by Nick Carter
Huh. Coincidence, coincidence, coincidence. There were too many of them — a series of explosions, a plea from a beautiful girl who sets up meetings in the oddest places, an unidentifiable knifer with an unknown motive. And all he'd done was mind his own business. And talk to Rita.
He whistled tunelessly as he rearranged the contents of his pockets and adjusted Wilhelmina, Hugo and Pierre to fit more snugly into their accustomed places.
Appointment at the Plaza Fountain
The Plaza Fountain looked like an oasis in the chaotic whirl of Fifth Avenue. Silvery spray played in the semidarkness, a pleasant sight for passersby. The large, aging hotel behind it looked like some rococo remnant of another era. The broad sweep of Central Park filled the eye to the north.
Directly across the Plaza, a line of hansom carriages waited for customers. One turn through the park and lovers might enjoy a breath of fresh air and romance even in so jaded a cosmopolitan universe as Manhattan.
Nick's eyes took in the tableau as he crossed Fifth and saw Rita Jameson. It wasn't just the pretty picture that caught his interest, although Rita looked even lovelier than his mental image of her. The hostess outfit had been replaced by a short blue gown of almost sculptured clinging lines. A lightweight evening coat was draped casually over her shoulders, and the blonde hair had been allowed to fall free over the velvet collar. But Carter read worry in her agitated movements. Why so nervous? He wasn't late. Reaction, maybe.
A young couple walked slowly beneath the wispy trees and murmured to each other. Half-hidden by a shadow in the northeast corner was a short, squat man in a crumpled seersucker suit with limp fedora to match. He was pretending to study his watch, but his eyes were on Rita.
Nick felt a cold flush of anger. So he was going to be fingered. No, come on! Who wouldn't look at a lovely girl pacing the square? Well, the bastard shouldn't stare like that.
He quickened his pace and walked alongside her as she strolled toward 59th.
"Hello, Rita."
Rita whirled, her eyes startled. Then she smiled.
"You gave me quite a start. Guess I'm jumpy. How are you, Mr. Carter?"
"Nick." He took her hand in his. Let seersucker have something to look at. "Don't worry. It's that old magnetism. I affect people that way. Dinner at some quiet place where we can talk?"
"If you don't mind, I'd rather not, just yet. Maybe we could walk awhile. Or — how about a hansom carriage ride? I've always wanted to try it."
"If that's what you want, fine."
What could be more pleasant than an evening in the park?
Nick whistled shrilly and motioned with his free hand as they walked to the corner. The first carriage in line rumbled forward.
Nick helped Rita up and followed her. The driver made a clicking sound between his teeth and lethargically raised the reins. Rita sank back into the darkness of the cab, her thighs disturbingly close to Nick's.
The man in the seersucker suit stopped looking at his watch and stood up, yawning and stretching. The coolness of Nick's mind settled into a chill.
The man strolled toward the line of waiting hansom cabs.
A tail. No mistake. Rita had been followed — or accompanied — to the Plaza Fountain. The question was — why?
Their carriage turned off the brightly-lit street and into the dark environs of Central Park. If anything was going to happen, it might as well happen here. He was ready.
He turned to Rita.
"All right, let's talk business first. Then we can start enjoying ourselves. What was it you wanted to see me about?"
Rita sighed heavily. She was silent for a moment. Nick stole a look out of the small rear window. Another carriage had rolled into view. Seersucker, no doubt.
Rita began slowly.
"It was something to do with the explosions. All the planes blowing up."
Nick shot a surprised look at her.
"All the planes blowing up?"
"I didn't connect it until today. And maybe it doesn't have anything to do with what happened today. But I know there was something wrong with the way Steve went. That's why I wanted to see you. He didn't wreck that plane. I know it wasn't his fault. And now somebody's trying to get at me."
"What do you mean, 'get at you'?" Nick frowned down at her and took her hand. "Listen, honey, you'd better tell me the story from the start"
"I'll try. But give me a cigarette first, please."
A flick of his lighter showed the violent worry in her blue eyes.
"He was a pilot and we were engaged. We were going to get married after this trip. My trip, I mean. We'd planned it months ago. But his plane blew up. There was a hearing, and they said it was his fault, he was up late and he was tired and careless, and he crashed. But he didn't Oh, Christ, when I saw that mess this morning, that horrible sound and all those innocent people, I know what it was like for him, and I can't stand it...!"
"Stop that!" Nick took her hand and squeezed it brutally. "You don't know what it was like for him. God knows I can't figure out what happened from what you've told me, but if the plane exploded he didn't feel a thing. Now who's trying to get at you, and why?"
"I don't know who, I don't know why. Maybe because I was making a nuisance of myself. Just because I knew it wasn't his fault."
"What makes you think somebody's trying to get at you?" Nick's voice was as coldly demanding as a prosecuting attorney's.
"Because I got a phony letter and because somebody tried to get into my room this afternoon, that's why!" Her voice rose to a near-hysterical pitch.
"Somebody did get into mine," Nick said gently. "Okay. We'll get back to that. What about Valdez?"
Street lights from Fifth Avenue disappeared as the horse-drawn carriage clopped noisily further west into the heart of the park.
"What about him?" Rita's eyes were moist. "What's he got to do with it?"
"Thought you said you'd found some kind of connection between the explosions," Nick said carefully. "I just wondered what you knew about him. You seemed to know him pretty well."
"Oh, Yes. He's often flown with us. His government kept him pretty busy."
"Wasn't that rough on a one-handed man?"
She tilted her chin. "You saw him. Handled himself beautifully. He lost the hand in a revolution. Valdez told me all about it. He was a fine man, in his way. I suppose what happened today was some kind of frightful political conspiracy."
"Funny, how the idea of bombs keeps coming up," Nick mused. Forty yards behind them, the second carriage loomed like a hearse beyond the small window. "One more question, then back to your story. Why did you want to meet outside and take a ride in the park? Instead of letting me take you to some cozy restaurant where we could talk in peace?"
Rita's eyes met his. "Because I didn't want to get trapped into a corner. I don't want to be surrounded by people when I can't trust any damn one of them."
"I appreciate your feelings," Nick murmured, "but I think you operated on the wrong principle. Driver... stoke the engines, would you? I think we could stand to go a little faster."
Rita tensed. "Is there something wrong?"
"Maybe not much. Just keep well back and be ready to duck. You wouldn't have any vested interest in having me followed, would you?"
"Having you followed! For God's sake, no!" The blue eyes widened, showing both fear and surprise.
"And somebody's been trying to get at you. Have you ever noticed anyone showing any interest in Valdez? Or — try it this way — would anyone have any reason to think that you were particularly friendly with Valdez?"
"No," she answered. "No to both." She shivered suddenly.
"All right, let's go back to Steve. Steve who?"
"His name was Steven Anderson." Her voice was a low monotone. "He used to fly for World Airways. Four months ago he crashed. At least, they said he did. First the papers said the plane exploded in the air. Then there was a hearing, and they said he'd crashed. Because he was up late and drinking. Well, he wasn't
. I should know. But they wouldn't believe me. And then a couple of weeks ago I heard they'd found a baggage tag with his name on it, and I knew that couldn't be true."
A long line of lights and sudden brilliance appeared in front of them. The 79th street throughway lay ahead. The carriage slowed. Nick checked the rear again. Carriage number two was drawing closer. He frowned. The driver mounted on the front seat was neither old nor characteristic of his kind. There was no top hat, no shambling posture. Alarm shot through him, but he sat back easily and his right hand found Wilhelmina.
"Why couldn't it be true?" he asked. "Nothing so strange about a baggage tag."
"This time there was."
Traffic thickened and the horse whinnied impatiently. The carriage behind grew close enough to touch.
"Do they have to get that close? The traffic isn't that bad!"
"That's right, it isn't," Nick said quietly. "Lean back and get your head down."
"What?" The horse behind them arched his head and neighed. Rita caught her breath. "You mean that's what's following us?" She laughed nervously. "But that's ridiculous! They won't do anything to us, surely. Not here."
"Better safe than sorry. Get that head down!"
She pulled herself lower in the seat. Nick closed his fingers around Wilhelmina's naked butt.
"Who are they?" she whispered.
"Don't you know?"
She shook her head. And then, suddenly, Nick's suspicions were terribly confirmed. All his experience in espionage had not prepared him for something so unthinkably blatant, so wildly improbable, as the behavior of the men in the second carriage.
Suddenly, a whip cracked with the suddenness of a pistol shot. A guttural voice commanded "Hiyar!" like a cavalryman in a western movie, and the carriage directly behind them swerved out of line and shot alongside as the horse reacted smartly to the lash. Their own horse shied. Nick threw himself across Rita's body and flung Wilhelmina up with lightning speed. For a second or two, the hansoms were perfectly abreast.
He saw it all in an ugly flash. The face of the man in the seersucker suit stared into his from the other carriage. His right arm was drawn back. The metallic, egg-shaped object clasped in his throwing hand was a grenade. The face was firm, purposeful, almost devoid of emotion. His eyes locked briefly with Nick's as the arm came forward.
Nick fired on the move. Wilhelmina spat viciously. There was a ghastly smear of crimson and the face twisted into its last expression. The arm holding the egg seemed to hang in the air. Then the carriage was whipping by, raced toward a turn-off lane that swung back toward the way they had come.
Nick flung his arms about Rita, cushioning her frightened face in the hollow of his shoulder.
The blast came with a violent, ear-shattering roar. The park volleyed with a burst of flying-shrapnel and shattered carriage parts, and the acrid fumes of cordite poisoned the air. A glance through the side window told the story. Nick leaped from his seat, leaving Rita shocked and trembling behind him. Their old driver sat like a man turned to stone, his hands riveted to the reins.
The second carriage was lying on one twisted side on a hillock of leafy ground, two wheels spinning crazily. The shattered frame of the coach was as perforated as Swiss cheese. The horse had broken free of a splintered wagon tongue and was rearing excitedly at the base of a tall, shuddering elm. There was no use looking for the man in the coach. A grenade exploding within those narrow confines was apt to be pretty final for anybody, even if a bullet had not found him first. But there was still the driver. Where in God's name had he gotten to?
Nick saw him too late.
In the darkness under the trees he had regained his feet and darted back to the other side of the carriage Nick had left. Rita screamed once, a high, piercing crescendo of terror that stopped with awful abruptness. The muffled, oldman's scream of Nick's driver was drowned out in a string of four or five horrifyingly rapid shots of automatic fire.
His heart squeezing with the agony of defeat, Nick tore back to his own carriage.
A tall, glowering figure loomed before him, the figure of the driver who wasn't. He had ducked back from his murderous work, looking for more. He saw Nick and his gun came up. An Army .45 — a heavy, powerful, mankiller of a weapon, designed for murder.
The park was alive with shouts and high-pitched yells.
Nick fired at the hand that held the .45 and at the knees and thighs that supported that killing-machine of a body. He kept firing until the thing in front of him lay riddled and bleeding. But a small, cool part of his brain told him to let the creature live a little longer. The shot that would have killed stayed inside the gun. After the burst of gunfire, there seemed to be a silence. But sound began to seep into his mind: the frightened weeping of an old coachman too terrified to run, the confused murmur of nearby motorists, the distant shrill of a siren.
Nick took one swift look into the dark interior of the coach.
Rita Jameson was no longer frightened and no longer beautiful.
The slaughtering .45 had butchered her face and bosom. She lay pinned to the upholstery, no longer a person but an outraged mass of pulpy flesh.
Nick closed off his mind to the horror and turned swiftly away to bend beside the man who had so nearly succumbed to Wilhelmina's charms. A fast frisk came up with — nothing. The enemy was going in wholesale for unidentifiable killers. Maybe Seersucker...
A new sound intruded into his consciousness. Hooves, sounding crisp and urgent on the road nearby. Park police.
Carter threw himself into the shadows and left it all behind, running swiftly through the trees, cutting across the measured lawns toward Central Park West. His world was one of ugliness and death, of running into trouble and running from it. Because if you were to live to fight another day, you had to keep out of the official spotlight. You had to run — even if it meant leaving messy corpses behind. Even the corpses of friends.
A siren swelled and stopped.
Nick slowed to a brisk walk, straightened his tie and combed his fingers through his hair. An exit showed through the tree-lined lane ahead.
The cops would have a dazed old driver, a pair of unsightly corpses, a mysteriously wrecked coach, and a dying man. And the enemy would know he had escaped again.
But Rita hadn't.
Whoever was behind this would have to pay for that.
And pay dearly.
* * *
It was ten-thirty when Mr. Hawk picked up his office telephone. Hawk seldom left the office until midnight. It was his home.
"Yes?"
"I'm asking for a fine cutting edge this time. Something that will take care of a lot of red tape."
Hawk's brows furrowed. It wasn't like N-3 to call so often in one day — something was very wrong.
"What do you have in mind?"
"A double-edged axe. The biggest. Jameson was driven out of this world tonight, and I don't think it was only because of me. I had to use Wilhelmina again. She barked, but she didn't finish biting."
"I see. And the one who was bitten?"
Nick told him rapidly, choosing the coded words with care, giving as much detail as he could but stressing the need for urgent action.
"Check back in two hours," said Hawk, and cut the connection.
Nick left the phone booth on 57th and zigzagged several blocks before hailing a cab on Third Avenue to Grand Central and a bar.
"Double Scotch."
He drank and thought.
If he had had any lingering doubts about Rita and her half-told story they had been shockingly dispelled when the driver of the shattered coach had deliberately sought her out first and pumped her full of hot lead. So someone was after both of them.
Plane explosion, pilot, frightened stewardess, knifer, watcher at the Plaza Fountain, coachman-killer. How did it make sense?
He ordered again.
More than an hour to kill.
He drank deeply and left in search of a phone booth. This time he called Hadway House.
The same female voiced answered, sounding tired.
"Miss Jameson, please."
"Miss Jameson went out and has not returned." The voice sounded final.
Hadway House was a hotel for career women, Nick suddenly realized. Of course those harpies would know who came and went, with whom and when.
"This is Lieutenant Hanrahan. We had a call from Miss Jameson earlier today in connection with a prowler."
"Not from my switchboard, you didn't," the adenoids said suspiciously.
"Are you on all day?"
"No, but I know what goes on in this house. It's my duty to..."
"It's your duty to cooperate with the Police," Nick said as coldly as he could. "Would you like a pair of uniformed policemen to interrogate you in your lobby?"
The nasal voice was flustered.
"Oh, no! That would be so bad for the place..."
"So would a prowler. Now. Miss Jameson made it very clear that she did not want to involve the hotel in any unpleasantness. She also said she would call the Precinct tonight and inform us if any further attempt had been made to molest her."
"Oh, well, if she hasn't called it must mean that she's all right..."
"Not necessarily, ma'am," Carter said meaningfully.
"Oh. Oh, but there wasn't any attempt to molest her..."
"Then you know about it," Nick cut in.
"Yes, but it was nothing! The poor girl was hysterical because of that dreadful business at the airport. This man was only an investigator, he wanted to ask her some more questions..."
"Did he call first? Or phone from the desk?"
"Well, no." The voice sounded puzzled. "He didn't, at least not from the desk. I don't know so much about the incoming calls, you see..."
"Then how do you know what he was?"
"Well, he said so, when we saw him coming downstairs after she'd screamed."
"Is that the kind of security you have in your hotel?" He was genuinely exasperated. "All right, never mind that now. So you saw him. What did he look like?"
