Ник Картер - The Spanish Connection

I could see past the wheel to the turnaround where the cable cars swung around in a semi-circle, reversing direction. A cable car stood in the middle of the semi-circle, holding there until the machinery started up in the morning.

I was just about to go forward when I saw someone moving past the cable car. Whoever it was had either been inside the building when I entered, or had come in from some other entrance. I thought he must have been there waiting for me. Then he, of course, would be my contact man.

Arturo.

I gripped my piece, drew it out, and tensed to move forward, opening my mouth to whisper “Arturo.”

I never got the word out

Someone else did!

“Arturo!”

The sound seemed to come from behind the cable car. I lifted the piece and aimed it at the silhouette there. If he was calling for Arturo, he was not Arturo. And since I was supposed to be calling for Arturo, I knew that the man there would be someone else also trying to find Arturo before I did, someone not on my side.

“Sí?” a voice asked in the other half of the big engine room.

Instantly there was a loud, echoing gunshot — a report that bounced back and forth in that small room like the pounding of a hundred drums. A blaze of orange flame appeared and disappeared instantly. I heard a scream to my left.

Immediately I crouched and let go a shot at the figure behind the cable car.

Someone cursed in Spanish. There was the sound of a body falling off to my left, and a groan. I fired once again, trying to see the man behind the cable car. I could not make out any part of him.

The door reopened then, and I knew the figure had made his escape. I fired once again in the direction of the door sound, and then ran through the darkness toward the spot.

No one was there.

There was a door — a second entrance to the engine house. I opened it and looked out. There was no sign of anyone. I moved quickly outside and looked up and down the snowy slope. No one.

Back inside the building I could hear someone gasping and wheezing. I found the boy and knelt down over him on the concrete floor. I could not see him at all.

“Arturo?” I asked.

“Sí.” He shuddered.

“Where do I meet the man I came to see?”

“Top of Veleta — Picacho de Veleta. Twelve o’clock. Tomorrow night.”

“Okay,” I whispered. I leaned down. I could hear his labored, ragged breathing. Then, before I had a chance to say anything more, I heard that familiar bubbling rasp that is so much like a rattle, but is not really a rattle at all.

Something else.

Life leaving the body.

Arturo was dead.

Quickly I rose and left the engine house, skirting around the outcrops with my piece drawn and ready until I had made the Prado Llano and run to the hotel.

I looked back only once, and I could see a light on in the engine house now, and shadowy figures milling about inside.

The shots had been loud enough to alert the entire constabulary of Sol y Nieve. The Guardia Civil was there.

Shaken, I climbed the stairs and passed through the lobby, turning left to the bar, trying to get my breath back with a stiff jolt of cognac.

That helped.

Some.

But not much.

The muted excitement which had increased to a peak of intensity just after the shooting of Arturo and the subsequent investigation of the killing had died down completely within a half hour. The Guardia Civil stationed at the ski resort had taken care of the corpse and had begun the long tedious process of questioning patrons and attendants at the resort.

I did not envy the police their job. It was backbreaking, unrewarding, and particularly uncomfortable work in these altitudes at this time of the year. They were good men.

I was lucky. Nothing led them to me.

The cognac had succeeded in calming me somewhat. I kept my eyes on the lobby of the hotel, watching everyone who came in and went out. I was looking for anyone who resembled the man I had found in the bed of the villa in Torremolinos, the man I had come to believe was The Mosquito.

Finally I got up and went into the lobby and peered out at the Prado Llano. No one at all seemed to be abroad now.

I crossed the lobby and took the stairs to the second floor where our suite was. As I inserted the key in my door I heard laughter in the room adjoining mine. Juana’s laughter.

Smiling, I pushed open my door and snapped on the light. So she had brought Herr Hauptli up to her room. At least he seemed entertaining, even in his boorish Teutonic way. There was one consolation — few hidden wrinkles existed in a man as extroverted as that.

I crossed to the door and put my ear to it.

Giggling. Juana’s amusement fizzed out of her like the bubbles out of a champagne glass. Herr Hauptli must be better in bed than in the drawing room, I thought idly. I didn’t trust the man.

“Please,” Juana said. “And put ice in it, would you please, Barry?”

Barry!

I drew away from the door, frowning.

Barry Parson?

I could hear his voice then, muted, but quite clearly recognizable — British accent, submerged hilarity, and subdued effervescence unmistakable.

“Right, Sweetheart. One glass of scotch, coming up!”

We had last seen Parson in Malaga. He and Elena had joined Juana and me for a lazy shopping and dining spree the day after the killing of Rico Corelli’s double. We had gone to dinner with them the night before leaving for Sol y Nieve. But we had not told either of them where we were coming — because we had not known until early the next morning. How had Parson found out where we were? And why had he followed us? Had he discovered that The Mosquito was after us, too? Quite possibly. The Mosquito was here — I suspected that he had killed Arturo. At least, that was the most obvious possibility.

But why was Parson not out there to stop The Mosquito, if he had followed him? And why...?

Thought of The Mosquito halted me. I did a quick mental reconsideration, and shuffled the cards into a completely new deal. I saw then that it was possible that Barry Parson might not be the innocent British MI-5 officer he claimed to be.

Thus:

I had been led to the villa where The Mosquito was hiding in Torremolinos by a prostitute who had helped service him the night before.

I had found a man in the bedroom, had tried to take him, but had been interrupted. The man had fled. Another man calling himself Barry Parson had entered the bedroom, claiming to be a secret British agent after The Mosquito.

Suppose Parson was not an agent at all. Suppose the man in the bed was simply a John Doe. Suppose The Mosquito had put the John Doe there, and had then interrupted me to let the false Mosquito vanish. And then suppose he had succeeded in conning me into believing that The Mosquito had vanished.

Then he was The Mosquito! Barry Parson!

And he had simply followed me to Sol y Nieve, had followed me to the engine house, had killed Arturo, probably assuming Arturo was me, and had run off. Now he was in bed with Juana, hoping to be led to the real Rico Corelli!

I broke into a cold sweat.

Hastily I moved to the phone. There was one in each room of the suite. I picked it up and the desk answered immediately — not too many calls in the dead of night.

“Mrs. Peabody, please.”

After a moment I heard the phone ring in the next room.

“Hello?” It was Juana.

“Don’t say a word. This is Nick. I hear Parson in there. Pretend this is a wrong number.”

“I’m sorry. I believe you’ve got—”

“Keep him there. I’m meeting Corelli tomorrow night, midnight. The Veleta. The contact is dead. Keep Parson there all night if you can. He may be the man who killed Corelli’s double.”