Nick Carter - Run, Spy, Run

"You knew them, you mean.

"Okay, Max. I don't suppose the letter was ever traced?"

"Not a chance. It did one good thing, though. It made 'em start taking her seriously. But they still didn't buy the tag story."

They had talked a little more, around the edges of the subject.

"Good to hear from you, Nick," Max had finished. "Help her, will you?"

"I'll try," Nick had said woodenly. "Thanks, Max."

A hot dog vendor wandered down the runway, hoarsely touting his wares. Nick beckoned and ordered two. Hawk grunted and took a frank carefully.

Mickey Mantle stepped up to the plate with two out and Tresh parked on second base. The stadium erupted into cheers.

"I checked London, too," said Hawk. "It's a cover-up. They don't think there was any pilot error."

"My God, they could have told her that." Nick bit savagely into his hot dog.

"They didn't think it wise. Someone had gone to so much trouble to plant false evidence that they thought they'd better bite."

Nick finished his hot dog in silence.

" 'Get the girl at any price'," Nick muttered. "A pair of killers for her and a pair for me. They wanted her, I gather, because she was getting too nosey about the bombings. And me? Because they knew somehow, she'd come to me for help. Silence us both, d'you reckon?"

"I reckon." Hawk wiped mustard off his fingers.

"Anything more on Steel Hand?"

"Some. Dossier in your package."

They watched for a moment. Foul ball.

Nick stirred. "But it looks as though we've got Killer No. I, doesn't it? Seersucker, the man who got his orders from 'overseas'?"

"That's one little goodie I've been saving for you," said Hawk. "It appears that the cablegram was not addressed to him."

"But you said..."

"I didn't. The cable was sent to an A. Brown at 432A East 86th. More on that later. Underneath the printed message there was a penciled note. It said: Re above. Meet me 9:30 a.m. Idlewild Cobb's Coffee Shop. Alert all hands. Destroy at once. It was initialed A.B."

The low murmur of the crowd broke into a roar. Mickey Mantle had swung his bat and the ball landed four rows back in the right center field bleachers.

"Good grief, why didn't the fool destroy it?"

"Tucked it away in a hurry, probably, and forgot about it. To err is human, after all," Hawk said complacently.

"Yes, but why in the world did A.B. send the original..."

Hawk cut in with some impatience.

"A.B. did send it and Seersucker kept it. We have to draw a winning card once in a while."

"The second murderer was wrong then, huh? Seersucker didn't get his orders directly from overseas. And we have another enemy to contend with. God, they're roaming around in veritable packs." He lit a cigarette, and flicked away the match, instinctively making another quick survey of the nearby seats and aisles. It was at that point that the tall young woman in the smart gray-and-red cotton knit dress and black picture hat stepped gracefully down the stone stairway and took an end seat in the row directly behind Hawk and Carter.

The woman was as out of place in the ballpark as Hawk was in.

Nick saw high cheekbones, carefully reddened full mouth and deep, almost almond-shaped eyes that coolly viewed the action on the field. Slender, jeweled hands clasped an expensive-looking black leather purse. The flesh of the bare arms was tawny and sensuous; the body was supple, its movements relaxed. She looked like a tigress in the sun.

There was exquisite molding in the high, tilted breastline, trim belted waist and subtly curving hips. She was not the sort of woman usually seen at Yankee Stadium on a September afternoon.

Hawk said, "Interesting. I see you find her so, too. Don't break your neck."

"Interesting, indeed. But dangerous, maybe."

"I don't think so. Too obviously eye-catching."

"That could be what we're intended to think."

From the corner of his eye Nick could see the exotic newcomer smiling slightly at some private thought and casually opening her lavish purse. He waited, resisting the urge to spring at her and grab that slender wrist. But only a long cigarette holder appeared, followed by the cigarette to which she applied a silver lighter.

Hawk's blue eyes glittered frostily. He rose to leave. "Better get to Grand Central. If the woman is after you, we'll find out soon enough. And don't forget the haircut. Goodbye."

Nick knew finality when he heard it. He stood up, politely excusing himself.

His long legs took him up the steps in a loping stride. The woman flicked a glance at him as he passed, but the almond eyes held no interest and returned instantaneously to the ballgame. Carter felt oddly satisfied. Her aloofness was in keeping with her appearance. Perhaps she was all she seemed, a lovely sophisticate out at the ball park for reasons of her own. Perhaps she was interested in one of the players. This year they seemed to be as popular as movie stars.

Nick found a cab on Jerome Avenue and got in with alacrity, glad to be on the go again.

Hawk's key for locker 701 in Grand Central Station was burning a hole in his pocket. He was getting anxious to see the contents of the package which would give him more data on the strange affair of Senor Valdez and the bombed airplanes.

Locker 701 was situated in a long bank of hundreds exactly like it somewhere in the lower levels of Grand Central. A quarter went a long way when you wanted to store anything. For ordinary folk, secret agents, murderers — anybody who had something to park, hide, or deliver.

There was a plain, burlap package in 701. About 8 1/2 by 11 inches square, bound with sisal twine. The handwritten address directed it to: Mr. Peter Cane, Hotel Elmont, New York, N.Y. Carter recognized Hawk's firm, accountant-like fine hand.

He closed the locker and went into the nearest washroom. In the dime-bought privacy of a small cubicle he opened the package. He removed a stack of typewritten pages bound in pressboard. This he ignored, turning his attention to the personal items in the parcel. There was a passport, sparsely stamped; an ostrich leather wallet and a well-thumbed blue address book; a gold cigarette lighter, rather scratched and engraved with the initials P.C.; a matching pen and pencil set and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses; a crisp letter of introduction to the Curator of the British Museum from Professor Matthew Zedderburg of Columbia University; and a much-folded, worn envelope addressed to Peter Cane of 412 West 110th Street and purporting to come from one Myra Koening of Rochester, N.Y. The letter inside read: "Dear Peter, oh, Peter, I don't know how to begin. Perhaps with my dreams and my wonderful memories of that night, that one incredible night when the world turned over and..."

Nick grinned to himself and folded it back in its envelope. Trust Hawk to add romance to round out the impersonation! It was the sort of letter a single man would carry around with him for a month or so before discarding, a convincing touch of dressing for the role he was to play.

He opened the passport and saw himself with a crew-cut, horn rims, and a dedicated expression. Oh, yes — the haircut.

A rapid glance through the rest of the material suggested no immediate course of action other than a second trip to the barber, a final call on the Roosevelt, and a quiet couple of hours at the Elmont with his homework.

An hour later he checked in at the Hotel Elmont, a conservative ten-storied building on the upper West Side. On impulse, he used one of his indecipherable signatures rather than the one given to him by his new passport.

His room turned out to be a modest, clean little affair on the seventh floor. The tiny bathroom was windowless. Nick locked the door, hung his jacket over the knob and placed the parcel on the bed. Then he loosened his tie and prepared for work. A swift check of the room showed nothing to be wary of. The windows faced Central Park, offering a vista that had somehow lost appeal. The face of the building was blank and featureless except for the windows; only a fly would be able to navigate so sheer a façade. The fire escapes were on the other side of the building, well away from his room.