Flashpoint

by Dan J. Marlowe

  "They antagonize me, don't they?" I replied to Talia's remark.

  "In my country you would be bastinadoed for such insolence," she continued as the car pulled away from the curb. "You wouldn't be able to walk for ten days whether you were guilty of the charge or not."

  "Forget it. Where are we going?"

  "To Iskir's."

  There was no further conversation the rest of the way. Abdel parked the car in a garage under the apartment building and accompanied us to the elevator that carried us to the penthouse. Nothing seemed changed despite the lapse of time except that Iskir Bayak met us at the elevator doors floridly attired in a maroon silk dressing gown and gold-colored slippers with turned-up toes. "Come in, come in," he said in his high, squeaky voice. His grossly obese bulk jiggled obscenely beneath the dressing gown as he led the way down the steps into the sunken living room. Despite this being the twentieth century, his obesity and his voice made me wonder if he hadn't been eunuchized early in his career.

  "Drinks for our guest, Talia," Bayak commanded as we seated ourselves. "What will you have, Mr. Drake?"

  "Bourbon on the rocks."

  "A barbarian's drink," Bayak observed complacently. "No offense, of course."

  I watched Talia serve the fat man a Scotch-and-water. She took nothing herself after handing me my drink. Bayak and I sipped in silence. He appeared to be waiting for something. Abdel had placed himself near the telephone, and when it rang I was sure I knew why.

  Abdel carried the phone to Bayak, its long white extension cord trailing across the floor. "Yes," Bayak said, cutting his eyes toward me voluntarily so that I knew he was talking about me. He listened for a good two minutes. "No question about it?" he asked finally. "I see. You guarantee it? Then thank you, friend. The money will be left at the usual place."

  He handed the phone back to the hovering Abdel while he considered me. "The call confirmed your-ah- unorthodox mode of living," Bayak said. "And since the response was what I expected, I see no reason for further delay. I assume you wouldn't have had Talia call me if you hadn't decided to join me?"

  "That's right."

  "Then we have no need for further words at this time. Go to Talia's apartment with her now, and I'll call you tomorrow-" He glanced at his watch "-or today, I should say, for a briefing session. In the meantime Talia will look after you." His moon face was a caricature of a leering smile.

  I knew that Erikson would be waiting impatiently to hear something concrete from me about the location of the truck hijacking, but it wasn't my timetable.

  "Abdel will drive you," the fat man continued, rising to his feet.

  "We haven't talked money," I countered.

  "There will be no need for haggling," he promised. "It can be negotiated when you understand the scope of the operation."

  He escorted us to the elevator. Talia looked tired, or possibly the effect of her last shot was wearing off. Abdel eyed me impassively as we descended to the underground garage. Bayak really kept the giant on a short leash. I wouldn't have been riding so casually in the same elevator with a man who'd put two bullet holes in me so recently, no matter what my recuperative powers.

  Abdel chauffeured us to Talia's apartment. He said something to the girl in the foreign tongue I assumed was Turkish as she and I left the car. She made no reply, but I thought her features looked drawn. She looked her age.

  She fixed me a drink as soon as we entered her apartment. Her hand was shaking slightly as she handed me the glass, and she disappeared into the bedroom. I still had half my drink when she emerged ten minutes later. She had on a chiffon robe which disclosed a great deal more than the fact that her eyes were now clear, her step firm, and her appearance once more youthful. I wondered where she kept the hypodermic.

  A master switch had turned on all the fights when we entered the apartment. Talia went around turning them out until only a single lamp glowed in one corner. Then she slipped out of the robe, removed the drink from my hand, and sat down in my lap.

  Beneath the robe she had on only a bed jacket which reached her rib cage. The sleeves of the jacket were opaque, while the rest of it was see-through. Tip-tilted dark nipples and downy black pubic hair winked at me in the instant before the girl fused her lips against mine.

  I'm not an imaginative man sexually, but Talia had enough imagination for a roomful. We graduated shortly from the armchair to her bedroom, but it was quite some time before we reached the bed itself. She had several hassocks arranged on the floor in cunning patterns, and the use she made of them presented surprising areas of perfumed bare flesh for various methods of penetration.

  We reached the bed finally, but I had to call a halt. I captured Talia's busy hands, pushed her onto her back, and held her there with a palm on her rounded belly. Her black eyes stared up at me inscrutably. Despite our activity, her powdered flesh remained cool to the touch with no hint of perspiration.

  I felt drained. This girl could really suck the juices from a man. I didn't flatter myself that it was my beauty or engaging personality that provoked her devoted attention. I was sure that her skilled exhibition was in fact a command performance.

  She wriggled from beneath my pinioning palm, sat up on the edge of the bed, and lit two long, dark cigarettes she took from the night-table drawer. The tobacco taste was bitter when she gave me one, but there was no scent of marijuana. "How is it that you call Bayak your boss when you work at the UN and he's in the rug importing business?" I asked.

  She considered her answer before giving it. "I do little things for him," she said finally. "My parents and Bayak came from the same small town in Turkey. My father was a politician who died with Menderes in 1961. Before my mother died, Bayak told her that he would keep an eye on me."

  "It doesn't bother you that the things you do for him might get you killed, like what happened in the tavern?"

  "That was the first time anything went wrong."

  "Is Bayak any good in bed?" I asked with more curiosity than I usually have about such subjects.

  "He likes young boys," she said matter-of-factly. "Very young." She took a thoughtful drag on her cigarette. "Iskir seems preoccupied these days. There must be something important-" She didn't finish it.

  "What's in it for you, Talia?"

  She turned her head to look into my face, the blue-black sheen of her glossy hair shaped closely to her small head. "For me?"

  "These things you do for Bayak. Does he pay you?"

  "No." Liquid-dark eyes stared at me absently as her left hand unconsciously massaged the inside of her right arm where I had seen the needle marks. "I do it because I must."

  It was probably the most truthful thing she'd said to me since the moment I first saw her walk into the Fifty-seventh-Street tavern.

  9

  THE sound of the telephone woke me.

  I had fallen asleep in an awkward position and I had no feeling in my right arm. Talia picked up the bedside extension and gave several short answers in the foreign-language-mixture of harsh consonants and soft vowels I was beginning to recognize if not understand. Then she hung up the phone.

  She slipped from the bed and walked, nude, to her dressing table. She removed a pair of panty hose from a drawer and began working her legs, thighs, and hips into their semi-transparent snugness. I watched with drowsy regret as the brilliant-hued butterfly on her hip disappeared from view. When the material fit her like a second skin, Talia did a momentary hula as she plucked its tautness from her crotch, picked up a bra, hooked it together in front of her before rotating the clasped portion to the rear, and encased her full breasts in the cups.

  "Going someplace?" I asked lazily. The taste in my mouth made me wonder if I had any American cigarettes left in my clothes.

  She didn't look in my direction. "Go back to sleep. It was a call from the UN to appear in native costume for some publicity photos. I won't be gone long."

  Still clad only in the bra and panty hose, she disappeared into a closet and reemerged with
a piece of airplane luggage. She placed it on a chair and began packing it with brightly colored items of clothing. I yawned, stretched, and felt the tug of previously unused muscles.

  I realized that the rustling sound of clothing being packed had continued for some time. I raised my head, about to ask her a question, then changed my mind. Talia was at the dresser, and the angle of her head indicated to me that she was watching me in its mirror. "Got any food in the place?" I inquired.

  "There's a delicatessen around the corner that will deliver," she replied. "The phone number is in the telephone index."

  "Okay." I sat up on the edge of the bed and picked up the index. From the corner of my eye, I saw Talia swiftly remove something from the dresser and drop it into her opened handbag. It was the size and shape of a passport case, and a number of pieces began to fit together. There was no activity at the UN requiring Talia to appear in native costume. The Turk's deadline must be getting close. He was moving the girl out of the operation.

  I pretended to look for the deli phone number while Talia went into the bathroom. She came out again in an electric-blue dress which managed to appear both Turkish and American by virtue of its fabric and design. Talia picked up her bag, then paused. "We will try something different when I return," she said.

  "You mean there's something different left? It's going to take me a month to get over the something different you've already shown me."

  She was smiling. "A steady horse for a long race," she said. "You qualify."

  "You have yourself to thank. Hurry back."

  "I will." She left the bedroom, and I listened for the solid click of the apartment-door lock. Then I dashed to her closet. Some clothing remained in it, but not much. The underwear drawers in her dresser were empty. The only cosmetic items left were almost-empty tubes and jars,

  I didn't bother with underwear or socks. I slid into shirt, pants, and jacket, shoved my.38 into the holster I had recovered from Talia's bathroom, jammed my feet into my shoes, and started for the door. If I could follow Talia, it might be a shortcut to information we lacked. But I had to hurry.

  I stepped out into the corridor and started down the hall. There was a whirr of movement behind me and the back of my head seemed to explode. I caught one quick whiff of a musky, lemon-essenced cologne as I started falling face-forward, and then I plunged into blackness.

  ***

  The first thing I felt when consciousness returned was a sharp, stabbing pain in my head. Fiery, throbbing lances pulsed through my skull with each heartbeat. When I opened my eyes cautiously and the walls stopped swirling, I was prone on Talia's white carpet. Someone had dragged me inside from the corridor, and I knew who the someone was.

  Automatically I reached for the.38 in my shoulder holster. It was gone. This job was sure hell on guns. I swallowed hard to subdue incipient nausea, then fingered a Ping-Pong-ball lump under my ear. I pushed myself up to hands and knees, hung on until the dizziness subsided, and made it to my feet. Sweat drenched my face as I grabbed the back of a chair to retain my uncertain balance, but the unsteadiness dissipated.

  Feet wide apart, I shuffled to the apartment door. It was locked, and from the outside. My celluloid pick was no help. Second thought convinced me that if Abdel was still patrolling the corridor outside, I didn't want to see him now. Not without my.38.

  But I had to let Erikson know about Talia's being manipulated out of the action" by the Turk. The elephant-clock told me that she already had a half hour's head start. I headed for the telephone. I had dialed the first three numbers of Erikson's office phone before my scrambled brain began to function properly. If Erikson could bug Talia's phone, so could Iskir Bayak, and with his suspicious nature, he was a damn sight more likely to have bugged it. If I called Erikson from here and Bayak was able to listen to the conversation, the whole operation would be blown.

  I replaced the receiver.

  But I had to let Erikson know somehow.

  I had to get to a safe phone.

  I went to the balcony's french double-doors and opened them. A reviving damp breeze flowed over me. It was raining again, and the street below glistened with reflected light from its rain-wet surface. There was another balcony above my head. I leaned over the guard rail and looked downward with the rain blowing in my face. A duplicate balcony extended outward from the apartment below.

  I could go up or down. The bottom of the balcony floor above me was three feet above my upstretched hand. I'd either need something to stand on-and nothing was available-or I'd have to balance myself atop the half-round guard rail before I could grip the iron uprights supporting the concrete on the balcony. I was hardly in shape to perch on the rail and lean out into space while trying for a secure handhold on wet, slippery iron and concrete. I doubted that I'd be able to muscle my entire body weight up the balcony's concrete facing even with a good handhold.

  So it had to be down.

  I didn't give myself time to think about it.

  I went over the railing and eased myself downward with both hands gripping the cold iron uprights and my toes anchored to the platform rim. I took a solid hold, then removed my toes from the edge and hung freely, extended at full length. I clenched and unclenched my palms, dropping in short jerks until the heels of my hands reached the bottom of the vertical iron bars.

  I swung myself cautiously in a gentle, pendulumlike movement. The tip of my shoes scraped against the guard rail below. I knew the balcony floor was a drop of only three feet. The trick was to fall inside, not outside, the railing.

  Too hard a swing forward and I'd lose my balance upon landing and fall backward with a good chance of smashing my head against the guard rail grillwork and knocking myself out again. Too easy a swing and I could look forward to a quick glimpse inside each lighted window as I clawed the air on my way down to the street.

  My pendulumlike momentum built up until I felt it was right, and then I let go. My feet hit concrete, all right, but my kidneys struck the iron railing painfully at the same time. I had slightly underdone the forward swing. The kidney-contact threw me forward sharply, and I landed on hands and knees in a puddle of water that was trapped in a slight depression on the unlighted balcony.

  I scrambled near the french doors out of the worst of the rain and massaged my wet, abraded palms. Sudden light from inside the apartment flooded over me. I ducked instinctively, thinking I'd been seen. When nothing happened, I straightened slightly so I could look into the apartment through glass curtains covering the double doors.

  A fat, middle-aged woman in a quilted robe was placing a towel on the floor. Her hair was in curlers and her face was greasy with cream. She went to a low, cabinet-style stereo set and placed a large record on the turntable. All I could think of was that if she settled down for a music session in the room, she had me trapped on the balcony.

  I tried the door latch quietly and found it locked. I reached for my wallet and extracted my celluloid pick. Martial music blared forth from inside the locked french doors. Then a male voice boomed forth in a tone of command from the stereo set.

  "We'll now do the cross-body bend in four counts. Take your position, please. Feet spread and arms extended. Bend from the waist, left hand to right toe at the count of one, upright at the count of two, right hand to left toe at three, and back to starting position at four. Are you ready? Now… in time to the music, please. One, two, three…"

  I looked inside again. The fat woman had tossed her robe to one side. Beneath it she was totally nude. Jiggling breasts and buttocks looked like four pale basketballs attached to a flesh-covered barrel. Jellolike quivering accompanied each movement as she strained to reach her toes with the opposite hand. Each time she managed halfway down her shin.

  My position had changed unwittingly to that of Peeping Tom. I tried the pick on the lock as the booming voice from the record player issued new instructions. "The bicycle exercise now," the exercise master announced. "Down flat on the rug."

  The lock on the french do
ors was an old-fashioned type that wouldn't permit insertion of the pick. The fat woman had lowered herself to the towel on the floor with an audible thump. She stretched out on her back, elevated her chubby legs, and pedaled furiously as the music-cadenced "one, two, three, four" issued from the speaker.

  At least she was in no condition to pursue me. I wrapped my handkerchief around my knuckles and broke the glass near the lock. It smashed into a hundred tinkling fragments, and I reached inside and turned the lock.

  The woman had frozen with her legs still upright at the sound of the breaking glass. Her massive bare behind and furry slit pointed right at me as I stepped inside. Her mouth shaped itself into a round O as I sprinted across the room, but no sound emerged. I manipulated the chain bolt on the apartment door, stepped outside, slammed the door, and took off down the corridor.

  I avoided the elevator in case Abdel was monitoring it. I raced down the stairs in case the fat woman recovered quickly enough to get to her telephone and sound the alarm, then slowed my pace as I approached the street.

  There was no Abdel, and no alarm.

  I found a drug store and called Erikson. "My guess is that she's out of the picture now," I concluded after telling him about Talia's departure.

  "If that really was her passport you saw, you're probably right. Would she head for Bayak's place?"

  "Not likely. He wants her underground now. Out of the country, even. Our little bird has flown and I'll bet it's the Turk's intention that she keep right on flying."

  "I'll put out word to every transportation terminal with emphasis on the airports," Erikson said. "Meantime you'd better get over here, Earl. It sounds like we're getting too damned close to the payoff, and we still don't know what the score is."

  I left the drug store and headed for his office.

  ***