Ник Картер - The Spanish Connection

But I wasn’t paying much attention. I was too busy thinking.

First, I was furious with myself for not having anticipated the set-up. With that sniper operating in Ensenada and the weird crew watching us in Washington, I should have been primed for trouble in Malaga. Yet I had thought before that the hit men were after Juana and me — not after Corelli. How stupid!

That was as far as I got in my mental convolutions. The honking horns outside the car finally roused me from my torpor, and I began to watch the narrow streets of Malaga go by me.

The car pulled over to the curb, and we climbed out. The clinic was located on a narrow street shaded from the direct sun by the buildings around it. The buildings were clean and well kept up. It was definitely not part of the Malaga slums.

Kelly led the way in through the main entrance. We trooped up the curving marble stairway after a woman in a white uniform with a rather formidable backside who had chatted briefly with Mitch Kelly when we entered. As we walked down the corridor of the second floor, a thin man in a business suit and a black tie greeted Kelly with a broad smile.

He was Doctor Hernández, the physician in charge of Tina Bergson, Kelly said. I could tell by the brilliance of Hernández’s smile that AXE money paid his bills and fanned his élan into a total ebullience as he greeted the slaves of his employers.

“How is she?” Kelly asked.

Hernández clasped his hands in front of him, took a deep breath, and worried a long moment.

“It is a bullet wound, you understand. Such a wound does sometimes cause sepsis in the blood stream. Sepsis is poison,” he said to me, as if I appeared to be the chief moron of the group. “I do think she will come out of it all right. With the help of God — she will!”

“How soon?” I asked.

“Several days,” said Hernández after thinking for a minute.

“Ah,” I said. “Then it is not too serious at all.”

His black eyes flashed a moment. Then he was smiling a worried, concerned smile. “Serious enough, Señor Peabody,” he intoned. That meant that he would not release her right away. I had to accept that fact that his reluctance might be medically sound. A bullet wound can be a nasty trifle. “But it was a good thing she was brought here immediately,” Hernández went on. “She was almost in shock. Shock is the thing one must worry about where bullet wounds are concerned.”

I nodded. “Can we get in to see her?”

“Of course, of course!” beamed Hernández, turning to Kelly and waving him toward a door down the corridor. “Please to enter.”

Kelly opened the door and walked into a large spacious room with a hospital bed in the middle of it. The blinds had been drawn, and a lamp burned beside the bed on a night stand.

Tina Bergson was beautiful even bandaged up in a very elaborate swathe of white linen and covered up to her chest in hospital blankets. Her hair was fluffed out over the pillow — a halo of spun gold.

She had her eyes closed when we came in, but she opened them as we stared down at her.

Her glance sought me out. “Mr. Peabody,” she said.

I nodded. “I’m glad to see you looking so well.”

She tried to smile. “It was... it was—” And tears came to her eyes.

I moved over toward her. “Tina, it was a terrifying thing. Did you want to tell me something?”

Her voice was a whisper. “I am so ashamed. I—” She looked around at us pleadingly.

I turned. “All right. Clear the room. She wants to talk to me alone.”

Juana straightened. “And me.”

Our glances locked. “You stay, Juana. The rest of you — out!”

Hernández and Kelly obediently left the room with the white-uniformed woman.

I took Tina’s hand. “What is it, Tina? What are you ashamed of?”

She tinned her face away from mine. “The trickery,” she said. “The game we played.”

“Game?” I heard Juana’s voice harsh and flat.

“Yes,” said Tina nervously.

“Tell us about the game,” I ordered her.

“It was Rico’s idea. I mean, he was frightened and he knew that someone might be trying to kill him.”

“How did he know?”

“It has been tried before.”

“All right. He suspected someone was trying to kill him. Because of his arrangement with us?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“If he knew someone was out to hit him, why did he walk right into a trap?”

“He did not,” said Tina. “He did not walk into a trap. That is the point.”

I turned and stared at Juana. A bizarre thought was taking form in my mind. I gripped Tina’s hand hard.

“Go on,” I urged her.

“It was not Rico on the yacht,” said Tina finally, her eyes rolling at me pleadingly.

So! No wonder it had all been so quick!

“No?”

“No. The man you talked to was not Rico Corelli. He was a man Rico knew for years. His name was Basillio di Vanessi. A Sicilian.”

“What about Rico? Was he on the yacht?”

“No. Rico is at Sierra Nevada. As soon as the meeting on the yacht ended, we were to notify him — and then you and he would meet at the ski resort. This preliminary rendezvous was a test. In the test Rico used a gemini.”

“A gemini?”

“Yes. A — how is it? — a twin!”

“A double,” said Juana.

“Yes! You know, to see if anyone was trying to kill Rico. You see?”

“Or to kill me,” I mused.

“That is right.”

“Then it’s Vanessi who’s dead, and not Corelli?”

She said, “Yes. That is the truth.”

Juana pushed me aside and stood by the bed. “You’re lying,” she snapped. “I can tell.”

Tina half sat up in bed, her eyes wild. “Why do you talk to me like that?”

“You’re not telling the truth! Corelli is dead! And you’re trying to set us up with a phony!”

“It is not true! I swear it!” Tina’s face was covered with perspiration.

“I don’t believe it!” Juana was bearing down hard. “Rico is in the Sierra Nevada now. We let him off the yacht at Valencia. I can prove it!”

“How?”

“I... I—” Tina broke down. She began sniffling.

“How?” cried Juana, reaching down and shaking her hard.

Tina winced and groaned in pain. Her tears flowed. “It’s the truth!” she sobbed. “Corelli is alive!” She was weeping openly now. “In Valencia there are records of his departure from the yacht!”

Juana straightened, her eyes narrowed but satisfied. “We can check that out.”

I pushed Juana gently aside, giving her a significant and understanding glance. Juana had guts, and I liked that. Now we knew that Corelli was alive.

“Where is he?” I asked Tina.

“I told you. At Sierra Nevada.” Her eyes rolled in terror.

“But—”

“He will tell me where he will meet you.”

“He is incognito at the resort?”

Tina nodded desperately. “Yes, yes! Oh, Mr. Peabody, I am so sorry everything went wrong.”

“You should be!” I snapped.

“You will go up there to meet him?”

“No way!”

“No?” Her face fell apart.

“No!” I was emphatic.

“Why... why not?” She burst into tears once again. “He will... he will... kill me!”

“Yes,” I said quietly. “I believe he will.”

It is not easy to project thought waves from your brain to someone else’s. I have tried it for years, with total lack of success. Yet at this moment I knew I had to communicate with Juana Rivera by brain wave only — real ESP stuff.

I directed my gaze at her face, and thought very hard. I thought: Come to her rescue, Juana. You’re the good guy; I’m the heavy.