Микки Спиллейн - The Delta Factor

A little before noon I heard the shower going and knew Kim was up. I let out a silly laugh because I knew a lot of ice had to be thawed before the tension was off the spring, so I did the same bit with the door lock she had done with Lisa’s and let myself into the bedroom.

When I stepped into the shower with her she let out a stifled scream and would have slipped on her butt if I hadn’t grabbed her. “So shoot me with the soap,” I told her.

“You… get out of here!”

I squirted a mouthful of water over her. “Don’t talk like that to your legally wedded husband, sugar. You might get your tail paddled.” I took the soap from her fingers and began scrubbing her back. She tried to get away all right, and yelled a little, but what can a dame do when she’s trapped in the shower by her husband anyway?

The ice cracked, but didn’t thaw.

When I threw her a towel she deliberately turned her back, but I didn’t give a hoot about modesty and whistled while I dried, flipped the towel over her head and walked out to get dressed. A screwy marriage like this had to have some compensations.

I didn’t hurry at all. I loafed my way all the way into my shirt and tie before she finally gave up and came out with the towel wrapped around her like a sarong and stood there, daring to make a move.

“Sexy,” I said.

“Shut up and get out of here. I want to get dressed.”

“Rape or seduction, honey?”

“Neither.” Her voice was like a knife.

“The game’s getting rough, isn’t it?”

“You warned me once,” she said. “It won’t happen again.”

I looked at her and I wasn’t smiling any longer. Very softly I told her, “I know it won’t. It will never happen again. Not that way, my beautiful wife. The law allowed me certain privileges. Normal male ego imbues me with certain desires I might be challenged to fulfill. I’m wondering how it works the other way around.”

“You’ll never know.”

I finished knotting my tie. “Oh, I know, honey. I’m curious about how long it’s going to take you to know.” I picked the.45 from the dresser, checked the load automatically, put it on half cock and stuck it in my belt. Then I looked at her in the mirror and said, “Things are beginning to jell out. Let’s get the show on the road.” I left her there and went back to the living room and turned on the radio. The tail end of a weather broadcast mentioned a tropical disturbance building up five hundred miles southeast of us that had possibilities of developing into a hurricane.

She was able to play the game without any trouble. We were tourist imports fresh enough to find things interesting, but jaded enough to steer clear of the traps. Kim and I had sensed the tails the minute they had picked us up when we left the hotel, the one behind us and the two in front of us. It was a team operation and when they broke off to let another pair do the shadowing we grabbed them too and made it easy for them.

I had gotten a map of the local layout from the desk that laid out the tourist attractions, and we hit each one systematically and in bored fashion, not spending too much time sight-seeing, but relieving the strain by popping in and out of the bars that fed on the trade. At least our tails were enjoying the hike if they were on an expense account.

All I wanted to do was establish a pattern.

By four in the afternoon the early floor shows broke out their tired strippers and worn-out jokes and we spent more time in these places than any of the others. By the time we had hit the Orino Bar it was almost an accidental stop and not a deliberate one, but we made a show of studying the menu pasted on the window, decided to try the local food and went on in. It was the first time we had eaten all day and the two mock drunks behind us in the white suits the businessmen wore were glad to see us pick a table, sit down and order.

The Orino Bar wasn’t like the others. From all appearances it was an established institution patronized by the residents. Native stone and timber had gone into its construction and time had weathered it until it had a flavor of old Spain itself. The waiters were elderly and gracious, the single bartender across the room a heavy-set man with an archaic white moustache and two medals pinned to his jacket. When he walked he limped, and when he looked, he watched. His eyes barely touched us, then focused on the pair in the white suits, hardened a little until he caught the direction of their seated positions and watched us with another degree of interest.

And now the pattern had to be set.

Three drinks for me did it. I insisted the waiter have one with us, sent another to the bartender who mixed them so admirably and waved back his thanks when he saluted me with his drink. A little old man sitting by himself over a bowl of chili got a bottle of wine that lit his face up with a multitude of “gracias.”

Then the show came on and the pattern was formed and I was getting drunk. They thought.

A four-piece orchestra had set itself up to the left of the small stage, a soft combo that lent a Spanish flavor to every piece it played. After the third number I sent them a bottle of champagne and got a “thank you crazy American” smile from all of them.

There were only three acts, a tenor soloist, a mediocre magician who relied more on his dirty jokes than on his feats for the applause, and a fiery, dark-skinned blonde blues singer, named Rosa Lee, with a body so fully in bloom it looked about to burst. She wore a two-piece halter and full skirt outfit, and when she whirled in tempo to the music the skirt flared out to show the loveliest pair of dancer’s legs I had seen in a long time.

This one the crowd didn’t want to let go and Kim and I were finished dinner and went into another round of drinks while she was still going.

And then she went into an old number called “Green Eyes.”

Kim saw my sudden interest and leaned toward me. “What is it?”

“Our contact.”

“How do you know?”

“The song. Art Keefer and I use it as a recognition signal. Something left over from the war when that band of us were working behind the lines.”

“Nostalgia?”

“No,” I said, “just habit. It’s one of the things you never forget.”

Kim gave me a small smile. “Your Rosa Lee was never in any war. She couldn’t be over twenty-five.”

“Art has her set up here for his own business.”

“And would that be something like yours… stealing forty million dollars?”

I could feel my jaws go tight. “Knock it off, Kim. What he does is his own business. I told you he had nothing to do with that job.”

“Tell me about the others.”

“I thought you checked them out,” I said nastily. “Your Intelligence figured him for being killed, so they can’t be too damn bright.”

“Perhaps they never had any reason for suspecting otherwise.”

“They didn’t. Art just prefers it that way.”

“Two others were reported dead too,” she insisted.

I reached for my drink and put half of it away before I said, “Carey got it in an explosion. There wasn’t enough left of him to identify. Art and I saw him go and they had to take our word for it. Malcolm Hannah couldn’t outrun a train on a bridge he was blowing and went down with the wreckage and a couple of thousand other bodies in the Nazi troop movement.”

“And Sal Dekker?”

“Caught and imprisoned in a concentration camp. Tortured but was unable to reveal any future operations because we never knew about them until we were briefed prior to their execution. He escaped, got tangled in a land mine, was badly hurt, but lucky enough to be rescued by some friendly farmers and turned over to Allied forces just as the war ended. He spent a few years in an Army hospital, then went to Australia.”