I handed him my .38 as I entered. Immediately I saw Adora gagged and tied to a chair. I went to her. “Babe…are you alright?” She nodded in the affirmative with very bright eyes that lit up the room with alarm. “Untie her and take that gag off, then we can talk. She won’t scream or run as long as I’m here.” The man did exactly as I asked him.
Adora got up and ran into my arms, tears streaming down her face. I held her and rocked her a minute. “Cable…esperé, querida!—I wait--and then they come and take me away—”
“—shhhh!” I said, comforting my little Latina. “It’s okay, babe. I’m here now and we’ll be outta this mess pronto.” I looked at the medium-sized man with the bright brown eyes and clean-shaven face. “What is it you want?”
He looked me up and down. Then he saw how I protected Adora. “Touching, Mr. Denning. I am glad to see you. You are famous already. Within the past few hours, you killed two men, visited with a renowned professor of ancient antiquities, you were unavoidably propositioned by a meddlesome woman—and now you stand protecting the object of your affection. That’s a pretty full day, wouldn’t you say?”
“I’m fashed and tired, buddy. If you want anything out of me, you’re going to have to let me freshen up and rest a bit. I get very resistant and stubborn when I’m pushed to the limits.”
He smiled a cunning smile. “Oh, dear, we can’t have that, now, can we? I’ll tell you what. To show you how generous I am, I will surrender this room to you and your señorita. It is now almost 2:00 p.m. I will return at six.” He reached into his pocket and handed me my gun. “To show how civilized I am and that I trust you—to a certain degree—I am returning your revolver. Do not try to go out or escape. I have a man at the door. The fire escape will be watched. Order any food you wish—or valet service—I will pick up the tab. After all, you are a special guest here at the Verona.” He turned his back on us and left.
Adora held me tighter. “Oh, mi pobre hombre! Ay…I never think I see you once more. Those terrible people stole me. When we get into train station, they take me all way back to last car and force me to jump tracks, where we sneak away. I look for you, but I cannot scream. They tell me they kill you if I scream—or try to run away!”
“It’s alright, Adora. I’m here now, doll. I’m just glad you’re safe. I worried myself sick. I couldn’t figure what happened or where you might’ve gone to, but I knew something was up. It seems everybody wants what I don’t even have.”
“What you mean?”
“Oh, it’s too complicated to tell you now. I told you before we left L.A. you were putting yourself in harm’s way…and guess what? Here we are in the middle of a doozy of a mystery with heavy hitters at bat. I’m sorry you got mixed up in the middle of all this.”
She snuggled into me. “We take bath and rest together, okay?”
And that’s exactly what we did. We threw our clothes off and I ran a bath as the beautiful naked lady let her hair down. When she turned to face me, it was like seeing an incredibly sensual Latin fantasy, a woman so perfect and warm, direct and unassuming that I could only imagine it was a dream and one day I would wake up and it would all be gone. As tired as I was, I could feel certain parts of my body swell with the visual delight she was presenting me with. “Oh! Oh!” she tittered. “Señor Grande get happy!”
We both laughed and climbed into the bathtub. She sat between my legs bubbling on in a happy voice. “I tol’ you I am excited por mucho peligro—and you live with much danger.”
I reached around and cupped her large firm breasts with my hands. I had soaped them and my fingers slipped over those wonderful nipples of hers until her whole body began to sing with chills. “Well, babe, it seems you came to the right place if you want danger. Just crank up my phone number and you got it. Why aren’t you afraid with all this shit happening?”
“Por que? Because I am with you. That is why.”
“So many characters coming out of the woodwork. Don’t you wonder what’s it all about?”
“If you want to tell me, okay, Joe, but if not, okay, también.”
“Why?”
She reached around in back of her and massaged my balls. “Because I am in love, Cable. Completamente. No thing I want except you. Para toda mi vida.”
I leaned her body back into mine and drew my arms around her exquisite body and perfect tan skin. “For all of your life? That could be a long time, babe. In case I ever forget, Adora, I want to tell you now. I’m crazy about you, doll. I don’t know how it happened. I only know it did and here we are.”
“Sí, here we are, señor.” She leaned back into me and I buried my face in her abundant black hair.
Just then I thought I heard a sound coming from the living room. I put my lips to Adora’s ear to quiet her. We sat motionless. “Maybe the maid or something,” I said, still a bit cautious. But since no one came storming through our bathroom door, I assumed for the moment we were safe. “I guess it’s okay. I thought I heard something rustling around out there.”
We go through life maybe on two or three cylinders, when we could be firing on all eight. The car we start off in comes complete with engine, transmission, wheels and steering wheel. But sometimes parts are missing, or malfunctioning, like a bad carburetor or the spark plug wires got switched somehow and the motor doesn’t work right. Like Crazy Jack. It brings up the question of who’s okay and who’s nuts in this world, no matter what walk of life they show up in. When I look at the people I’d encountered in the past few months, I shudder to think how many of them seep out of dark shadows from brains that are twisted or misfiring, like those sparkplugs and causing havoc to all who cross their pathways. I could go back all the way to Dr. Sandor, Matrangas, Jinx…his twisted little henchman…the sexually frustrated and treacherous Frank Laggore, Jack Dragna and his sinister big crime mentality, the mysterious Isaiah Damianos—and Lord knows whoever else was lurking out there in the mine fields of evil and dark, shaded brains, perverted because their wiring wasn’t right and when the ignition sparked from the twist of a key, nobody was safe. Maybe even I was a bit nuts. But at least I knew it, and maybe that made the difference.
Adora and I got out of the tub and dried each other off. It was a wonderful feeling being treated to a rare timeout of serenity and lovemaking. There was nothing about this woman I didn’t like.
We went over to the bed and were about to jump in it when something caught my attention out in the living room. I told Adora to stay put and I ventured out for a peek. There on the floor lay the dead body of a woman. Only this woman I knew. I recognized Anne Banning’s black skirt and white sweater with the gold-leaf necklace. “Don’t come out here, Adora,” I cautioned.
“Qué pasó?” she asked from the other room.
“You don’t wanna know, kid,” I said, as I came back in. I got a blanket from the bed, took it into the living room, and covered the remains. I noticed an unfolded note on the corpse’s chest. I grabbed it and came back and sat on the bed next to a nervous Adora. “Out there…a gal I met on the train while I was looking for you. She was implicated in all of this somewhere along the line. Anyway, they killed her. She’s out there staring somewhere up into eternity.”
“Cable! We are next? If I die, I wish to die next to you, no one else. Ay, yo espero, querido!”
“I don’t think they want us dead just yet, doll,” I said, looking at the note. “A reminder we mean business. Miss Banning’s demise is the result of someone knowing more than she should have…”
“Ay, mio Dio!” Adora exclaimed under her breath.
“Nothing we can do about that,” I said, looking at the bed covers pulled aside. “We still need to rest, corpse or no corpse in the living room.” We fell into bed together, holding on to each other. We were both exhausted and 6:00 p.m. would come all too soon.
But it was a restless sleep for me. I was in a golden Chinese palace being chased by a bunch of opium smoking thugs. But one in particular was so
ber and dressed in black and wore a fedora, and from his sleeve drew a handle-less hatchet. He was trying to get a bead on me so he could throw that deadly thing. Then in came this knockout of an Oriental babe in a bright-red outfit clear down to the ankles. She was medium in height but very slender with golden slippers adorning her feet. She motioned to the Hatchet Man to stop chasing me and he did. She ran and I followed her into a dark tunnel, like the mouth of Jonas’ whale with little red lanterns hung here and there. At the other end of the darkness we came into a beautiful cavern, glowing red and gold. A strange looking object descended from the roof of the cave, maybe fifteen feet above us. The beautiful lady was wearing a pure golden necklace. She took it off and handed it to me. She motioned for me to put it around my own neck and stepped back. The object above us descended, as if by magic, for I could see no strings or wires attached to it. It slowly came down until it was at chest level with me, directly opposite the golden neckpiece. When next I glanced at the lady in red, she stood completely nude and got down on her knees and motioned for me to do the same. As I did, I began to feel a scintillation around my balls and penis. Then I awoke to Adora’s hand holding the very parts I was dreaming about. I tried to shake myself completely out of the dream, but it lingered and I recalled much of the detail.
When we were both fully awake an hour or so later, I tried to fill Adora in on all I could. But it didn’t even make sense to me. But I did tell her about the meeting with Dr. Jedediah Penn and Polly Parker, and the appointment I had with him tonight at eight. Adora took it well and it was true she felt stimulated by the thrill and excitement of a dangerous undertaking. Who would’ve known?
We dressed just in time to hear the key turn in the lock. The door opened and there stood our strange host with the odd accent. “Ah, I see you have rested. Good.” He glanced down at Anne Banning’s body. “I see also you read my note. That was just a reminder…that I am not, what you Americans would say, kidding, Mr. Denning. I am also sorry for your young and handsome paramour here, but she simply must be eliminated when our business is concluded.”
Adora clung to me and her fingernails dug into my stomach as she clutched me. “So, whatever your name is—if death is what you deal in, then you might as well deal me in, too. I’ve got no stomach for misfits like you. The world isn’t big enough. One of us has to go.”
“That…can and will be arranged. Soon. My name is Nazar Ravna, my mother was Turkish and my father was from Calcutta. So that makes me, like you, Mr. Denning, a mix of ethnic backgrounds.”
“Okay,” I said, taking out a Lucky Strike and lighting it up. Adora stayed close to me. “What’s your line, Ravna? I suppose it has to do with that damn capsule I know so little about and have no clue as to its whereabouts.”
“Ah, au contraire! But you do know much. Let me refresh your memory. Please, will you and the lovely lady sit on the sofa while I take this chair and sit opposite you? Notice I have no gun. That’s how I wish our relationship to be, Mr. Denning. Without violence…at least for the moment.” He drew up a chair and sat about six feet opposite Adora and me. “Now, will you tell me all that you know? Many have already died in the pursuit of the object in question, as you have witnessed. In a way, you have helped me. By putting off Mr. Damianos and eliminating Mr. Dragna’s dispensable creeps, as you might say,—and we have eliminated Miss Banning here—you have cleared the way for us.”
“Now, tell me…just who is ‘us’?”
“I regret I can say no more about ‘us’ and what we represent. Just know that the capsule is highly desirable and we are prepared to pay handsomely, maybe even spare your girlfriend here—if you come up with the precious treasure, give it to me personally with no questions asked—and be on your way, free to go wherever you wish, financially set for life, so to speak.”
“Do you think I’d fall for that, Ravna? I don’t think you’re that stupid, why would you think I am? You know as well as I do that anyone on either side of the blue line gets killed for knowing too much.”
“But being a procurer, you will not know what the golden capsule contains or what its timeless inscriptions read. You see, as a plain and simple ‘delivery boy,’ you know nothing more than the lad who delivers the morning paper and throws it on the doorstep. You have no idea as to the content of the newspaper now, do you?”
I was looking down at Anne Banning’s body. “A question, Ravna. How in the hell did you get Miss Banning’s body in here without being detected? After all, it’s broad daylight and you had to come up an elevator somewhere.”
“We are professionals, Mr. Denning, and service elevators containing a large cart filled with fresh linen could certainly contain a body at its bottom, could it not?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” I put my cigarette out in the ashtray next to the sofa. Adora was staring at Nazar Ravna. It was almost as if she were seeing something in him I wasn’t. “So, you gotta know I’ve got an eight o’clock appointment with Dr. Jedediah Penn at the Sir Francis Drake.”
“Charming!” Ravna exclaimed. “I’m staying there as well. New posh hotels are one of my passions. The smell of everything brand new—doesn’t it excite you?” He cleared his throat. “Now…I am delighted that you are meeting with Dr. Penn and you may go with my blessing. He will enlighten you as to the power and content of the capsule—and perhaps will know the whereabouts of the Chinese lady we all seek at the moment.”
“So you’re looking for her too, eh? My, my, I do hope she isn’t so elusive as to prevent you from obtaining the object of your desire.”
“Thank you. I am certain not. However, I hear she transforms herself into a dragon now and then, or some other demon or personage when she is threatened. She is very powerful, not one to be trifled with. Therefore, it is best she come to you. I am certain she knows of you already. The Chinese community has secret ways, just as our Order does.”
Adora and I took the streetcar to Union Square. The Sir Francis Drake was an elegant affair that sparkled with that atmosphere the rich bring to their haunts. We checked in with the desk clerk and had him announce our arrival to Dr. Penn. We were told to take the elevator to Room #1218. The elevator was outfitted in brass and gold trim, with real tile floors with 17th century scenes hand-painted on each 12” x 12” square. When we reached the twelfth floor, the operator indicated we turn to the right. We found #1218 and I knocked. Polly Parker opened the door. “Good evening, Mr. Denning.” Then she looked at the beautiful Adora Moreno. Sitting on a deeply cushioned golden sofa sat Dr. Penn, his legs covered with a blanket. He wore thick glasses and was reading when we entered.
“I—I, uh, had to bring my lady, doc. Some things happened that we didn’t expect, including a murder in our room, not to mention the appearance of a rather odd character—"
“Murder, eh? It does seem where you go, danger follows—I know him—Nasar Ravna—he is no one to sneeze at, so they say. How do you do, young lady.” He took off his glasses and examined Adora. “My, you are a most beautiful young thing. How lucky can one man get in his lifetime? I am Jedediah Penn…”
“This is Adora Moreno, doc. She was a surprise passenger when I embarked from L.A. I would never have invited her—”
Adora walked up to the seated doctor and extended her hand. “—Con mucho gusto, Señor Penn,” she said. “I am happy to meet you.” One could tell there was an instant rapport between the two.
“Sí, con mucho gusto, también, señorita. Lo siento mucho que está teniendo la mala suerte cuando vas a venir a San Francisco. Pero, yo beso su mano…” He reached for Adora’s hand and kissed it.
She was delighted he spoke her language. “Bueno, tú hablas español. Este gringo aquí—él no sabe nada,” she laughed.
Dr. Penn looked up at her with stern admiration. “You are in great danger, señorita. I will do all I can to protect you. But for now, Cable and I have much to speak of. Will you go to a motion picture with Polly? This lady is my trusted caretaker and confidante.”
Adora looked up at me for approval. “Sí. Me gustaría, señorita. I go with you.” She leaned up and kissed me and the two women soon left our presence.
“What a beauty!” Jedediah Penn said. “How do you rate to make love to such loveliness? Even in my best years, I did not command such a wench.”
“Just lucky, doc. She was an unexpected gift in my life. Sometimes I can’t believe God still makes such honest and lovely creatures.”
“Yes.” He studied my face. “I think we shall like one another, Cable. You are not without deep sensibilities. I admire that. At the same time, it is what has brought down upon you this terrible curse of danger—and perhaps an abbreviated life. Often, you must realize, the good die young. Especially the ones who seek out truth as their measuring stick. You are such a person, aren’t you? I can see it in your eyes—and the fact that you attract such an innocent, beautiful soul as that of Miss Moreno’s.”
“Yeah, thanks, doc—truth is the one thing I fight for. Between you and me, I’m even having a difficult time not feeling guilty about Adora being with me, because I have another gorgeous doll back in L.A. who’s been my only squeeze for a long time. And I never cheated on her. Until now. I don’t know what it is about Adora, but I found her irresistible. And I think she felt the same toward me—you know, we just gravitated to each other like magnets.”
“She’s completely in love with you, Cable. It’s written all over her. Sometimes, it’s—it’s like the game of musical chairs. One moves until the music stops and then you find a seat until the music starts up again—and when the music stops again, there you are, somewhere else, in a different seat with someone else smiling up at you with love and vulnerability. Then, also, sometimes you may not find a seat and then you’re out of the game. Though I very much doubt that happens to you.”
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