Ник Картер - The Code

“Man, I’ll avoid you like the draft.”

Sheila was standing at the open door of my car. “What were you two talking about?” she asked when I returned.

“I gave him the name of my doctor,” I said. “Get in the car. We’re going back to Bonham.”

She hesitated, then obeyed me. She slid under the steering wheel and over to the passenger’s seat with her skirt climbing up her legs. I grinned at her, holstered the Luger, and got in. Then she punched her .38 into my ribs.

“I know this is a poor way to show my gratitude,” she said, “but a girl has to look out for herself.”

I had violated one of the longest-standing rules in my own book. A smart agent never holstered his gun while someone else was holding theirs. Now I was in what was at best an embarrassing position. At worst it could turn out to be fatal.

“I deserve this for being careless,” I admitted to the girl who was nudging the revolver into my ribs, “but I would like to have it explained to me.”

“The keys, Ned. I want the keys to your car. Then I want you to get out. I’m not going back to Bonham. Someone might be waiting for me there.”

“You intend to ditch me and take off alone again?”

“I’ll take my chances. I’ve survived so far.”

“You’d have had a hell of a time surviving tonight if I hadn’t shown up.”

While I argued with her, I was assessing my situation. My right hand, the one nearest her, rested lightly on the steering wheel. I knew how fast I could bring that hand around in a karate blow that would strike Sheila Brant’s lovely white throat like an executioner’s ax. But I couldn’t run the risk of serious injury to the girl, and also the blow might cause her to jerk the trigger of the revolver and piledrive a bullet into me at close range. I didn’t like either of those possibilities.

Sheila’s voice rose higher. “I’d rather not shoot you. But I’ll do it if I have to.”

“Shoot away, baby,” I said. “I’m not giving you any keys.”

We sat there, neither of us moving, while she decided if she was going to pull the trigger. I felt a tiny drop of sweat forming along my hairline.

I didn’t know Sheila Brant well enough to place my life in her hands. She might have been involved in the death of AXE agent David Kirby; she might be panicky enough to kill me out of fright; hell, for all I knew, she hated all men and would enjoy sending a slug ripping into one. But I couldn’t let her get away again. Inside her head was something I had to have, a secret so important that someone was determined to see that Sheila never shared it with AXE.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” she said finally.

With a ragged sigh, she pulled the gun from my side and sank back against the seat. “I guess I’ll have to string along with you. I don’t seem to have what it takes to kill you.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” I took out my keys and turned the car around.

“Where are you going to take me?”

“Right now, back to Bonham. As soon as I can make proper arrangements, to a place where your life won’t be in danger.”

Bouncing across the field, I drove past Copper Beard, who had started to crawl toward his friends, dragging his wounded leg. Scarface was sitting at the side of the road cradling his broken arm and the man called Georgie lay curled in a motionless ball. A splendid group of All-American boys, I thought. As the car lurched across the ditch and into the highway, Sheila said, “Aren’t you going to look at the man you shot, to see if he’s dead?”

“No,” I told her. “I know he’s dead.”

I gave the accelerator a shove and my battered car took off like a streak. The little AXE mechanic would have been proud of the way his baby had performed tonight, I thought. In fact, the car was about the only thing that had worked according to Hawk’s well-laid plans.

I wanted to get Sheila to some secure spot under AXE jurisdiction, but first I had to call Hawk and set it up. I also had to find out what had happened to Meredith, why he had failed to show up at the hotel.

“I’ve never used this gun,” Sheila said. “I never shot anyone. Maybe that’s the reason I couldn’t shoot you.”

“I was hoping you had another reason. Like maybe you were growing fond of me.”

“Not yet,” she said. “But I suppose it could happen.”

My hand touched her warm thigh. She didn’t seem to mind. “Give me the gun,” I said.

After a moment’s hesitation, she dropped the weapon into my palm. A token of trust, I thought I was making some progress.

“Why do you want it?” she asked me.

“Just a precaution. In case you get panicky enough to point it at me again.”

I slid the .38 in my left-hand pocket. The speedometer needle trembled on 70 as we raced back toward town.

“Those three men. Were they sent to kill me, Ned?”

“Their leader said no.” I couldn’t make out her expression in the shadowy car. “He said all they had in mind was a little friendly rape.”

“And what do you have in mind for me?”

“Several things.” I took a long curve without slackening speed. “Rape isn’t one of them.”

“Under the proper circumstances that wouldn’t be necessary.”

I grinned in the darkness. “How did you happen to hook up with Frank Abruze?”

“I was down and out in Vegas after failing to make it as a showgirl. He came along. He was old enough to be my father, but he had money.”

“Did you know what line of business he was in?”

“I wasn’t born yesterday.” She was silent for a long moment. “There are a great many good-looking girls in Las Vegas scrambling for a break. I was just one of a crowd. When I found out my face wasn’t my fortune, I started using my body.”

I dimmed my lights as a Greyhound bus passed us, going the other way.

“I wish I was on that bus,” Sheila said. “All right, Ned, I told you part of my story. Don’t you think you ought to tell me yours?”

“Which part would you like first?”

“Who you are, why you came galloping out of nowhere and into my life, and how you happen to know about my relationship with Frank Abruze.”

“Let’s just say I work for an organization that’s interested in locating Frank Abruze’s killers.”

“But you’re not in the Mob.” It was half a question.

“No. Maybe you remember a man named David Kirby. He was a friend of mine.”

“I remember the name. He came to see Abruze. That happens to be all I know about your Mr. Kirby. I didn’t ask Abruze questions about his business.”

“Four people were killed in that cottage in the keys, but you walked out alive, Sheila. How did you manage it?”

She didn’t answer me. Instead, she said, “You want me to finger the killers. In return, your organization will promise to protect me. Is that the deal?”

“That’s the deal.” I spotted the lights of Bonham ahead and slowed down. “What do you say?”

“I’ll think it over.”

“The way I see it, baby, you don’t have any choice.”

The town went to bed early. Only the restaurant, the bar, and the hotel remained open for business. I stopped at the darkened gas station. “What time do these people usually close?”

“Around eight o’clock. Why do you ask?”

That meant Meredith had been at least an hour and a half overdue before I left the hotel to chase the cyclists. With a flashlight in one hand and the Luger in the other, I got out of the car and prowled around the station. I finally found Meredith lying in a patch of weeds about fifteen steps beyond a pile of abandoned oil drums.

He had said he’d be careful, but he hadn’t been careful enough. His throat was slashed.