by Lee Falk
"Be more explicit." He lifted her half out of the chair. '"Who were they?"
"They never did identify themselves exactly." She twisted out of his grip. "But I do know they were hired to kill you."
Danton's eyes nearly closed. "To kill me, yes. I see," he said. "Surely you have some idea of who hired them. Were they connected with organized crime, with the syndicate? There's a great deal of-"
"They want to kill you," Diana told him, "because they believe you're Rolf Langweil."
The handsome man stiffened. He touched his face before crossing the room to stare out a porthole. All he could see was the wall of the cave. "A ridiculous notion," he said, laughing. "Like the games mass-circulation magazines play—Is Hitler Still Alive?—and that sort of thing."
"You mean you're not Rolf Langweil?"
Danton, still staring out at the blackness, said, "What else can you tell me about these two misguided men?"
"One of them is being held by the Santa Barbara authorities." She leaned against her bunk, rubbing at her arm.
"And the other one?"
"I imagine he's still hunting you."
"This latter man, what does he look like?"
"Tall and blond, very amiable outwardly."
Danton nodded to himself. "The same one, yes,"
he murmured. He faced the girl again. "I assume by now several people have heard of this ludicrous idea about me?"
"Yes, the man in custody was telling anyone who'd listen."
"And how many people know your dear friend the Phantom has come down here to look for me?"
Diana hesitated a second. "I don't know," she said. "He doesn't confide everything in me."
"Perhaps it's still only the three of you I have to worry about—you, the Phantom, and the other man." He put a hand on the doorknob. "Still we'll have to leave even earlier than I had planned. Good night, Diana."
"Chris, won't you—?"
The door opened and closed. She was alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The winds had died. The night sky over Santa Barbara was calm and clear. Uncle Dave, in a tropical shirt and candy-striped pants, was making another circuit around the pool. "Enough time's gone by to try it again," he said to himself.
Back in the living room, he seated himself next to the phone. He punched out the number of Diana's bungalow court down in Mexico. He'd memorized it by now.
"Buenas noches," answered the desk clerk.
"Is Diana Palmer in yet?"
"Is this Senor Palmer once again?"
"Yes, is-?"
"I am very sorry, senor, she remains out."
"And Mr. Walker?"
"He also, senor," replied the clerk. "It is as I told you on the occasion of your first call. Senor Walker asked after Diana Palmer this afternoon and then went out to look for her. Neither of them has returned."
"Okay," said the old man. "When either one comes in, have them call me."
"Yes, of course, senor. But do not worry overly. When two people are young and on vacation in Mexico, even in the off season, they . . ."
Diana's uncle hung up. "Something's not right," he said. Diana was to have called him today. When he hadn't heard from her by late afternoon, he put in a call to her, learning she and the Phantom had been out since midday. Uncle Dave rubbed at his stomach. He had one of his hunches that something was wrong.
The doorbell rang.
Agents Marcus and Busino were at the door. "Good evening," said Marcus after stepping inside.
"Have you heard anything?" asked the old man.
"About what?" asked Busino.
Leading them into the living room, Uncle Dave said, "That's right. You two don't even know what I'm worried about."
"No, we came over to talk about what we're worried about." Marcus sat in a sofa chair, tugging out a crumpled pack of menthol cigarettes. "But what's bothering you?" :"'
"Oh, it's probably nothing. But I haven't been able to get in touch with Diana all day. It's got me worried."
"Your niece is in Mocosa, Mexico, right?" said Marcus.
"Yes," the old man answered.
"Suppose you tell us why she went there?"
"Don't tell me you still suspect—?"
"No, not at all," said Marcus. "But I want to know."
"Well, Walker had something to take care of down there."
"Something to do with all this Chris Danton business?"
Uncle Dave nodded, saying, "That's the way I figure it. You don't know him as well as I do. He plays his cards pretty close to the vest."
"Everybody," said Busino, watching the pack of cigarettes in his partner's hand, "seems to be traveling to Mexico."
Marcus shook out a cigarette and passed the
pack to Busino. "Your niece or Walker didn't tell you anything else?"
"What do you mean by everybody?" the old man asked Busino.
'We've been trying to round up Danton's known associates," he replied. "It looks like most of them have headed south."
"We have been able to get our hands on one guy, a peripheral character named Gabe Rich," said Marcus. "He tells us he drove this Laura Leverson down to Tijuana and left her there."
"A long way from Mocosa," said Uncle Dave.
"Rich says the girl was going to contact somebody there in Tijuana and get herself a ride somewhere else," said Marcus. "We even know the name of her contact."
"What's he say?"
"We asked the Mexican cops to check him out," said Marcus. "Seems the guy has suddenly dropped from sight."
"He on the run, too?"
"It might also be due," said Busino, "to that wandering assassin."
"According to Gabe Rich," said Marcus, "a guy who sounds very much like Fulmer's sidekick leaned on him and made him tell where he'd taken the Leverson dame."
Uncle Dave said, "So there may be some truth in all this about Chris Danton being an ex-Nazi?"
"Right now," said Marcus, "I'll believe most anything."
The yellow Cessna hummed through the night.
"You understand," the pilot, a chubby man in his late thirties, was saying, "that that was the landing field we passed back there, senor?"
The man who now called himself Helmann was
sitting with his head pressed against the window, whistling softly. "Yes, I understand," he answered. "I want to take a look at the entire island before we turn around and land."
"A little flea-ridden island inhabited by a bunch of fishermen," said the pilot. "At night, you'll see even less than during the day, which isn't much."
"I'm paying you," Helmann reminded him, "a handsome fee to indulge my whims. No more comments, if you please."
"As you say, senor."
Helmann went back to whistling. He'd learned even more in Tijuana than he'd expected. Langweil, or Danton if you preferred, wasn't being anywhere near as careful as he should be. Helmann had had to dispose of the man in Tijuana when he was through with him. He liked to avoid that sort of thing, if possible, it took up too much time. There'd been, however, no workable alternative in this particular instance.
"There is your beloved island," announced the pilot.
Helmann looked down. All he could see were a few tiny dots of light in the blackness. He smiled.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Phantom had stood up from beside the body that afternoon, and asked Jiminez, "Had he told you anything about where he thought Torres was?"
The other man had taken off his sopping Panama hat and was looking everywhere but at the dead man. "We should leave here now, senor, I suggest."
"We will, after I've looked around."
"You don't intend—am I correct?—to notify the police."
Shaking his head, the Phantom said, "What was this man Ramirez involved in?"
"Many things, I am not certain how many." Jimenez took a few steps backward. "He implied, when I talked to him last evening on your behalf, that he and Torres were partners in something that was going to make a consid
erable profit."
"Where did he think Torres was?"
"He didn't confide what he thought, senor. However, I have the notion he was himself concerned about Torres's absence. He was hoping to learn something more this morning," said Jimenez. "Then sell that information to you."
The Phantom strode to the sliding doors. "Learn something from whom?"
"A customer, someone who was coming here an hour or so ahead of us."
With gloved hands, the Phantom slid open the doors. The rain was slacking off. "There's been a truck in here recently, some kind of half! rack judging from those marks it gouged in the mud."
At his side, Jimenez nodded back at the dead man. "I notice no blood, senor. What killed him? Perhaps it was natural—"
"You didn't look closely enough," answered the Phantom. "He was strangled." He pointed at the half-open wooden gates outside. "Where does that street lead?"
"Down to the harbor, senor, to the dock area."
"That's probably where our halftrack went."
"It is very easy to find your way there, senor. You won't, I am more than certain, need me to lead you."
"No, you can take off."
"I wish you a good afternoon then, senor." Jimenez snapped his limp white hat back on his head and hurried toward the front door. "I'll try to give the impression, if asked, that I was never here." He left the place.
The Phantom spent another few minutes there. Then he made his way unobtrusively to the harbor. His preliminary inquiries tinned up nothing on the halftrack.
Retrieving his rented car near the All-American Cantina, he drove back up to the bungalows. He'd better talk to Diana, let her know what he was up to, before continuing his search.
He found the girl's note on the floor of his room. But when he went to the market area, he found no trace of her.
The Phantom didn't encounter the fat vendor until after sunset. After searching the entire market plaza area that afternoon, he had returned to the bungalow complex. He'd questioned the clerk, learned nothing, and waited in his room for a time. As the day waned, he returned to the plaza to search again for Diana.
"Yes, senor," the fat woman told him, "I saw such a girl as you are asking about. Muy bonita, very pretty." While she talked, she ladled steaming meat out of a caldron mounted on her cart, slapped a portion on a flat tortilla, and rolled it up.
He had been asking everyone who worked on the street about Diana. "When was this?"
"Before I left for my afternoon siesta," replied the woman. "It must have been some time around midday."
"Where did she go?"
Pointing with the wooden ladle, the fat woman said, "You see up in the next block, senor, where there is an alley? She walked down there."
"You see her come out?"
"Not dining the final hour I was selling my wares."
"What's down there?"
"That's what is strange, senor. It is only an alley. There is a shabby cafe, but it has been closed for many days."
"Thanks." He started to walk away.
"Perhaps, senor, she was to meet the other man."
Stopping, he asked, "What other man?"
"He was tall, such as yourself, but older," answered the fat vendor. She touched at one temple with the handle of the big spoon. "His hair was gray here. He stopped for a moment to inspect my cart, then entered that very same alley."
"Before the girl did?"
"Yes, senor, that is right."
Nodding, the Phantom said to himself, "Diana must have spotted Danton's boy and decided to trail him on her own."
There was no activity in the alley, only darkness and silence. No lights in the small cafe and the walls on the left and right had no windows.
The Phantom found a door in an alcove partway down the alley. It was locked. He knelt, studying the dusty ground. "Some kind of struggle here recently between a man and two women."
From a short distance away, he heard a truck motor starting up.
There were people talking.
The Phantom sprinted to the end of the alley. Between the closed cafe and the wall of the other building rose a high wooden fence.
He climbed to the top of the fence in seconds. Poised there, he saw the gray-haired man wave a good-bye to a panel truck. The vehicle drove off into the night.
Silently, the Phantom pulled himself up onto the flat roof of the adjoining building. He moved along until he was directly over the other man. Then he jumped.
"Oof!" bellowed Edwards as he was propelled forward by the force of the Phantom landing on him. He staggered, twisted, and fell over backward in the dust.
The Phantom picked him up, spun him around and locked a powerful arm around his neck. "Where is she?"
Choking, the man answered, "You just missed her, my friend."
"She was in that truck?"
"Right you are, in a box."
The Phantom increased the pressure. "If you've killed-"
"Easy, easy, she's only drugged," Edwards gasped.
"Where are they taking her?"
"Danton," said the man, "to Danton on the island."
"Which island?"
The gray-haired man told him all about the island.
When he was finished, the Phantom let him go. As the man turned, the Phantom hit him hard on the jaw. Edwards dropped to the ground with the Sign of the Skull imprinted on his face.
Tying him up with his own shoelaces, gagging him with his necktie, the Phantom tossed Edwards into the nearest doorway. Then he began running toward the ocean.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Danton looked up from his desk and frowned. "I have no time for you now," he said.
"Seems to me I've heard that song before." Laura came on into his cabin.
"We're going to have to get out of here no later than tomorrow night," he said. "There is still much to be done."
The pretty red-haired girl sat on the edge of the bunk.
The frown deepened on Danton's handsome face. "If you'd done your job well, dear Laura, we would not have all these current worries. But you failed miserably at getting rid of the Phantom."
"Oh, come on, Chris," she said. "Despite your gruff exterior at the moment, I know damn well you're smiling on the inside because sweet little Diana Palmer is still among the living."
"Perhaps," admitted Danton.
"Perhaps, my elbow," said Laura. "Why don't you admit that if you hadn't gotten yourself all tangled up with her, we'd still be operating safely up in Santa Barbara. Instead we're hiding in a cave and you've got her installed in the bridal suite."
Danton stood and began to laugh. "Ah, I see now what is really bothering you, Laura. You've j allowed yourself to become jealous of Diana. Isn't that a fact?"
"Isn't it a fact you were seeing her every single night and day? Isn't it a fact you invited her to Sea Horse Villa, which was a stupid thing to do?"
"Well, Laura, we all do stupid things now and again," said Danton, grinning at her. "Even you."
"Yes, I realize that now, Chris," said the red- haired girl. "One of my all-time classic stupid things was letting you . . . recruit me."
Danton crossed the cabin to place a hand on her shoulder. "I'm still very fond of you, Laura," he assured her. "And when—"
"Sure." She lifted his hand off her shoulder and walked quickly out of the cabin.
Danton watched the door she'd slammed for several minutes.
The Phantom, stripped down to his tight-fitting costume once again, swam through the black water with strong strokes. The lights of the island were quite close now and he could see three fishing boats moored at the rickety dock he was fast approaching.
Not even winded by the chill swim from the shore to the small island, he swam silently up beside the dock.
A lone man with a rifle was pacing the dock end.
Since he wanted to approach as unobtrusively as possible, the masked man avoided the guard and swam away from him.
A hundred yards further off, concealed fro
m the guard by an outcropping of rock, the Phantom came ashore.
At some distance, dogs were barking at each other. They didn't sound dangerous.
Moving across the sandy ground, the Phantom sighted the small house Edwards had told him about. The house which enclosed the elevator to the lower levels.
There was another rifleman standing directly in front of the doorway.
Without making a sound, the jungle-bred masked man circled the house. There was no one inside. He approached the bedroom window and tried to open it.
The moment he touched the frame, a bell began ringing within the house.
The Phantom darted off into the darkness, circled the house again, and came around behind the guard who'd gone to investigate. He knocked the man out with two blows from behind. Trussing him up, much the way he had the gray-haired Edwards, he dragged the guard into the house.
The bell was still ringing. The masked man located it on the far wall, and got it switched off. "I wonder if that also rings down below," he mused.
From the bedroom came the sound of an elevator door opening. "What's wrong up here, Gill?"
The Phantom was across the room and next to the bedroom door before it opened.
When this latest guard, a tall thick-necked man stepped into the room, the Phantom felled him with one chop.
"So much for my unobtrusive entrance," he said to himself.
He noticed the man was wearing a seaman's knit cap and a navy-blue peajacket. The Phantom borrowed these before tying and gagging the man.
There was another man ten feet from the elevator exit. "Some trouble up there?" he asked.
Keeping his back to the man, the Phantom replied, in a muffled voice, "Dogs fooling around at the windows."
"We ought to shoot the whole pack."
The Phantom saw the Sea Horse directly ahead of him now. He began to make his way along the metal walkway leading toward it.
"Hey, you're not supposed to go off-duty till midnight," called the other man.
Slowly, the Phantom turned.
"You're not—"
The Phantom got hold of the man, grappled with him on the black metal walkway. Before the man could speak again, the Phantom knocked him out. He left him lying inside the elevator cage.
When he came alongside the Sea Horse, treading on a narrow catwalk, he saw more men. They were working on the side of the ship, painting it gray. The Phantom went by, hands in the pockets of his heavy jacket. No one hailed him.