Istanbul (11 page)

From the bathroom she called to Mr. Stout, who was fixing himself a weak scotch and gazing out over the balcony to where the westing sun was laying a golden carpet on the Horn.

"You see I do not lie when I say I am good athlete," Mija said from the shower.

"Yes," agreed Mr. Stout. "You are. I was impressed."

It was true. She was good. But he had been impressed with something else, too. With so prosiac a thing as the diving board Mija had used! A diving board!

Mr. Stout took his drink to the little balcony. He watched the last rays of the sun strike sparks from the windows of the Divan Hotel and the Annex. For a moment the windows were golden, gleaming, fiery eyes. Mr. Stout regarded the two buildings with an air of abstraction, but behind the phony features a mind was racing like a computer. A diving board! A children's play area. A trampoline.

Mr. Stout smiled and sipped at his drink. It could be — it just could work!

"Daddykins?"

Mr. Stout winced and turned back into the suite. It would have sounded bad enough from an American chorus girl — from a Turkish girl it sounded just plain ridiculous. It was time, he thought, to knock it off for a awhile. Time for a breather. He would take it as read that this was, for the moment at least, a safe house. Time to relax for a couple of hours. He couldn't operate until well after dark in any case. He felt sanguine and sure of himself, but you never knew. Death could be out there in the twlight now, gathering itself for the assault.

There was a time for Death — and it would come when it would come! N3 knew that. Had always known it. Accepted it. Nothing to be done about it.

There was a time for Love — the bitter-sweet antidote to Death. A time for holding and grasping and sensing the depths of another human being. Of being not alone, not afraid. A time of brief forgetting, of taking with fervor what was freely given. Call it love, call it passion, call it sex and call it carnal — still it summoned and must be obeyed.

"Daddy! Come here to doll baby, please."

Nick stepped into the bedroom. He left Mr. Stout on the threshold and closed the door. "You can drop that stuff now," he told her. "Just keep your voice down and we can talk normally. I think this room is safe — I'd swear it. Anyway we'll take a chance."

Mija was sitting on the huge bed clad in nothing but black bra and panties. "Praise Allah," she giggled. "I feel like so much the fool. Now for a time we can be nature — normal? How you say it?"

Nick had to grin. "Don't knock the play-acting," he said. "Sometimes it means life or death — but I agree with you now, it's time for a break." He went close to the bed and leered down at her in his best fat man's manner. "A love break, eh, baby?"

He bent to kiss her. Mija pulled away, covering her mouth with her hand to choke back laughter. "No! I will not make love with a fat old man! Go and take it off, please."

Nick stood by the bed, arms akimbo, looking down at her with mock anger. "So you're a tease! A gold-digger! You don't care anything about me — all you want is my money."

Mija rolled over on her flat stomach and stuck out her tongue. Nick slapped her firm little behind, letting his hand linger for a moment on the soft warmth of flesh through nylon. Mija squealed softly and twisted over. One of her tawny melon breasts slipped completely from the black brassiere and dared Nick to kiss it.

He did and for a moment Mija permitted it and her hands came up to cradle his head. Then she squirmed away again. "No! Not until you are the real Nick. Please?
Cabuk!
Hurry — darling? That is right, no — darling?"

"That is right," said Nick. He smiled down at her, lingering a moment, feeling his sense being flogged to action by the sensual impact of her. She lay splayed on the bed, the black bra and panties mere filmy shadows across the gold-cream nakedness of her. Her hair was short black silk on the pillow, her face in the dusk an oval with a crimson flower for a mouth. Mija looked up at him, unsmiling now, her lashes hooding the great long brown eyes.

"Cabuk
darling.
Doha cabuk!"

When Nick came out of the bathroom more dusk had gathered in the room. He saw a filmy pile of black beside the bed. He approached and stood beside her. "Asleep?"

Mija looked at him a long time before she answered. Then, very softly, she said, "You are beautiful. So beautiful."

"Not many people call me that," Nick said. "They call me a great many things, but not that. From you I accept it as a compliment." He sank onto the bed beside her.

She stroked the great muscles with her fingertips. "You are a great monster, you know. Not at all like the other one — Mr. Stout? What is happen to him?"

Nick kissed her breasts. Both peaks were rigid. He slid his mouth across hers in a soft kiss. Her lips clung to his, moist, eager.

"Mr. Stout went home to Indiana," he told her. "He's a respectable married man with two kids. This is not for him."

Mija clung to him, pressing her breasts to his face. "You are a big fool when you wish to be. I... I am a fool also. A different kind of fool."

Nick kissed her ear. "What kind?"

He could barely hear her whisper. "The worst kind — I think perhaps I am fall in love with you."

Nick shook his head without taking his mouth from hers. "Don't! Never do that. Worst mistake a girl can make."

He could feel her trembling. Her flesh was hot against his and he could hear the pounding of her heart beneath the tender plum-smooth flesh of her left breast. Her fragrance, compounded of fragile perfume and the musk odor of an excited woman, enveloped him. This, he knew, was going to be good. By this time he well knew the connection between danger and sex, at least in himself. The blend made a raging stallion of him. Sex just before he put his life on the line was sex at its best.

They kissed for a long time. Their tongues were melding now. Mija arched her back, bowing her long spine into a curving bridge, trembling and shaking and gasping. She forgot her English and lapsed into soft Turkish. Her hands were avid for his muscular body. His big hands found out every secret of her soft one. Then at last they were one and the beautiful and terrible battle began. Together they savaged each other and the wide bed — on and on and on. As though this meeting of flesh in the night should never end.

Mija began to weep.
"Daha cabuk,"
she sobbed.
"Doha cabuk!
Faster!"

Nick had forgotten everything in the universe but this red cave into which he. must plunge deeper and deeper. He struggled frantically on now in love-hate and tenderhurt with a terrible obsession to cleave and rend and utterly subdue her.

Mija squealed like a proud Arabian mare that had been conquered at last.

Half an hour later Nick awoke from a light slumber. Mija was lost in heavy dreams beside him. Nick took the Luger from beneath the pillow — she had not suspected its presence — and went into the bathroom. He glanced at his watch. Nearly time to listen to Singing Sam.

He took his electric razor from its case. Then an electric toothbrush which he despised and never used, but which made a splendid antenna. Old Poindexter, of Special Effects, said it added at least two thousand miles to the razor-radio's effective range. Nick smiled to himself. They would see now. He seldom used the razor gadget — but now it was the only contact he would have with Hawk for a time. And that would be one way. Nick could only listen, not reply.

He adjusted a tiny, nearly invisible knob on the razor, twiddling with it a moment. He hooked the electric toothbrush into the circuit — a tiny jack into a miniscule hole. A metallic buzzing came from the razor. Nick put it to his ear and listened. A miniature storm of static roared in his ear for a moment, then Hawk's voice came through clearly. Nick glanced at his watch again. Right on the nose!

Hawk's voice was small but perfectly clear, as though a doll was talking in a lucid, flowing, and very tiny voice.

Nick Carter sat on the toilet seat and listened. He was naked, stripped of all makeup, six feet of muscular bomb that could explode at any moment. As he listened to Hawk's voice crackle on and on his facial expression changed ever so slightly. The fine high brow creased and the lean face tightened over the good bone structure. Jaw muscles bunched beneath the flat, close to the head ears. For just a fleeting moment N3 looked like a death's head. Then he relaxed, sighed, and flicked off the razor-radio.

Nick was disturbed, deeply disturbed by what he had heard. Part of what Hawk had said might be helpful — another part had torn a large chunk out of his world.

N3 slid off the toilet seat to the floor and assumed the primary yoga position. He must think this out. He breathed deeply, pulling the flat muscle banded belly into arching concavity. Slowly he entered a state of semi-trance. His breathing slacked off to a mere whisper.

As he drifted inward, into the adyta of innermost being. Nick asked one question.

"Why, Mousy? Goddamnit — why?"

There was a gibbous moon, just past the half, and the pale radiance produced in turn a great many shadows atop the Divan Hotel. There was the larger shadow of a half completed structure — it did seem to be a penthouse going up — and there were the many smaller shadows of water tower, elevator machinery housing, and the children's playground. There was also one tall, angular, wideshouldered shadow that was as silent and unmoving as the others. For a good half hour this latter shadow stood without movement and watched the gold glowing rectangles that were the windows of Defarge & Co., Ltd.

There were only three lighted windows now. The private suite of Maurice Defarge himself, the watcher presumed. Very private indeed. He had seen an armed guard making his tour of the empty offices. The man did a thorough job, but when he reached a short flight of stairs leading up to a single door he stopped. Beyond that, the watcher thought now with a dry little smile, would be the private domain of Maurice Defarge. Where a fat, sick old spider lay in bed and continued to spin webs.

That privacy would be invaded tonight!

At last N3 moved from the shadows into the moonlight. Moved lightly, as stealthy as a ghost. He wore black trousers, very tight fitting, black sneakers and a black sweat shirt. He was bare headed and his close-cropped hair was stained a darker hue than usual. But it was the face that had undergone the most striking change. Here was nothing of the lecherous, late and unlamented Mr. Stout, nor of the real Nick Carter. These were Mongol features — a pale saffron skin, slant eyes, flat nose. Here, indeed was a Chinese gentleman skulking among the shadows atop the Divan Hotel.

Nick had acted on the tip from Hawk over the razor-radio. It appeared that the long, long finger of Peking extended even into this Turkish pie. N3 did not welcome it, it was only another angle to worry about, but he had seen immediately how to exploit it. This gambit might make it just a bit easier to extract information from the fat man — before he killed him.

With soft padding steps N3 went to the edge of the roof and stood looking across at the Annex. He cursed the architect again. The distance across wasn't bad. Say twelve feet. One of the planks scattered about the half completed penthouse would have sufficed for that. No — it was the fact that the Annex was a good eight or ten feet higher than the hotel itself. That was the problem.

N3 stared down into the dark void between the two buildings. He whistled softly between his teeth. Nine floors. A hell of a fall if he missed! Might be fatal. He grinned and the tape at the corners of his eyes, pulling them into slant, plucked at his flesh. Might be hell — it would be fatal. So don't miss!

Nick went to work telling himself that it was a nutty scheme. It was, but it was all he had, and nutty schemes worked sometimes.

He found the plank he wanted and carried it to the roof edge, balancing it on the coping. It was long and thick and, had the roofs been level, he could have waltzed across. N3 sighed. Nothing came easy in this profession!

He went back into the shadows around the penthouse and found the stack of cement bags. Each one a hundred pounds. Nick bent, tensed and groaned just a bit, and walked back to the coping with a bag under each arm. The night was cool but he found himself sweating a little. This was turning out to be work.

He arranged the long plank over the coping to suit him, then put one of the cement bags on it as anchor. He went back for more cement bags. In five minutes he had his diving board arranged to his liking. Diving board! The Chinese gentleman grinned. A diving board with a twist. He was going to dive
up.
He hoped. Nick glanced down at the ground nine stories down and whistled again. He had better dive
up!

When everything was ready he retired into the shadows again to watch. If he had been spotted building his little toy there should be some reaction soon. While he waited he checked his weapons: the Luger was in his belt, the stiletto in its sheath along his forearm. And this time he had brought along Pierre, the little gas pellet. At the moment he planned to kill the fat man with the stiletto, but then you never knew.

When the all-clear sounded in his brain, N3 went to the roof coping without hesitation. From long experience he knew that the trick of going into hazard was to go fast and without hesitation. Faltering, second thoughts, only got you into trouble. You took every precaution, you tried to do everything right — and then you took your chances.

Nick walked out on the plank. It was, he thought with the wry twist of humor he could always summon, a little like walking the plank at that. If he missed and did the Deep Six they would be scraping him up with a shovel!

He bounced tentatively a couple of times. The plank was springy enough, a live thing beneath him. He glanced back at the pile of cement bags — they were holding firmly enough. He reached the end of the plank and stood poised. He looked up. A good eight feet, maybe more. He would have to work up to it gradually.