by Nick Carter
The man shook his head emphatically.
"All right, start talking."
The man shook his head again. The muscles in Nick's face tightened. Killmaster or not, he didn't like what he was going to do.
'Then get up and turn your face to the wall." Nick s voice was ice and his mouth closed in a cruel, determined line.
The man looked back at Nick and got slowly to his feet, a big bullock of a fellow with deep, angular tattoo marks on his cheeks.
"Either turn around or talk," Nick lashed at him.
The man opened his mouth but neither turned around nor talked. Instead he leaned slightly forward and put his head back, pointing into his mouth like a kid bragging about a newly extracted tooth.
What was missing was not a tooth. It was his tongue.
Nick's eyes widened involuntarily as he stared.
The incomplete mouth closed and the tattooed face took on an expression that was half-fearful, half-contemptuous.
"Who did that — the people you work for?" The question at least drew some reaction.
The head wagged vigorously from side to side.
"Who, then?" The tongue had been cut out many years before; perhaps his own people had done it. "Your tribesmen?" A negative shake of the head. "Rival? Witchdoctor?" Two more decisive shakes. "White man?" An emphatic, multiple nod, and a baring of the teeth. "Portuguese?" Again a nod. "French?" Another nod. "Belgian?" Nod. Nick raised a mental eyebrow, though his face was stony. What was this — a variation on the all-white-men-are-the-same theme? "American?" Emphatic nod. "Russian?" A half-nod that stopped in the middle. "Chinese?" A shaking, nodding, rolling motion accompanied by confusion of the eyes and a troubled frown. "English?" A nod that finished with a chin on the chest and downcast eyes. The man without a tongue knew he had goofed. "Recently?" No reaction. "Long ago?" No reaction.
Nick surveyed his victim without satisfaction. He and Hugo could probably extort something out of this man before the day was out. A jab here, a nod there, a pinprick now and a headshake then, and some kind of answer would eventually emerge. But would it be worth the time it would take? Doubtful. And there was no guarantee that he was going to be left undisturbed for as long as he needed.
"Put those hands behind your back and hold them there," he ordered. "That's better." Nick studied him. The man wore his European-style suit without ease, as though he were uncomfortable in it. And he wore his ill-fitting shoes as though they were instruments of torture. He was not an unusual type for an African city. Nevertheless…
"You can write, can't you?" Hugo wagged threateningly.
The man shook his head triumphantly. Hugo darted at his face with vicious speed and bit lightly into the fleshy part of his left cheek. He gasped and took an involuntary step back.
"You can write, can't you?" Hugo nipped hungrily at the other cheek and withdrew with incredible speed.
The head shook violently. Surprise and pain replaced the scorn on the man's face and little mewling sounds came from his throat.
"Show me your hands. Slowly. Bring them from behind your back. One side first, then turn them over."
The hands reached slowly and — it seemed — supplicatingly toward Nick.
They were the scarred and calloused hands of a man who worked in the soil and on the carpenter's bench and maybe with bricks. None of the calluses had anything to do with holding a pencil or pushing a pen. Nick sighed silently to himself. It was not conclusive, but the man was probably telling the truth.
"All right, then. There's only one way you can answer me and you're going to do it. Remember, I'm armed with more than a knife. And I'm not alone, as you seem to think."
Blood trickled down the dark face from the two small perforations and two wary eyes watched Nick uncertainly.
"You're going to take me to the people who sent you here," Nick said conversationally. "And if you do it without trying to tip me to them you may even live through the meeting. Or you may not. Let's go. But first of all you can pick up that buddy of yours and put him in the closet. Hurry, friend. I haven't got all day."
Hugo sliced the air, waggling impatiently.
The man stayed where he was. He was cringing now and shaking his head without the slightest trace of arrogance or scorn, and pitiful gurgling noises came from his throat.
"Get moving." Nick's voice was as cold as Hugo's steel; and Hugo spoke as he did. The lightning blade slashed down one large, fleshy ear and slid gracefully off the bottom of the chin.
Nick's victim growled and backed away, shaking his head like a lion in pain. He seemed to be trying desperately to form words.
"What is it?" asked Nick. "Do you want someone to talk for you?"
The head swung wildly and the thick lips drew back to show the teeth and gums.
"Then move!" Nick rapped.
The fellow moved with the speed of desperation and struck with the blind strength of terror. His arms tore at Nick's knife hand and the sounds he made were those of an animal fighting for its life. Nick let his grasp tighten, then pivoted on the balls of his feet and flipped the man over his shoulder to the floor.
"Get up!" he grated. "You've got one last chance to do as I tell you or you're through."
The man squirmed to his feet and stood there panting. Then he leapt again, grasping for the knife and grappling like a madman. Nick raised his knee sharply and brought it up into the dumb man's crotch. His visitor made an awful gasping sound but went on clawing at Nick. One tremendous arm tried to lever the knife arm down while the other went for Nick's face.
Nick threw him off once more.
"You fool!" he said, almost pleadingly. "Take me where I want to go — or I'll kill you."
The man drew himself into a crouch and leapt. Hugo met him in the air and plunged into his heart.
The body was still fighting for a life already lost when Nick pulled the twitching arms away from him and let the dead weight fall to the floor.
Nick moved swiftly then, thinking bitterly to himself of the hazards of hotel living and how he always managed to get his room cluttered up with dead or dying or escaping visitors. He dragged the stilled, speechless man into the bathroom. He had the bellhop halfway across the floor when his door vibrated with a heavy knock. He dumped the man onto his companion in the bathroom and ripped off his own jacket and tie. When he reached his bedroom door he picked up his bag, tossed it on the bed and opened it. He tore off his shirt and tossed it onto the nearest chair. His feet moved smoothly against the scuff marks on the carpet and his hand was on the doorknob by the time the second knock began. His other hand was ready for whatever was outside.
He pulled the door open several inches and snapped: "Who is it?"
Another bellhop stood outside, his hand still raised for knocking.
"Sir, excuse me," said an obsequious voice. "The porter Amos — may I speak to him?"
"By all means speak to him," snapped Nick, "but don't bother me about it. If you mean the fellow who brought my bag up, he left some time ago. Now if you don't mind…" He glanced down at his bare chest and tried to look as though he'd been disturbed in the middle of changing. The man's gaze traveled up the arm that loosely held the doorframe and stopped on the inside of Nick's right elbow. His eyes clung to the little blue axe-shaped tattoo that had been a part of Nick ever since he'd joined AXE years before.
"Is there something else?" Nick asked, impatient but polite.
"Oh! Are you sure he's gone, sir? He's needed for…"
"Of course I'm sure! Do you think I'm hiding him?"
The bellhop laughed ingratiatingly. "I'm sorry, sir; naturally not, sir." He peered into the room beyond Nick's outstretched arm before stepping back and bobbing his head. "Sorry to have bothered you, sir."
Nick closed the door and double-locked it quietly.
The phone rang. He scooped it up and barked into it irritably.
"I say, we're touchy today," a cheerful voice said into his ear. "What's new?"
"What could be new
?" he snapped back. "For God's sake, I just got here! What're you calling about?"
"About the meeting." The voice sounded hurt. "Is it on?"
"Of course it's on. At headquarters, and don't be late. In fact, be there early if you can. I want to talk to you before the others get there. And for the luvva Pete, be on the ball with those minutes, will you?"
"Yes, sir," the voice said crisply. "May I remind you that it's not necessary to pull rank with me, sir." The caller rang off abruptly.
Nick replaced the receiver with a grin and moved to the windows to admire — and size up — the view.
His room was on the seventh floor. The morning traffic roared busily beneath him. There were no projections anywhere on the smooth wall. The windows were far enough apart to make a visit from an adjoining room hazardous if not impossible. He latched them to be sure and closed the shutter-blinds.
His visitors awaited him on the bathroom floor.
The bellhop's body revealed one interesting item: a healthy bundle of Senegalese spending money. Nick counted it quickly and decided that it was worth a good three months of honest work or maybe a few minutes of something more spectacular — like knocking off a snoop.
The other man was different.
His upper body was scarred and pitted with tattoo marks similar to those on his face except that they were bigger and bulged outward in wormlike ridges. Some dirt or dye substance had been rubbed into the wounds while they were raw and had been sealed in, a score of years before, beneath the healing scars. A tribal custom, Nick knew. Performed by rite — but just exactly where? The marks were strange to him.
So was the dried root in the pouch that dangled from the cord around the man's neck. It was forked, like the mandrake root, and when he pressed it between his fingers it gave off a strange odor. But it was smaller than the typical mandrake and grayish-blue in color. And the odor? Nick remembered: In the filthy room above the herbalist's shop — blood, alcohol, and… heroin. Heroin! That was it. But this, this was something very different. It was a pretty effective narcotic and a very powerful charm.
By the time the second knock sounded at the door Nick had washed and changed and was wishing that he'd had more than coffee on the plane. But this looked like another day in which he'd miss his breakfast.
He opened the door with his usual care after hearing the unusual rap that spelled out — though the caller didn't realize it — "Lizzie Borden took an axe…" and stared out at his visitor.
"Yes? What is it?" he snapped.
His new visitor darted a look down the passage and quickly lifted a corner of the handsome rubber mask he was wearing.
"It is I, Hakim the Hideous," he hissed. "With a new shipment of feelthy pictures."
Nick grinned and let him in.
"I have a grubby job for you," he said, and locked the door.
It took them only minutes to make their plans. Hakim would check into a nearby room and under cover of night would move the bodies into it and then check out. Ambassador Carter would stay at the Senegal as long as was convenient and then ostensibly fly back to Abimako.
Hakim studied the bodies. With his fleshlike mask pulled on top of his head, he looked more like a nightmare than ever.
"The root and the marks…" he murmured thoughtfully. "Together they are found in only one place — the hill country north of Abimako. We go there, perhaps?"
"Undoubtedly," said Nick. "When you've told me more about it. And when I'm finished in Dakar."
"And that will be when?" Hakim's good eye questioned him.
"When I've seen what's hopping at the Hop Club and what's so high about the 'high life' at the Kilimanjaro."
A Hop, a Skip, and a Slump
Before Nick left he attached an extra lock to his bedroom door, one that AXE's specialists guaranteed to withstand everything short of a battering ram. He revealed its secret to Hakim who could then come and go as he wished and yet not leave the room and its grisly contents unguarded.
Ambassadors had to be very careful what they left lying around in their hotel rooms.
Hakim had certain arrangements to make and Nick went on his way without asking unnecessary questions. He couldn't help thinking, though, that the cross-eyed Egyptian was singularly undismayed by the problems involved in the tactful disposal of corpses. In fact, the pleasure with which he approached his task was almost ghoulish.
"You can't do it alone," Nick had said. "Leave them until I get back from…"
"Never mind, never mind," Hakim interrupted. "You attend to your part of the job and I'll attend to mine. I can assure you that I shall handle it to your satisfaction. And to my own." And he had actually rubbed his hands together and cackled with villainous glee.
"Cornball," said Nick, and set to work effecting some striking changes in his own appearance.
Hakim had inspired him. When Nick left the Hotel Senegal, as unobtrusively as only he (and probably Hakim) knew how, he was already employing a shambling stride that looked slow and careless but covered the ground quickly. By the time he had gone two blocks he was sure that no one was following him or could possibly recognize him as the distinguished diplomat come to Dakar on grave, official business. He caught sight of himself in a shop window and almost gagged Great! But let's not overdo it, Carter, or you'll be arrested on suspicion of something unspeakable.
He was nothing more sinister than a man with a pleasantly ugly face and a slight limp when he did the first part of his shopping and then checked into the Hotel Majestic under an indecipherable Polish name. He felt more comfortable the moment he had done it. This business of going around with his own name tied to his own face while he was engaged in a sticky job was some thing he hadn't cared for since his early days with the OSS. It was more a question of security than personal safety; the job couldn't help suffering when you were too easily recognized.
The rest of his shopping took him considerably more time and cost him more money, even though his purchases were very small. He hid them on himself, then bought a street map and made a tour of various sections of the city in case he found himself running up an unfamiliar alley pursued by cops or killers. In no time at all he had grounded himself at the wrong end of a cul-de-sac.
The Hop Club started hopping toward the end of the afternoon. Nick knew this because he had wandered past it and through the nearby streets during his tour, and read the sign that said: "OPEN 5 TIL?????"
It was not much of a club as far as the entertainment was concerned. A scrawny piano player with huge, dilated eyes plinked away with a languid proficiency that might have sounded fine if the piano hadn't been dead and exhumed after a long interment. It also wasn't the kind of club with a uniformed doorman or a dues-paying membership — nearly all its clients seemed to be members of one desolate fraternity.
The Club served snack suppers and coffee, soft drinks and sandwiches, ice cream and alcohol. On the whole it was a pretty horrible — and very popular — place.
The piano moaned away while Nick stood just inside the doorway and looked around. His face was at its most repulsive and his skulking manner at its most obnoxious. Any right-thinking bouncer would have thrown him out at once. But the only guy who seemed to qualify as a bouncer eyed him without undue curiosity. There was neither major-domo nor hostess to show him to a table, and the male cashier made it clear that it wasn't his job to play escort to the suckers. The seedy waiters steadfastly ignored him.
Nick found a small table for himself, one near the door that gave him a fair view down the length of the room. It was a two-seater, pushed against the wall and far enough away from the nearest table to let a couple talk in peace if they wanted privacy.
But most of the couples weren't talking very much. Most of them weren't even couples. There were fewer women than men at the tables, and they were scarcely bargains at any price. Only one or two of them looked like anything other than leftovers. It was not so much their features that repelled as their thick, poorly applied make-up, and the tangled untid
iness of their hair and clothes. At least half of the people wore dark glasses even in the poor light of the unclubby club. Not many of them seemed to be drinking very much. One man was singing and shouting to himself over a cup of coffee and several others seemed to be sipping the same stuff, only more quietly. Of course it was pretty early for the action to begin, but this lot didn't seem to be craving action. One group was talking and gesturing animatedly, but the others just sat around and twitched.
Christ Almighty, Nick thought, trying to grab a waiter. If Abe Jefferson had a place like this under his nose in Abimako he'd close it up in three seconds flat or else he'd have his own man sitting in on it. Which led to the thought that maybe the Dakar chief did, too.
"The waiters continued to ignore him but somehow Nick began to feel noticed. Someone was definitely taking a good long look at him from the half-open service door in the back. He pulled a switch-knife out of his pocket and gave them something to look at. The blade clicked open so crisply that a man two tables over jumped and cringed away. Nick picked intently at his fingernails. It was not one of his favorite habits, but it gave him a chance to show off some minor hardware.
At last a reedy waiter in flowing off-white favored him with a glance.
"Scotch," Nick snarled.
The waiter curled his lip. "Brandy and gin."
"Thanks for the suggestion, but I said Scotch."
"Only brandy and gin."
"All right, for Chrissake. Brandy and gin."
The waiter gave him the look that waiters specialize in and stalked off to the small bar opposite the piano. He came back with two shot glasses. One of brandy, one of gin.
"Shall I mix it?" he said insolently.
"I'll mix it," Nick growled. "And tell the manager I want to see him. Business."
