by Nick Carter
He took her hand and stroked it lightly, letting his fingers caress her palm and wrist and soft inner arm until he could see that his touch had stirred her senses. He dropped his hand beneath the tiny table and gently explored her thighs.
"Why don't we go somewhere else?" he murmured. "Where we can be alone? I'm sure that you and I can find quite a lot to — talk about."
Her eyes roamed over his face and down his body. Her breasts seemed to swell under his gaze.
"All right," she breathed softly. "But stop that now. I'll make you take me here and now if you're not careful. Don't think we'd be the only ones, either." Then her mood changed suddenly. "Come on, let's get out of this place. I'm sick of it. Usually the party winds up on the beach. Let's get there before the rest of them."
"The beach?" He raised his eyebrows. "That's a pretty long drive, isn't it?"
"I want to go. Do you want to come with me, or not?"
Of course he did. She had something that he wanted. Information.
"Of course I do, Toni. Very much."
"Then go out ahead of me. I don't want the whole lot following us. There's a blue Panther parked on the corner, to the left as you leave the front door. I'll meet you there in a few minutes."
He wondered if she really would. But if she didn't, he'd come right back and see what — or who — had held her up.
He made his way through the giggling, swaying crowd, trying to look like a man in search of a bathroom.
The night was warm but pleasant — as close to perfect as anything Saigon knew.
Again as he walked quietly through the garden he felt his sixth sense warning him of a watcher, or at least of someone near him in the dark. He stepped out of the pool of light and held to the shadows, taking a long, slow look around. But either his instinct had deceived him or the someone was going to some pains to hide himself. After a few moments of watchful waiting he glided silently out of the garden and toward the car.
Almost to his surprise, Toni joined him a few short minutes later. He took the wheel and they drove off to her directions.
The man in the garden stirred. He had needed to feel the fresh air on his face and he did not care who went where. His only concern was for Madame, and she was far away.
But when the second man hurried out into the garden and stared after the retreating car, Saito felt a sense of unease that reminded him of the long-gone days with the Master.
This man moved guiltily. Not with quiet caution, as if waiting for a lady, but as if it mattered to him that he was not seen. This man scuttled on his long spidery legs to a second parked car. This man seemed intent on following Monsieur Dupré's daughter and her tall friend with the fighter's body and strong jaw.
Well, it was nothing to him. But Saito would remember. He would know that yellow face again.
Friday Night
The water ran down their bodies in little warm rivulets as they scuffed back along the dark beach to the natural rock shelter where they had left their clothes.
On the drive she had been quiet and moody. But after they had left the car beneath the trees and scrambled down the rocks toward the sea, she had suddenly become alive with gaiety and insisted that they plunge into the soft breakers while the night was still so fine. Their clothes came off quickly and the warm sea received them. She played in the water like a delighted child — a child-woman with strange eyes, softly rounded hips and astonishingly full, ripe breasts. In the water he treated her like a child, letting her splash and duck him to her heart's content.
Nick caught her by the waist and steadied her. His wet arms went around her and his lips crushed down on hers. Suddenly the child disappeared and the woman was there, wanting and demanding. At last she opened her eyes, sighed, and took his hand, directing him along the beach to the rocks where they had left their clothes.
"I don't suppose anyone remembered to bring a towel," he said to no one in particular. "Here, you'd better sit on my shirt."
"We'll both sit on it."
They sat down beside each other.
She was quiet again. He lay back on one elbow and gently pushed the wet hair back from her forehead.
The bright moon broke through the shifting clouds and he could see her eyes again. Now they looked like little pools of pain. Droplets of mascara clung to her cheeks. Washed almost clean of makeup, her face was ghostly pale in spite of their romp in the sea.
His fingers traced a casual pattern down her face and past her chin; over her shoulder and her smooth damp arm. And stopped. There had been makeup there, too; traces of it still smeared her upper arm. Now that it had been nearly washed away he could see the telltale pinprick marks it had been covering. He felt her stiffen as he looked up into her childlike face.
"I thought so," he said quietly. "But I thought it was almost impossible to get unless you dealt directly with the Communist Chinese."
Her small, magnificent figure seemed to wilt. "Oh, my God," she moaned. "Help me, help me, please!" Her arms went around him and she buried her head in his chest. As he held her, wondering if he could bargain his «help» for whatever she could tell him, he thought he heard a car somewhere in the distance. It would be most inconvenient if the party from the house had decided it was time to descend in droves upon the beach. But in a few moments the sound faded altogether.
"What can I do?" he murmured.
She raised her head and kissed him urgently.
Little scuds of sand flew up and sprayed down on their entwined bodies.
He began very gently. Soon the tension in her body surrendered to his touch and she lay back with a little moan of pleasure, waiting.
The moon dipped back behind the clouds.
Her small, full body drew itself close against his hard but limber strength and her superbly rounded thighs rubbed nakedly against his. He felt her heartbeat quicken and she began to murmur low, unintelligible endearments. Her hands roamed over his body, lingering over the muscles and feeling the firmness of him, and her lips trailed provocatively over his ears… his eyes… his mouth… his throat… and back to his seeking mouth. His pulse began the race to catch up with hers as his whole being tingled with growing desire. She was soft; she was hard. Outstretched and rigid; flexible and clinging. Searching; then wanting him to search. Each explored the other's body and measured the other's need.
"Ah!" she sighed. "Closer, closer…"
He parted the smooth legs easily and sought the closeness, rolling her over and pulling her with him in the sort of quiet savagery that he felt in himself and sensed she needed.
Then she fought. Fought in such a way that their bodies remained joined together and each movement was a stab of ecstasy. He let her fight until he wanted more than mock resistance, then he caught her in a trap of muscular arms and legs that left her helpless. Her body undulated sinuously against his. His thighs gave her the rhythm and she caught it, moving with him in the horizontal dance of physical love. Now they were riding a swift conveyor belt that could not stop to let them off until it had brought them to their journey's end.
She gasped suddenly and tore at his lips with her small, sharp teeth, and her hands went around his back and clawed frenziedly at his flesh. He swore softly and tore her arms away from him and pinned them without losing his stride. His mouth bore down on hers and crushed it brutally. She groaned with pain and pleasure and her body arched beneath him. Her movements quickened convulsively in time with his, and then in one galvanic moment they both forgot the flying sand, the sighing sea, their separate identities — all but the wild exhilaration that made them cling together, breathless and exalted. The moment lingered and died.
Nick lowered himself to the sand, feeling strangely tired for a man to whom sex was as necessary as fresh air and good Scotch. He drew Toni down to lie quietly in his arms.
She lay still for a minute or two. Another car passed in the distance without stopping.
Toni stirred. "You do not like it when I hurt you?" she whispered.
"I
like everything you do, Toni. But you don't have to fight me. I'm with you, not against you."
She sat up — suddenly, as she did almost everything — and looked down into his eyes. "You must tell me," she said urgently. "Are you the American who was supposed to see my father? On some very important business?"
He hesitated. Did she think she'd bought him now?
"Don't you understand?" Her voice was intense. "I want you to be! If you're not, then tell me. Just tell me, that's all I ask!"
Nick sat up and took her hand. He knew he had to tell her and take his chances on what followed. This, after all, was what he'd come here for.
"Yes," he said. "But it's private business. What do you know about it? Did someone tell you to find out?" The eyes, the pinpricks, the savagery, the Chinaman… they added up. "Is that why you need help?" He made his voice sound very quiet and understanding.
She stared at him. "I… I wanted to know for myself."
"No, Toni. Who gives you drugs, baby? And makes you work for them? I can help, you know."
Tears welled up in her eyes and started trickling down her cheeks. "You've got to swear, you've got to swear you're my father's friend. Prove it to me. Prove that you're working with him."
He shook his head. "How can I possibly do that?"
"If I tell you something that I know, you can tell me something that he must have told you if you are his friend. If I say 'La Farge, what name can you offer me?"
La Farge! She really did know something; much too much.
"How about — Saito?" he suggested thoughtfully. He saw her eyes widen and she nodded almost imperceptibly. "And if I add 'Chinaman, what name can you offer me?"
This time she almost choked. "You know! You know! You know that he's the one who made me spy upon Papa. He promised — I hate him! — he promised — and he wanted me to find out about you too." The words came pouring out until they became a crazy jumble.
Nick shook her roughly. "He's got you hooked, is that it? What did he want you to do? Calm down now, Toni, or I'll take you into the water again and dunk you until you make sense."
She calmed down and she began to tell him about the smooth, exciting Chinese called Lin Tong who had demanded nothing from her but her body until just the other day. And what he demanded now.
"Tell me exactly what you heard being said in your father's den, Toni. And what you said to Lin Tong."
"It was something about a message, and Saito getting back to his lady as soon as possible…"
"No, Toni. The words. You must be more exact. I have to know word-for-word what you said to him. Think back. Whose voice did you hear first? Did you tell Lin Tong what it said?"
Remember, now. No I do not care about the belt Moreau get back to my lady too long alone please not so loud one more day that's all I ask Saito message orders La Farge American…
Nick listened with growing alarm. There was almost nothing important that she had not heard and repeated to the Chinaman. Who had been very pleased with the information but who had wanted more. And there was no doubt at all that he had seen Nick and Toni monopolizing each other throughout the evening. Any man with a minimum of intelligence could piece together a pretty revealing story.
" 'Tomorrow, he said. 'Contact by then. I think he was saying that he was sure he would be contacted by then, as if promising Saito that he would have to wait no longer."
Nick nodded. A gust of wind plucked at Toni's discarded dress, scattered it with sand, and dropped it. Trees many yards away sighed and rustled. He turned his head. Was there someone moving in the dark?
"Let's go," he said. "Get dressed now, Toni. I don't want anyone to find us here."
"They won't come this far; I told you that. This is my own special little cove. No one knows about it except — except a sailor I once knew."
"Not Lin Tong?"
"No, not Lin Tong. But — but — what do we do now?" She made a little anxious movement toward him in the dark.
"That depends," he said quietly. "Why did you tell me all this, Toni? Was it because your Chinese friend had made you desperate?"
"No!" Her head shook emphatically. "Oh, it's true I was desperate — I still am and God knows I will be until — and angry because he cheated me. But I am glad of the anger. It made me see him more clearly. He forgets — often I forget — that deep down I do love my Papa. I have to get out of this. I have to. Already you have helped me. You have given me a chance to… compare."
"And now? Do you want to kick the habit, and him along with it? Or are you going to tell him who I am?"
She held his hand so tightly that it almost hurt. "I'll try not to," she said quietly. "But help me. Even if you have to lock me up, help me not to see him again."
"I'll help. Just one more question, then we'll go. When do I find this Lin Tong when he's home?"
The clouds parted suddenly and the moon stared down at them. In that instant Nick knew for certain that they were not alone. Instinct made him move like a greased eel, whiplashing his body down and to one side and rolling Toni with him as though their bodies were still one.
But flesh can only move so fast.
The vicious twin shocks of sound slammed past his ears even as he rolled. Toni screamed once and stopped in midscream with a little choking sound as the third shot blasted across the sand from behind the barrier of rocks. Nick saw her face twist with agony as her small, abundant form jolted in his arms; and then the fourth report sent a searing line of pain scorching across his shoulders. In a swift, painful movement he hoisted her to the slender shelter of the nearest low boulder. She moaned softly, and a thin dark trickle dribbled slowly down the side of her neck.
He heard a sough of sound from somewhere else. The corner of his eye caught the moving figure as the clouds pulled over the moon. Then he could see nothing but the dim shape at his feet and the thickness in the dark night that was the rock barrier — their supposedly secluded shelter.
His clothes lay somewhere in the sandy clearing between him and the killer — as close, by now, to the killer as to him. And with them were his friends Wilhelmina, Hugo and Pierre. All he had on him was the untried Fang.
And the desperate worry about Toni, who had begged for his help and now lay still with something wet trickling down to her bare shoulder.
He waited for the sound to come again. When it did — the soft scraping of cloth against harsh rock — he crawled away from his low boulder toward the first of the great stones that formed the shelter. If he could get behind the fellow, cut him off between the rock barrier and the sea — He reached the tall rock sooner than he had expected. Its height had not prepared him for the low outcropping that all at once lay hard beneath his feet, nor for the tiny pebble that rolled as he flicked it lightly with his foot. He dropped as though he had already been shot, groping for the pebble or some other pebble until something small and hard came up in his hand. He heard a scrabbling sound some yards away and pitched his pebble up to clatter on the high rocks above him, hoping that the man would think he had been already climbing when the first stone fell.
The report shattered the night like a louder echo of the first four shots. It split the air high over his head, and it had come from much higher than he had expected. Friend Killer, then, was moving too — but moving back up the rocks and away from the sea. Nick cursed inside himself and toed his way lightly back onto the soft sand, moving quietly toward the source of the last shot.
Silence. Absolute darkness. His feet made faint shushing noises in the sand, audible to himself but not to anyone more than a few feet away. The gusty breeze was busy again, too, and it helped to cover the small sounds he was making.
He stopped and listened. All he could hear was the sound of the waves and the wind. If the other man was moving he was just as quiet as Carter. Nick strained his eyes in the darkness. Nothing seemed to move. He looked up at the sky and scanned the clouds. Dark, thick, glowering. No sign of a coming break.
He would have to make his own break, s
omehow.
Each could play a waiting game. But if there was still a chance for Toni, Nick could not afford to wait. Not did he hold the winning cards.
Five shots. The killer may have as many as five more to go. Plus a spare clip. Not much point in drawing his fire just to make him shoot himself dry; there was no knowing what he had on hand.
Two possibilities. One: Have him fire once more to pinpoint his position, then rush him with one sharp dose of Fang. Drawback — how to avoid getting his head blown off while he was rushing. Two: Steal back to his clothes under cover of the unrelenting darkness, get Wilhelmina the Luger, and shoot it out. Drawbacks…? Possible misjudgment in the dark as to exactly where his clothes might be; a fumbling for Wilhelmina in that open sandy clearing; presenting himself as a sitting target… But he didn't have to sit. He knew exactly where Wilhelmina nestled in her holster. And at least he would get a chance to shoot back, rather than get shot to pieces before even starting on his mission.
He had started moving slowly back toward the clearing, edging silently along the rock, before he was even conscious of deciding. He had no more fear of death than he had of life, but he had no desire to die foolishly. A fighting chance was all he ever asked. And he would rather die when the job was over than before it had begun.
He sidled back cautiously past Toni's limp figure, wanting to touch her to find out if she still breathed but knowing that he should not until this silent stalking was over. Instead, he glanced up at the sky. Still as thick as black cotton, unstirring in the low wind.
A few steps more. No sound from the other man, waiting out there in the dark.
Nick's hands sought quietly in his clothes and came out with the Luger. Then he glided back to the rock barrier and pitched his stone over to the tall rocks where he had last heard from the killer. He heard it strike harshly and fall in little grating bounces down to the soft sand. But instead of a shot there was a grunt of human sound, almost an "Aah!" of triumph.