Nick Carter - Operation Moon Rocket

Another voice broke in at this point — Nick Carter's: "I'll have to take my chances on that," he said. "All I want to know is, has the Elgar cover been worked out thoroughly? I don't want anyone checking back and finding out that the real Elgar is still in Atlanta."

"No chance of that," replied the first voice. "He was released this afternoon and the snatch was made an hour later by a couple of AXEmen."

"Would I have a car and money so fast?"

"It's all been carefully worked out, N3. Let me get started on your face and we'll review the material together. Ready?"

Mickey Elgar, alias Nick Carter, joined his voice to those on the tape as he drove along: "My home turf is Jacksonville, Florida. I teamed with the Menlo brothers on a couple of jobs there. They owed me money. I'm not saying what happened to them, but the car is theirs and so is the money in my pocket. I'm loaded and I'm looking for action…"

Nick played the tape through three more times. Then, as he swung through West Palm Beach and over the Lake Worth Causeway, he detached the tiny reel with one ringer, stuffed it into the ashtray and put his Ronson lighter to it. Reel and tape both flared up instantly, leaving nothing but ashes.

He parked on Ocean Boulevard and walked the last three blocks to the Bali Hai. The amplified roar of folk-rock music came faintly through the curtained windows of the discotheque. Don Lee barred his way to the restaurant. The young Hawaiian's dimples weren't showing this time. His eyes were cold and the look they gave Nick should have stuck four inches out of his back. "Side entrance, jerk," he hissed under his breath after Nick had given him the password he'd received from Eddie Byloff's dying lips.

Nick went around the building. A figure stood just inside the metal-surfaced fire door, waiting for him. Nick recognized his flat Oriental features. It was the waiter who'd served Hawk and him that first night. Nick gave him the password. The waiter watched him, his face blank, expressionless. "I was told you know where the action is," Nick finally growled.

The waiter jerked his head over his shoulder, signaling him to enter. The door slammed shut behind them. "Stlaight ahead," said the waiter. They didn't go through the ladies' room this time but reached the secret passageway via a pantry-like storeroom opposite the kitchen. The waiter unlocked the reinforced steel door at the end of it and ushered Nick into the familiar, cramped little office.

This had to be the man Joy Sun had told him about, N3 figured. Johnny Hung Fat. And to judge by the crowded key ring he carried and the sure, authoritative way that he moved around the office, he was more than just another waiter at the Bali Hai.

Nick recalled the savage groin-kick that Candy had given him the night they'd been trapped here in the office by him. More play acting, he assumed.

"This way, prease," said Hung Fat. Nick followed him into the long, narrow room with the two-way mirror. The rows of cameras and tape recorders were silent. No film was inching down from the slots tonight. Nick stared through the infrared glass at the elaborately jeweled women and the men with the round, well-fed faces who sat smiling at each other across pools of soft light, their lips moving in silent conversation.

"Mrs. Burncastle," said Hung Fat, pointing to a middle-aged dowager wearing an ornate diamond pendant and sparkling chandelier earrings. "She have seven hundred fifty G's that kind jewelry at home. She going to visit her daughter in Rome next week. House will be empty. But you need safe man. We split proceeds."

Nick shook his head. "Not that kind of action," he growled. "I'm not interested in ice. I'm loaded. I'm looking for gambling. Top stakes." He watched them come into the restaurant through the bar. They'd obviously been in the discotheque. A waiter led them to a corner table set slightly apart from the others. He whisked the reserved sign away and bent forward, all obsequiousness, to take their order.

Nick said, "I've got a hundred G's to play, an' I don't want to violate my parole by goin' to Vegas or the Bahamas. I want action right here, in Florida."

"Hundred G's," said Hung Fat thoughtfully. "Velly big stake. I make phone call, see what I can do. You wait here, prease."

The rope burn around Reno Tree's neck had been carefully touched up with powder, but it was still visible. Particularly when he turned his head. Then it bunched up like an old sheet. His scowl, pulling a low hairline even lower, drew a sort of dramatic emphasis from his costume — black trousers, jet-black silk shirt, a spotless white sweater with belled sleeves, a gold wristwatch the size of a grapefruit slice.

Candy couldn't seem to get enough of him. She was all over him, those wide-set blue eyes of hers eating him up, her body rubbing against his like a hungry kitten's. Nick found the number that corresponded to their table and switched the sound system on."…please, baby, don't go salty on me," Candy was whining. "Hit me, shout at me, but don't get cold. Please. I can take anything but that."

Reno pulled a pack of butts from his pocket, shook one out and lit it. He forced the smoke through his nostrils in a thin, hazy cloud. "I gave you a job to do," he rasped. "You screwed up."

"Baby, I did everything you asked. I can't help it that Eddie fingered me."

Reno shook his head. "You," he said. "It was you led the guy right to Eddie. That was just plain stupid." Calmly, deliberately, he ground the lit cigarette into her arm.

She sucked her breath in sharply. Tears streamed down her face. She didn't move, though, didn't strike out at him. "I know, lover. I deserved that," she moaned. "I've really let you down. Please find it in your heart to forgive me…"

Nick's belly crawled at the repellent little scene being played out before his eyes.

"Please keep still. Very still." The voice behind him was lacking in inflection, but the gun pressed hard against his spine carried its own message, one not easily misunderstood. "Good. Take a pace forward and turn slowly around, hands extended before you."

Nick did as he was told. Johnny Hung Fat was flanked by two gorillas. Big, beefy non-Chinese gorillas, with snap-brim fedoras and fists the size of small hams. "Brace him, boys."

One snapped the cuffs on him while the other ran his hands over him professionally, flushing the Colt Cobra .38 special which — in line with Elgar's cover — was the only weapon Nick was packing. "Now, then," said Hung Fat. "Who are you? You're not Elgar, because you didn't recognize me. Elgar knows I don't talk like Charlie Chan. Besides, I owe him money. If you were really The Iceman, you would have been slapping me around for it."

"I was going to, don't worry," Nick gritted through clenched teeth. "I just wanted to feel out the setup first I couldn't figure the way you were acting, an' that phony accent…"

Hung Fat shook his head. "No good, friend. Elgar was always interested in an ice heist. Even when he had dough. He couldn't resist the itch. You just don't add up." He turned to the gorillas. "Max, Teddy, a Brownsville stomping," he snapped. "Eighty percenter for openers."

Max hit Nick in the jaw and Teddy let him have it in the stomach. As he folded forward, Max brought his knee up. On the floor, he saw them shift their weight to their left legs and braced himself for the kicks that would follow. He knew it was going to be bad. They were wearing football cleats.

He rolled over, struggling onto hands and knees, his head hanging toward the ground like that of a stricken animal. The floor was shaking. There was a stink of hot lubricating oil in his nostrils. He knew vaguely that he was alive, but who he was, where he was, what had happened to him was temporarily beyond recall.