Nick Carter - Death of the Falcon

“You know, I think I’m going to exercise before I go to sleep tonight.”

“That’s a good idea,” Sherima agreed, then looked closely at Candy, perhaps suspecting her friend’s double meaning.

When Candy returned her look with an innocent expression, saying “Unless I’m too tired, of course. The night’s still young,” Sherima’s face fell into a warm smile. She touched Candy’s hand affectionately and we started for the door.

As we went outside, I walked between the two women, letting each one take an arm. I pressed Candy’s hand inside my elbow and she returned the gesture, squeezing my forearm. Then a slight tremor that I knew came from sexual arousal swept over her.

“Cold?” I asked, grinning down at her.

“No. It’s beautiful tonight. It’s so warm, it feels more like summer than spring. Nick, Sherima,” she added quickly, “what do you say to walking a bit? These old homes around here are so lovely, and the exercise would do us all good.”

Sherima turned to me, asking, “Would it be safe, Nick?”

“Oh, I think so. There seem to be lots of people out tonight enjoying the nice weather. If you’d like, we could walk up around Georgetown University, then circle around and stroll down N Street to Wisconsin Avenue, and on along to M Street. That’s where you noticed all those stores this morning and I believe a number of them are open late. It’s only a bit after eleven, and if nothing else, you could do a little window shopping.”

“Let’s do it, Sherima,” Candy said. “It sounds like fun.”

By then, we had reached the limousine, where Abdul stood holding open the door. “All right,” Sherima assented. Turning to her bodyguard, she said, “Abdul, we’re going to walk for a bit.”

“Yes, my lady,” he said, bowing as always. “I shall follow along in the car.”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary, Abdul,” Sherima said. “Nick, couldn’t we pick out a corner where Abdul might meet us after a while? Better still, I have an idea. Abdul, you take the rest of the night off. We won’t need you any more tonight. We can get a cab back to the hotel, can’t we, Nick?”

“Oh, sure,” I said. “There are always a lot of cabs on Wisconsin Avenue.”

When her bodyguard started to protest that it would be no trouble for him to follow us in the car, and that it was his place to be with her, Sherima held up her hand to silence him. The gesture obviously was a holdover from her days as Queen of Adabi and Abdul, an experienced courtier, because silent instantly.

“That’s an order, Abdul,” she told him. “You have been on the go looking after us ever since we got to this country, and I’m sure you can use the rest. Now, do as I say.” Her tone left no room for argument.

Bowing deeply, Abdul said, “As you wish, my lady. I shall return to the embassy. What time do you wish me to be at the hotel in the morning?”

“Ten o’clock will certainly be early enough,” Sherima said. “I think Candy and I can use a good night’s sleep, too, and this little walk will be just the thing to make certain we get it.”

Abdul bowed once more, closed the door, and went around the car, driving of! as we started to walk along Prospect Avenue toward the university grounds just a few blocks away.

Ambling past the older buildings on the campus, I told the girls what little I knew about the school. Almost two hundred years old, it once had been run by the Jesuits and subsequently developed into one of the world’s best known institutions for international and foreign service studies. “Many of our most important statesmen studied here over the years,” I said, “which is logical, I reckon, since it is located in the capital.”

“It’s lovely,” Sherima said, admiring the Gothic majesty of one of the main buildings as we passed by. “And it’s so quiet around here; it almost seems that we stepped back in time. I think it’s marvelous the way that the buildings have been preserved. It’s always so saddening to see the grand architecture of a city’s older sections become ignored and decay. But this is delightful.”

“Well, ma’am, our time-traveling will end when we get down to Wisconsin Avenue,” I said. “On a night like this the pubs will be full of young people involved in very comtemporary social rituals! And, by the way, Washington is supposed to have some of the prettiest women in the world. An old friend of mine from Hollywood was working on a movie here, and he swore that he’s never seen so many attractive women in one place before. Now, that’s something for a Hollywood man to say.”

“Is that why you like to spend so much of your time in Washington?” Candy asked jokingly.

“Strictly business with me, ma’am,” I insisted, and we all started to laugh.

By that time, we had turned down N Street, and they were remarking over the old homes, carefully preserved in their original state. I explained that since 1949, and the enactment of the Old Georgetown Bill, no one is allowed to build or demolish a building in the Historic District without permission from the Commission of Fine Arts.

“Nick, you sound like a guide book,” Candy kidded me at one point.

“That’s because I love Georgetown,” I said honestly. “When I find time on a trip up here, I always end up walking the streets, just enjoying the whole atmosphere of the area. In fact, if we have time and you aren’t too tired hiking, I’ll show you the house that I’d like to buy someday and just settle down in. It’s at Thirty-second and P Streets. Someday — maybe a long time away — but someday I’m going to have that house,” I mused aloud.

As I continued with my little lecture tour, I was conscious that the day of my eventual retirement might never arrive. Or that it might come very soon — and violently.

I noticed out of the corner of my eye that a battered old station wagon was passing us for the third time as we stopped in front of 3307 N Street and I was explaining that this was the house that President Kennedy, then a Senator, had bought for Jackie as a present after the birth of their daughter Caroline. “They lived here until moving to the White House,” I said.

As Sherima and Candy stared at the house and talked quietly, I used the opportunity to follow the station wagon’s progress along the block. Just past the corner of Thirty-third Street, it halted, double-parking in a dark spot between the glow cast by the streetlights. As I watched, two shadowy figures got out of the right side doors, crossed the street, and walked almost to the intersection ahead of us. I had noticed there were four people in the station wagon, so that left two of them on our side of the street. Without being obvious to Sherima and Candy, I transferred the trenchcoat I’d been carrying over my right arm to the other side after easing my Luger into my left hand so that the coat was draped over it. Then I turned back to the girls, who were still talking in whispers about the tragedy of JFK.

“Come on, you two,” I said. “This was supposed to be a night for fun. I’m sorry that I stopped here.”

They moved up to join me, both subdued and saying little as we walked on. We crossed Thirty-third Street, and I left them to their thoughts. I saw the two men who had crossed the street in my peripheral sight. They had come back to our side and had fallen in behind us. About thirty yards ahead, both doors on the driver’s side of the station wagon opened, but no one got out. That would come as we got closer, I figured, where the darkness was deepest on the block.

My companions apparently weren’t conscious of the footsteps coming up fast behind us, but I was. A few yards further on and we would be hemmed in between two pair of what I was pretty certain were assassins ready to make another try at Sherima. I decided to act while we were in a spot where some of the corner streetlight’s glare penetrated the branches of the still leafless trees.