Ник Картер - The Code

Yellow Hair reared up on the broken-down bed and cried out. “Rondo. Did he hurt you, Rondo?”

“No, sweetheart,” I said. “He likes butting his head against the wall.”

“You bastard. If you’ve hurt Rondo...”

I pulled the Luger out and her voice choked off in mid-sentence. “What did you say, darling?” I asked in a sarcastic voice.

She crouched on the bed and glared at me silently.

I grabbed the dazed Rondo by his belt, lugged him to the center of the room, and turned him face up.

“Don’t shoot Rondo!” the woman screamed.

I had the Luger pointed directly at Rondo’s ugly face. I said, “Why shouldn’t I shoot him, baby doll?”

“Ill tell you about Moose. That’s what you want, isn’t it? He left town a few months ago. They had stashed the loot from a heist with some broad and she ran off with it. They were hunting her.”

“You did say they, didn’t you, sweetheart?”

“Moose and Jack Hoyle and a third man. Hoyle is a short guy, comes to Rondo’s shoulder. He has a tattoo right here.” She touched her left forearm. “We never saw the third man.”

I dug in Rondo’s pocket and got my fifty dollars back before I left.

I had just arrived in San Francisco and had Hawk on the telephone.

“You’ve been in San Diego? Which of the torrid numbers in the little black book is there?” he asked in his most sardonic voice.

“Therese. A lovely girl,” I said. “And as sweet as a coral snake.”

“I must hear about her sometime. But for the time being, business. Have you made any progress?”

“I have the name and description of a member of Moose’s gang. His name’s Jake Hoyle.”

“We can run a check on him in law enforcement files, but that route didn’t give us much on Moose. The research people checked with the FBI and ran computer searches on the name Edward Jones. Nothing. A rundown on the basis of the sketchy description you gave us got the same results.”

“I’m not surprised. The man’s apparently very good at his trade. So good he’s probably never been apprehended by the law. There’s no telling how many unsolved heist jobs across the country were his work.”

“Well, N3, what next?”

I told him about the attack on me at the motel and the information I’d forced out of Marco Valante’s lieutenant. “There’s something the research division can do for me. Find out the names of Frank Abruze’s worst enemies, especially any former foes of his who might now be sitting on the Mob’s board of directors.”

“I can give you that off the top of my head. It was part of the Abruze file accumulated before you entered the picture. There’s a man named Loggia who was an Abruze rival when they were young thugs on their way up. And there’s Rossi. They’re both on the Mafia’s ruling council”

One name was familiar. “Lew Rossi?”

“Lew the Doctor. Gambling, prostitution, and narcotics. He and Abruze had different views on the Asian deal and they had clashed before on the drug issue,” Hawk said. “Nick, tell me what you’re thinking.”

“This joker in the deck, the man who killed Meredith, sent a killer to Bonham to hit the girl, and took a shot at me at the motel. I think he’s in the Organization’s top echelon. He must have been at the meeting where Valante heard about me. It’s the best explanation for the knowledge he seems to have of the Mafia and of our organization.”

“If you’re right, what’s his purpose?”

“I think he set Frank Abruze up for a kill. The $200,000 was the payoff. He told Moose, ‘I know where you can pick up two hundred grand if you’ll do a job for me while you’re at it.’ Now he’s in a bind. He can’t let the Brotherhood find him out. He didn’t want Sheila Brant to talk to anyone and he doesn’t want us to bring in Moose.”

“That would explain some things that have happened,” Hawk agreed. “But for the present, our best bet is still the little black book.”

“I’m working on it,” I said.

The telephone beside the bed rang sharply. I sat up. The hotel room was dark. I put the telephone receiver to my ear. It was the operator, reminding me that I had left a call for 8 P.M.

“Thanks,” I said. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I turned on the lamp and checked under the bandage on my chest. I was healing nicely on the surface, but I carried wounds that weren’t visible.

I had been dreaming of Sheila Brant. I had relived the moment when I found her body in the kitchen of the house in Bonham. Since her death, she had been on my mind more often than I would have wanted anyone to know. Although I had known her only briefly, something had rippled between us, an electricity that had been mostly sexual but had held the promise of more.

From the window of the hotel room I saw the lights of the Golden Gate Bridge. Now I had come to look for a girl named Penny, hoping she would give me the key to the whereabouts of those who had killed Sheila and David Kirby.

Penny’s name was the third Moose had written in the little black book that had led me to Trudy and Therese. “Penny. Great boobs,” read Moose’s notation at the top of the page he devoted to the girl. I couldn’t imagine hers being any greater than Trudy’s. Below that comment, Moose had listed the sexual acts Penny performed with special skill. If Moose was a qualified judge, and apparently he was, Penny was almost as rare as a Stradivarius.

I put up the book and dressed. I had slept for five hours and I felt keen, alert. This was going to be a night to remember. Tonight I was going to Liz Burdick’s cathouse.

The mansion, erected after the earthquake and fire that had ravaged San Francisco in 1906, sat on top of a hill. It was the city’s most famous bordello and the woman who ran it was a legend in her own time. A playwright had once wanted to make her life story the basis for a Broadway musical. Liz Burdick had reportedly told him thanks, but she didn’t need the publicity.

A maid answered the door and showed me into an old-fashioned parlor where lush red draperies hung. The furniture was antique, the carpet an inch thick. I doubted that the Governor’s mansion in Sacramento was furnished as well.

Liz Burdick came into the room and the maid closed the double doors behind her and left us alone. I tried not to look dazzled. I had expected an older woman. Liz Burdick was only in her thirties.

Her long gown swept the rug as she moved toward me and gave me a cool, slender hand and looked me directly in the eye. “You’re a little early, but I’ll call some of the girls down. I’m sure I have some you’ll like,” she said.

“It was arranged that I’d see Penny.”

“Yes, we talked about her when you called, but she won’t be in tonight. I hoped you’d try someone else,” she smiled.

Her eyes were a cool jade green and appraising despite the smile she wore. I wondered if I should have Bed to her. I had said I was a businessman in town for a convention and a friend had suggested I pay a visit to her house.

“Penny is one of our most popular girls, but we have others just as attractive. I could make a choice for you if you trust my judgment,” she suggested.

“I’m sure your taste is excellent, Miss Burdick.”

“Mrs. Burdick,” she corrected me. “I’m a widow.” Her long ash blonde hair shimmered in the light and she moved with a sensual grace as she crossed to a chair and sat down.

“But I’m interested only in Penny.” I gave her what I thought was a guileless smile. “My friend did quite a selling job on her.”

“In that case, you’ll just have to wait until the next time you’re in San Francisco.”

“What’s wrong with tomorrow night?”