A Korean Tiger (7 page)

The women in the small glass cages were very patient. They rocked and smoked, knitted and read magazines, and waited for whoever chose to wander in from the street and use their bodies for a few minutes. Die Ladenstrasse was the last stop for these women, a fact of which even the dullest was aware. It is doubtful that many of them thought about it, or cared very much.

It was a little after midnight when the big, rough- looking man entered Ladenstrasse. There was still considerable traffic on the street, though a few of the windows were dark — the girls either having gone to bed or out for a bite and a drink with their pimps — but no one paid any attention to the big man. Not even the bored policeman who yawned now and then, and removed his shiny patent leather helmet to scratch his balding head.
Gross Gott! Heinrich was late again tonight. Silly young
schwein.
Probably mooning around his Katte again and had forgotten the time. Oh, his feet! It would be good to get home to Anna and his supper, and to soak his poor feet in a tub of hot water.

The policeman gazed idly after the big man who had just shambled past him into Ladenstrasse. A huge one, that. Look at the shoulders on him. And a late one, too. He would be just in time. No doubt he had been drinking in some
stube
and had decided at the last minute to have a woman tonight. The policeman yawned again. Poor devil. He always felt a little sorry for the men who came to Ladenstrasse. They had no Kattes, no Annas.

The big man shambled down the street, his hands in his pockets, his huge shoulders hunched in the dirty leather jacket. He wore a leather workman's cap and a filthy magenta neckcloth to conceal the absence of a collar. His corduroys were limp and frayed, and he wore a pair of old German Army shoes with hobnails. The street had been resurfaced since the last war, but here and there was an island of the original cobbles. When the hobnails struck the cobbles a spark or two would orbit briefly in the night, like fireflies lost and out of season.

The man stopped before Number 9. The window was dark. The big man cursed softly. His luck was souring fast. Ever since Hamburg, where he had been delivered by the bomber. He had changed clothes, gotten an AXE car from the depot there, and driven like mad to Cologne. He had been stopped three times for speeding, twice by the Germans and once by the British, and the English had damned near jailed him. It had taken a lot of the old hands across the sea malarkey to get him out of that one — plus a sizable bribe for the corporal in charge!

Now Number 9 was dark. Closed up tight as a drum. Hell! Killmaster scratched at his chin stubble and pondered. The Berlin man had been supposed to meet him in the Hohestrasse, at the Cafe of the Two Clowns. The man hadn't shown. Nick, after hanging about for hours, had finally decided to contact the woman on his own. It wasn't good. It might not even work. The woman was the Berlin man's contact, not his. Well — when the devil drove...

Nick Carter glanced up and down Ladenstrasse. Some of the other girls were closing up shop now. The cop on the corner was scratching his head and leaning against a lamppost. The street was fast becoming deserted. He'd best get the hell off it before he became conspicuous. He rapped hard on the glass store front with his knuckles. He stopped and waited a moment. Nothing happened. He rapped again, harder this time, the impatient tattoo of a lustful, drunken man who was determined to have Number 9 and no other. That would be the story if the cop got nosey.

After five minutes a light flicked on behind a dark curtain at the rear of the little platform. Now he could make out a rocking chair and a pile of magazines. A pair of black high-heeled shoes beside the rocker, the spikes about six inches high. Nick thought of that cabinet back in the peaceful little town of Laurel, Maryland, and he grimaced. Raymond Lee Bennett, if it was indeed he, seemed to be running true to form. If, again, it wasn't all wild goose! Nick was not in a very sanguine mood at the moment.

A woman was peering at him through a slit in the curtain. The light was bad, but she appeared blonde and incredibly young to be on Ladenstrasse. Now she clutched a robe about her breasts and leaned toward him and shook her head. Her mouth was wide and red and he could read her lips as she said:
"Nein
—
nein
—
geschlossen!"

Nick shot a glance at the corner. Hell! The cop was beginning to saunter this way, his attention caught by the rapping on the glass. Nick swayed a bit, as though very drunk, and jammed his face against the glass and shouted in German. "Closed hell, Bertha! Don't give me that stuff. Let me in, I say. I've got money. Plenty of money. Lemme in!"

The cop was closer now. Nick moved his lips against the glass silently and prayed that this one wasn't as dumb as most prostitutes. He mouthed a word:
"Reltih
—
reltih!"
Hitler spelled backward. A grim little joke the Berlin man had dreamed up.

The girl shook her head again. She wasn't getting the message. Nick made a blade of his right hand and chopped at his left wrist three times. It was the ultimate in AXE recognition signals, and a dead giveaway if an enemy professional was watching, but it couldn't be helped. He had to get through to Bertha — or whatever the hell her name was.

She was nodding now. Yes. She'd gotten it. She disappeared and the light went out. Nick shot a glance up the street. He breathed easier. The cop had lost interest and gone back to his corner, where he was now talking to another, younger policeman. His relief man, no doubt. His arrival had taken the heat off Nick.

A door clicked softly open. A voice whispered,
"Kommen herein!"

The AXEman followed her up a narrow staircase that" smelled of sweat and urine and cheap perfume and cigarettes and a million bad meals. Her slippers made a shuffling sibilance on the worn treads. Even to Nick's falcon eyes she was only a moving blur in the gloom. Instinctively, without thinking, he eased the Luger in its plastic holster and let Hugo, the stiletto, slide down into his palm. He was not expecting trouble — and yet he was always expecting trouble!

At the top of the stairs she took his hand and led him down a long dark passage. She had not spoken again. Her hand was small and soft and slightly moist. She opened a door and said,
"Herein."

She closed the door before she switched on the light in the room. Nick cast a swift look around before he relaxed. He pushed the stiletto back into its sheath. There was nothing to fear in this room. Not as he understood fear. For the woman it might be another matter. His eyes, those strange eyes that could change color like the sea, flickered rapidly around the room and missed nothing. A tiny white poodle sleeping on a cushion in a corner. A parakeet in a cage. Lace curtains and doilies, a pitiful attempt at gaiety that somehow attained only a slightly sordid froufrou. On the dressing table and small bed was a litter of kewpie dolls. Something Nick hadn't seen in years. There were a dozen or more of them. Her children, no doubt.

He sank down on the bed, still rumpled from her last customer. It smelled of cheap scent. The girl — she was indeed very young for Ladenstrasse — sat in the room's only chair and stared at him with enormous blue eyes. Her hair was a brassy yellow and swept high, her face good but for a small weak mouth and great purple shadows under her eyes. She had thin arms and big floppy breasts, a tiny waist, and her legs were much too short between ankle and knee. This gave her an oddly malformed look without any real physical deformity. It might, Killmaster thought briefly, be the reason for her presence here instead of dancing in some show or cabaret.

He got immediately to business. "Have you heard from Avatar? He was to meet me in the Hohestrasse. He didn't come." Avatar was the code name for the Berlin man.

The girl shook her head.
"Nein.
I have not seen Avatar. I spoke to him last night — on the phone to Berlin. I told him about the American — this Bennett? Avatar said he would come immediately." She shook her head again. "But I have not seen him."

Nick Carter nodded slowly. He took a pack of crumpled Gauloise from his pocket and offered her one.

"I do not smoke,
danke."
She cupped her sharp little chin in her hand and stared at him. There was approval in her glance, and something of fear.

Nick took a square of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. It was one of the flyers so hastily circulated by AXE. It bore a picture of Raymond Lee Bennett lifted from the security files in Washington. Nick glanced briefly at the narrow face, the old acne scars, the balding head and too close-set eyes. It was an easy face to spot. Why hadn't Bennett disguised himself?

He tossed the flyer to the girl. "This is the man? You're positive?"

"
Ja
. I am sure." She fumbled in a pocket of her robe. It fell open and she did not bother to close it. Her large breasts still retained some of their youthful firmness.

She took another flyer from her pocket and spread it alongside the one Nick had given her. "Avatar sent me this last week. It is what you call the routine,
ja?
I did not really expect..."

Nick glanced at his cheap Japanese wrist watch. Nearly one by now. Time was wasting. Still no Avatar. He'd best pump this poor little drab and get on with it.

"Do you know where this man is now? This Bennett?"

"Perhaps. I cannot be sure. But when he came last night he was staying at the Hotel Dom. His room key was in the pocket of his jacket. When he went to the bathroom — it is down the hall, you understand — I searched the jacket. He had forgotten to leave the key at the desk. Of course I had already recognized him from the picture."

Nick leaned toward her. "What room number? On the key?"

"Nine-four-six. I wrote it down so I would not forget." She went to the dressing table and lifted a kewpie doll. She handed the chit to Nick.

"You did well," he told her. He glanced at his watch again. He could afford a few more minutes. If Bennett was still at the Hotel Dom — it was unlikely — then he was probably in for the night. If the man had already moved on, which the AXEman expected to be the case, it was still a warm trail. Only a day old.

"You told Avatar about Bennett immediately?"

"Ja.
As soon as he left I slipped out and called Berlin. Believe me,
mem Herr!
I did not waste a minute."

Nick smiled. "I believe you — what are you called?"

She showed bad teeth in a travesty of a smile. "Helga will do."

Nick shrugged. He did not really want to know her name. Not that important. He stood up and stretched. He saw her blue eyes widen as she made an expert appraisal of the body beneath the crude workman's clothing. For a moment he felt a tinge of sour amusement. You would think they would get sick to death of it — like a kid working in a candy store. But apparently not.

He glanced at his watch again and sat down. Another five minutes and he must be on his way. Find some way of checking if Bennett was still at the Hotel Dom. If he was — and if Nick still couldn't find Avatar — then he would just have to find some way of getting to Bennett, very quietly, and killing him. Without being arrested for murder! That might take a bit of doing. If only he knew where the Berlin man was, what he was up to. Just could be that Avatar had decided not to wait — to go after Bennett himself. His orders would have been the same as Nick's own. Kill!

"Tell me," he commanded, "just what happened last night? From the time you spotted this Bennett until you called Berlin. Make it fast, please. Bennett was all alone, of course?"

"Ja.
Alone. He was shopping at the windows, you understand? Walking up and down the street and looking at the girls. When he stopped at my window I knew him at once from the picture. I was excited,
Herr,
and very frightened. I was afraid he would not come in, that I would lose him. I could not have dressed and followed him in time."

Killmaster nodded curtly. "But he came in. Get on with it,
bitte."

Her blue eyes were steady on his as she said: "There was something about that one,
Herr,
that I recognized. That I understood. A look he had. When you see as many men as I do you come to know strange things — and this Bennett had the look. And I was right — he was about to turn away when I held up the boots and my little whip. He smiled at me and came in at once."

The girl left her chair and crossed the room to a flimsy cabinet made of pressed cardboard. From it she took a whip and a pair of high-heeled patent leather boots that laced to the knees. Nick thought again of the hidden room in Laurel.

She tossed the whip and boots on the bed. "These,
mein Herr!
And he knew how to use the whip. He also took pictures of me. Many pictures with a
Kamera
—
die Polaroid.
You understand? In many positions?"

Nick smiled gently at her. "You were no doubt well paid for all this?"

"
Ja
. He paid well. But I think I should have more. Look!"

She dropped her robe and stood naked before him, turning to let him see the nasty red welts striping her white back and buttocks. "You see,
Herr\
Should I not be paid more for my services?" Her red mouth was sullen over the bad teeth.

Nick Carter let none of his compassion show. He gave her a flinty smile. "Avatar is your paymaster, not me. Take it up with him."

If you ever see him again, Nick thought. He was beginning to get a feeling about the Berlin man. A feeling he had known before, a very nasty premonition of disaster. In this respect his hunches were seldom wrong. His built-in radar, sharpened and sensitized by years of cheating death, was beginning to cast a faint shadow on his mind's screen. And if he was right, and Avatar was in trouble, or dead, it meant a change in plans. He had been depending on Avatar to help him get into the Hotel Dom.