely neck and pulled back. Then the blinding lights flashed through his head again and he sank down into a new darkness. Someone kicked him brutally as he went down.
He could hear a dozen sounds with separate clarity. Heavy breathing. Groans. A string of gutter words. The thumping of the not-so-distant drums. A heated discussion in two growling voices, Silveiro's and another man's. The creaking of a door. What door…? He drew in several long, deep breaths and opened his eyes.
He did not know the fourth man in the room, but he counted up to twelve and felt oddly happy. What was even better, the blood was flowing through his veins and his arms and legs seemed to have recovered something of their flexibility.
Carla was slumped into a canvas-covered chair holding her head and cursing. Luisa was on the floor beside the fallen figure of Cabral. She was clutching his hand and crying softly.
Women, women! Nick thought to himself. And what happened to the other one?
"For God's sake, how should I know?" the stranger said. "I told you, she came up to the door when I was doing my turn down to the corner. I haven't got eyes in the back of my head. She was trying to sneak in when I came back and caught her. She was alone, I tell you. What was I supposed to do, let her get away while I hunted for another one? For God's
sake, the way you handle things…"
"For God's sake! For God's sake! Is that all you know how to say, Mendes?" Carla rose suddenly from her chair. "Get out of here and find her. I'll tear your filthy heart out if you come back without her. You, Luiz, you stupid pig. Tie that creature up again. I haven't finished talking to him." She turned and spat in Nick's direction. He watched her from beneath shuttered lids and rested quietly. This was it, the grand finale, one way or another.
"Watch it, Carla," Silveiro snarled. "What makes you think you have a right to talk to me that way? You were so busy leaping in and out of bed with him, it was only accident we found out who he was. You think your boss…?"
"You stop that!" she hissed. She was a blaze of color — green eyes, red fingernails, red lips, red cheeks, shimmering gown that clung seductively to her voluptuous body. "Do as I tell you. Mendes, go and find that woman."
"Carla! Use your head." Silveiro spoke urgently. "How is he going to find her? And what if we need an extra man around here? With Martín gone…"
"An extra man!" she spat. "Who is the other?"
Silveiro chose to ignore the question. "Vicente and Tomaz are looking for her already. And don't you think it's likely that she may come here, too?"
Carla's back was to Nick, but he could see a rigidity come into her body.
"You are not always completely stupid, Luiz," she murmured. "You're right, she may still come. Perhaps she will walk right in and pleasantly say hello. Is that what you think? Mendes! Go back up to that door. And let her in politely, if she should come."
"Wait a minute, Mendes," said Silveiro. "Help me first to tie up these two. I've had enough of that one's trickery."
Carla laughed scornfully.
"Now it takes two to tie. What a man you are." But she appeared to accept it, for she turned and looked speculatively down at Nick. "Tie him, then, and do it properly. I will have a word with the little Luisa. Perhaps she will explain why she came alone. And where her new friend is."