by Nick Carter
As subtly as possible, Carter had also let the man know that he was not just attracted to beautiful women.
God, he thought, the poses one must assume now and then for the good of one's country!
"Alain, the renovation is marvelous, the interior is divine. I can't wait to see the rest of the place!" he gushed.
"Oh, thank you, dear boy. Perhaps after we dine I can give you the grand tour… personally."
There was a gleam in the little man's eye that made Carter very uncomfortable. He struggled not to show it.
"Oh, allow me to introduce you to Armanda de Nerro. Armanda, Nicholas Carstocus."
"How do you do, señor?"
"Charmed, mademoiselle."
Any Prussian count would have been proud of Carter's style. The bow was precise, the heels almost clicked, the acceptance of the proffered hand was suave, and the kiss was cosmopolitan.
"Nicholas, like all of us," Smythe declared, "is a refugee from taxes. American, very rich, and, as you can see, Armanda, very handsome." Here one of the bright eyes in the pasty little face blinked. "Just your type, Armanda."
"Oh, really, Alain, how amusing you are. "She turned her eyes toward Carter, and there was everything in them but amusement. "My apologies, Señor Carstocus."
"Oh? What for?"
"When I first arrived, I thought you were some kind of very rugged detective or security person that Alain had hired to protect the guests' jewels."
The sting in her tone let Carter know in no uncertain terms that she knew the man behind the facade.
He played off of it. He laughed.
"I'm afraid I could never be a detective. I've heard it's a boring occupation. And as far as guarding jewels, I would much rather steal them."
"Appearances can be deceiving," she countered.
"Aren't they though?"
About that time, a chorus at the bar started screeching for Smythe. With a bright "Excuse me" and a little wave, Smythe was gone.
De Nerro made small talk. As Carter matched it, he studied her face. It was classic, much more so than her photographs, with all the points fine. But it was her mouth that drew his attention. It was wide, with full, sensuous, kissable lips.
He wondered if those lips could be as cruel as they were sensuous.
At last he said, "You're Spanish?"
"Basque."
"Is there a difference?"
The eyes narrowed. "A very large difference."
"Really?" Carter replied, all innocence. "I'm afraid I'm not very versed on…"
"Dance with me," she interrupted, gliding into his arms.
"What?"
"Dance with me. Someone is coming that I do not want to talk to."
Her body was firm and soft all at the same time. The smile on her dark face was enigmatic. It teased and taunted, and yet it seemed to invite. He decided to make his pitch, but she spoke again before he got the chance.
"Don't you find these parties boring?"
"Not always. Sometimes you meet the most interesting people… like you, for instance." Carter grinned. "Are you attached to the blond man… the one you arrived with?"
"I am attached to no one," Armanda said curtly.
Carter decided it was now or never. "Then, since you find the party boring and you're not attached to your escort, would you like to go somewhere else… my villa, for instance… and do something?"
"What, for instance?"
Carter shrugged. "Go to bed," he said with a straight face.
Her answering laugh was low and throaty and totally genuine. "You are blunt, to say the least."
Her body relaxed, melted against his. She was provoking him, pasting her thighs to his and twisting her hips. Carter tried to release her, but she held him by the waist and drew him in closer. Her breasts pillowed across his chest, and for a moment he thought they would escape the dress.
"You still haven't answered my question," he murmured.
"It sounds like fun," she said, a tone of manufactured lust in her voice. "But I am afraid I shall be busy until very late this evening."
"Tomorrow evening then… I'm planning a small, intimate dinner party."
"At your villa?"
"Yes, the Harris-White place. You know it?"
"I know it. What time?"
"A decent hour. Shall we say nine?"
"Nine it is, Señor Carstocus."
She slipped from his arms as quickly and deftly as she had entered them, leaving Carter standing in the center of the floor.
He watched her move into an adjoining room and up a flight of stairs. In her wake was Alain Smythe. Carter was about to follow, when a powerful, heavily muscled arm moved around his shoulders.
It was Jock Loran.
"Señor Carstocus, Señorita Juaneda is about to sing in the salon. I know you don't want to miss it."
The steady, penetrating look in the man's eyes and the viselike grip on his shoulder told Carter that if he did want to miss it, he would have to break Loran's arm to do so.
Carter had little doubt that he could accomplish that, but it would prove nothing.
He decided to let it rest for this evening and learn what he could the next.
* * *
It was three in the morning when he dropped Louisa off at her hotel. By the time he reached the road leading up to the villa, it had started snowing lightly.
The car skidded slightly as he drove through the gates, but he was able to right it and glide the rest of the way to the front door.
He was three paces from the steps, fumbling for the right key, when it hit him.
He had closed and locked the gates when he had left.
They came, six strong… three from the bushes to his right, three more running headlong from the bushes to his left.
Carter bolted backward and rolled just in time to avoid a body block from a big, beefy, football type. At the same time, he clawed for Wilhelmina in the holster above his boot.
He got the Luger out, but before he could put her to any use, one of the three from the trees put a shoulder square into his back.
The Luger skittered from Carter's hand, and he heard it slide over the drive as the force of the hit sent him sprawling over the rear section of the Mercedes.
He went with it, rolled, and came up ready.
Two of them came at him at once, with a third close behind in the center. Carter got a chop in with his right hand. While he was distracted, his left arm was pulled and squeezed at the nerve just above the elbow.
They were good.
The numbing in his left arm was instantaneous, from his shoulder to the tips of his fingers.
He tried to break the hold with his right, only to have it grabbed with the same intent.
"If we wanted you dead, Carstocus, you would be dead."
It was the big, beefy one. He stood directly in front of Carter, waiting to pounce.
"So what do you want me to do? Lie down and play dead?"
"Something like that," the man replied. "Or I use this."
A long hypodermic gleamed in his right hand.
Carter shrugged and relaxed in his captor's grip.
"That's more like it."
He was two feet in front of Carter when the Killmaster used his own hands to grip the wrists of the arms that held him. Using them as leverage, he drop-kicked the one in front of him directly in the crotch.
The man had barely hit the ground when Carter freed his right arm. He swung his weight, wrapping his free arm around the neck of the one still holding him. Then, using one body as a fulcrum, he planted his boot heels in the face of the other.
When his feet hit the ground, he continued the fall, got his shoulder in the guy's gut, and lifted.
Up he went and down he came, right across the top of the Mercedes. He heard bones break in tandem with the shredding canvas.
Carter whirled, but in an instant he could see it was too late. The other three were all over him.
He managed to nail one in the kneecap wi
th his toe and tried to sidestep the other two.
It was useless.
They both hit him at once from the sides, one high, one low.
As he went down under the superior weight. Carter tried to get a thumb into an eye, but an elbow came down hard into his gut.
Then he was beneath them, flat out on the drive, and they were both working on his guts with fists that felt like lead weights.
He did his best to keep from passing out, but it was a losing proposition.
The last thing Carter heard was a guttural, growling voice rasping, "Goddamnit, don't kill him and don't mark him up!"
* * *
He was completely out for only about three minutes, but it took a good half hour to become fully cognizant and breathe normally.
Carter opened one eye to a slit but stayed slumped in the seat.
He was between two of them in the back seat of a sedan. Two more were in the front seat, and through the windshield he could see the other two in his own Mercedes.
The snow was heavy now, but through it he could see that they were on a narrow mountain road. As they drove, Carter tried to nail a few landmarks.
He could not, which made him think they had somehow crossed the border into Spain.
Why Spain?
Because, since being in Andorra, Carter had navigated and cased every drivable road — and some that had not been drivable — in the entire country.
He could not spot one familiar piece of terrain or recognize any of the little villages or gas stations they passed. Other than the two frontier crossings on the main highway, there was a small, little-used road leading west into the Spanish Pyrenees from Andorra.
It was mostly used by farmers bringing their market goods into Andorra and led nowhere in Spain except to a few small villages.
If they wanted to get a beat-up, passed-out man out of Andorra for a while, that was the road they would use.
Ergo, Carter surmised, he was in Spain…and close to Basque country.
Had Armanda de Nerro decided to jump the gun and simply do away with him before she could use her body to interrogate him?
Could be, he thought, but there was not much he could do about it at this point.
They came down off a mountain in a long, arcing valley. At the bottom Carter could see scattered lights. The road near the bottom got bumpier and, as they neared a village, was not maintained at all.
Both cars slowed, and up ahead Carter saw an unlit sign: La Siesta.
It could have been a pre-World War II cabin court just across the border from San Diego in Tijuana.
Both cars lurched over a gutted cement apron and moved between two long rows of tin-roofed, paintless cabins that looked more like livestock sheds with tattered curtains at their windows.
Where there wasn't a shack there were mounds of garbage, scrub trees, and discarded parts of ancient automobiles. Here the snow seemed to turn black or brown the instant it hit the ground, making it resemble a patchwork carpet… or a garbage collage done by a mad artist.
"Nice place," Carter groaned to let them know he was awake. "Early sleaze."
Right and left glanced at him, but neither of them said a word.
They came to a halt beside the last building in the line. It was larger than the rest, double width, and, unlike several of the others, no light came through the windows.
Carter was just wondering about all the signs of wakefulness at this hour of the morning, when the door of the shanty directly across from them opened and two men stepped out. Directly behind came two women.
With the amount of makeup, the hairstyles, and the clothing he could see in the opening of their coats, it didn't take a student of the streets to figure out the action.
The place was either a brothel or a motel-by-the-hour where the girls took their tricks.
They sat in the silent car until the two men and women had driven away. Then the door opened and Carter was yanked from the car.
One held his arms behind him while the other — the big, beefy one he had tried to make a soprano out of — leaned his face close.
"I cannot kill you, señor, but if you make one sudden move, here or inside, you will need new kidneys."
He held up one broad fist. There was a sock wrapped around the fingers, and Carter guessed it was filled with coins.
Carter nodded his understanding.
About three good blows in the small of the back with that, and he knew he would need a transplant if he ever wanted to pee properly again.
"Around back!"
They formed a wedge around him, with the beefy one directly behind, and moved him along.
Inside was a bed, a drawerless dresser with a cracked mirror, one chair, and a chipped pan on a stool that was probably supposed to be used as a chamber pot. Other than a crucifix over the bed, there was nothing else on the bare floor and peeling walls.
A candle beside the chamber pot gave the only illumination.
A door in the wall was open to darkness. Carter guessed it was an adjoining room, the reason why the shack looked twice as big as the others.
Carter was hustled to a chair facing the black opening and shoved down. His butt had barely hit, when a powerful flashlight was snapped on and directly into his eyes.
He tried to turn his head, only to have a hand come out from behind the flash and bring him forward with an open-handed slap.
"Señor Carstocus, my patience is very nearly at an end."
Carter smiled and worked his jaw back and forth a few times before replying. "I don't really give a damn."
Again the hand, this time the back of it, across the opposite cheek.
"Listen carefully to what I say!"
The language was Spanish, but by now Carter had learned the dialectical quirks of a Basque speaker.
Whoever was playing patty-cake with his face was definitely Basque.
"You've got my attention," Carter said.
"Good. You are Bluebeard, and I am your principal employer."
Carter could not stop the slight element of shock that covered his face. It could still be a gimmicky trick of de Nerro's, but somehow he doubted it.
"We only have forty-eight hours left. Your target must be eliminated by then. I want to know your plans."
"Even if I knew what you were talking about," Carter replied, "I only do business with Pepe."
"Marc LeClerc died in Nice three days ago… the victim of a very powerful bomb placed under the rear seat of his car."
Carter hesitated, letting this sink in, and then decided to play ball. "Who did it?"
"My guess is that our lady friend issued the order. Marc was, how you say in America, straddling the fence between Armanda and myself, but he knew of her ambition and treachery. His allegiance was, as it has always been, to me."
"And who are you?"
"That need not concern you, but I have many reasons for wanting that betraying bitch dead. Now, what are your plans?"
Carter tried to get in one more jab. "Why the sudden time limit?"
Again the hand, back and forth several times, until Carter was starting to hear the chimes of Westminster somewhere deep in his skull.
"All right… all right. Tomorrow night. I've invited her to the villa for dinner."
"The time?"
"Nine o'clock."
"And after dinner?"
"I will seduce her and drug her."
"A lethal dose of some drug?"
"No. It's called Lysoghin. It can be induced through the pores in the skin and cannot be detected in an autopsy."
"Then how do you plan to make the kill?"
"May I have a cigarette?"
The light wiggled and a cigarette was shoved between his lips. As he drew in the smoke, he dreamed up the next lie.
"An automobile accident on the hairpin turn just beneath the villa."
There was a long silence from the blackness, and then the light snapped off.
"So be it. Just make sure it happens. As I have said, we
can wait no longer. Ramos…?"
"Here," came a voice from behind Carter.
"Give him the keys to his car and take him out. Señor Carstocus…?"
"Yes?"
"If Manda is still among the living twenty-four hours from now, you won't be. Get him out of here!"
Carter was yanked to his feet and half carried, half dragged from the cabin. When they reached the Mercedes, the keys were shoved into his hand by the beefy one called Ramos, and the door opened for him.
"I'll need my gun back," Carter said.
"Gun, señor? What gun?"
The man's gaze was steady, unwavering. It was impossible to tell if he was lying or not.
"The Luger you knocked from my hand when you took me."
"If you lost your gun. señor, it is still where you lost it. Get in the car!"
He had no choice.
The powerful engine roared to life, and Carter leaned out the window.
"Ramos?"
"Si?"
"I never forget a face."
"So?"
"So, Ramos, the next time I see yours, I'm going to kill you."
Eleven
The meal was excellent. Through the courses of delicious, wafer-thin salmon caught in the local waters, chilled gazpacho, endive and avocado salad, and mouth-watering paella, each accompanied by the proper wine, they verbally sparred and parried across the candlelit table.
Carter had dropped his facade of gay raconteur midway through the appetizer. Armanda de Nerro did the same. There was still a bit of the wily courtesan in her physical poses and her manners, but her speech and the intensity in her eyes said much more.
Throughout the meal, the events of the previous evening ran through Carter's mind. All of his suppositions after Pepe and Marseille had pretty well fallen into place. It mattered little who his principal employer was. What was important was that the man had given Carter ammunition to squeeze Armanda de Nerro.
That is, if she could be squeezed.
When the dessert was served, Carter excused Estrellita and told her to inform the rest of the servants that they could leave.
Now he escorted the tall, dark-haired beauty into the music room, its tall bay windows looking out over the blinking lights of Andorra-la-Vella and the snow-shrouded mountains behind.
