Nick Carter - A Korean Tiger

"I'd better get cracking, sir. The car must be downstairs by now."

"Right, son. Goodbye again. Good luck. And, Nick — there's a penciled notation on this flimsy. From J.E.H. in person. He suggests that the best solution of our problem is a few ounces of lead in the soft tissues of the Bennett brain. As soon as possible."

"I couldn't agree more," said Nick Carter.

The old name for the street, for the entire district, had been the Kammachgasse. But that had been in the days before the First World War, when the sordid, poverty-stricken neighborhood had attracted prostitutes as naturally as it collected coal grime. Since that time the city of Cologne had been bombed heavily, devastated and rebuilt. Along with the rest of the Rhineland city, the Kammachgasse was also refurbished, shined and polished and given a new image. But, like a palimpsest, the old image could still be seen glowing faintly through the new, like a ghost in a television set. The prostitutes were still there. But where they had been furtive under the Kaiser, and hardly less so under Hitler, in the new Germany they were blatant.

The women now had a street of their very own. It was called Ladenstrasse. Store street! This because the girls sat in little, well-lighted store fronts, behind panes of clear glass, and displayed themselves to the shoppers, not all of | whom were male.

The women in the small glass cages were very patient. They rocked and smoked, knitted and read magazines, and waited for whoever chose to wander in from the street and use their bodies for a few minutes. Die Ladenstrasse was the last stop for these women, a fact of which even the dullest was aware. It is doubtful that many of them thought about it, or cared very much.

It was a little after midnight when the big, rough- looking man entered Ladenstrasse. There was still considerable traffic on the street, though a few of the windows were dark — the girls either having gone to bed or out for a bite and a drink with their pimps — but no one paid any attention to the big man. Not even the bored policeman who yawned now and then, and removed his shiny patent leather helmet to scratch his balding head. Gross Gott! Heinrich was late again tonight. Silly young schwein. Probably mooning around his Katte again and had forgotten the time. Oh, his feet! It would be good to get home to Anna and his supper, and to soak his poor feet in a tub of hot water.

The policeman gazed idly after the big man who had just shambled past him into Ladenstrasse. A huge one, that. Look at the shoulders on him. And a late one, too. He would be just in time. No doubt he had been drinking in some stube and had decided at the last minute to have a woman tonight. The policeman yawned again. Poor devil. He always felt a little sorry for the men who came to Ladenstrasse. They had no Kattes, no Annas.

The big man shambled down the street, his hands in his pockets, his huge shoulders hunched in the dirty leather jacket. He wore a leather workman's cap and a filthy magenta neckcloth to conceal the absence of a collar. His corduroys were limp and frayed, and he wore a pair of old German Army shoes with hobnails. The street had been resurfaced since the last war, but here and there was an island of the original cobbles. When the hobnails struck the cobbles a spark or two would orbit briefly in the night, like fireflies lost and out of season.

The man stopped before Number 9. The window was dark. The big man cursed softly. His luck was souring fast. Ever since Hamburg, where he had been delivered by the bomber. He had changed clothes, gotten an AXE car from the depot there, and driven like mad to Cologne. He had been stopped three times for speeding, twice by the Germans and once by the British, and the English had damned near jailed him. It had taken a lot of the old hands across the sea malarkey to get him out of that one — plus a sizable bribe for the corporal in charge!

Now Number 9 was dark. Closed up tight as a drum. Hell! Killmaster scratched at his chin stubble and pondered. The Berlin man had been supposed to meet him in the Hohestrasse, at the Cafe of the Two Clowns. The man hadn't shown. Nick, after hanging about for hours, had finally decided to contact the woman on his own. It wasn't good. It might not even work. The woman was the Berlin man's contact, not his. Well — when the devil drove…

Nick Carter glanced up and down Ladenstrasse. Some of the other girls were closing up shop now. The cop on the corner was scratching his head and leaning against a lamppost. The street was fast becoming deserted. He'd best get the hell off it before he became conspicuous. He rapped hard on the glass store front with his knuckles. He stopped and waited a moment. Nothing happened. He rapped again, harder this time, the impatient tattoo of a lustful, drunken man who was determined to have Number 9 and no other. That would be the story if the cop got nosey.

After five minutes a light flicked on behind a dark curtain at the rear of the little platform. Now he could make out a rocking chair and a pile of magazines. A pair of black high-heeled shoes beside the rocker, the spikes about six inches high. Nick thought of that cabinet back in the peaceful little town of Laurel, Maryland, and he grimaced. Raymond Lee Bennett, if it was indeed he, seemed to be running true to form. If, again, it wasn't all wild goose! Nick was not in a very sanguine mood at the moment.

A woman was peering at him through a slit in the curtain. The light was bad, but she appeared blonde and incredibly young to be on Ladenstrasse. Now she clutched a robe about her breasts and leaned toward him and shook her head. Her mouth was wide and red and he could read her lips as she said: "Nein— nein— geschlossen!"

Nick shot a glance at the corner. Hell! The cop was beginning to saunter this way, his attention caught by the rapping on the glass. Nick swayed a bit, as though very drunk, and jammed his face against the glass and shouted in German. "Closed hell, Bertha! Don't give me that stuff. Let me in, I say. I've got money. Plenty of money. Lemme in!"

The cop was closer now. Nick moved his lips against the glass silently and prayed that this one wasn't as dumb as most prostitutes. He mouthed a word: "Reltih— reltih!" Hitler spelled backward. A grim little joke the Berlin man had dreamed up.

The girl shook her head again. She wasn't getting the message. Nick made a blade of his right hand and chopped at his left wrist three times. It was the ultimate in AXE recognition signals, and a dead giveaway if an enemy professional was watching, but it couldn't be helped. He had to get through to Bertha — or whatever the hell her name was.

She was nodding now. Yes. She'd gotten it. She disappeared and the light went out. Nick shot a glance up the street. He breathed easier. The cop had lost interest and gone back to his corner, where he was now talking to another, younger policeman. His relief man, no doubt. His arrival had taken the heat off Nick.

A door clicked softly open. A voice whispered, "Kommen herein!"

The AXEman followed her up a narrow staircase that" smelled of sweat and urine and cheap perfume and cigarettes and a million bad meals. Her slippers made a shuffling sibilance on the worn treads. Even to Nick's falcon eyes she was only a moving blur in the gloom. Instinctively, without thinking, he eased the Luger in its plastic holster and let Hugo, the stiletto, slide down into his palm. He was not expecting trouble — and yet he was always expecting trouble!

At the top of the stairs she took his hand and led him down a long dark passage. She had not spoken again. Her hand was small and soft and slightly moist. She opened a door and said, "Herein."

She closed the door before she switched on the light in the room. Nick cast a swift look around before he relaxed. He pushed the stiletto back into its sheath. There was nothing to fear in this room. Not as he understood fear. For the woman it might be another matter. His eyes, those strange eyes that could change color like the sea, flickered rapidly around the room and missed nothing. A tiny white poodle sleeping on a cushion in a corner. A parakeet in a cage. Lace curtains and doilies, a pitiful attempt at gaiety that somehow attained only a slightly sordid froufrou. On the dressing table and small bed was a litter of kewpie dolls. Something Nick hadn't seen in years. There were a dozen or more of them. Her children, no doubt.