by Nick Carter
In the cottage, I soaked in a hot tub while I put together what I had so far. My remarks to Hawk had been more true than facetious. Fact one: the three kev men involved in the three tragedies had been silenced, in one way or another. I'd tried to get to Dawsey, then Comford, so they figured Dempster would be my next stop. They'd been cute and switched techniques with him, but the result was to have been the same, preventing me from getting information. Fact two: Dawsey, Comford and Dempster had been bought Dawsey's sudden wealth tipped that off. Fact three: the Chinese washed ashore two months ago with 50,000 Australian dollars on him. There had to be a connection between him and the first three men.
But that's where the facts ended. I didn't know who was doing this or why. Was it a home-grown group of some kind? If so, they needed a cove The ranch Judy spoke about could do for that of course. And if it was an outside source, they'd need a cover, too, but a more elaborate one. But so far they were shadows, all except for the three hoods that tried to give me a copper bath.
The headlines and articles in the Aussie newspapers I'd seen were plenty evidence that relations all around continued near the breaking point. The other members of the alliance were still dissatisfied with Australian explanations and were pulling back fast. The Aussies with their fierce pride were reacting with a to-hell-with-them-all attitude. And all I had was a nice, neat theory. I needed more, and fast. Whoever was behind this was not going to stand still. The next tragedy could well wreck the alliance beyond repair.
I dressed slowly. I'd decided against going to The Ruddy Jug to see Judy. I'd pay her a visit at her place. My watch told me she'd be getting there soon, so I headed for her little apartment. I got there first and was waiting just inside the doorway when she came up.
"Welcome home," I said quietly.
"Yank," she said, her eyes lighting. "I've been trying to get to you for days and days, maybe a week."
We went into her place. This time she was wearing a black dress with almost the same, low-cut neckline as before, that made her round breasts overflow.
"He's been in almost every night," she said to me, her tone guarded. "The fourth one, the one with the hawk face. He keeps telling me to find some more men for him. He says the others worked out fine, but they've been sent on to bigger things."
"I hope you told him you were looking for new contacts," I said.
"Yes, but I'm ruddy scared," she said. "I'm afraid he'll find out you know about me. Then if I go to the States, it'll be in a pine box."
Her fears were justified. But she and Lynn Delba were my only possible leads now. I didn't like letting her stick her pretty little neck out, but a lot of good men didn't like getting needlessly killed either. I turned away from moral judgments. That wasn't my job. My job was to get at the bottom of this, to crack it open, not to worry about who might get hurt along the way. Was I being too hard? Damned hard, but you could be sure the others had no time for sentimentality. Neither did I.
"Keep doing just what you've been doing, Judy," I told her. "I've been away for a while so nobody's seen you with me. I'll watch it as best I can. Try and pump him. Find out where they operate from. But don't be too obvious."
"I'm glad you're back," she said, standing close to me. The lost, fearful quality was a part of her again, and I felt like a fourteen-carat heel. "Sometime, maybe, after this is all over, maybe we could get together, just you and I, for the fun of it."
"Maybe," I said. I cupped her chin with my hand and looked into the smoke-gray eyes. Dammit, she had a way of getting to you, like a kitten. She had claws and she could scratch like hell, but she reached out to you.
She stood up on her toes and kissed me — a small, gentle kiss. "I feel safer when you're around," she whispered. I gave her rear a little pat and turned and left. It had been a firm, round little rear, well worth parting again sometime. I went back to the cottage hoping that things would work out all right. It might be nice to spend some time with Judy. I had the feeling that she deserved some good times.
* * *
I slept late the next day, and when I woke I felt like my old self for the first time since I'd been tossed out of that jet I decided to pay Lynn Delba a visit Something about the woman had left me with an unfinished feeling. She had seemed unduly frightened for someone who knew nothing about Dawsey's involvement. I was glad to find her home, and her eyes lighted up when she saw me.
"Come in," she said. She had the same faded quality I'd noticed the last time, but her legs, encased in short shorts now, were every bit as good as I'd remembered. The way her breasts moved beneath a pale yellow blouse told me she was still against wearing bras.
"Anybody contact you about Dawsey?" I asked. She frowned.
"No", she answered, truculence in her voice. "Why should they contact me. I told you I only knew he was in on something he said would make him a lot of money and I'd have everything I wanted. Nobody's got any reason to contact me about anything."
I smiled pleasantly but in my mind I was thinking of how she'd acted during my first visit to her. Then she'd been scared as hell that maybe Dawsey had told his killers about her. "Maybe they'll think I know something about whatever he was into," she had said, and the fear in her eyes had been real. And now it was a somewhat defiant "Why should anyone contact me?" I had a more than fair idea what had caused this sudden reversal in roles. First, she'd been afraid because she had good reason to suspect Dawsey's killers would wonder what she knew. But in the time that had passed since my first visit she'd been contacted and had convinced them she knew nothing. Or perhaps she hadn't been contacted at all and felt that she was safe. Either way, she felt comfortably secure now, and in the clear. Fear had been tossed aside. All of which meant she knew more than what she'd told me, which was nothing.
I wanted to know what that «more» was, no matter how little, but I didn't want to get it the rough way. For one thing, I wasn't sure it could be gotten that way without my getting very rough. She had a stubborn truculence to her under that faded exterior. And maybe she knew very little, actually. It was a rule of mine that one didn't use a mallet to kill a mosquito. I wanted to be a little more certain she really knew something before I went for it.
Her eyes were watching me with the same approval I'd seen in them before and she'd sat down on an over-stuffed chair with her legs up and spread just enough to be tantalizing. They were gorgeous legs; I quietly admired them again. I was going to try another route to her.
"Well, if there's nothing to tell me, then I'll be going." I smiled pleasantly, and let her watch my eyes move up and down her legs. The short shorts came hardly an inch down the side of her thighs as she sat with her legs pulled up. "But I'll be back. It's worth the visit just to look at your legs." I smiled again.
Her eyes came alive at once as she reacted with that sharp eagerness of the woman who is hungry for attention.
"Do you really think so?" she asked, stretching them out further for me to admire. "You don't think they're too thin?"
"I think they're just right," I said. She got up and walked over to me. "Well, I'm glad to see you're not so taken up with your job you can't react," she said. "Would you like a drink?"
"I don't know," I said, hesitantly. "I'd like one but I'd better not."
"Why not?" she frowned. "You're old enough and Lord knows you're big enough." I watched her eyes quickly move across my shoulders and chest.
"Well, for one thing, I couldn't promise anything after a drink," I said. "Not with those legs of yours. I've never seen anything like them, really."
She smiled quietly. "Who asked you to promise anything?" she murmured. She went over to a little cabinet and brought out some rye and glasses.
"Wait," I said. "I'm supposed to be questioning you, not drinking with you."
"Lord, you Yanks are conscientious," she said, filling the glasses. "So question me while we drink. A few drinks might help me remember something."
I smiled quietly to myself. "Okay." I shrugged, taking the glass she handed
me. Her breasts, loose under the pale lemon blouse, moved provocatively. Lynn Delba was a hungry woman, hungry for attention, for compliments, for sex. Most hef her good years were behind her, she knew, and she'd been dancing on the rim of those desperate years when a woman realizes most of her weapons are gone. Then, like an actor unsure of himself who keeps repeating his lines, she keeps trying her weapons out to make sure she still has some, at least.
It was a sad game, a self-deluding way to keep inner confidence, but it was harmless except to her. My game was the more callous. But, hell, I wasn't here to play psychiatrist. I gave her the attention and compliments she wanted and by the way she tossed off the first drink, I knew that she was letting liquor help keep her from looking in the mirror too often. It didn't take her long before she had moved closer to me, the small points of her bra-less breasts forming tiny thrusts against the blouse.
"It was really sad about your friend, Dawsey," I said, leaning back after enough small talk. "Just when he was getting into some money and everything."
The hell with Dawsey," she said, almost savagely, as I sat beside her, my face only inches from hers. I kept letting my eyes roam up and down her legs and then linger on her breasts and yet I didn't make a move — it was driving her wild. She got up angrily and started to pour herself another drink. I moved quickly, halted her as she started to pick up the glass and spun her around. I kissed her as I pushed my hand up beneath the lemon blouse and felt the rounded bottoms of her breasts. I took one and gathered it up in my hand. Her tongue was furiously darting around my mouth and I felt her nipple already firm and erect. She was beginning to pant and writhe as I caressed her breasts when suddenly I pulled away, moving from her arms. She sat back down on the couch and tossed the blouse off over her head. I went over to her and cupped her breasts in my hands, their softness gathering itself comfortably in my palms. She had started to unbutton the shorts but I stopped her.
"I can't stay," I said. "I've got to be somewhere else in an hour."
"God, you can't go," she protested, clutching at me.
"This is what I was afraid of," I said. 'This won't help you remember anything and it's keeping me from what I have to do."
"Yes, it will," she said, holding onto me. "Believe me." I rubbed my thumbs across the firm points of her breasts, brownish points, large for the size of her breasts. She shuddered but I shook my head.
"It's just me, I guess," I said, putting a note of sadness into my voice. "I've always been like that. I've got to justify my being here, to myself at least, while I'm on the job. If you could just remember something more to tell me, something that'd help me."
I watched her eyes suddenly grow darker and she half pulled away. T can't think of anything yet," she said. "But I will." She was retreating fast. I rubbed my thumbs across her nipples again and she shuddered and came back into my arms. I got up quickly, and she fell back against the couch.
"I'll come back later tonight," I said. "If you can remember anything more, tell me. I'll phone you first. I want to come back. Just give me reason."
I put an arm around the back of her neck, half lifted her up like a doll and pressed my lips against her breasts, moving the hard, brown nipples under my teeth. She whimpered in ecstasy. Then I let her drop back and walked to the door. "Tonight," I said, pausing, watching her as she looked at me with half lowered lids, her breasts moving up and down as her breath came hard. I knew she'd been turned on and she wouldn't turn off easily. I closed the door and went down the hall and outside to the street. It would be a contest, I knew, between her hunger and her caution. I was betting on her hunger, unless she got someone else to turn it off for her. That was always a possibility. I'd find out later.
I'd spent the better part of the afternoon nursing Lynn Delba along and I stopped in at a restaurant for a bite to eat while it grew dark. When I'd finished, I headed for The Ruddy Jug. I sauntered in and met Judy's eyes as I walked over to sit down at one of the tables in the center of the floor. My guarded glance swept by her, and I smiled inwardly as she didn't show even a flicker of expression. The two goons who'd tossed me out were at their table in the corner. They didn't remember me except as a face they'd seen at the place before. I hadn't made any real trouble for them and it was only the really troublesome ones they bothered to remember. I ordered a rye and water, looked the place over, and sat back.
Judy was doing her job, moving from table to table and booth to booth, being charmingly pleasant and attractive, her low-necked dress a burnt orange this time. I seemed to pay no attention to her, a silent, morose type, intent on my own thoughts and my own drinking. I ordered another rye, then another as the time went by.
The place had filled up more and was a cacophony of tinkling piano, raucous laughter and loud conversation. Judy was leaning against the bar. Suddenly I saw the man threading his way toward her. Even through the smoke of the place I caught the "burning eyes" of the man and his face, hawk-like with the beaked shape of his prominent nose. He halted at the bar beside the girl and spoke to her casually in low tones. She answered and I saw her shake her head a few times. She seemed to be telling him that no new propects had been around. I saw him shake hands with her and I caught the folding money she palmed as she strolled away. They were still paying her to be contact girl for them. Good, they didn't suspect her of anything. But hawk-face could answer a lot of questions, I knew. I started for him, moving casually toward the bar.
He saw me as I approached, took one look, and streaked across the big room, moving alongside the bar. As a rat doesn't need to be told an approaching terrier means trouble, he had instinctively known I spelled the same for him. I saw he was heading for a side door at the far end of the bar. I was hampered by having to move around and between the tables while he streaked in a straight line for it. He was gone from sight when I reached the door. I ran into a parking lot and heard the sound of an engine roar into life. Headlights blinked on and I saw a jeep leap from its place and roar toward me.
"Stop!" I yelled at him. He veered for me and I got ready to leap back. He didn't see the cold glint of Wilhelmina's barrel in my hand. I leaped backwards as the jeep swung to hit me, firing as I hit the ground. It was an easy shot and the bullet landed right on target. Too much on target, in fact. He was dead before the jeep came to a grinding halt as it bounced along the bumpers of a row of parked cars. I pulled him from the jeep, went through his pockets and found he had nothing to identify himself. Other people were coming from The Ruddy Jug now, and I leaped into the jeep and roared out of the lot.
I kept going until I was a good distance away. Then I halted and examined the vehicle, going over it from tires to roof. The glove compartment held nothing, and the only thing I found was a branding iron in the rear of it. That, and the orange-red dust all over the tires, sticking in every crevice of the treads and in the wheels themselves.
I got back into the jeep and headed west, out of Townsville and toward the outback. I was betting he hadn't come from too damned far, within two or three hours drive. There were plenty of ranches in that range.
Once outside of Townsville, the Australian country grew wild and rugged very quickly. The vast outback, farther on, supported few working ranches because of its aridness, and when they'd told Judy they came from the «outback», they were using the term loosely. I had the branding iron and I'd use it to locate the ranch.
I drove along the first road I found that led out into the back country and kept driving, going at a steady pace for nearly two hours. The road took me southwest, across the rugged, green lands and then into drier, dusty country. I slowed down and turned off the road as I saw a ranch, the lights still burning in the windows. Dogs started barking as I approached and a floodlight went on to bathe the jeep and myself in a glare of brightness. A rancher and another man, each carrying a shotgun, came out of the house. I saw a woman's figure in the doorway.
"Sorry to bother you," I sang out. "I need a little help." The men lowered the rifles and came over to the jeep.
"Don't mean to be jumpy," the older man said. "But you never know what goes on these days."
I took the branding iron from the seat and gave it to the rancher. The iron had a circle with three points inside it.
"I'm looking to return this but I can't find where it belongs," I said casually.
"The Circle Three," the rancher said. "They're about fifteen miles west of here. They don't rig their cattle to market the way the rest of us do, but I've seen the brand on a few strays. They have a small herd, mostly for their own use, I guess."
"Much obliged," I said.
"This side of the fence," he called to me as I drove off. I knew what he meant and I went about ten miles more when I saw it, six feet high and a foot or more into the ground. Three thousand five hundred miles long, it had been built around Queensland's main sheep country and was designed to protect the major industry from the wild dogs of Australia, the cunning and predatory dingo. Until the "dingo fence" had been built, the wild dogs had taken a frightful toll of the sheep, draining the very lifeblood of the major Australian industry. Made of ware netting, it was high enough to discourage jumping and sunk low enough to discourage digging under. There were still raids and breakthroughs, but it had done remarkably well in keeping the marauding wild dingoes out of the heart of the sheeplands.
I cut off the road and drove south, paralleling the fence, and then I saw the dark shapes of a cluster of ranch buildings — main house, stables, barns, corrals.
I left the jeep and moved forward, coming down on the place along a gentle slope studded with brush. There were no sentries that 1 could see. I moved down to the corral and saw the brand on the rump of the nearest steer, the circle and the three dots inside it. The main house was dark and the place seemed closed down for the night.