Hood of Death (4 page)

The short man gestured at the bed.

Ruth screamed, "NO!"

Hans barked, "What the hell's going on. Cut that noise."

Nick grunted as he strove forward again with his loins, "Just gimme time, old buddy. I'll make it."

A powerful hand grasped his shoulder and slammed him over and onto his back on the bed. "Shut your mouth and keep it shut," Hans snarled at Ruth. He looked at Nick. "I don't want any noise."

"Then why did you tell me to finish the job?"

The blond man put his hands on his hips. The P-38 was out of sight. "By God, man, you're something. You know I made a joke."

"How did I know? You got the guns. I do as I'm told."

"Deming, I'd like to wrestle with you, someday. You wrestle? Box? Fencer'

"A little. Make an appointment."

The big man's face became thoughtful. He shook his head slightly from side to side as if to encourage his brains. "I don't know about you. You're either a nut or the coolest case I've ever seen. If you're not crazy you'd be a good man to have around. How much do you make a year?"

"Sixteen thousand and what I can edge."

"Chicken feed. Too bad you're square."

"I've been wrong a few times, but I've got it made now and I'm not shooting angles any more."

"Where'd you go wrong?"

"Sorry, old pal. Grab your take and travel."

"Looks like I was wrong about you." The man wagged his head again. "Sorry to clean one of the club, but business is slow."

"Ill bet."

Hans turned to Sammy. "Go help Chick pack up. There isn't much." He turned away, then almost as an afterthought picked up Nick's pants, removed the bills from the wallet and tossed it at the bureau. He said. "You two stay still and quiet. You'll get loose soon enough after we're gone. The phone wires are cut. I'll leave the distributor cap from your car near the drive entrance. No hard feelings."

The cold blue eyes fixed on Nick's. "Not a one," Nick answered. "And we'll get to that wrestling match someday."

"Maybe," Hans said, and went out.

Nick rolled off the bed, found a rough edge on the metal frame that supported the box spring, and in about a minute had sawed through the tough cord at the expense of a patch of skin and what felt like a strained muscle. When he popped up off the floor Ruth's black eyes met his. They were wide and staring, yet she didn't seem scared. Her face was composed. "Stay very still," he whispered, and crept to the door.

The living room was empty. He had a strong desire to go for the efficient Swedish submachine gun but if this crew were his first lead, that would be a giveaway. Even oil men who had been around didn't have Tommy guns on tap. He went silently through the kitchen and out the rear door and circled the house to the garage. Beyond the floodlights he saw the car they had arrived in. There were two men beside it. He went around the garage and entered it from the back and twisted the coat hook without taking down the raincoat. The strip of wood swung out and Wilhelmina slid into his hand and he felt the sudden comfort of her weight.

A rock bruised his bare foot as he circled a blue spruce and approached the car from the dark side. Hans came from the patio, and when they turned toward him Nick saw that the two near the car were Sammy and Chick. None of them held guns now. Hans said, "Let's go."

Out of the night Nick said, "Surprise, boys. Don't move. The gun I'm holding is as big as yours."

In silence they turned toward him. "Take it easy, boys. You too, Deming. We can work this out. Is that really a gun you have there?"

"A Luger. Don't move. I'll come forward a little so you can see it and feel better. And live longer."

He stepped into the light and Hans snorted. "Next time, Sammy, we use wire. And you must have done a rotten job with those knots. When we get time I'm going to give you a new education."

"Ah did 'em tight," Sammy snapped.

"Not tight enough. What did you think you were tying up, grain bags? Maybe we better get handcuffs..."

The pointless conversation suddenly made sense. Nick yelled, "Shut up," and started to back up but it was too late.

The man behind him growled, "Hold it, bucko, or you're full of holes. Drop it. That's the boy. Come over, Hans."

Nick gritted his teeth. Smart, that Hans! A fourth man on watch and never exposed. Fine generalship. He was glad, when he awakened, that he had gritted his teeth, otherwise he might have lost several. Hans came up shaking his head, said, "You're something else," and hung a swift left on his jaw that shook the world to pieces for many minutes.

At the very moment that Nick Carter lay tied to the bumper of the Thunderbird, with the world coming and going, the golden pinwheels flashing and the pain throbbing in his head, Herbert Wheeldale Tyson was telling himself what a grand world it was.

For a lawyer from Indiana who had never made over six thousand a year in Logansport and Ft. Wayne and Indianapolis, he had it made in the shade. Congressman for one term before the citizens decided his opponent was a degree less slippery, stupid and self-interested, he had parlayed a few fast Washington connections into a great big thing. You wanted a lobbyist who got things done — you got Herbert, for certain projects. He was well connected at the Pentagon and in nine years he had learned a lot about the oil business and munitions and juice-dripping building contracts.

Herbert wasn't nice, but he was important. You didn't have to like him, you used him. and he delivered.

Tonight Herbert was enjoying himself at his favorite pastime in his small, expensive house on the edge of Georgetown. He was in the big bed in the big bedroom with a big pitcher of ice and the bottles and glasses beside the bed in which a big girl awaited his pleasure.

Right now his pleasure was watching a sex movie on the far wall. A pilot friend brought them in for him from West Germany, where they make them with sock.

He hoped the girl was getting the same lift from them that he was, although it didn't matter. She was a Korean or Mongolian or one of those wog types who worked at one of the trade offices. Dumb, maybe, but the way he liked them — a big body and a beautiful face. He wished those slobs in Indianapolis could see him now.

He felt safe. There was that unpleasantness with the Baumann outfit but they couldn't be as tough as it was whispered. Anyway the house had a complete burglar alarm system and there was a shotgun in the closet and a pistol in the bedside table.

"Watch this, baby," he chortled, and leaned forward.

He felt her move on the bed and something obscured his view of the screen and he raised his hands to push it away. Why, it came right down over his head! Hey.

Herbert Wheeldale Tyson was paralyzed before his hands reached his chin, and dead a few seconds later.

When the world stopped shaking and came into focus Nick found himself on the ground at the rear of the Bird. His wrists were roped to the car and probably Chick had shown Hans that he knew his knots by securing Nick for a long stay. There were clove hitches around his wrists, plus several bights to a square knot pinioning his arms together.

He heard the four men talking in low voices and only caught Hans remark, "...we'll find out. One way or another."

They climbed into their car, and as it passed under the floodlight closest to the drive Nick identified it as a '68 Ford, metallic green, four-door sedan. He was pinned at a wrong angle to get a decent look at the tag or quite identify the model, but it was not a compact.

He applied his tremendous strength on the rope, then sighed. Cotton line but not household grade, shipboard stuff and strong. He worked up ample saliva, tongued it onto a section at his wrists, and began to gnaw steadily with his strong white teeth. The stuff was tough. He was chewing monotonously with his eyeteeth at the tough, sodden mass when Ruth came out and found him.

She had donned her clothes, right down to her trim white high-heeled pumps, and she strolled across the blacktop and looked down at him. He felt that her stride was too steady, her stare too calm, for the situation. It was depressing to consider that she might be on the other team in spite of what had happened, and the men had left her to administer some sort of
coup de grâce.

He turned on his widest smile. "Hi, I knew you'd get loose."

"No thanks to you, you sex maniac."

"Darling! What a thing to say. I risked my life to chase them off and
really
save your honor."

"You might have at least untied me."

"How
did
you get loose?"

"The way you did. Rolled off the bed and ripped skin off my arms scraping the rope on the bed frame." Nick felt a wave of relief. If she had been left behind to close his book she wouldn't have had to get
herself
loose. She continued with a frown, "Jerry Deming, I think I'll leave you right there."

Nick thought rapidly. What would a Deming say in a situation like this? He exploded, "Dammit, Ruthie, enough is enough! Get a knife and cut these ropes now. I'm not fooling. I left you on that bed for your own safety. The only reason I pretended to screw you was to start a noisy fuss. Now you get me loose right
now
or when I do get loose I'll paddle your pretty ass so that you won't sit down for a month and after that I'll forget I ever knew you. What kind of a crazy girl are you..."

He stopped when she laughed and bent down to show him a razor blade she held concealed in her hand. She sliced his fetters carefully. "There, my hero. You were brave. Did you actually attack them barehanded? They might have killed you instead of tying you up."

He rubbed his wrists and felt his jaw. That big fellow Hans packed a wallop! "I keep a pistol hidden in the garage because if the house is burgled I figure there's a chance of it not being found there. I got it and I bagged the three when a fourth one hidden in the bushes got
me.
Then the one called Hans clouted me. Those guys must be real pros. Imagine leaving a picket out? They fooled hell out of me."

"Be thankful they didn't do worse. I imagine your travels in the oil business have gotten you used to violence. You acted without fear, I think. But you can get hurt that way."

He thought,
They train them with cool at Vassar, too, orthere's more to you than meets the eye.
They walked to the house, the lovely girl holding the arm of the naked, powerfully built man. When Nick was stripped he made you think of an athlete in training, a pro footballer perhaps.

He noticed that she kept her eyes averted from his body, as a nice young lady should. Was it an act? He called as he climbed into a pair of plain white boxer shorts, "I'll phone the police. They never catch anybody out here but it'll cover my insurance and maybe they'll keep a closer eye on the joint."

"I called them, Jerry. I can't imagine where they are."

"Depends on where they were. They have three cars for about a hundred square miles. Another martini? ..."

The officers were sympathetic. Ruth had garbled the call slightly and they had wasted time. They made comments about the large number of burglaries and holdups by city hoodlums. They wrote it up and borrowed his spare keys so that their BCI men could recheck the place in the morning. Nick thought it was a waste of time — and so it proved.

After they had gone he and Ruth had their swim and another drink and danced and cuddled a bit but the zing had gone out of the evening. In spite of her stiff-upper-lip in the pinch, he thought she seemed thoughtful — or nervous. As they swayed in tight embrace on the patio, in time with Armstrong's trumpet on a blue-and-easy number, he kissed her several times but the mood was gone. The lips didn't melt any more, they were flaccid. The beat of her heart and the tempo of her breathing did not accelerate as they did before.

She noticed the difference herself. She took her face away from his, but laid her head on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Jerry. I guess I'm really timid. I keep thinking about what might have happened. We could be — dead." She shuddered.

"We're not," he replied and squeezed her.

"Would you have really done it?" she asked.

"Done what?"

"On the bed. What the man called Hans — suggested."

"He was being a wise guy and it backfired."

"How?"

"Remember when Sammy yelled for him? He came in and then sent Sammy out for a few minutes to help the other guy. Then he left the room himself and that was my chance. Otherwise we'd still be tied on that bed, maybe, with them long gone. Or they'd be here sticking matches under my toes to make me tell where I hide money."

"Do you? Hide money?"

"Of course not. But didn't it look like they had a false tip that I do."

"Yes. I see."

If she saw, Nick thought, that's fine. At least she was puzzled. If she was on the other team, she would have to admit that Jerry Deming behaved and thought like a typical citizen. He bought her a fine steak at Perrault's Supper Club and took her home to the Moto residence in Georgetown. Not far from the lovely little house in which Herbert W. Tyson lay dead, waiting for the maid to find him in the morning and the hurried doctor to decide another abused heart had let its bearer down.

He did collect one small plus. Ruth invited him to be her escort at a dinner party at the Sherman Owen Cushings' on Friday week — their annual
All Friends
affair. The Cushings were rich, reserved and had begun accumulating real estate and money before the du Ponts began making gunpowder, and they had held onto most of it. There were plenty of Senators who wangled for a Cushing bid — and never got it. He told Ruth he was quite sure he could make it. He would confirm with a call on Wednesday. Where would Akito be? In Cairo — which was why Nick might fill his seat. He learned that Ruth had met Alice Cushing at Vassar.