The Red Guard

by The Red Guard (fb2)

  She was right, of course. He had no intention of writing to the Hunts.

  Nick got his light Burberry from the cloakroom — he was in black tie — and they emerged into the glare of 57th Street. A fine misty rain was just beginning to darken the pavement. Debbie clung to his arm and gazed up into his face, her eyes nearly as big as the rain-streaked moon hanging over the Hudson. She squeezed his arm in ecstasy. "This is more like it! Where are we going?"

  With malice he said, "Just down the street The Russian Tea Room. You'll love it. Old ladies and émigrés. We may even bump into my cousin, the Archduke Petrograd.

  Debbie was wearing golden slippers with half-high heels. She tried to dig them into the cement now. "Like hell we are, Nickie darling. This is my first time in New York. It will probably be my last, if you squeal to my folks." She tried to pull away from him. "Maybe I will do better on my own. I've got money and I'm a big girl. You just go on home, Nickie darling, and don't worry. Ill be fine." She raised the hand with which she clutched a tiny gold mesh bag. "Taxi!"

  Nick Carter shrugged his big shoulders and got into the cab with her. So be it. Now he knew how to handle it. She was about half-blasted now, he figured. So he would play along, take her to some harmless spots, and get her really drunk. She would be easy enough to handle then. She would also have one hell of a hangover in the morning. He smiled. The thought pleased him.

  He directed the cabbie to Jack Delaney's in the Village. On the way down Seventh Avenue, Debbie nuzzled against him. "Kiss," she whispered. "Kiss for Debbie."

  He could see the cabbie watching them in the mirror. Probably thinks I'm a cradle-robber he thought. Nick tried to avoid Debbie's mouth, then gave it up. It was easier than trying to fight her off. He kissed her.

  Debbie wrapped her thin arms about his neck and glued her mouth to his. She thrust her tongue into his mouth and moved it around expertly. The big AXE agent tried to pull away, then desisted and suffered it. He admitted that «suffer» was not exactly the correct verb. A last censor in his brain — the others had all disappeared — looked on in disapproval and asked what was going to come of all this? Just at the moment Nick couldn't have said — he was enjoying it. And there was a fine dew of perspiration on his forehead.

  At last the girl drew away. She sighed. "You kiss very nicely — for an older man."

  Nick was beginning to recover from the shock of so much fragrant, milk-skinned youth. All the same he would have hated to run a sphygmometer test on his pulse at the moment. This kid — kid? — was beginning to get under his skin in a different way. Get her drunk fast. Get her home and to bed and out of harm's way!

  "That's nice to know," he told her with a coolness he did not feel. "Do you think I might have a few good years left?"

  Debbie did not laugh or giggle. She patted his cheek and leaned to look into his eyes. "It didn't really mean anything, you know. The kiss just now, I mean. I mean it wasn't an invitation or anything like that I don't expect you to do anything about it, later."

  He nodded and lit cigarettes for both of them. "I know. I won't presume." He intended to play it deadpan now until he got enough liquor in her to pass her out.

  She moved a little away from him and puffed on her cigarette. "It was just that I've never kissed an older man before. A man with, well, with real experience." She glanced at him. "You kiss as if you've had a lot of experience."

  Nick admitted to having been around a bit.

  One of the cab's windows was open, admitting a stream of cold, damp air. Debbie pulled the collar of the mink jacket around her throat. "I really haven't had much experience you know, Nickie."

  In the driest tone he could muster, Nick said that, considering her age, that wasn't too surprising.

  "I lied to you about my age," she told him. "I'm really eighteen. I won't be nineteen until January. But of course you knew — you must have known. You are my godfather, after all!"

  Godfather! Nick felt as if someone had punched him in his flat, muscle-corded belly. So he was her godfather! He had completely forgotten it. It had never entered his mind. Godfather! And he had allowed, permitted, even enjoyed, a kiss like that. It was — it was damned close to incest!

  "I'm not a virgin," Debbie said. "Ralph and I — Ralph Forbes, he's my boy friend at home in Indianapolis, the one I'm going to marry — he and I talked it over and we decided that as long as we're sure we're going to marry and that we love each other, well — you know. We've been doing it for a couple of years now. Of course Mother and Dad would die if they knew, and…"

  They were in Sheridan Square then, and the garish fights of Jack Delaney's bar were like a blessed beacon to a confused seafarer. Nick hustled Debbie out of the cab and paid the man. The cabbie, a mean-looking little Irishman, winked at Nick and muttered something about "young quiff." Nick almost hit him.

  As Debbie perched on the stool, the fat bartender gave her a rather startled glance, then looked at Nick, but asked no questions. To Nick he simply said: "Good evening. You look like you need a drink!"

  Nick Carter nodded. "My friend, you can say that again! Better yet — don't waste time saying it Just give me the drink."

  "And the young lady?"

  Nick nodded again. "Give her a drink. Give her all the drinks she wants. I know she doesn't look it, but take my word for it. She's of age. Believe me, she's of age!"

  The bartender was busy mixing drinks. "If you say so."

  Debbie was gazing around. She picked up one of the postcards from the bar. Delaney's, as Nick well knew, was a tourist spot, and a great many out-of-towners filled in the postcards and the bar would mail them. The food was great, the piano-player superb, but it was not a young generation spot.

  Debbie dropped the postcard on the bar and made a face. "This must be an awfully square joint, Carter."

  Nick pushed the glass toward her. "It is. A real cube of a place. Here. Drink up. Well have a couple here, then we'll go someplace else and eat."

  Debbie drank, then squinted at him. "Are you trying to get me drunk, you dirty old man? So you can take advantage of me?" She changed moods, he thought, as fast as a chameleon changed colors.

  Nick smiled at her. "That's the idea, girl. That kiss got me all fired up. So drink up. Maybe we won't bother to eat. We'll go back to the penthouse and make mad love. You want to know about older men? I'll show you."

  Her gray eyes were enormous over the rim of the glass. He detected a trace of doubt in them. "You wouldn't, really. Would you?"

  Nick finished his drink and ordered another for both of them. He did not look at her. "Why not? Who has a better right than a godfather? And you're such a worldly young woman — I'm sure nothing I can do or say will shock you."

  Doubt still lingered in her eyes. "You're just trying to put me in my place now. You're trying to scare me, Carter."

  He made his grin a little wolfish. "How did we get on this 'Carter' bit? You're not very respectful of your elders."

  Debbie traced a finger on the bar. "Because I want to, that's all. Anyway I've stopped thinking of you as an older man. I don't think you're all that much older, anyway. I'm not thinking of you as a godfather, either, or as a friend of my parents. I'm just thinking of you as you — a big handsome chunk of man." Debbie leaned closer to him and whispered. "You dig me, Carter?"

  Nick heaved an inward sigh of relief. The booze was working at last, beginning to get to her. He had been beginning to think that she was the only teen-ager in the world with a hollow leg.

  The piano player was magnificent. Debbie did not like him. Nick took her to Peter's Back Yard. She ate a huge steak, had three more drinks, and was still on her feet She insisted on walking down Fifth Avenue to the Arch, in the rain. Once in the Park she wanted to go east, seeming to know instinctively where the trouble was, but Nick steered her west. Even so, he lost his bearings in the Village maze and they ended up in a Lesbian bar on Third Street. He was caught off guard for a moment. Debbie was insisting on another drink — she was walking uns
teadily now, and he had to support her — so they entered the little bar. It was spattered here and there by candles and smelled of strong disinfectant. A juke box moaned somewhere off in the gloom. As soon as his eyes adjusted, Nick made out the tiny dance floor and the couples shuffling about it Butches and ferns, whispering and caressing, or dancing silently pelvis to pelvis.

  Nick started to get to his feet, to leave, but it was already too late. A butch loomed at the side of the booth. She ignored Nick and looked at Debbie. "Wanta dance, honey?"

  "No," Nick snapped. "Beat it!"

  "Of course I'll dance," said Debbie. She stood up, swaying a Utile. Her eyes were shining in the candlelight. She stuck out her tongue at Nick. "You are a terribly rude man! I want to dance with this nice lady."

  He watched her being led back to the tiny dance floor. Lady! Nick lit a cigarette and rubbed his forehead. Just between his eyes an ache was beginning. Hell! Wasn't the kid ever going to pass out?

  Nick turned in his seat so he could keep an eye on the dance floor and Debbie. Maybe she wasn't drunk enough to pass out, but she was capable of almost anything else. When he spotted her she was dancing normally enough, an old-fashioned two-step, with enough distance between her slim body and the Dutch's thick one. Nick watched and cursed all teen-agers. And admitted that he had never been meant for baby-sitting!

  There were four or five butches at the bar and they were watching him. He pretended not to notice them. Most of them were real stomping butches, diesels, and wore jeans and leather jackets over sport or sweat shirts. One was in full drag, wearing a man's suit, shirt, and tie, with close-cropped hair.

  If it weren't for the flabby breasts, Nick thought, he could have been in a longshoreman's bar. He avoided their eyes. He wanted no trouble with a gaggle of butches. They were tough and they usually carried knives or razors. The fact that he could have killed them all in a few minutes with his bare hands changed nothing. There was Debbie to look after. Pretty little, screwy little, nutty little Debbie. Nick fought down anger and disgust — partly disgust at his own ambivalence toward the child? — and made himself wait for the record to end. He wanted no trouble, no scene, but they were leaving after this dance!

  It was with a bit of surprise that he realized that he, himself, was not exactly cold sober. The thought itself had a sobering effect. For a moment he tried to imagine Hawk's words, his whole reaction, on hearing that his Number One boy had been involved in a brawl in a queer joint! He couldn't imagine it Even Hawk, who could and did cope with everything, would have no words for that.

  The music stopped. Debbie came back. Nick, carrying her mink jacket, tossed a bill on the Formica and took the girl firmly by the arm. He steered her for the door. Debbie protested, trying to tug her arm away from him. "I haven't had my drink, Carter!"

  "That's only half the story," he told her. "You're not having it. You're what the bartenders call an Eighty-six. You've had enough. Plenty. Too much. We're going home. As of now!"

  A cab stopped and he bundled her in, gave the cabbie instructions, went about getting her into the jacket. While he was doing it, she fell against him, mouth open, eyes closed, breathing gently, and went to sleep.

  Debbie slumbered with her head on his shoulder. The cab stopped for a signal, in the glow of a street light, and Nick gazed down at her. Her small red mouth was still open, a glistening thread of moisture leaking from one corner. He put a finger under her chin and gently closed her mouth. She stirred and mumbled something. Again he felt the strange, almost frightening, ambivalence; desire for her young flesh coupled with a protective tenderness. What an insane situation! Killmaster, long on a first-name basis with Death, could not recall a more confused and subtly terrifying evening. There was no external enemy to strike. Only himself.

  The cabbie went over to Fifth and turned north. As they approached 46th Street and the penthouse Nick studied the face on his shoulder. She was pouting a bit now, her lips moving, showing now and again the tip of a pink tongue. He became aware of the clean girl smell of her through the heavier, adult perfume. His brain, aided by all the cognac he had consumed, began to play a few fantastic tricks. He thought of Debbie as a perfect little package of American girlhood. A hundred pounds of sweet, unblemished girl flesh as yet not marred by worry or time. A luscious little plum, soft as velvet, and so ready — so too ready — for the plucking. Virgin she might not be — had she been only trying to shock him? — but in any case it did not matter. Child she still was. Sensual child, perhaps, but with her sensuality only as deep as the nerve endings in that lovely skin. Knowing nothing, suspecting nothing, of the real and feral nature of this thing called Life into which she had stumbled, and in which she must make her way.

  His mind took another strange turn. He had been in many countries, bad killed many men, had made love to many women. He knew a great deal about wealth and arrogance, poverty and pride, jealousy and power lust and cruelty and madness. And Death. He was a connoisseur of Death. For many years now Death, if she was a woman, had been his mistress. If Death was male — he did not profess to know — then they were very nearly friends.

  Yet now, gazing down at the sleeping girl — how easy, in that moment, to whisk away the mink jacket and miniskirt, the painted mouth, and replace them with sweater, rumpled tweed skirt, scuffed saddle oxfords — gazing at her now Nick Carter found that it was hard to think of Death. Death had receded for now; this youth, this unafraid and unknowing lovely girl had pushed Death away. For now. And yet, somewhere out in the city, he could hear laughter.

  "Here we are, buddy." The cabbie was staring back at him, rudely jolting Nick from his reverie.

  "Sure." he fumbled in his pocket for a bill and passed it to the man. He shook Debbie gently. She mumbled and clung to him. Okay. He'd carry her up. The apartment had a side entrance and a private elevator to his penthouse.

  The driver got out to hold the door while Nick scooped her into his arms and crossed the pavement. The man said good night in a pleasant voice, and Nick answered.

  There was a light burning in the foyer and one in the kitchen. Pok's door was closed. The electric clock in the kitchen said a quarter of three. He carried the girl into the guest room and put her on the bed, pulled down the miniskirt as far as it would go — not far — and covered her with a quilt. He flicked on a dim night light so she would not wake up in the dark and be frightened.

  Nick turned out the lights in the kitchen and foyer and went to his own huge bedroom and closed the door. He smoked a last cigarette as he undressed, arranging his clothes neatly on a chair as was his habit. His thoughts had hardened now — no more fantasy — and he thought that tomorrow he would call a very old friend and ask her for help. Louise and he had been fine bedmates for a time, and when mutual desire had waned a miracle had come to pass — they had remained friends. Louise, he knew, would be glad to help with Debbie. There was not going to be any more of this unchaperoned business! Nick smiled sourly as he tossed back the covers. If that made him an old fuddy and a square to end all squares, then it would just have to be! Debbie wouldn't like Louise, would probably consider her as an interfering «older» woman. That would have to be, too.

  He rolled naked between the cool, clean-smelling sheets. He was cold sober now, and more than a little tired. He drifted off to sleep still trying to think of ways in which he could reasonably absent himself tomorrow. Let Louise take over the kid. It was only one more day. Then she would be gone, back to Sweet Briar, and there would remain only a tantalizing memory. In all honesty, there in the dark room, alone with himself and whatever gods there were, Nick had to admit to the tantalizing bit. So sweet, so young, so malleable — a hundred pounds of ravishing essence one could never buy and never recapture. Youth, and… He slept.

  Not for long. His instinct and long training brought him instantly awake at her first touch. Even that was failure and, in different circumstances, could have killed him. She had managed to open the door, cross the room, and get into bed before he was awar
e of her presence. Blame it on the booze. This time it would not be fatal.

  He lay unmoving, feeling the warmth of her young body against his back. She was naked. He felt the tips of her firm little breasts on his flesh, just between his shoulder blades. He shivered, a convulsion of his flesh that he could not control. Neither could he control the essentially male part of him that could only lust and probe for fulfillment. It was now filling the bedroom with a silent screaming: What are you waiting for, fool?

  He did not dare turn to face her.

  She put her little teeth against his ear and nibbled. "Nickie, darling? Come on now. I know you're awake." She was still drank.

  He gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut. "Go back to your room, Debbie! Right now. That's an order!"

  She giggled and bit his ear. "I don't take orders. Not now. I get enough of that at school. Come on, now. Please? Turn over and treat me nice."

  Nick stuffed a corner of the pillow into his mouth. Why, he never knew. "Beat it," he said, "before I whale the hell out of you."

  Debbie kissed the back of his neck. Her mouth was soft and wet and he could smell the alcohol on her breath. She reached over him, without warning, and grabbed him with her small hand. She gasped, "Oh, my God!"

  Nick hauled her hand away and held her wrist. He put on a little pressure. She half screamed. "Ohhhh — you're hurting me, Nickie!"

  He wanted to laugh and he wanted to cry. It was all so God-damned ridiculous — and so tempting. And so dangerous.

  He loosed his grip on her wrist. Debbie began to lick his ear with her tongue.

  "Cut that out!"

  She laughed. "I won't. Not until you turn over. Please, Nickie. Please? It's all right, you know. I came into your bed — you didn't try to get in mine. I want to! I want to a lot. I've decided that I like dirty old men after all — especially this dirty old man." She bit his ear.