The Red Guard Read online

  The Hunts, of course, had no idea of Nick's real job. To them he was just an old friend who had enough money to live in New York, in a penthouse, without ever seeming to work. That wasn't important. What was important was that he was a nice guy they could trust. Their lamb would be safe with him. It would never have occurred to either of them that Nick Carter might not be safe with their lamb.

  Nick had time to make few arrangements. He reserved a room for the girl at the Barbizon for Women and wired Debbie at Sweet Briar to that effect. He would, he said in the telegram, get in touch with her at the hotel.

  She did not even go to the hotel. A little after six that evening, a fine mild October evening with a harvest moon impaled on the Empire State building, there came a rapping and a tapping at the door. Pok, Nick's Korean houseboy, answered it. Nick was lounging on a sofa in the study, a bell half-full of Remy Martin balanced on his big chest, puffing on a cigarette and staring at the ceiling. He was, in fact, and with no little dismay, thinking about the Hunt daughter. Why had he been chosen for this honor, for Pete's sake? He, of all people. He had even had to break a date with Lucia, a lovely Basque creature who sang at the Chez Madrid and who was, right now and perhaps never again, at the melting point. Nick took another sip of the brandy and cursed softly. Old friends could be a pain in the behind! This Debbie, he thought, was probably fat, knock-kneed and had a spotty skin. Or she was skinny, wore horned-rims and was a brain. No matter. She was a kid, just a kid, and they were both in for a hell of a boring time. He drank more brandy and cursed again. He wouldn't get high, of course, but he had better drink now. After their evening out, whatever it turned out to be, he would probably have to take her to a milk bar.

  Pok came into the study. He had been with Nick for some time now, was going to school, and his English was much improved. He made a neat little figure in his dark trousers and starched white jacket, but the moment he spoke Nick knew something was wrong. Nick had become very attuned to Pok's moods. When he went all bland and Oriental, formal, very Mysterious East, it was because he did not approve of something.

  Pok was adopting that tone now. Nick was at a loss. He had been a good boy of late and, as far as he knew, was in pretty good with Pok.

  "Is young girl to see you," Pok said. "Very young girl. Most pretty. She say she is expected and is staying here." Pok crossed his white-clad arms and squeezed his epicanthic folds until his eyes were only obsidian slits glinting at Nick. The perfect picture, Nick thought, of the patient and disapproving servitor.

  "I don't know any young girls," Nick said, knowing damned well who it was, who it had to be. He had checked the Barbizon half an hour ago, to be told that Miss Debbie Hunt had not yet checked in.

  "She know you," Pok said. His expression was inscrutable. "She say old friend of family. Most insistent."

  Nick swung his feet off the sofa. "It's all right. But she wasn't supposed to come here. I got a room for her at a hotel. But send her in, Pok. And Pok…"

  The boy turned at the door, waiting. "Yis, sar?"

  "What is she like? Fat? Skinny? Pimples?" Might as well know the worst.

  For a moment Pok's stiffness melted. He grinned and with his hands outlined a coke bottle in the air. "Is Number One. Most lovely. Also most young! Too young for you, sar. For me, yis. For you, no!"

  It occurred to Nick that Pok, of late, had developed a tendency to prejudge — the boy automatically leaped to the conclusion that any woman who came to the penthouse was there for reasons of sex. You could, the AXE agent admitted, hardly fault the boy for that. It was usually the case. But Killmaster knew his Orientals, knew also that there was a time for kidding and a time for snapping the whip a bit. Pok had, of late, been getting a bit above himself. To Nick it was simply a matter of discipline — you were either Number One or you weren't.

  Now he frowned at the boy and spoke very quietly. "That will be all of that, Pok. When I want your comment on my personal affairs I'll ask for it. Now show the young lady in."

  His face a café au lait mask, the boy bowed, hissed a bit and walked from the room. He had gotten the message. A grin twitched at the corner of Nick Carter's mouth. Pok was a good kid. It was just that every now and then he needed a firm rein.

  Pok came back with the girl. He said: "Missy Hunt, masta!" He vanished. The Parthian shot was not wasted on Nick. Pok was having the last word.

  The girl came halfway into the study and stood looking around her. Nick tried not to stare as he went forward and extended a hand. She was tiny and exceedingly lovely. And a child. His big hand smothered her little one and he felt as if he had touched a flower. He caught a waft of her scent — that was not juvenile!

  Debbie Hunt squeezed his hand. She clung to it She stepped closer to him and looked up into his eyes. Her own eyes were gray, with clear white corneas. They were as enormous as saucers in a piquant triangular face. Her golden cap of hair was cut short, in what Nick vaguely recognized as a Twiggy hairdo.

  She was still holding Nick's hand. Now she gave it a gentle pressure and stepped back, her huge eyes still riveted on him. "I hope you don't mind me coming here, Mr. Carter. I hate and despise hotels. Especially the sort you picked, Mr. Carter. I checked with some of the girls at school — the Barbizon is a terrible place, Mr. Carter. Really grue. I really couldn't stay there, don't you see? Sweet Briar is a girls' school, Mr. Carter, in case you didn't know!" Debbie placed a well-manicured finger on her slim throat. "I have girls up to here, Mr. Carter, all day and every day. I came to New York to have fun."

  Nick Carter felt, absurdly felt, that he was standing there with egg on his face. He was conscious that he had a bell of Remy Martin in one hand and a cigarette in the other, that he was staring and that he probably looked pretty damned silly doing it.

  There was a short silence, which the girl solved by walking to a leather chair and falling into it. "I'm pretty beat," she told him. "I had hell's hectic time getting away from school. I'd like a drink and a cigarette, please."

  Debbie Hunt crossed her legs with a slither of nylon. She was wearing a miniskirt and long, long beige stockings that were still not long enough. Nick had a brief view of stocking welt and garter before she tugged the brief skirt into some semblance of concealment. Her legs were slim, bordering on thin, but in perfect proportion to the rest of her slight body.

  She saw him looking at her legs and smiled. Her teeth were small and white. She said: "Not very good legs, are they? I know — I'm too skinny. I hope I fill out one day. But please don't stare, Mr. Carter. I like older men, but I hate dirty old men. I hope you're not going to turn out to be one, because I think I like you already."

  Nick cleared his throat. He felt a little foolish, like a stranger in his own house, and it was beginning to make him angry. He frowned at the girl. "Do your parents allow you to drink? And smoke?"

  The smile she gave him was radiant — and full of pity. Her mouth was just a trifle wide for the short, straight nose, but it saved her face from mere prettiness, helped mold the flawless young wax into proleptic character. She leaned forward in her chair. "Of course they do, Mr. Carter. I am twenty-one, you know. I have Martinis every evening with Dad and Mother, when I'm home, and I smoke when I please. Really!"

  Nick got the message. The «really» was not a buttressing of truth. It was an exclamation, nearly an epithet.

  Nick Carter surrendered. He went to the bar for another cognac bell, thinking that if she was twenty-one he was an agent for KGB.

  He gave her a drink and one of his long, gold-tipped cigarettes. She inhaled deeply, blew smoke through her pert nostrils and rubbed the glass bell appreciatively between small hands, sniffing at it. She shrugged out of her mink jacket and dropped it beside her chair, revealing breasts that, compared to the rest of her, were surprisingly large and firm.

  Debbie caught his glance and guessed his thoughts. She smiled and patted her chest. "It's really all me," she said. "Not the bra."

  By now the AXE agent was just irritated enough to fight fire with fire, candor with candor. He was out of his depth and knew it. He had a most ominous prescience that this whole thing was going to be a mess — and sensed that the real struggle was going to be within himself — yet he was not going to let this pretty little pip-squeak just walk in and take over. He didn't want her here. She didn't belong here. And if he had any brains at all he would call Pok and…

  Debbie was a counter-puncher. She caught him off balance again. She stared at him with those huge eyes, over the rim of the brandy bell, and said: "Now you're angry with me, Mr. Carter. Why? Because I speak frankly? Because I'm not ashamed of my body?"

  The answer came to Nick Carter then. How to handle this little smart-alecky bitch. What she really needed, he thought, was a good brush applied to those neat buttocks. But he wasn't her father! Neither was he a gnat-assed college boy with long hair and pimples.

  He had the answer. She wanted to be so pseudosophisticated, so damned grown-up, then treat her that way! She'd back down soon enough.

  His glance was cold as he said, "I'm not angry, Miss Hunt. Amused, I think. For some reason you seem to think that every glance, every gesture of mine, is related to your body. It isn't, Miss Hunt It's a very nice body, I'm sure, but I'm not interested. Go away and grow up, Miss Hunt. Come back in ten years. Then maybe I'll be interested."

  Debbie leaned back in her chair. She recrossed her legs and this time did not bother to arrange the miniskirt. She leaned back and caressed the brandy bell and smiled at him. "I won't be interested in ten years, Mr. Carter. By then I'll be married and have babies, But let's be friends, shall we? I'm sorry. I know it was rude to barge in on you like this, but I simply couldn't stand the thought of that hotel! And as for the way I talk — you'll just have to forgive that, or anyway overl
ook it. It's just me. The way I am. I guess I do think about sex a lot and talk about it too much. I can't help that, either. I think sex is the most precious and delicious thing in the whole world. And we girls get damned little of it at Sweet Briar — apart from the Lesbians, and I detest them!"

  Nick knew his mouth was hanging open. He put the brandy bell to it and gulped. In his career as a licensed killer he had been maced a great many times. He felt maced now, as though an expert enemy had laid a rubber truncheon or a sap across the nape of his neck. He glanced at his watch. She had been in the room ten minutes, and already the conversation was completely out of hand.

  Debbie had curled up in the big chair, her slim legs under her, the miniskirt high on her thighs. Her smile was taunting. "Do you want me to go, Mr. Carter? There are plenty of other hotels besides the Barbizon. We can always think up some story for Dad and Mother."

  That did it. Meredith and Faith Hunt expected him to look after their child. She was a smart little teenybopper — whatever that was — and something of a brat, and she talked too big and too much, but he couldn't let her go running around the New York jungle by herself. No telling where she would end up — dead in the East River was a possibility, or in a vacant lot in Queens. Maybe a pot party in the Village.

  Nick almost groaned aloud. Damn Meredith and Faith, anyway. They couldn't have the faintest idea what their daughter was really like. Meredith, especially, couldn't know. He was a roughhewn character, a former Merchant Marine officer who, in his prime, had demolished most of the bars along the North African coast. He was, as Nick well knew, an exponent of the razor strop and woodshed school for children. But something had gone sorely amiss here. Nick sighed, lit a new cigarette and looked at the girl. You couldn't blame the Hunts, he supposed. It was happening to all parents today. It was 1967, and the age of permissiveness and the teen-agers were taking over the world. Only not his world!

  He tried not to glare at her. "You stay here," he said. "I'll have Pok get your room ready. I suppose you've got bags? Luggage?"

  Debbie wriggled in the big chair. "Two huge ones. Bags, I mean. In your foyer."

  She was again showing an enormous reach of slim leg, and Nick averted his eyes. He went to the mantel over the fireplace and picked up a small white envelope. "You'd better start getting ready, then. I've got tickets for a concert tonight at little Carnegie Hall. A pianoforte recital."

  Debbie made some sort of strangled noise. "A what?"

  Nick fixed her with a cold eye. "A pianoforte recital. Herman Gross. A very fine young pianist. Later, if you behave yourself, I may take you to 21."

  Debbie got up and smoothed her skirt. It came a good six inches above her knees. "Another thing," Nick said. "Wear a gown tonight, a real dress. I suppose you've got one?"

  She nodded. "I have. An evening gown, I mean. But it's mini, too. Sorry."

  She came to him and patted his cheek with a small hand. She was, he reckoned, not quite five feet tall. She stood only a little above his chest. Again he was aware of the very grown-up, very female, very sexy perfume. Debbie patted his cheek again — he needed a shave — and looked at him with those huge eyes.

  "I'm sorry," she said softly. "I'm sorry I'm such a brat. I'll try not to be. I think I like you, Nick. I can call you that? Dad always does." When he nodded brusquely she went on. "I do like you, Nick. And you're not a dirty old man. I'm sure of that now. You're just an older man, and that's fine. I, we, won't have to worry about the sex thing, will we? We can be good friends and talk. We'll have a wonderful time. Tell each other things." She drew her soft fingers down his cheek. "It will be just like talking to an uncle, or an older brother. We can be honest with each other!"

  There was something wrong with the picture she was drawing. Nick knew it, and resented it, but there wasn't a damned thing he could do, or say, without shattering the image he had just started to build. Uncle! Brother! He found himself wishing, with complete illogic, that she was a few years older and not the daughter of friends. He would show her something about older men! This — this junior Jezebel.

  Debbie turned away from him. She smiled and pirouetted on one toe. She was wearing scuffed tan flats. "There is one thing," she told him. "About tonight, I mean. The recital, I mean. I really get enough music at Sweet Briar, Nick darling. My minor is music. I'd much rather do something else, if you don't mind."

  He regarded her with suspicion. "Such as?"

  She did not look at him as she swung around the big study, dancing for him, pirouetting, her brief skirt flaring up to show the fringes of black panties. "I've never been to an LSD party," she said. "Couldn't we, Nick? Please Couldn't you find one?"

  He let out a roar. "Pok!"

  Debbie stopped dancing and stared at him. "I guess we can't, huh?"

  "You guess right. We go to the recital."

  Pok came to stand just inside the door, his face a bland mask of concealed hurt. He did not look directly at Nick, who had already forgotten the disciplinary incident, but remembered it now. He scowled at the boy. "Show Deb — Miss Hunt to her room. Be sure there are plenty of towels and washcloths, you know."

  Pok bobbed his head and left the room and waited in the corridor for the girl.

  Debbie gazed after him. "He's cute. Nice. I like him."

  "So he is," Nick said dourly. "I'd like to keep him that way. Hands off, Debbie. Pok is not for experimenting."

  "You needn't worry." She danced past him toward the door. "I never sleep with the servants — only the masters. Young masters, that is."

  Nick Carter said, "There's something on the recital program this evening that might be very apropos — the young man is going to play a suite from the Kindertotenlieder. It's an idea."

  Debbie stuck out her small red tongue at him. "The Children's Death Music? Very funnee, Nick! But you won't have to kill me — the recital will probably do that. I'll die of boredom!"

  * * *

  Now it was after midnight, and he had lost control of the evening and of Debbie. They had gone to the pianoforte recital — Debbie in a white minigown and gold-spangled stockings — and that had lasted exactly fifteen minutes. She waited patiently enough through some of Chopin's "Etudes in C Minor", then suddenly leaned to Nick and put her moist little mouth against his ear.

  "This stinks. I want to go. Right now."

  "You stay," he said grimly. "And keep quiet."

  Her mouth was still against his ear. Suddenly she ran a sharp warm tongue into his ear. She giggled. "We go. If you don't, I'll make a scene. I'll scream. I'll call you a dirty old man and scream that you're trying to feel me!"

  Nick felt himself go tense. He had no doubt that she would carry out her threat. He had given her another drink of cognac before they left the penthouse, and that had been a mistake. She held her booze remarkably well for a kid, but she was not exactly sober. Nor was he, for that matter. After she had left the study he had had several drinks, fast.

  Now he said, "Stay until he plays Kindertotenlieder. Maybe it will give me inspiration, let me cast off the shackles of inhibition. We'll give them a real show!" For a moment he allowed himself to dream — he would pull up that miniskirt, pull down her panties, and whack hell out of that pink little ass.

  Debbie was shrugging into her mink jacket. "Coming or staying, old Nickie? I don't really need you, you know. I can find where the action is without you!"

  He was afraid of just that. Again he surrendered. It was either that or use muscle on her, grab her and keep her in the box by main force. That would have been simple enough in itself, but it might just cause a little disturbance, was bound to appear a bit odd to the music lovers around them. As it was, a fat dowager — with a real lorgnette, so help him God! — had been casting suspicious glances from the adjoining box. Probably thought he was Humbert Humbert with little L.

  Nick stood up. "All right," he told her wearily. "You win. But I'm going to write your Dad and tell him about this whole business."

  The dowager lady glared at them and hissed "Shssssssss!"

  Nick hauled Debbie out of the box into the corridor. She patted his cheek, then kissed it with her wet rose mouth. "Thanks, old Nickie. I was perishing. And you won't write Dad, either. You may be a dirty old man, but I don't think you're a stool pigeon."