My Shea Stadium nightmare should have included Mr. Christian Godlove né Marcus Strang, but it hadn't, because I didn't know him then. This time, with all my lights out, I dreamed of nothing. It was a soundless, empty spell of black time in which all the senses and faculties are suspended. When I did come out of it, I had no headache, no numbness, no pain. Only a dull, listless feeling, the kind you get when you have fallen asleep unexpectedly.
I have been put under some twenty times in my career as private investigator, and I still haven't gotten used to it. I wake up confused, a little afraid, and thoroughly unable to collect my ideas and thoughts into a usable chain of logic. It was no different on this occasion. It took me about five long minutes to remember exactly what had happened in Godlove's fiendish limousine. By that time I was looking around, wondering what was up, where I stood, and what had happened to Felicia Carr.
Some of the answers to those questions were readily answerable. Others not so soon solved. I was still involved in a Chinese puzzle.
I wasn't standing anyplace.
I was sitting in a chair, my arms forced behind me, and I could tell by the metallic feel of handcuffs that I had been locked to the open braces of a simple, wooden chair. My feet were on some kind of floor, free and unimpeded. I could move them. But anywhere I wanted to go, I would have to take the chair with me. My eyes had automatically taken in the surroundings. They weren't very good. It wasn't exactly posh.
I was in an attic of some kind with a slanted overhang, very little room to look up, and hardly any furnishings at all. I saw a big, old-fashioned trunk, several pairs of ancient rubber galoshes, a stack of bundled newspapers, and all the dust and cobwebs of maybe twenty years of disuse. The attic area was very small, cramped, and nearly triangular in shape, both up and down. The chair and I were parked in the widest area of the place. I was facing a paint-peeled wooden door some fifteen feet away. It must have been still daylight, because there was no electric illumination in the attic, but I could see without straining my 20-20's. A faint sliver of sunbeams filtered under the crack of the door and around the sides. The gloom of the place was like something seen through a hazy scrim on an actor's stage. Like an off-Broadway flop.
There was no sign of Felicia Carr. Not even another empty chair to indicate we might have once been prisoners together. I tried not to think about that and began to wrestle the cuffs that pinned me. They clanked and clicked musically on my wrists, but nothing gave. I didn't expect them to. You can't do anything with handcuffs unless you have the key. That's the whole idea. Ask any cop.
Random thoughts buzzed around in my skull, as they usually feel free to do when some thinking time is forced upon me and I can't go anyplace. It's another price you pay for being caught.
I thought about the weird Christian Godlove calling Dmitri and Aloyesha his "dupes" and wondered how he had tricked them into thinking the ball contained something other than the ABM microfilm. I remembered the Catholic crucifix and the Greek cross looped around their dead throats, and for no sane reason I puzzled over a theological problem: Do all Christians go to Heaven even when they are gun-carrying killers? Offhand, I'd think not.
I thought about Mr. President and a man called Commander Thorpe, who had had me recommended to him as a perfect candidate for a pick-up at Shea Stadium. This whole rodeo was supposed to be some kind of a CIA operation, and I hadn't seen or heard a single CIA man since it started. Or were they all invisible or just damn good agents who made sure they couldn't be seen?
I didn't know.
I didn't know a lot of things.
I didn't even know if Mrs. Payson and her beloved New York Mets would go all the way to the top rung to catch the National League pennant and finally get into a World Series—
All I did know and was absolutely certain of was that I was nailed good and proper. In the hands of the opposition. An Enemy with a disastrous face and a monumental knack for killing people. And doing something positive and drastic about anyone or anything that got in his way. This Mr. Big was in a class all by his lonesome.
He could make me lonesome forever—
Footsteps padded faintly beyond the door and I stopped playing with the handcuffs. I was getting a visitor. I tensed, let my head go slack as if still unconscious, and waited. I could hear the door squeak open. The footsteps sounded louder, and the door did not slam shut. My ears unconsciously reached for every sound. I had no trouble hearing Mr. Christian Godlove's low chuckle. It was very close by.
"Come, Mr. Noon. Open your eyes. Useless to pretend. The preparation I subjected you to is my own concoction. I make it an hour and one half since you were affected. You should be thoroughly awake by now. Do open your eyes. We must talk."
I opened my eyes and wanted to close them again.
Godlove's ghastly face was suspended above me in the attic's gloom, barely two yards away. He had taken off the Barrymorish red velour hat. I might have known. The crown of his head was completely hairless and a duplicate pattern of mottled wrinkles and lines like the rest of his face. The false eye looked even more frightening in the poor light.
"Talk, Godlove?" I sighed. "What's to talk? You reneged. Which makes you a bigger crook than ever. You paid the money, took it back, and now you've got everything. The ball, too."
"Patience, my friend." He had his hands poked into the pockets of a smoking jacket so ornate it was practically camp. He still wore the striped trousers and the spats. The smoking jacket was such a perfect fit about his wedge-like torso he looked more like a top than ever. "There are still a few loose ends."
"Such as?"
"I have the ball, yes. But I am not equipped to disassemble it properly to secure the microfilm. Therefore, I will not know if it is bona fide until my associate arrives within the hour with the proper tools. So, until then, you live. I'm amazed at you, Mr. Noon. Did you really think I would give you money for the ball when both yourself and it were already in my hands?"
"Like you said, Godlove, I'm new at the job. I thought you'd play it according to the code."
"Code?" The word shot out of him, frosted and loaded with contempt. "Surely, you jest. There is no honor among thieves, and there is also a very ancient espionage axiom quite suitable to all undercover occasions—'Do unto others that which you would have others do unto yourself, but do it first!' You do see the efficacy of such thinking, do you not, Mr. Noon?"
"Sure. Dog-eat-dog. Stab-in-the-back. And screw you, mister." I tried not to dwell on what he would do with me when he found the microfilm and there was no longer any need to keep me alive. "Where's Felicia?"
"Do not worry your head about her. She is quite well."
"I didn't ask you that."
He chuckled. "Ever the romantic American male, eh? I have done with her exactly what you might expect—since you already have pigeon-holed me in your feeble intellect as some kind of monster. Don't deny it. I saw it in your eyes in the car. You must be a terrible poker player, Mr. Noon."
"I am. But, you were saying about Felicia——"
He took his hands out of his pockets. He was still wearing the suede gloves. He patted them together brusquely.
"We are not savages, Mr. Noon. We do know what to do with beautiful women. Even when they are the enemy, shall we say? Do not fret about your lady. My chauffeur, the Negro, was openly admiring of her. I saw no reason that he should not have her. He is a faithful, devoted servant. I myself have no use for women. As of this moment, my man is hopefully enjoying the obvious charms of your Miss Carr. It is poetic in a way I missed her in Casablanca, where she gave me much trouble. This will even up old scores. Then you and she will be killed."
"You bastard——" What a comeback! It was all I could say while cold rage swept over my brain like a prairie fire. "She has a broken arm—"
"Oh, no. I am quite philanthropic. My man is tremendously endowed. I'm sure your lady is having the time of her life—something perhaps even you have never been able to consummate with her."
"I
know—he was born with it—Godlove, I'll kill you when I get the chance!" The stupid words gushed out of me. I'd lost the cool I knew how to keep, usually. Dirty pictures of Felicia and the black statue in the front of the car collided and tangled in my mind. I fought to push them back. Images of myself and Melissa Mercer kept getting in the way.
"No, you will not, Mr. Noon." His eye glittered down at me, and the crooked mouth was twisting with sadistic amusement. "Later, perhaps, I will take you downstairs and you can watch? Who knows? Miss Carr may be enjoying her seduction tremendously." His twisted smile was awesome.
"Where is this place?" I snapped, changing the subject. I had indicated the attic with a toss of my shoulders.
"No reason for you not to know," he decided, after a moment's pause. "The information would be quite like you knowing the name of your physician on the day of your death. Nicht wahr?" It was the first bit of German I had ever heard him use. "Very well. We are in Rahway. A town. The state of New Jersey, I believe. This is an old farmhouse, very secluded, far from the busy highway. A place where one can park a rather prominent automobile without too many questions. In fact, we have only been here a half an hour or so. This place has helped us many times in the past. After today, it will no longer be necessary to maintain it. So. You know. Of what use is the information to you? The local police are laughable. There is no amount of law that could help you here. They could not find a tree in a park."
"I wanted to know where my Waterloo was," I said.
He almost applauded with the suede-gloved hands. I could well imagine what atrocities they were hiding. Savage burns or skeletal fingers.
"Capital. A nicely turned thought. You do have your good points, Mr. Noon."
I was thinking of Rahway. A little burg, looking like 1915 again, just off the Jersey Turnpike, far from Monks' jurisdiction, miles away from home even though it was barely a half hour from the Lincoln Tunnel. The news wasn't good. Rahway was a hold-over from George Washington's day. The Continental Army had billeted there before historic Trenton and the Delaware Crossing. That was a Revolution, too. Also with spies.
"Well, Mr. Noon——" Christian Godlove headed toward the door with a springy, effortless ease. "I will leave you. Until the ball is found to be valid. Who knows? I may even drop in on Freddy to see how he is faring with your Miss Carr."
"Freddy," I said.
"Yes, Freddy. A valuable man. I rescued him from some curious Black Panther society you have here. He finds it more useful and gainful to take out his animus in my sort of army. If you follow me. Freddy is quite resourceful—"
"You told me."
"—he can break a man's back in half without the slightest wasted effort. I am sure Miss Carr will bend to him easily."
"Will you go before I throw up?"
He chuckled again, bowed slightly, and vanished through the door once more. I could hear his footfalls going away. Silence fell over my attic prison all over again. Somewhere out of the stillness, I could hear an eave or two creaking overhead in a mild breeze fanning against the Rahway farmhouse. It was a real Gothic dump. In the woods, probably.
I pushed Felicia and Freddy out of my mind and tried the chair. I heaved against the manacles, wondering if my weight could snap the cross-beams of the chair. It was no use. It was a stout, old-fashioned maple job, the kind they made in the old days that was built to last a lifetime. Not the synthetic, modern stuff. I did no more than scrape the flesh of my wrists. Suddenly, I couldn't help it. I started to curse. In a low, almost maniacal stream of gutter words. I cursed the President and Teheran. I cursed Louise Warrington Paul and her damn quaint ideas. I cursed my own regrettable lack of wisdom in keeping Mike Monks and Melissa Mercer in the dark. I cursed Freddy, too. Him maybe most of all. For Christian Godlove, I felt only the intensest of hates. I wanted to drive a Mack truck over him and really pretty him up.
The swearing helped. I calmed down, and cooled off, taking stock of the situation. I was hopelessly tied to a chair, Felicia was being made love to whether she wanted it that way or not, and I didn't have the single silliest idea of what the entire operation was about. Sure, a baseball loaded with microfilm. Big deal. What did it have to do with the price of eggs? Bitterly, I hoped the Mets were making out better with the Giants than both they and I had yesterday. And today. There was an afternoon game at Shea and I wistfully wished I was sitting there with Melissa, in the box seats again, minding my own business, enjoying the peanuts, Cracker Jacks, hot dogs and Cokes. Worrying about nothing but the Mets getting runs.
Poor Blassingame. Dead as a doornail because of those curious amalgams of world peace, espionage, and who's-in-the-right? Sometimes even I didn't know or care. What had Godlove meant about the UN and Garnu Sin?
I began to hear things. I thought I heard Felicia Carr screaming somewhere down below me. I pushed against the manacles again, dragging the stout chair along the attic floor. It was a waste of time. Godlove had locked the attic door. I couldn't go anyplace even if I wanted to take the chair with me.
The screaming had to be in my head, but it didn't help matters. I even began to picture her writhing beneath Freddy, the long legs in a spasmodic thrust of pleasure and happiness. Like she was enjoying herself. Just like Godlove had——
Sweat beaded my forehead and I knew it. I tried not to think about it anymore. I thought about my clothes and gear instead. I could feel my empty holster. The .45 had been removed. And I had none of the standard spy gizmos on me that I usually might carry on a presidential assignment. There hadn't been enough time this trip. Out of luck, all the way. I had no plastic dynamite in the form of harmless chewing gum, no sharp weapons in the heels of my shoes, no cutting instruments in my belt. No nothing. The CIA and the Secret Service and the FBI would have been ashamed of me if I belonged to them. I didn't even have a homing device to fix my position for interested parties. I had bungled like a hopeless amateur. Me, who should have known better. The only gimmick I'd had was the harmless smoke bomb I had used yesterday to vamoose from Shea Stadium. I hadn't even replaced that from my private supply of weapons in the safe at the mouse auditorium. I was batting .001. I hadn't made a legitimate hit since the caper began.
I felt like the Peoria League James Bond.
A real busher. Strictly minor league.
I sagged against the chair, chin down to my chest and tried not to cry. Everything had closed in on me and it looked like I'd finally taken my last swings as both a private cop and a presidential agent. Godlove had the old ball game wrapped up. I was shut-out, but good.
The noise of a car driving up outside made me stop feeling sorry for myself. I heard a door slam after the engine died, and there was a flurry of voices talking and sounds of another kind. I couldn't make out what the voices were saying, but I heard something fervently German and happy—an exclamation that sounded like Christian Godlove's voice. His expert must have arrived. The one who would take the ball apart with the proper tools and unearth the precious microfilm. My last hope—Time—had run out, too. It couldn't be more than another fifteen minutes before Godlove would find out what he wanted to know. I galvanized, attacking the manacles again, as hopeless as I knew it to be. You have to try. You always have to try, no matter how stacked the cards are against you. And I don't mean St. Louis.
I worked hard, trying to break the maple cross-bars and my efforts made me pant like a steam engine and my wrists flame with pain. Houdini was needed, and I'm not him. I maneuvered the chair close to the door, trying to batter the barrier with my free feet. That was useless, too. The old attic door might have been a steel wall. All I did was make the peeling paint flake a little more. I was barking up the wrong door.
It was then that a ghost walked into the attic.
A real ghost. A ghost with a broken arm.
I had slumped in the chair, exhausted from my efforts, when the attic door opened slowly, and Felicia Carr came reeling in. Breathless, heart-stoppingly beautiful, her silken blue dress a tattered parody. Her splendidl
y contoured breasts were completely exposed, and as much as I like looking at them—Felicia didn't wear bras—there was no time. She was moving like a phantom, an Indian on the warpath and her eyes weren't quite sane. She came to my chair, breathing hard, her lithe figure agitated, and before I could blurt her name, she had reflexively put her one good hand to my mouth. There was blood on her hand, and it tasted funny. But there was no time to ask her questions. She held me close for one long second, and then her hand came into view again. Something metallic and glittering flashed in the gloom of the attic. The key to the manacles.
"He had the key—" she whispered. "We have to hurry.''
She fumbled at the lock of the cuffs. I smelled her long, dark hair close. I kissed her cheek silently. She shuddered again. When she had the cuffs unlocked, I caught them before they could fall to the floor of the attic with a giveaway noise. I straightened out of the chair, getting all the kinks out. She leaned against me, holding me tight. I smoothed her hair tenderly. Time enough later for the gory details.
"Got a gun?" I whispered, putting the cuffs in my pocket
She shook her head furiously. Now I saw the long fingernail marks on her face. She had been raked viciously on both ivory cheeks. Her skin was inflamed and off-color. I gritted my teeth and led her to the attic door. She almost recoiled at my touch. I didn't like what that meant.
"There wasn't time—" she stammered, whispering hoarsely. "I had to run—Ed—somebody just drove up. A short man, heavy-set, wearing dark glasses—"
"Where's Godlove?"
"Downstairs. There's a living room with a fireplace. Saw it when Freddy took me through it toward the bedroom—"
"And Freddy?"
I had to know the disposition of the enemy troops. The opposition. She knew I had to know, but she somehow avoided the question.
"Only two of them, now. Godlove and the man with the dark glasses. He was carrying an attaché case—"
I cupped her face in both hands and stared into her eyes. As gloomy as the attic was, I could see the moisture glistening there.
Little Miss Murder Page 12
