Killmaster crooked his right elbow a trifle, to snap down the stiletto if he needed it, and approached the man slowly. There was something about this place that just didn't smell right, and it wasn't any of the horrible medicines they brewed. He told himself not to be such an old woman. It was too early to know.
"My name is Hunt," he said. "Jerry Hunt. I've got bursitis in my right shoulder. I want a Chung-i treatment." When choosing his cover name for San Francisco he had picked Debbie's name without thinking. Later he had wondered if there was anything Freudian about it.
The Chinese bowed again. This time he smiled. "That is most unusual, sir. In October it is usually the left shoulder that is affected."
The AXE agent breathed a little more freely. The countersign was right. He drew closer to the man. "Where is she? I want to get this over with."
"There have been complications." The Chinese turned away toward the rear. "Back here will be safer. If you will take off your coat and shirt, please? It will look better if I am actually giving you a treatment, in case someone should come in. I remain open late and customers wander in at all hours."
Nick Carter didn't like it. Not at all. But he followed the man into the back room. What the hell — the guy had known the countersign. But an edge of nervousness moved in him. In his work eternal vigilance was the price you paid for life.
The door closed behind them. "What complications?" Nick demanded. "Where is she? Has something gone wrong?"
The Chinese pointed to a long narrow table in the center of the room. It had a padded head rest. Over it a powerful bulb burned in a large green glass shade.
"If you will remove your coat and shirt and get on the table, please. It will be better, I think. The truth is, Mr. Hunt, that I do not know exactly where the lady is. She thought it best that way. All I know is that she is staying at a motel on the outskirts of town. She called an hour ago. She will call again in half an hour." He pointed to an ancient rolltop desk in one corner of the room. It was closed. On top of the desk was a phone.
The Chinese pointed to the table again. "Please, sir. It is better. I must not be suspected. I do not wish to die by the hatchets, the way Sun Yat did."
There seemed no help for it. Nick Carter began to take off his coat. "You know about that, eh?" Naturally, he thought. It would have been in the papers.
The man was working at a narrow zinc bench across one side of the room. He was swishing a dozen long needles around in a tall glass jar probably containing alcohol. His back was to Nick. Then the AXEman saw the mirror over the bench. The man was watching him.
"All Chinatown knows about it," the man said. "I do not mind telling you that I am very frightened, Mr. Hunt. If it were not for the money I would give the whole thing up. It is becoming very much dangerous." It was the first time his English had slipped.
"We pay very well," Nick said coldly. He felt no sympathy. The man was bought and paid for and knew the risks. Nick's glance slipped again to the phone, wishing it to ring. It didn't.
No use in trying to conceal his weapons. The Chinese turned, his face bland and uninterested, as Nick took the Luger from the belt holster and put it in his left trouser pocket. It was an old cop trick. The stiletto he left in the sheath. It was locked in unless he crooked his elbow in a certain manner.
Now he was naked to the waist. The Chinese, smiling, came toward him with a handful of needles. They were longer than knitting needles, with a point smaller than a hypodermic.
Nick scowled. "Do we have to go that far? Stick those things in me?"
The man nodded. "I think it best, sir. Make everything look real. There is very little pain."
Killmaster, who could, and had, withstood a great deal of pain in the line of duty, still didn't like it. But he nodded. He glanced at the phone again. Ring, damn you. Ring!
The Chinese held up the needles. They glinted in the brilliant light. The sharp eyes of the AXEman noted a slight discoloration, a small brownish residue, around the point of each needle. Medication, he supposed.
The man put the bundle of needles down on the table. He selected one and held it up. "These are yang needles," he said. "Naturally, since you are a man. You understand the procedure, sir?"
"Enough." Nick grunted. "Get on with it, if you must."
"Of course." The man put his hand on Nick's right shoulder and pinched the flesh together. He raised the needle.
At that moment the front door of the shop was thrown open with a crash. A man, or it could have been a woman, wailed something in high-pitched Chinese. There was another crashing sound and a tinkle of broken glass, then the sliding thud of a body falling. This was followed by a string of curses in Cantonese, some of which Nick could understand. Whoever it was was good and drunk and they wanted some tiger balm.
The Chinese still hovered over Nick, the needle poised. His muddy brown eyes glinted at Nick. Nick moved away on the table and grinned. "Better go get rid of him. He'll attract attention."
For a moment the man hesitated, indecisive. Nick had the sudden idea that, more than anything else in the world, the man wanted to put the needle in Nick's flesh. He moved farther away.
The man spun on his heels. He started for the zinc counter to put the needles down, then changed his mind and took them with him. That did it for Nick. Why take the needles with him?
The AXEman was working on instinct now. Something was wrong. He slid off the table and tiptoed rapidly to the door that had just closed behind the Chinese.
He cracked the door and peered out. A very old Chinese man in slacks and a dirty flowered sport shirt was lolling over the counter, supporting himself with one hand while he shook his fist at the man in the white coat. Nick grimaced. The old man was a D and D if he had ever seen one! The Chinese are normally a sober race, but when they do hang one on they do it with completeness which even the Irish cannot match.
The old Chinese stopped shaking his fist and pointed at something on one of the shelves. He was still cursing and screaming in Cantonese. His knees bucked again and he began a slow glissade to the floor, oozing down the front of the counter. The other Chinese was cursing now, too, and he came around the counter with the firm intent of tossing grandpa out.
Nick went quickly to the zinc bench. He picked up the jar that had held the needles and sniffed at it. Alcohol. Nothing wrong there. He saw the shot glass then, an ordinary whisky glass pushed back behind some retorts and a rack of test tubes. It was half-full of thick brown liquid. Nick sniffed at it.
Curare! South American arrow poison that brought on paralysis and stopped a man's breathing. You died, slowly and painfully, for lack of air.
He put down the shot glass and scanned the walls of the room, thinking hard and fast, looking for another way out. Out in the shop the old Chinese appeared to be putting up a hell of a scrap — he didn't want to leave without his tiger balm. Nick blessed him and all his ancestors for the diversion.
There seemed no other way out. He would have preferred to go quietly, without a fight that might lead to complications, but it was not to be. He pulled the Luger from his trouser pocket and snapped the stiletto down into his right hand. They had been damned sure of themselves, he thought coldly; using curare was an old gambit, an old and well-known poison, almost a cliché, much too easy to detect. That mattered not to them. It had very nearly worked! Nick was aware of sweat running into his eyes. It had been damned close.
He saw the tiny hole in the wall. Round, dark, finger-size. He put a finger into the hole, on blind intuition, and pulled. A small door, cleverly painted over, swung open to reveal a room that was little more than a large closet. A dim yellow 15-watter dangled from the ceiling.
Nick did not step into the room. He didn't have to. The body of the man was naked and bloody, and parts of him were missing. He was Chinese, and had not been dead very long. Across from the body, in a corner lay what looked like an old lady. She was fat and shapeless and wearing a gray wig that had slipped askew. She was cruelly bound with wire, and
gagged. Over the gag a pair of dark brown eyes were blinking furiously at Nick in desperate optic code. It was Fan Su.
He heard the front door slam and the sound of it being locked. He raised a hand to the girl, closed the concealed door, and raced for the table. He put the stiletto back in the sheath and the Luger in his trouser pocket. There was bound to be another one of them — at least one. Hiding somewhere close by, waiting. He couldn't blast the bastard and he couldn't give him a chance to scream. It would have to be done quickly and silently. Then they would be only halfway out of the woods.
He was back on the table, relaxed and grinning, when the man came into the room. "The old boy was pretty loaded," Nick bantered. He grinned again. "He think you were running a saloon here?"
The Chinese had recovered some of his composure Nick saw that he was sweating slightly. "An old fool," he said. "His wife is sick and he wished some medicine. As I told you, sir, I have customers at all hours. I am most sorry for the delay."
Nick sighed and looked pointedly at the phone on the desk. "No matter. She hasn't called yet. I'm not going anywhere until she does."
The man turned from the zinc bench, where he had been doing something which his body concealed from Nick. Checking, the AXEman thought; he had left everything exactly as he had found it.
The Chinese approached the table, the single needle glinting in his hand. "Now we can get on with it, sir." His sullen mouth twitched in a smile and he said, "As you put it — you are not going anywhere!"
He pinched the flesh of Nick's right shoulder. Nick rolled to his right. He caught the man's right wrist in his left hand and put on tremendous pressure. His right hand closed like a steel claw on the man's throat, stifling any outcry. Nick rolled back to his left, off the table, bringing the Chinese over him in an arching loop. The man had not dropped the needle. Now he began to fight back furiously. He was agile and strong. They struck the floor with a thud, and the man tried to squirm out from under Nick, straining to bring the needle up and into the AXEman's flesh.
Gradually Killmaster's great strength began to tell. He felt the man's vocal cords disintegrating and he tightened his right hand even more. The Chinese's eyes were popping from his head now. Nick deftly twisted the man's right wrist, increasing the pressure until the point of the needle was aimed at the man's right eye. He tried to drop the needle then, but his hand was lifeless, crushed beyond sensation by Nick's terrible grip. The fingers did go lax, and for a second the needle slipped, but Nick moved his hand down from wrist to fingers and went on crushing. Nick heard a twig-breaking sound as one of the fingers went.
They were face to face on the floor, grunting, squirming and heaving in a pretzel of sweaty flesh. The bright light over the table was like a spotlight on the oily Chinese mask beneath Nick. Slowly, without pity, Nick began to force the needle toward the man's eye. The man's eyes slid from Nick's face to the needle. He tried to scream, the sound lost in his ruined throat. The opaque eyes watched the approach of the needle with a horrid fascination. The man tried to shake his head — no — no — no — and a long rope of spittle drooled from his mouth.
The eyes were begging Nick Carter now. This bland murderer was asking for pity, for mercy. Killmaster snarled, a wolf sound deep in his throat, and pushed the long sharp needle through the man's right eye and deep into his brain. There was a gasping convulsion, a tattoo of feet on the floor, and that was all.
Nick rolled away from the body and got up. He went to the door leading into the front part of the shop and locked it. He put on his shirt and coat and turned off the glaring light over the table. With the light off he could see the faint yellow dot of the concealed door. He reholstered the Luger, but kept the stiletto ready in his right hand. Then, and only then, did he head for the little hidden room. Before entering he stood for a full minute, listening. Turning off the overhead light could be a mistake, but it was a chance he had to take.
At last he pushed into the secret room again. Nothing had changed. Killmaster stepped over the dead man without so much as glancing at him — he would be, of course, the real Chinese doctor — and knelt beside Fan Su. Her eyes, huge brown ovals over the gag, showed a spark of hope now. He slashed away the gag with the stiletto, but still she sputtered. He explored with his fingers. The bastards had stuffed her mouth with cotton. He pulled it out. Her little cry was parched. "Nick! Oh, Nick, darling! You did come!"
"Keep your voice down," he commanded. "Talk while I work on this wire. Are there any more of them?"
"At least two. I saw two. Both Chinese, with machine guns."
He was working on her ankles. The wire was cutting deeply into the tender flesh. He had no wire cutters, no pliers, nothing but the stiletto. He began to saw away with the razor-sharp blade, trying not to gash her flesh. The first strand of wire parted.
"Do you know where they are?" He was working on the second strand of wire now. It gave, and she moved her ankles apart and stifled a moan as the circulation came back. "I'm not sure. Maybe next door. It's some sort of military-goods store. There is a connecting door leading from this room into it." Fan Su nodded to her left.
Nick glanced at the wall. No door was apparent in the dim light. He pulled the Luger from its holster and put it on the floor beside him. So they had Tommy guns! If they decided to come investigating now, things were apt to get a little hot.
He got the wire off her wrists and she began to chafe them. He tossed the gray wig away. Her close-cropped head, sleek and dark and boyish in the poor light, was suddenly dear and familiar. For the space of a breath he remembered the wild and tender Hong Kong nights, then pushed the thought away.
He pulled her to her feet and she winced and clung to him for support. Nick laughed and ripped off the tentlike dress she was wearing. He kissed her ear. "You don't make a very convincing grandmother, even in this fight. And what in hell are these?"
Under the dress, but over a neat, tight-fitting pants suit, she had been wearing an enormous inflated bra. Nick put the point of the stiletto into one of the huge rubber breasts. Ssssssssshhhhhhhh!
The urgency, the very real danger of their situation, could not keep Fan Su from giggling. "You fool, Nick! But they did help a little. I had to do something. I've been terribly frightened — and too many people know me in this country."
He handed her the stiletto. "Here. Just in case. Now show me this door in the wall. Very quietly. Don't touch the wall."
The girl was moving well again now. She tiptoed to the wall and made an oblong with her finger. "Just about in here. It slides and is very tightly fitted." She was whispering.
Nick moved toward the wall as stealthy as a big cat. He stepped on something soft and squishy and glanced down. He kicked away the dead man's hand. He saw the girl staring down in terror and disgust. He wrapped a big paw around her slim arm and shook her, not too gently. She tried to smile, then nodded. She would be all right.
Nick knelt by the wall and ran his fingers over it. He felt a minute crack. It was a good door. He remembered that the Army & Navy store had been dark when he had passed it. The more he thought about it the less he liked it. Even if they could get in there without starting a fire fight, they would be like two blind bulls in a china shop. He decided against it.
He put his ear against Fan Su's soft, fragrant ear, and began to give his instructions.
"I'm going out the way I came in. One of them is probably in there now, but the other is sure to be covering the front, from either right next door or across the street. They've got us in a sort of bind, honey. They can afford a little noise; we can't. They can afford to get arrested — they won't talk anyway — but we sure as hell can't. It would blow the whole mission before we get started.
"I'm going out the front door and try to start a diversion. Now get this — you turn out the light as soon as I've gone. Stay absolutely quiet and off to one side of the door. If one of them comes through here, let him go, don't try to stop him — unless he turns on the light and sees you. Then you'll have
to use the stiletto.
"Wait one minute after you hear shooting start. Count to sixty from the first shot. If nobody comes in through that door, then you turn on the fight and find it and you go out. Head toward the street — that will be to your right — and try to let yourself out the front door. Be careful there's not one of them in there with you. And don't silhouette yourself against this light! Turn it off. Once you're in there, there should be enough light from the street to let you see what you're doing. When I go out and start this fight I'll draw them away down the street, to the right. When you leave you turn to the left, and run like hell! I'll catch up with you. If you run into anything you can't handle, like police, you'll just have to play it by ear. You've got a cover, of course?"
She nodded. "Yes. I think I can fool the police."
Nick put a great thewed arm about her slim shoulders and gave her a careful squeeze. "Okay. If we get separated, meet me back at my hotel." He gave her the name of the hotel on Powell Street. "Don't sit around the lobby. Ask them to let you stay in my room. It will be all right. It's that kind of a hotel."
She nodded and slid her cool lips across his cheek. "Be very careful, Nick. I have just found you — I don't want to lose you again so soon."
Killmaster patted her taut little behind. "Not to worry, honey. These people are amateurs. They've already bungled this thing badly — at least someone has — and I think their luck is running out!" He patted her again. "See you soon. Remember to count to sixty." He was gone.
Nick went back into the outer room — the momentary shard of weak light revealing the body of the man he had just killed — and closed the door. The light through the finger hole winked out. Fan Su was obeying orders.
The Red Guard Page 6