The Aztec Avenger

by Nick Carter

  “Now you’re catching on.”

  “And for this, you gave up—let me see—four and five more, nine kilos, plus the one you threw away so dramatically to impress us—ten kilos of heroin?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s a large amount of money to throw away,” Carlos observed, watching me.

  “It’s worth it.”

  “We’ve underestimated you.” His voice was still un-troubled. We might have been two businessmen discussing a fluctuation in the stock market “We’ll have to do something about it.”

  “Don’t try. It’s already cost you two men.”

  “Two?” Carlos lifted an eyebrow. “The captain is one. Who’s the other?”

  “Luis Aparicio.”

  This time I could see the shock of my words hit Carlos, but the man regained control of himself almost immediately. I pointed at the bandage on my arm.

  “He almost had me. He wasn’t good enough, though.”

  “Where is Luis?”

  “Dead.”

  I watched Carlos freeze—all but his eyes which stared at me dubiously, as if he didn’t believe what he’d heard.

  “You’ll find him in the trunk of Bickford’s car,” I said, carefully observing the impact of my words on the three of them. Bickford almost leaped out of his chair. Carlos had to put a hand out to restrain him. Garrett’s face turned a mottled shade of red. Carlos leaned forward, and, for the first time, I saw pure hatred on his face.

  “He was my nephew,” said Carlos. The words coming from his lips were numbed by the realization of what I’d said.

  “Then you can have the family duty of burying his body,” I said, and moved my hand enough so that the squat .38 Airweight revolver was aimed directly at Carlos’ head. Carlos sank back into the armchair.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me about Jean-Paul Sevier?” I asked.

  Carlos shook his head. “I don’t have to. Your question tells me that Luis was successful.”

  “Then Luis didn’t make a mistake?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” Carlos was in control of himself again.

  “I thought Jean-Paul was killed by mistake, that I was the target. But if Luis killed him deliberately, it means you knew he was a police agent.”

  Carlos nodded slowly. “Yes.”

  “How did you find out?”

  Carlos shrugged. “In the past, there have been several attempts to infiltrate our organization. We’ve become extremely cautious lately. Yesterday, to make doubly sure that Jean-Paul was who he said he was, I put in a call to our friends in Marseille. Everything checked out, except for one thing. Jean-Paul Sevier did not fit the description of the man they had sent. So I told Luis to get rid of him.”

  His voice still showed no concern. His face had settled back into its normal imperturbability, his features varnished into their usual blandness.

  “We have arrived at a detente, Senor Carter,” Carlos said. “Apparently, neither of us can make a move without bringing on a violent retaliation from the other.”

  “So?”

  “Wait a second, Carlos!” Garrett broke in to protest. “You mean we’re going to go along with this son-of-a-bitch?”

  I looked at the angry, jowled face, the tiny broken veins in Garrett’s nose, the nicks in his heavy-fleshed chin where he’d cut himself shaving. This was a man whose impatience could destroy him, I realized, filing the thought away.

  Carlos shrugged. “What other alternative do we have, amigo?”

  “Goddamn it! He’s cost us two men and a ship. Are you going to let him get away with it?”

  “Yes.” Carlos didn’t look at Garrett as he spoke. “There’s nothing else we can do at this moment.”

  And what have you planned for me later, I wondered. I was sure that Carlos didn’t intend to let me live if he could help it I was much too dangerous to him. I knew that for the time being Carlos would go along with me because he had no other choice. The question was, how long would that be?

  I arose. “I take it you’ve agreed to lay off Stocelli?”

  Carlos nodded. “You can tell him he’s safe from us.”

  “And myself?”

  Again Carlos nodded. “We’re going to have our our hands full protecting our organization from the damage you’ve already done. Survival first, Senor Carter.”

  I moved to the French doors without haste. Pausing in the doorway, I said, “You made one mistake today. I told you it would be costly. Don’t come after me again. It would be another mistake.”

  “We profit by our mistakes.” He didn’t take his eyes off me. “Be assured we won’t be so foolish next time.”

  You could take that remark two ways, I thought I was sure that the next time he sent someone after me it would be in a more careful manner.

  “Just remember Luis,” I warned him. “If there’s another attempt on my life, I’ll go after the man who sent him—you! Entiende, Senor Ortega?”

  “I understand very well.”

  Quickly, I turned and went out through the French doors, leaving the three of them in the living room: Carlos seated in the deep armchair, the smoothness of his face an inscrutable mask hiding his feelings as he watched me go; Bickford, a gray-faced hulk sitting on the couch beside his sleeping wife; and Brian Garrett, staring angrily at the dusting of white powder on the rug and the empty, ripped plastic bag that lay on the floor near the doorway where I’d dropped it.

  I crossed the terrace and swung my legs over the ornamental concrete block balustrade to the grass of the yard. Then, hidden in the darkness, I doubled back to stand beside a window opened next to the terrace, my back pressed against the wall of the house, the gun in my hand, waiting to see if they’d come after me.

  Turning my head, I could see them in the living room. None of them moved.

  After a few minutes, Brian Garrett walked over and picked up the plastic bag that had held the heroin.

  “Ten kilos! Where the hell did he lay his hands on ten kilos to throw away like it wasn’t worth a goddamned cent?”

  “You fool!” Carlos spat out the words. Garrett turned around to face him. “Forget the heroin. I want Carter. I want him dead! Don’t you understand what he’s doing to us?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I went into my hotel through a service entrance because I didn’t want to advertise my presence. Instead of going to my room, I took the service elevator up to the ninth floor.

  Suite 903 was at the end of the corridor. I checked my watch. Three-thirty in the morning, yet a tiny spill of light came from the crack between the door and the sill. I wondered why Dietrich would be up so late. Cautiously, I inserted a metal probe into the lock and pressed a thin plastic card into the door at the latch.

  The bolt turned back, making only the faintest click. I waited, listening, and when there was still no noise on the other side of the door, I took out the snub-nosed .38 Smith and Wesson Airweight and silently pushed the door open.

  I walked into the living room. I heard noises in one of the bedrooms. Almost immediately, a tall, silver-haired man appeared in the doorway. Thin and fine-boned, he appeared as fragile as a praying mantis with his elongated, bony face and his somber dignity. He stopped short in complete surprise,

  “What the devil are you doing here?” he demanded imperiously. “Put that gun away!”

  “Are you Herbert Dietrich?”

  “Yes, I’m Dietrich. What is this? A hold-up?”

  “My name is Paul Stephans,” I said, “and I think it’s long past time that you and I had a talk, Mr. Dietrich.”

  Recognition leaped into his eyes. “You’re Stocelli’s man!” he said accusingly.

  I shook my head. “Why do you think I’m connected with Stocelli?”

  “I was told you had a secret meeting with him at three o’clock in the morning on the night you arrived.”

  I sighed. Apparently, everyone in the hotel knew about that midnight visit

  “I’m not Stocelli’s man. I’m doing a job
for Alexander Gregorius. He sent me down here to deal with Stocelli on a business matter.”

  Dietrich took a moment to grasp what I’d just told him.

  “My god!” he exclaimed, “I’ve just done a terrible thing. And it’s too late to correct it!”

  “You mean the five kilos of heroin in my room?” I asked.

  Dietrich nodded—and it was the confirmation I needed He’d as much as admitted that he was the one who’d set up Stocelli’s associates and had been trying to do the same to Stocelli and me.

  “I got rid of it,” I told him.

  Dietrich shook his head. “Even more. I sent a bellhop to your room with a black fabric suitcase. It contains almost thirty kilos of heroin. No more than an hour ago.”

  “Have you informed the police yet?”

  Dietrich slowly shook his head. “I was about to— when I heard the door open.”

  “The police won’t trouble me about it,” I told him, and watched his reaction.

  An edge of fright came into his voice.

  “Just who are you, Mr. Stephans? What land of a man are you that you’re sent to deal single-handedly with a brute like Stocelli? You’re not bothered by the police. You’re not in the least disturbed by knowing that there’s enough heroin in your room to put you behind bars for the rest of your life. You break into a hotel room at almost four in the morning with a gun in your hand. Just who the devil are you?”

  “Someone who means you no harm,” I reassured him. I could see he was on the verge of breaking apart “All I want from you is some information.”

  Dietrich hesitated. Finally, he let out his breath. “All right Go ahead.”

  “So far, I’ve totalled up more than a hundred and forty kilos of heroin that you’ve distributed. It has a street value of somewhere between twenty-eight and thirty-two million dollars. Now how the hell could a man like you lay his hands on that much heroin? Even Stocelli can’t do it with all his contacts. Where in God’s name are you getting it from?”

  Dietrich turned away from me, stubborness coming into the set of his face.

  “That’s one thing I will not tell you, Mr. Stephans.”

  “I think you should.”

  The woman’s voice came from behind us.

  I turned around. She stood in the doorway to the other bedroom, clad in a light, semi-transparent negligee. Beneath it, she wore a short, knee-length nylon nightgown. Her long, straight blonde hair fell almost to her waist. She was somewhere in her middle twenties, her face a softer, feminine version of Dietrich’s elongated features. Under a broad forehead, a fine, long nose that barely escaped being too thin divided her tanned face. Her eyes were the same soft gray as her father’s. Her chin was a delicate joining of the sweeping curves of cheek and jawbone.

  “I’m Susan Dietrich. I overheard what you’ve told my father. I apologize to you. It was my fault. I’m the one who bribed the bellhop for information about you. He told me you were seen coming out of Stocelli’s penthouse the other morning. That’s why we thought you were part of it.”

  She came into the living room and stood by her father, putting one arm around him.

  “I think it’s time you told someone. It’s been tearing you apart for years. You’ve got to stop. You’re getting in too deep.”

  Dietrich shook his head. “I won’t stop, Susan. I can’t stop! Not until every last one of them—”

  Susan put her fingers to his lips. “Please?”

  Dietrich took her hand away. “I will not tell him,” he said defiantly, his voice beginning to rise to an almost fanatical pitch. “He’ll tell the police, and they’ll all get off scot-free. Every one of them! Don’t you understand that? All my effort—all those years will have been wasted.”

  “No,” I said “Frankly, I don’t give a damn about the men you’ve framed—or how long they’ll rot in jail. All I want to know is where you’re getting all this heroin.”

  Dietrich lifted a thin, pale face to me. I could see the lines of suffering that had etched themselves deeply into his skin. Only years of agony could have produced the tortured look in the old man’s eyes. He looked at me steadily, and without a flicker of expression in his voice, he said, simply, “I make it, Mr. Stephans.”

  Dietrich held Susan’s hand tightly in both of his as he told me his story.

  “I had another daughter, Mr. Stephans. Her name was Alice. Four years ago, she was found dead of an overdose of heroin in a despicable, dirty hotel room in New York City. She wasn’t quite eighteen at the time. For a year before she died, she’d been a prostitute. As the police told me, she’d been taking on everyone who could pay her even a few dollars because she needed money so desperately to pay for her addiction. She couldn’t live without heroin. She finally died because of it.

  “I swore revenge. I swore to get the men who count, the ones who make it possible—the ones at the top! The big men that the police can’t touch because they never handle the stuff themselves. Men like Stocelli, Torregrossa, Vignale, Gambetta, Klein, and Webber. The whole filthy bunch! Especially the ones who process it for them. Men like Michaud, Berthier, and Duprè.

  “If you know anything about me, you know I’m a chemist. Recently, I found a way I could get my revenge. I found a means by which I could literally bury them in their own foul traffic!”

  He paused, his eyes gleaming with a light that came from deep within him.

  “I found a way to make synthetic heroin.”

  Dietrich saw the look on my face.

  “You don’t believe me, do you, Mr. Stephans. But it’s true. I actually discovered a way in which to manufacture heroin hydrochloride of better than ninety-one percent purity” He got to his feet. “Come with me.”

  I followed him into the kitchenette.

  Dietrich toned on the light and pointed. “See for yourself.”

  On the counter was a simple array of glass retorts and glass tubing. Most of it made no sense to me, but I’m not a chemist

  “It is true,” Susan said, and I recalled that on the second page of the report that Denver had sent me via Telecopier the key phrase on Dietrich Chemical Inc. was “research and development.” Was it really possible that the old man had found a way to manufacture heroin synthetically?

  “Yes, Mr. Stephans,” Dietrich said, almost proudly, “synthetic heroin. Like many discoveries, I practically stumbled upon the technique of synthesizing the drug, although it took me quite some time to perfect it. And then”—Dietrich reached over to the counter and lifted a brown, plastic quart bottle, holding it up—”then, I discovered how to concentrate the synthetic. This bottle contains concentrated synthetic heroin, I suppose a good analogy would be to liken it to concentrated liquid saccharin, one drop of which is equal to a full teaspoon of sugar. Well, this is even more concentrated. I dilute it with plain tap water, half an ounce to the gallon.”

  I must have looked dubious because Dietrich caught me by the arm. “You must believe me, Mr. Stephans. You’ve tested the stuff yourself, haven’t you?”

  I hadn’t, but I remembered Carlos Ortega reaching out with his forefinger and touching it to the powder and touching that to his tongue and then nodding agreement that it was indeed heroin.

  “How does it work?” I asked.

  “You know I’ll never reveal the formula.”

  “I didn’t ask you that. I just don’t see how you get a crystal powder out of that”—I pointed to the bottle —”and plain water.”

  Dietrich sighed. “Very simple. The concentrate has the property of crystalizing water. Just as cold turns rain into snowflakes—which is nothing more than crystallized water. A gallon of water weighs around three kilos. This bottle contains enough concentrate to make almost two hundred kilos of synthetic heroin that can’t be distinguished from true heroin hydrochloride. There isn’t a chemical test in the world that will show the slightest difference. And I can turn it out for only a few dollars a pound. Do you know what that means?”

  I surely did, even if he didn
’t The implications of what Dietrich had just told were tremendous. Thoughts churned around like wreckage in a typhoon. I couldn’t believe that Dietrich was unaware of what he’d said.

  We returned to the living room, Dietrich pacing back and forth as if the energy in him had to find some release other than in words. I was silent because I wanted to sort out the thoughts in my mind.

  “I can make it anywhere. The heroin that I tried to plant in your room? Did you think I smuggled that much heroin into Mexico? I didn’t have to. I can make it here as easily as I made it in France when I planted it on those Frenchmen. I made it in New York. I made it in Miami.”

  Susan sat down on the couch. I watched Dietrich stride back and forth in the confines of the living room and knew that the man was not completely in his right mind.

  “Mr. Dietrich.” I caught his attention.

  “Yes?”

  “You asked me before if I know what your discovery means? Do you?”

  Dietrich turned to face me, puzzled.

  “Are you aware of how valuable your discovery is to the very men you’re trying to destroy? Do you know the risks they now take to smuggle narcotics into the States? Or how many millions of dollars in cash they must pay for it? They do it for only one reason. The fantastic profit involved. Hundreds of millions a year. Now you’ve found a way that will eliminate the risk of smuggling narcotics into the States as well as giving them larger profits than they could have dreamed of. Don’t you know what your formula is worth to them?”

  Dietrich stared uncomprehendingly at me.

  “There isn’t one of these men who wouldn’t commit a dozen murders to lay his hands on your formula. Or on you, for that matter.”

  He stopped almost in mid-stride, his face stricken with a look of sudden fright.

  “I—I never . . . I never thought about it,” he stammered.

  “Damnit, think about it!” I’d finally gotten through to him. There wasn’t any need to say more.

  The old man went over to the couch and sank down beside his daughter, putting his face in his hands. Susan put her arm around this thin shoulders to comfort him. She looked across the room at me with pale gray eyes.