Ник Картер - The Spanish Connection

“You’re bothering me, please, and I don’t have to put up with this.”

“Don’t tell him anything. Keep him on the string. If you understand all this and can comply, say ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but I can’t help you.’ Then hang up.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but I can’t help you.”

I hung up. I could hear Parson’s voice calling from the other end of the room.

“Who was that, Juana?”

“Wrong number. Some drunken Englishman.”

Parson laughed. “Sure he wasn’t an American?”

“He had an accent just like you,” Juana retorted.

Good girl! She was as cool as powdered snow.

I checked my stiletto blade, my Luger, and changed into my turtleneck sweater, and jacket. I was going into the bar again. I wanted to think. And I did not want to be in that room the rest of the night. Perhaps I could pay the bar boy to let me sack out in the lounge next to the bar.

I turned off the light and walked out quietly.

The bar was exactly the same as I had left it. I glanced around. It was not likely that everyone was in bed already.

I tried the desk. “Where is everyone?”

“The discothèque,” said the clerk, surprised. “In the basement.”

“I don’t hear any noise.”

“It is soundproof, Señor.”

I shrugged and went down the stairs that I had thought led to the lower level of the hotel where the supply rooms were located.

Three doors led off the landing below, and one said: DISCOTHÈQUE.

I crossed to the bar on my right and ordered a drink. The barkeep, dressed like a flamenco dancer and sprouting long sideburns sleeked down against his skull, made the drink quickly.

Now I let my eyes roam carefully over the patrons of the discothèque. I had overlooked this one place: it might possibly be the spot where The Mosquito had hidden after the killing, if indeed The Mosquito was not Barry Parson.

But I did not see the man I had first seen in the bedroom of the villa at Torremolinos.

I was about to sit down when I did see someone I knew.

She was seated in a far corner, all alone, under an overhanging piece of structure that simulated a large flat rock. The light hit her full in the face in one of those illuminated moments, and she blinked and turned away.

She was obviously Elena Morales.

What was her role in this charade? Did she know why Barry Parson had come to Sol y Nieve? Was she part of it? Or was she simply an innocent bystander, part of the window-dressing set up by Parson to keep his own part shielded?

Or was I wrong about Parson?

I strolled over, looming suddenly out of the gloom over her and smiling broadly.

“Hello, Elena.”

“George! What a pleasant surprise!”

“When did you get here?”

“Oh, Barry and I got here at about eleven. We both took showers, changed our clothes, and went right down to the dining room, but of course it was past time for eating. And we saw your wife. She said you had gone on out.” Her eyes sparkling. “On business.”

“But here you are — alone!”

“Well, we came down here, the three of us. There was another fascinating man here. A German. Barry had to go upstairs to straighten out something about the baggage. He came back about a half hour later. The German man had to leave. Then we danced and—”

“How long did the German stay?”

Elena smiled. “Is this what you call a cross-examination, George?”

I laughed. “Of course not. What happened after Barry came back from the baggage?”

“The German man left, as I said, and then about twelve-thirty Barry said he would take Juana to her room. Juana was tired. He told me to wait here.” She frowned, glowering. “I am still here.”

I ordered drinks.

“What happens if Barry doesn’t call you?” I asked, remembering what I had instructed Juana.

She chuckled. “I go to bed by myself.”

“Maybe not.”

Her eyes focused on my face. “You are telling me something?”

“Perhaps.”

“Okay,” she said, turning to me and putting her hand on my thigh. “I tell you what. Why don’t you get a bottle and come up to my room? We’ll wait for Barry to return up there.”

I got a bottle of cognac and we went up the stairs together. Elena was weaving a little, but she was very capable of holding liquor.

Their room was on the third floor. Elena took her key from her bag and gave it to me. I opened the door and let her in. She turned on the light and I closed the door behind us.

She got out some paper cups and I opened the bottle, poured some cognac and started drinking as I sat on the edge of the bed.

“Your wife is very pretty,” said Elena.

I nodded.

“Do you have marital problems?”

“No more than anyone else.”

“But it seems your wife likes other men.”

“Like Barry?”

“Yes.”

“Barry is your husband?” I asked.

She shook her head. “We pretend.” She smiled.

“How long have you known him?”

“Oh. A month maybe.”

“Where did you meet him?”

She raised an eyebrow. “In Malaga.”

“What does Barry do for a living?”

She laughed. “He makes love.”

“No. I mean, what is his business?”

“I do not pry into a man’s affairs.”

I nodded. Of course. She would not. She was a Spaniard. A Spanish woman does not pry into her husband’s “other” life — ever.

“And you,” she said with a smile. “What do you do?”

“I’m a photographer,” I said, trying to remember what my cover was after an instant’s total amnesia. “I sell pictures.”

“Ah.” Elena looked at me carefully. “You know, I have never seen you with a camera.”

“We are on vacation,” I said lamely.

“Well, it is true of the British too,” she murmured softly.

“Barry never works either?”

She shook her head. “He says he is a representative of a company in Britain. A sales representative.”

That was a new one. It was obviously Parson’s cover story. I decided to find out some more about him.

“What does he sell?”

“I don’t really know. I do not ask.”

“Does he ever correspond with Britain?”

“I do not think so. I never see him writing a letter. But he makes a lot of telephone calls.”

“Ah.”

“He has a secretary, I think. He is always talking to her.”

“I see.” I frowned. “Where is she?”

“I do not know. He gets on the phone and I do not know where he is calling to because I am not in the room when he starts. Or when she calls to him, I have to give him the phone, and he waits for me to leave the room.”

I nodded. “You Spanish women are wonderful,” I said. “An American woman would listen at the door. Or put a wire tap on him.”

“But it takes a special discipline not to eavesdrop.”

She nodded. Then she smiled. “Too much for me.”

“You do listen?”

“I do.”

I grinned. “Good girl.”

“He’s never talking about business, though. He is always talking about people. People I don’t understand about. He calls them, ‘that one,’ or ‘himself,’ or ‘the man,’ or ‘the woman.’ ”

That sounded like good chatter for an agent.

“Have you ever talked to his secretary?”

“Yes. I put on the accent a little for her, to make her think I am stupid.” She grinned at me with a sudden pixy-like flash of humor.

I squeezed her thigh. “You’re not stupid at all, Elena.”

“But she believes I am stupid.”

“Who?”

“Chris. The woman to whom Barry talks.”

“Do you know her other name?”

Elena shook her head.

“Has he talked to her as long as you’ve known him?” I asked, really not understanding where we were going, but simply continuing on the normal road of information-gathering.