Nick Carter: The Living Death

"How did you meet these men?" I growled. "No fancy talk, doll. You're on very thin ice."

"My boyfriend introduced me," she said quickly. "I'm a B-girl at the Jolly Good Pub and he hangs out there a lot. He told me I could earn a real big wad by doing a favor for some men he knew."

"What's his name? Your boyfriend."

"Teddy. Teddy Renwell."

"Then we're going to visit your boyfriend Teddy," I said, glancing at my watch. It was just one o'clock. I had time to make it back to the hotel. "But I've something else to do first. I'll drive."

I wanted to be in my room and waiting when two o'clock came. If the phone call didn't materialize, it could mean I'd been right all along about the whole thing being a trap. Or, it could mean that whoever they were, they'd gotten to the woman who originally called. But if it came, it was damned important I be there to get it.

Vicky sat quietly beside me as I tooled the little car back through the streets of London. Her glances at me, I noted, were a mixture of apprehension and a kind of grudging admiration. After a while, she began to open up.

"You're a bit of all right in a pinch, aren't you?" she commented. I let the remark go without answering.

She lapsed into silence again for another long moment.

"What are you going to do with me?" she asked a little later.

"Nothing, if you're telling the truth," I answered. "And well find that out when we visit your boyfriend. But till I'm certain of it, I'm going to keep you out of trouble."

More silence followed. I could feel her trying to decide whether to go along quietly or try to break for it. She kept glancing at me and she had more than enough street wisdom to read the score right. She also had enough guttersnipe in her to use everything she could in self-protection.

"I'll bet you re a bit of all right in other ways, too," she said, giving me a sly, sidelong glance.

"Maybe," I said. "Would you like to find out?" Two could play her little game, what the hell.

I might," she said, gaining immediate confidence at my rising to the bait. Her cleverness was of such a low-grade transparency I felt almost ashamed.

"Maybe well look into it," I said. "But I've got to wait for a phone call first."

She settled back and I could feel the tension go out of her, confident she had bought a degree of safety with the age-old weapons of woman.

When we reached my room at the hotel, my watch read five minutes to two. Vicky obediently sat down in a stuffed chair, letting me see plenty of leg. At precisely two a.m., the phone rang. It was a woman's voice again, but this time the accent Hawk had described was there, heavy, Russian or Slavic. I had thoroughly memorized the identification code she had set up and I waited.

"You have come to see me?" the woman's voice asked.

"I have come to see you," I echoed.

"Why?"

"Because you wanted me to come."

"Why did I want you to come?"

"Because the world needs help."

There was an almost inaudible sigh of relief, and then the heavily accented voice went on.

"You will go to Alton. Walk along the west bank of the Wey River. A quarter of a mile above Alton, you will find a rowboat. Take it and row toward Selborne. Stop at the second stone bridge. At dawn, six o'clock, I will meet you there. Do you understand clearly?"

"Perfectly," I answered. The phone clicked off and went dead. But the call had proven three very important things. First, that the original message to AXE had indeed been legitimate. Two, the woman was still alive, and three, she was being closely watched. Whoever was watching her had known about her call to AXE and decided to play it through, watch for my arrival and nail me. The question now was whether they'd get to her before I did. It all depended on how soon they found out their trap for me had backfired. I turned to Vicky.

"Take your stockings off, honey," I said. She looked up at me, indecision in her eyes and then, as I watched, she stood up, lifting her dress to unclasp her garter belt. She had a round little belly under white, modest panties.

"I'll take them," I said, reaching for the stockings. Sudden uncertainty tinged with apprehension leaped into her eyes. "What for?" she said. "What are you up to? I thought we were going to get chummier, luv."

She was still in there pitching. I grinned inwardly.

"The answer to that is still 'maybe, " I said. "Right now I have to go somewhere and I want to be sure you'll be here when I get back."

I tied her to a straight-backed chair, using the stockings to securely bind her ankles and wrists. Women's stockings make excellent bonds for a short period of time. They are resilient but tough. I put a handkerchief gag in her mouth, taking care to see that it was tight enough to keep her quiet and loose enough to keep her from suffocating.

"Don't bother answering the door," I said to her as I left. Her eyes glowered at me from above the gag. To add insurance, I hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the outside of the door and hurried downstairs. It was a quarter to three and I hadn't any time to waste. Vicky's little Sunbeam Imp was no Aston-Martin either.

The London streets were deserted now, except for a few girls still hopefully wandering about. Alton was south and a little west of London and I took the Old Brompton Road through Kensington and Chelsea. There was little traffic and hardly any when I got out of London. I bore down on the little car and winced as the engine strained. The ever-present curves of the English country roads kept me plenty alert as I passed road signs with the very English names of Brookwood, Farnborough, Aldershot.

Alton, when I reached it, was silent and sleeping. I found the wandering river Wey, really not much more than a large, placid stream, and pulled the Sunbeam off the road under a cluster of sturdy oaks. I began to walk along the west bank and saw that the sky was beginning to hint at the coming dawn. The woman's instructions had failed to mention the English fog which, alongside the river, was thick and constant I had to walk slowly to avoid going into the river by accident. Occasionally, the fog would lift enough for me to get a glimpse a few feet ahead. It was at just such a break that I avoided falling over the rowboat pulled halfway up on the bank. I pushed off into the water and began to row. Fogbound, silent, the only sound the soft splash of the oars in the water, I was in a world of my own. The gray of dawn was coming up, but it did nothing to dispel the fog. That would take the sun, which in England seldom burned it away until mid-morning. Then, looming up ahead, barely visible, I saw the arch of a footbridge over the river and caught a brief glimpse of the heavy stones that formed the arch. I passed underneath, rowing a little faster.

My eyes hurt from trying to peer through the fog. About a third of a mile on I dimly made out another bridge span. When I passed under it I saw it was a wooden bridge, with rails of wood and sides of log. I kept rowing and then, around a curve, I saw another arched bridge, ghostly, ethereal, substance made shadow by the fog. When I reached the bridge I saw the stones forming the arched sides. Only the walkway was wood planking. I stopped the rowboat and waited in the silent, shrouded river. My watch read six o'clock. I counted the minutes that passed. Two, three, five, ten. I wondered. Had they gotten to her first? Then I heard the sound of oars dipping into the water. I took Wilhelmina out and held her in my hand. The other boat, my ears told me, was coming from upriver and would pass under the bridge to get to me. Slowly, the rowboat began to materialize, more a shadowy shape than anything else. All I could see was the upright form of someone seated at the oars. The boat halted a distance from me, the voice across the water the same one I'd spoken to on the telephone. Obviously, the woman had chosen this spot because of the fog. She wanted to be sure I didn't see her.