Assignment — Stella Marni (23 page)

"I've got a man on the roof, another in the alley back there. Two at this corner, two at the other. All I could scrape up, without calling in the local cops. This one is off the record, Sam. We flop it, and I'm through. The whole thing is really too hot for this kind of play."

"I'm right," Durell said. "I know I'm right."

"We picked up Lamont in a Times Square bar. He's outraged. Not talking. We're holding him at our office for now. Won't say where the others are, but we think McChesney is here. Maybe Krame, too. Lot of people in there for dinner, I think. I hope to God you're right on this one, Cajun."

"What about Gerda Smith?"

"Inside. With Damion."

"Then let's go. Do you want to run it, Tom?"

"It's your baby. You cradle it, rock it to sleep."

"Good," Durell said.

The raid began with the precision of a military operation. Durell, with Markey and his driver and Tony Isotti, went to the front door. In the big sitting room on the right were a dozen elderly people playing cards or chess or just conversing. Their faces were startled, reflecting old fears as the four men burst in. Markey's driver kept them where they were. Tony darted ahead into the kitchen and came out with two women cooks and a male chef who cursed fluently in Bulgarian until Tony herded them into the sitting room with the guests. Isotti came back grinning.

"There's a dame locked in the john back there."

"Get her out," Durell ordered. "With the others."

A querulous voice called down from the upper floor, asking what the difficulty was. Markey and Durell went up the steps first. One of the women in the sitting room behind them suddenly began to scream on a high, hysterical note. From the hallway at the head of the stairs came a sudden silvery jingling and Durell glimpsed a swirling skirt, a tiny woman's body, provocatively large bosom, white heart-shaped face.

"Gerda!" he yelled. "Hold it!"

She turned and ran. A door slammed. A moment later all the lights went out, throughout the house.

Durell swore softly. There was enough evening glow outside to filter through some of the windows, making dark pools of shadow in the hallways. There was a third floor, where the sleeping rooms were located. Durell halted on the second landing, drew his gun, and sent Tony Isotti upstairs to check the top level.

A shot suddenly cracked in the alley behind the house.

The woman downstairs kept on screaming.

Durell and Markey hit the door to the office section of the second floor. Behind them, a man came out of the billiard room with a cue stick in his hand. He dropped the stick and ducked back again.

"Get him," Durell snapped.

Without waiting to watch Markey, he slammed his shoulder against the outer office door again. It was solidly locked. He hit it again and it splintered a little, but the lock did not give. He heard Tony yell upstairs; another shot crashed. Durell drew back a few steps and kicked hard above the latch. Metal snapped and the door burst inward. He plunged through quickly. A dark shape lunged at him from behind Gerda's desk and Durell took the man's charge on his shoulder, lifting him off his feet and crashing him across Gerda's desk. A chair splintered and the man went down, a gun spilling from his hand. Durell kicked it aside. The man climbed up and tried to swing, and Durell chopped at him with his gun and slammed him back against the wall.

"Let me go," the man gasped. "What's the raid for?"

"Name?"

"McChesney. What is this?"

"You're under arrest."

"You a cop?"

"Where is Damion?"

"I don't know."

"Gerda?"

"Gone. Out the back way, you bastard."

Durell hit him open-handed across the mouth and pushed him stumbling toward the door, where Markey appeared and caught him and sent him on his way downstairs to join the others in the roundup. From far in the distance came the keening sirens and Durell hoped Markey could explain the raid to the metropolitan cops. Then he hit the door to the conference room. This was locked, too. Apparently McChesney had been caught between two locked doors. Durell took his gun and fired two bullets through the lock and watched metal jump and the door swing inward.

"Take it easy, Sam," Markey said.

The board room was almost totally dark. "There's a master switch somewhere here," Durell said. "Gerda pulled it. Find it, Tom."

Nothing moved in the dark room ahead. Dimly, Durell made out the long tables and chairs neatly ranked along the wall. Beyond was the door to Damion's office. It would be locked. He drew a deep, frustrated breath. There was no sign of Gerda Smith. He wanted to tear the truth from her. He wanted to know where they had put Stella Marni. He moved across the room and this time a shot came from the rooftop, following a harsh yell. Heavy feet pounded on the ceiling above, from the third floor.

Durell broke the lock on Damion's door and slammed in.

Gray dusk outlined the window behind Damion's desk. There was no one here. Gerda had disappeared. Dead end.

A groaning came from behind the big desk. Durell went around it and found Damion on the floor under the overturned swivel chair. The man's white hair had blood on it and his eyes were open and glazed as Durell hauled him upright. Markey straightened the chair and the big man dropped into it as Durell snapped: "What happened to you?"

"Gerda ..."

"Where is she? And Krame?"

"Gone. My head hurts...

Durell looked exasperated. "Is there any other way out of here?"

"Back stairs... old servants' staircase... closet door..."

Durell spun, yanked open the first door he saw, faced shelves of stationery and office equipment, pulled open the second door beside it, and saw narrow steps angling up and down. The running footsteps on the third floor had stopped. Tony Isotti came into the office behind them. There was a welt on the young man's jaw.

"That McChesney punk will spill his guts."

"Good," Durell said. "Have you seen Gerda Smith?"

"Uh-uh."

"She and John Krame are the real brains of this outfit. They can tell us where to find Stella Marni.'*

"If she's alive," Markey said.

"She's alive, don't worry," Durell said.

An open office safe stood to one side of Damion's desk. The heavy steel door yawned on a miniature snowstorm of papers and books. "Check that, Tony," Durell said. "They've cleaned out whatever records they kept there, but they were in a hurry, so maybe they overlooked something."

He went on up the narrow back stairs. The door to the third floor was closed, bolted. He shot it open. There were sirens outside now, and screams from below. He found himself in a long corridor that ran from the front to the rear of the house. Darkness shrouded every corner. Some of the doors were open, and one of Markey's young agents came out of one of them.

"I've got them all in here, sir. There were some people taking naps up here. They're just confused."

"Is there a small blonde with tiny silver bracelets?"

"Yes. sir." The agent grinned. "She doesn't speak English."

"The hell she doesn't," Durell said.

He pushed past him into a bedroom furnished with department-store maple and a blue broadloom rug. Four people crowded against the wall between the bed and the dresser. A middle-aged couple in identical gray flannel robes held hands, r eyes soft and resigned. A boy of about ten stood with them. And Gerda Smith.

The only light came from the street lamp outside. Gerda's small face was turned in anger toward Durell. Her eyes were trapped, like those of a wild animal. There came a sudden spray of silvery sound as she jerked away from the cowering family and threw herself across the bed, legs flashing and skin billowing as she rolled away on her back. Her thighs were long and white and firm. An instant later she plunged through the open window.

Durell yelled and dived after her. The elderly woman screamed. Durell hit the sill and saw the steel web of a fire platform with stairs going up and down against the side of the house. There was no more than six feet of space between this building and the next, and several windows across the areaway were open. He looked up for the girl, then down. She was running to the second-floor landing below, skirts flying again, silver bracelets and bells jingling. Durell hit the stairs perilously hard. Gerda looked back over her shoulder at him, her tiny face masked with fear. She hesitated on the landing. A window was open in the opposite house. She was trying to get up enough courage to jump when Durell caught her and flung her savagely away from the rail. She bounced against the brick wall and the fire escape shook.

"Oh, you bastard," she gasped.

"Is this the way Krame got out?"

"You'll never catch him!"

She came at him with tooth and nail, a tiny hurricane of fury, terror, and female viciousness. Durell caught her, felt the heavy swing of her breasts against his arm. Her nails raked hotly across his face and she kicked with her high spiked heels. He grabbed her by the waist and threw her against the wall again. She would not be held. She made a thin whimpering sound and pushed her hair away from her eyes and slapped and struck at him.

"Hold it," he said. "This wont buy you anything." Suddenly he let her go, and she plunged to the platform rail. Durell's face was hard, without expression. "Go ahead. I don't owe you anything. Not after you left me in that cage with Karl. You want to jump, go ahead. Jump."

She stared at him, breathing hard. Her dress was torn in half a dozen places, her flesh gleaming whitely in the gloom. Somebody shouted down at them from the roof — one of Markey's men — and another man ran up the alley, paused, and looked up.

"Mr. Durell?"

Durell called down: "Anybody else take this route?"

"A big guy jumped into the next house. I look a shot at him, but I think I missed. We're searching the block now."

"Keep on with it."

"You need any help up there?"

Durell looked at Gerda Smith. "No. No help at all."

She gripped the rail with both hands, breathing hard, her head lowered. She made sick noises, and Durell did not help her. Then she raised her head and looked with longing at the opposite window, so near she could almost reach it. Yet she was afraid to jump.

Durell said: "Where is Stella Marni, Gerda?"

"To hell with you."

"Are you still loyal to these snakes? Krame ran out on you. We got McChesney here, Lament in a bar on Forty-second. They're spilling it all over you and Krame. Even if they didn't, I've got you for murder, anyway."

Her head came up, eyes hot and wild. "I never killed anybody!"

"You and Krame. You killed Frank Greenwald and Harry Blossom."

"No! That's a He! It was…" She bit her lip.

"Who, Gerda?"

"No."

Durell said: "Where is Stella Marni?"

She laughed viciously.

Durell said: "I've got you for attempted homicide against me, if nothing else. Who cleaned out the safe here, Gerda?"

"Krame did that."

"He took all the outfit's papers with him?"

"You'll never get anything out of him, you..."

Durell slapped her. His face was hard as her head snapped back and then he caught her and yanked her away from the rail and slammed her against the wall. Her heel caught in the iron slats of the platform and broke; she stumbled and fell, sliding half under the railing until her frantic hands caught the steel pipe. She screamed and froze there, hanging half over the edge of the platform, with the alley three floors down. Durell did not reach to pull her back. He looked at her long, exposed thighs and hips.

"H-help me," she whispered.

"You get a charge out of playing with tough cookies," he said. "With Krame and Damion and every other man in the outfit. You don't know what tough is."

She screamed again. "Pull me back! I'm afraid!"

"It won't be any loss if you fall and break your neck.

"Help me!"
she screamed.

"Where is Stella Marni?"

"You'll... never find... her."

"Is she dead?"

"You'll... never know."

Tom Markey called for him from the platform below. Out on the street, two green-and-white prowl cars had halted with sirens moaning. A crowd had collected and spotlights ranged the brick wall of the house and the alley. The lights came on suddenly as one of Markey's men found the main switch. The raid was almost over. Durell watched Gerda carefully hitch her hips backward, the skirt falling over her head as she slid to safety from under the platform. For a long minute she lay face down on the iron platform, panting. When she leaned up on one arm, pushing her hair back from her face, her body convulsed and she began to retch over the edge of the landing.

Tom Markey crawled out through the window, his face sober. "It's a dud. Except for McChesney and Lamont Damion doesn't know who hit him. He has no idea what was in the safe. His own records, sure, but there was a locked compartment that Krame used, and Krame had the only key to it. Krame got away." He looked at Gerda. "Who is this one?"

"McChesney's wife. Krame's girl," Durell said. "Krame ran out on her. He didn't even try to take her with him, and she's a little upset."

Gerda looked up at him with swimming eyes that reflected only misery. Her hatred was gone. She looked small and helpless, like a precocious street waif in adult clothing who had stumbled and fallen into the mud. When she moved, the sound of silver bells on her wrists and ankles made a forlorn sound against the dark and cold of the night.

"Where is Stella Marni?" Durell asked again.

"Leave her alone, Sam," Markey said. "I'll get a statement from her in my office."

Durell slashed the air with his hand. "There isn't time. The
Boroslav
sails tonight — unless we've got evidence to hold her."