Nick Carter: The Black Death

Silence now. The girl backed slowly away and got to her knees and flung her body backward. She began to bleat again, softly, little goat sounds. I stared at the dark behind her, trying to make out the forms of the mamaloi and papaloi. This was damned good ventriloquism and I wondered which one of them was doing it.

The girl was rocking back and forth, still making the bleating sounds. The goat cried like a baby. The girl made a swift motion and the white shift fell away from her shoulders and slid down to her waist. Her body was oiled, dark and glistening and her breasts were small and firm and pointed. She rocked back and forth, staring at the goat and bleating softly, and she began to stroke her rigid nipples with her fingers. Sweat was streaming from her now. Me too.

The drum muted again, a barely heard throb in the gloom. The girl moved and the white shift was gone and she was naked. She stood up and raised her arms. She took a step toward the goat and began to undulate her body slowly, twisting and grinding her pelvis, stroking herself, going almost to her knees in a lithe movement and then coming up with a shuddering outward thrust. The goat moved toward her, silent now, the golden eyes gleaming. The goat lowered its head and shook it and pawed at the floor.

The girl danced to one side, around the goat, so that it must turn to follow her, and in the darkness about me there was a long and whispery sigh as we all saw the size and the strength — the brute power symbol — of the goat’s phallus.

The girl went slowly to her knees, legs wide spread and body flexing backward. She was silent now, as was the goat. The girl stared upward, her eyes rolled back in her head. Her fingers flickered over her breasts.

The goat moved toward her. Near me someone groaned softly.

Lyda Bonaventure took her hand from mine. She moved her hand to more private regions.

The lights came on, white and blinding, and then the shooting began.

There were three of them. They all wore ski masks and they carried machineguns and they had massacre and murder in their hearts. They had come in the single rear door and spread out quietly and now there was one on each side of the big room and one at the back. The machineguns leaped in their hands as they hammered short bursts into the crowd. These bastards weren’t choosy — they were acting on the shotgun principle. Kill everybody in sight and you were bound to get the ones you were after.

It had been well planned, because the guy on the right got the mamaloi and papaloi with the first burst. As the papaloi was blasted down he let out a screaming yell that I heard even over the yammering of the guns.

“Tonton Macoute! ” Bogyman! Papa Doc had invaded New York.

Any battle is hectic and confused and this one was no exception. I had Lyda Bonaventure under me, trying to shield her, and I got the gunner on the right with the second shot from the Luger. My first shot was high because Lyda was grabbing my arm and screaming something at me.

This got me the attention of the gunner on the left and he tried for me and got Steve Bennett instead. Bennett was on his knees, leveling a revolver across his forearm and firing, and the blast took most of his head off. I got off three more with the Luger, and the bogyman dropped his machinegun and grabbed at his guts and went to his knees.

That left the man at the rear, and he lost his head and started backing toward the door, firing at random into the screaming, bloody crowd. I tried for him but it was no good because four guys and a woman, in understandable terror and panic, rushed screaming and clawing at him. I couldn’t fire, and he killed two of the men before he turned and ran out the door. I wasn’t about to go after him. He was no longer my business; Lyda Bonaventure was and she was the only contact I had on this job and in about one minute there would be ten thousand cops swarming over the premises. That I could do without. AXE is on the side of the angels, at least in most cases, but we’ve got standing orders never to get mixed up with the local police if it can be avoided. The boys in blue just never seem to grasp the AXE viewpoint.

Lyda was tugging at my arm and yelling at me. She had! beautiful teeth and she showed them all as she pulled at me and screamed: “This way, Nick! Under the altar! There’s a way out.”

She didn’t want the cops any more than I did. Neither of us could do the other any good in the pokey. We ran toward the altar, stepping over the bodies and slipping in blood. Waterloo, I thought, must have looked something like this on the morning after.

There was no time to count the dead and wounded, even if I had wanted to, and no time to help them. There was no sign of the black girl. The damned goat stood quietly off to one side, chewing on the twigs and leaves, and surveying the carnage with calm golden eyes. The drummer was slumped over his drum, still twitching, and both the mamaloi and papaloi were dead in their own blood.

Behind the altar was an open trap door. There was a ladder and far below a faint glimmer of yellow light. Lyda let go of me and swung her slim long legs down onto the ladder. “Come on,” she gasped. “Hurry — Hurry! The police will be here any second.”

She was so right! I slipped the Luger back in my belt holster and went down after her. I was lucky to find a way out and knew it. If there is anything Hawk hates it is to have one of his agents collared and have to answer a lot of questions. Or not answer them, which can lead to complications.

The ladder ended in a long corridor. It was dimly lit and asbestos-wrapped steam pipes ran along the top. Again I felt the tremor of a far-off subway train. That, I thought, would be the Broadway IRT.

Lyda Bonaventure tapped my arm and flashed those marvelous teeth at me in a grim little smile and said, “Come on, Nick! Run!”

She turned right and started to run. her long legs flashing in textured stockings beneath her mini-skirt. I tagged along. As we ran, the rumble of the subway became louder.

They say you can always learn something new, and this night I did. I learned that a great many of the buildings in New York are connected, far below ground, by doors leading from one basement to another, and from one sub-basement to another. If you have the keys to these doors, or can arrange for them to remain unlocked, you can travel a hell of a long way underground. As we did now. I have no desire to see another boiler room as long as I live. There were tunnels and rats and dank deserted spaces and incinerators and laundry rooms and storage rooms with piles of moldering trunks.

We saw one guy. One. A slight dark man who chewed a stub of cigar and watched as we ran past.

Lyda spoke to him. “Lock up after us, Jose! You haven’t seen anything.”

This kid, I thought, gets around. She knows what she is about. Now all I had to do was find out what she was about and take it from there. One thing I couldn’t do — trust her. Not any more than that goat back there.

It was maybe a half hour before we came topside. All this time we had been running, or walking fast, and Lyda hadn’t said more than a couple of words. Like: “Hurry up!”

I knew we weren’t in any great danger of being arrested now, and I began to wonder what she was in such a tearing sweat about. I figured we were safe enough for the time being. She didn’t. She kept running and beckoning me on and she was working up a sweat that glistened on her cafe-au-lait skin. She was wearing some expensive perfume, and it mingled with her sweat. A couple of times, when we slowed and got close together, I remembered how she had touched me back there just before the roof fell in. Something, I thought, just possibly might be done about that But this was not the time for hanky panky. We would see.