The rooming house was a brownstone off Ninth Avenue, a firetrap like all the others on the block, a crummy joint filled with cubicles referred to as furnished rooms. The landlady came out of the front floor flat, looked at me and said, "I don't want no cops around here," and when Hy handed her the ten-spot her fat face made a brief smile and she added, "So I made a mistake. Cops don't give away the green. What're you after?"

"Dennis Wallace. He's a seaman and-"

"Top floor front. Go on up. He's got company."

I flashed Hy a nod, took the stairs with him behind me while I yanked the .45 out and reached the top floor in seconds. The old carpet under our feet puffed dust with every step but m.u.f.fled them effectively and when I reached the door there was no sound from within and a pencil-thin line of light seeped out at the sill. I tried the k.n.o.b, pushed the door open and was ready to cut loose at anything that moved wrong.

But there was no need for any shooting, if the little guy on the floor with his hands tied behind him and his throat slit wide open was Dennis Wallace, for his killer was long gone.

The fat landlady screeched when she saw the body and told us it was Dennis all right. She waddled downstairs again and pointed to the wall phone and after trying four different numbers I got Pat and told him I was with another dead man. It wasn't anything startling. He was very proper about getting down the details and told me to stay right there. His voice had a fine tone of satisfaction to it that said he had me where he could make me sweat and maybe even break me like he had promised.

Hy came down as I hung up and tapped my shoulder. "You didn't notice something on the guy up there."

"What's that?"

"All that blood didn't come from his throat. His gut is all carved up and his mouth is taped shut. The blood obscures the tape."

"Tortured?"

"It sure looks that way."

The landlady was in her room taking a quick shot for her nerves and seemed to hate us for causing all the trouble. I asked her when Dennis' guest had arrived and she said a couple of hours ago. She hadn't heard him leave so she a.s.sumed he was still there. Her description was brief, but enough. He was a big mean-looking guy who reminded her of an Indian.

There was maybe another minute before a squad car would come along and I didn't want to be here when that happened. I pulled Hy out on the stoop and said, "I'm going to take off."

"Pat won't like it."

"There isn't time to talk about it. You can give him the p.o.o.p."

"All of it?"

"Every bit. Lay it out for him."

"What about you?"

"Look, you saw what happened. The Dragon put it together the same way I did. He was here when the boat docked and Richie Cole knew it. So Richie called for a friend who knew the ropes, told him to pick up the crate with Velda in it and where to bring it. He left and figured right when he guessed anybody waiting would follow him. He pulled them away from the boat and tried to make contact with Old Dewey at the newstand and what he had for Dewey was the location of where that friend was to bring the crate."

"Then there's one more step."

"That's right. The friend."

"You can't trace that call after all this time."

"I don't think I have to."

Hy shook his head. "If Cole was a top agent then he didn't have any friends."

"He had one," I said.

"Who?"

"Velda."

"But-"

"So he could just as well have another. Someone who was in the same game with him during the war, someone he knew would realize the gravity of the situation and act immediately and someone he knew would be capable of fulfilling the mission."

"Who, Mike?"

I didn't tell him. "I'll call you when it's over. You tell Pat."

Down the street a squad car turned the corner. I went down the steps and went in the other direction, walking casually, then when I reached Ninth, I flagged a cab and gave him the parking lot where I had left Laura's car.

CHAPTER 12.

If I was wrong, the girl hunters would have Velda. She'd be dead. They wanted nothing of her except that she be dead. d.a.m.n their stinking hides anyway. d.a.m.n them and their philosophies! Death and destruction were the only things the Kremlin crowd was capable of. They knew the value of violence and death and used it over and over in a wild scheme to smash everything flat but their own kind.

But there was one thing they didn't know. They didn't know how to handle it when it came back to them and exploded in their own faces. Let her be dead Let her be dead, I thought, and I'll start a hunt of my own. They think they they can hunt? s.h.i.t. They didn't know how to be can hunt? s.h.i.t. They didn't know how to be really really violent. Death? I'd get them, every one, no matter how big or little, or wherever they were. I'd cut them down like so many grapes in ways that would scare the living c.r.a.p out of them and those next in line for my kill would never know a second's peace until their heads went flying every which way. violent. Death? I'd get them, every one, no matter how big or little, or wherever they were. I'd cut them down like so many grapes in ways that would scare the living c.r.a.p out of them and those next in line for my kill would never know a second's peace until their heads went flying every which way.

So I'd better not be wrong.

Dennis Wallace had known who was to pick up the crate. There wouldn't have been time for elaborate exchanges of coded recognition signals and if Dennis had known it was more than just a joke he might conceivably have backed out. No, it had to be quick and simple and not at all frightening. He had turned the crate over to a guy whose name had been given him and since it was big enough a truck would have been used in the delivery. He would have seen lettering on the truck, he would have been able to identify both it and the driver, and with some judicious knife work on his belly he would have had his memory jarred into remembering every single detail of the transaction.

I had to be right.

Art Rickerby had offered the clue.

The guy's name had to be Alex Bird, Richie's old war buddy in the O.S.S. who had a chicken farm up in Marlboro, New York, and who most likely had a pickup truck that could transport a crate. He would do the favor, keep his mouth shut and forget it the way he had been trained to, and it was just as likely he missed any newspaper squibs about Richie's death and so didn't show up to talk to the police when Richie was killed.

By the time I reached the George Washington Bridge the stars were wiped out of the night sky and you could smell the rain again. I took the Palisades Drive and where I turned off to pick up the Thruway the rain came down in fine slanting lines that laid a slick on the road and whipped in the window.

I liked a night like this. It could put a quiet on everything. Your feet walked softer and dogs never barked in the rain. It obscured visibility and overrode sounds that could give you away otherwise and sometimes was so soothing that you could be lulled into a death sleep. Yeah, I remembered other nights like this too. Death nights.

At Newburgh I turned off the Thruway, drove down 17K into town and turned north on 9W. I stopped at a gas station when I reached Marlboro and asked the attendant if he knew where Alex Bird lived.

Yes, he knew. He pointed the way out and just to be sure I sketched out the route then picked up the blacktop road that led back into the country.

I pa.s.sed by it the first time, turned around at the crossroad cursing to myself, then eased back up the road looking for the mailbox. There was no name on it, just a big wooden cutout of a bird. It was in the shadow of a tree before, but now my lights picked it out and when they did I spotted the drive, turned in, angled off into a cut in the bushes and killed the engine.

The farmhouse stood an eighth of a mile back off the road, an old building restored to more modern taste. In back of it, dimly lit by the soft glow of night lights, were two long chicken houses, the manure odor of them hanging in the wet air. On the right, a hundred feet away, a two-story boxlike barn stood in deep shadow, totally dark.

Only one light was on in the house when I reached it, downstairs on the chimney side and obviously in a living room. I held there a minute, letting my eyes get adjusted to the place. There were no cars around, but that didn't count since there were too many places to hide one. I took out the .45, jacked a sh.e.l.l in the chamber and thumbed the hammer back.

But before I could move another light went on in the opposite downstairs room. Behind the curtains a shadow moved slowly, purposefully, pa.s.sed the window several times then disappeared altogether. I waited, but the light didn't go out. Instead, one top-floor light came on, but too dimly to do more than vaguely outline the form of a person on the curtains.

Then it suddenly made sense to me and I ran across the distance to the door. Somebody was searching the house.

The door was locked and too heavy to kick in. I hoped the rain covered the racket I made, then laid my trench coat against the window and pushed. The gla.s.s shattered inward to the carpeted floor without much noise, I undid the catch, lifted the window and climbed over the sill.

Alex Bird would be the thin, balding guy tied to the straight-back chair. His head slumped forward, his chin on his chest and when I tilted his head back his eyes stared at me lifelessly. There was a small lumpy bruise on the side of his head where he had been hit, but outside of a chafing of his wrists and ankles, there were no other marks on him. His body had the warmth of death only a few minutes old and I had seen too many heart-attack cases not to be able to diagnose this one.

The Dragon had reached Alex Bird, all right. He had him right where he could make him talk and the little guy's heart exploded on him. That meant just one thing. He hadn't talked. The Dragon was still searching. He didn't know where she was yet! He didn't know where she was yet!

And right then, right that very second he was upstairs tearing the house apart!

The stairs were at a shallow angle reaching to the upper landing and I hugged the wall in the shadows until I could definitely place him from the sounds. I tried to keep from laughing out loud because I felt so good, and although I could hold back the laugh I couldn't suppress the grin. I could feel it stretch my face and felt the pull across my shoulders and back, then I got ready to go.

I knew when he felt it. When death is your business you have a feeling for it; an animal instinct can tell when it's close even when you can't see it or hear it. You just know it's there. And like he knew suddenly that I was there, I realized he knew it too.

Upstairs the sounds stopped abruptly. There was the smallest of metallic clicks clicks that could have been made by a gun, but that was all. Both of us were waiting. Both of us knew we wouldn't wait long. that could have been made by a gun, but that was all. Both of us were waiting. Both of us knew we wouldn't wait long.

You can't play games when time is so important. You take a chance on being hit and maybe living through it just so you get one clean shot in where it counts. You have to end the play knowing one must die and sometimes two and there's no other way. For the first time you both know it's pro against pro, two cold, calm killers facing each other down and there's no such thing as sportsmanship and if an advantage is offered it will be taken and whoever offered it will be dead.

We came around the corners simultaneously with the rolling thunder of the .45 blanking out the rod in his hand and I felt a sudden torch along my side and another on my arm. It was immediate and unaimed diversionary fire until you could get the target lined up and in the s.p.a.ce of four rapid-fire shots I saw him, huge at the top of the stairs, his high-cheekboned face truly Indianlike, the black hair low on his forehead and his mouth twisted open in the sheer enjoyment of what he was doing.

Then my shot slammed the gun out of his hand and the advantage was his because he was up there, a crazy killer with a scream on his lips and like the animal he was he reacted instantly and dove headlong at me through the acrid fumes of the gunsmoke.

The impact knocked me flat on my back, smashing into a corner table so that the lamp shattered into a million pieces beside my head. I had my hands on him, his coat tore, a long tattered slice of it in my fingers, then he kicked free with a snarl and a guttural curse, rolling to his feet like an acrobat. The .45 had skittered out of my hand and lay up against the step. All it needed was a quick movement and it was mine. He saw the action, figured the odds and knew he couldn't reach me before I had the gun, and while I grabbed it up he was into the living room and out the front door. The slide was forward and the hammer back so there was still one shot left at least and he couldn't afford the chance of losing. I saw his blurred shadow racing toward the drive and when my shadow broke the shaft of light coming from the door he swerved into the darkness of the barn and I let a shot go at him and heard it smash into the woodwork.

It was my last. This time the slide stayed back. I dropped the gun in the gra.s.s, ran to the barn before he could pull the door closed and dived into the darkness.

He was on me like a cat, but he made a mistake in reaching for my right hand thinking I had the gun there. I got the other hand in his face and d.a.m.n near tore it off. He didn't yell. He made a sound deep in his throat and went for my neck. He was big and strong and wild mean, but it was my kind of game too. I heaved up and threw him off, got to my feet and kicked out to where he was. I missed my aim, but my toe took him in the side and he grunted and came back with a vicious swipe of his hand I could only partially block. I felt his next move coming and let an old-time reflex take over. The judo bit is great if everything is going for you, but a terrible right cross to the face can destroy judo or karate or anything else if it gets there first.

My hand smashed into bone and flesh and with the meaty impact I could smell the blood and hear the gagging intake of his breath. He grabbed, his arms like great claws. He just held on and I knew if I couldn't break him loose he could kill me. He figured I'd start the knee coming up and turned to block it. But I did something worse, I grabbed him with my hands, squeezed and twisted and his scream was like a woman's, so high-pitched as almost to be noiseless, and in his frenzy of pain he shoved me so violently I lost that fanatical hold of what manhood I had left him, and with some blind hate driving him he came at me as I stumbled over something and fell on me like a wild beast, his teeth tearing at me, his hands searching and ripping and I felt the shock of incredible pain and ribs break under his pounding and I couldn't get him off no matter what I did, and he was holding me down and b.u.t.ting me with his head while he kept up that whistlelike screaming and in another minute it would be me dead and him alive, then Velda dead.

And when I thought of her name something happened, that little thing you have left over was there and I got my elbow up, smashed his head back unexpectedly, got a short one to his jaw again, then another, and another, and another, then I was on top of him and hitting, hitting, smashing-and he wasn't moving at all under me. He was breathing, but not moving.

I got up and found the doorway somehow, standing there to suck in great breaths of air. I could feel the blood running from my mouth and nose, wetting my shirt, and with each breath my side would wrench and tear. The two bullet burns were nothing compared to the rest. I had been squeezed dry, pulled apart, almost destroyed, but I had won. Now the son of a b.i.t.c.h would die.

Inside the door I found a light switch. It only threw on a small bulb overhead, but it was enough. I walked back to where he lay face up and then spat down on The Dragon. Mechanically, I searched his pockets, found nothing except money until I saw that one of my fists had torn his hair loose at the side and when I ripped the wig off there were several small strips of microfilm hidden there.

h.e.l.l, I didn't know what they were. I didn't care. I even grinned at the slob because he sure did look like an Indian now, only one that had been half scalped by an amateur. He was big, big. Cheekbones high, a Slavic cast to his eyes, his mouth a cruel slash, his eyebrows thick and black. Half bald, though, he wouldn't have looked too much like an Indian. Not our kind, anyway.

There was an ax on the wall, a long-handled, double-bitted ax with a finely honed edge and I picked it from the pegs and went back to The Dragon.

Just how did did you kill a dragon? I could bury the ax in his belly. That would be fun, all right. Stick it right in the middle of his skull and it would look at lot better. They wouldn't come fooling around after seeing pictures of that. How about the neck? One whack and his head would roll like the j.a.ps used to do. But nuts, why be that kind? you kill a dragon? I could bury the ax in his belly. That would be fun, all right. Stick it right in the middle of his skull and it would look at lot better. They wouldn't come fooling around after seeing pictures of that. How about the neck? One whack and his head would roll like the j.a.ps used to do. But nuts, why be that kind?

This guy was really really going to die. going to die.

I looked at the big pig, put the ax down and nudged him with my toe. What was it Art had said? Like about suffering? I thought he was nuts, but he could be right. Yeah, he sure could be right. Still, there had to be some indication that people were left who treat those Commie slobs like they liked to treat people.

Some indication.

He was Gorlin now, Comrade Gorlin. Dragons just aren't dragons anymore when they're bubbling blood over their chins.

I walked around the building looking for an indication indication.

I found it on a workbench in the back.

A twenty-penny nail and a ball-peen hammer. The nail seemed about four inches long and the head big as a dime.

I went back and turned Comrade Gorlin over on his face.

I stretched his arm out palm down on the floor.

I tapped the planks until I found a floor beam and put his hand on it.

It was too bad he wasn't conscious.

Then I held the nail in the middle of the back of his hand and slammed it in with the hammer and slammed and slammed and slammed until the head of that nail dimpled his skin and he was so tightly pinned to the floor like a piece of equipment he'd never get loose until he was pried out and he wasn't going to do it with a ball-peen. I threw the hammer down beside him and said, "Better'n handcuffs, buddy," but he didn't get the joke. He was still out.

Outside, the rain came down harder. It always does after a thing like that, trying to flush away the memory of it. I picked up my gun, took it in the house and dismantled it, wiped it dry and rea.s.sembled the piece.

Only then did I walk to the telephone and ask the operator to get me New York and the number I gave her was that of the Peerage Brokers. Art Rickerby answered the phone himself. He said, "Mike?"

"Yes."

For several seconds there was silence. "Mike-"

"I have him for you. He's still alive."

It was as though I had merely told him the time. "Thank you," he said.

"You'll cover for me on this."

"It will be taken care of. Where is he?"

I told him. I gave him the story then too. I told him to call Pat and Hy and let it all loose at once. Everything tied in. It was almost all wrapped up.

Art said, "One thing, Mike."

"What?"

"Your problem." problem."

"No trouble. It's over. I was standing here cleaning my gun and it all was like snapping my fingers. It was simple. If I had thought of it right away Dewey and Dennis Wallace and Alex Bird would still be alive. It was tragically simple. I could have found out where Velda was days ago."

"Mike-"