Hood of Death Read online

  He saw her eyes widen, then knew by the warmth and softness of her expression that she decided he was telling the truth — which he was — and she loved it.

  Any girl would, if she believed you, and the build-up and setting and mounting intimacy were right tonight. His double might have brought fifty girls here — knowing Deming he probably had — but Nick was telling the truth and Ruth's intuition verified it.

  He built martinis with swift motions while Ruth sat watching him across the narrow oaken bar, her chin in her hands, her black eyes dreamy-alert. Her flawless skin still gleamed with the emotion he had aroused and Nick caught his breath at the astonishingly beautiful portrait she made as he put the glass in front of her and poured.

  She's bought it but won't believe it, he thought. Oriental caution, or the doubts women harbor even as their emotions lead them astray. He said softly, "To you, Ruthie. The prettiest picture I've ever seen. An artist would love to paint you right this instant."

  "Thank you. You make me feel — very happy and warm, Jerry."

  Her eyes glowed at him over the cocktail glass. He listened. Nothing. They were coming through the forest now, or perhaps had already reached the smooth green carpet of lawn. They would circle carefully and soon discover that the picture windows were ideal for observation of those inside the house.

  I'm bait. We didn't mention it, but I'm just the cheese in the AXE trap. It was the only way. Hawk wouldn't have set it up like this if there were any other out. Three men of importance dead. Natural causes on the death certificates. No leads. No clues. No pattern.

  You couldn't give the bait much protection, Nick mused grimly, because you didn't have any idea what might scare the quarry, or at what strange level it might appear. If you set up complicated safeguards, one of them might be part of the pattern you were seeking to uncover. Hawk had decided on the only logical course — his most trusted agent would be the bait.

  Nick had followed as closely as he could the Washington paths of the dead men. Unobtrusively he received invitations via Hawk to innumerable parties, receptions and business and social gatherings. He went to convention hotels, embassies, private homes and estates and clubs from the Georgetown to the University and Union League. He grew sick of hors d'oeuvres and filet mignons and he became tired of climbing in and out of dinner jackets. The laundry didn't return his pleat-front dress shirts fast enough and he had to call Rogers Peet to deliver a dozen by special messenger.

  He had met dozens of important men and beautiful women and he received dozens of invitations which he respectfully declined, except for those which involved people the dead men had known or places they had gone. He was instantly popular and most women found his quiet attentiveness fascinating. When they discovered that he was an "executive in oil" and single, some of them were persistent by note and telephone.

  He had turned up exactly nothing. Ruth and her father seemed perfectly respectable and he asked himself if he was honestly checking her out because his built-in trouble antenna gave a slight spark — or because she was the most desirable beauty of the hundreds he had met in the last few weeks.

  He smiled into the gorgeous dark eyes and captured her hand where it lay on the polished oak near his own. There was one question: Who was out there and how had they picked up his trail in the Thunderbird? And why? Had he actually struck oil? He grinned at the situation pun as Ruth said softly, "You're a strange man, Gerald Deming. You're more than you seem."

  "Is that some wisdom from the Orient or Zen or what?"

  "I think a German philosopher said it first as a maxim — 'Be more than you seem.' But I've been watching your face and eyes. You've been far away from me."

  "Just dreaming."

  "Have you always been in the oil business?"

  "More or less." He spun his prefabricated story. "I was born in Kansas and drifted down to the oil fields. Spent some time in the Mideast and made friends with a few of the right men and got lucky." He sighed and grimaced.

  "Go on. You thought of something and stopped..."

  "Now I'm about as far up as I'll go. It's a good job and I ought to be satisfied. But if I had a college degree I wouldn't be limited."

  She squeezed his hand. "You'll find a way around that. You have — you have a vibrant personality."

  "I've been around." He grinned and added the sleeper. "Actually I have done more than I tell. In fact a couple of times I didn't use the name Deming. It was a fast deal in the Mideast and if we could have stood off the London cartel for a few months I'd be a rich man today."

  He shook his head as if in deep regret and stepped to the hi-fi console and switched from the player to the radio bands. In a shower of static he spun down the frequencies and in the long waves he caught it — bip— bip— bip. So that was how they followed him! Now the question was, had a beeper been hidden on his car without Ruth's knowledge, or did his beautiful guest carry it in her handbag or fastened to her clothing or — you had to be thorough — in a plastic suppository? He switched back to a recording, the strong, sensual imagery of Peter Tschaikovsky's Fourth, and ambled back to the bar. "How about that swim?"

  "Love it. Give me a minute to finish this."

  "Want another?"

  "After we swim."

  "Okay."

  "And — where's the bathroom, please?"

  "Right here..."

  He conducted her into the master bedroom and showed her the big bath with its Roman sunken tub in pink ceramic tile. She kissed him lightly and went in and closed the door.

  Swiftly he returned to the bar where she had left her handbag. Usually they took them to the John. A trap? He was careful not to disturb its position or arrangement as he checked its contents. Lipstick, bills in a money clip, small gold lighter which he opened and inspected, a credit card... nothing which might be the beeper. He replaced the items precisely and picked up his drink.

  When would they come? When he was in the pool with her? He disliked the helpless feeling which the situation gave him, a nasty sense of exposure, the unpleasant fact that he couldn't strike first.

  He wondered dourly if he had been in the business too long. If weapons meant confidence he ought to quit Did he feel defenseless because thin-bladed Hugo wasn't strapped to his forearm? You couldn't cuddle a girl much with Hugo on you before she'd feel it.

  Lugging Wilhelmina, the modified Luger with which he could usually hit a fly at sixty feet, was also impossible in his role of Deming-the-Target. If felt or found, it was a giveaway. He had to agree with Eglinton, the AXE gunsmith, that Wilhelmina had drawbacks as a favorite arm. Eglinton altered them as he wanted them, installing three-inch barrels on perfect actions and fitting them with butt plates of thin transparent plastic. It reduced the size and cut the weight, and you could see the cartridges march up the ramp like a stick of little bottle-nosed bombs — but it was still a lot of gun to carry.

  "Call it psychological," he had argued with Eglinton. "My Wilhelminas have got me through some tough ones. I know exactly what I can do from every angle and every position. I must have burned ten thousand rounds of the nine-milly in my time. I like the gun."

  "Take another look at this S. & W., Chief," Eglinton had urged.

  "Would you try and talk Babe Ruth out of his favorite bat? Tell the Mets to switch gloves? I go hunting with an old guy in Maine who has got his deer every year for forty-three years with a Springfield 1903. Ill take you up there with me this summer and let you talk him into using one of the new autoloaders."

  Eglinton had given up. Nick chuckled at the memory. He glanced at the brass lamp that hung above the giant couch in the conversation pit across the room. He wasn't entirely helpless. AXE craftsmen had done what they could. Yank that lamp and down came the ceiling wallboard, carrying with it a Swedish Carl Gustav SMG Parabellum with its stock in place for you to grab.

  In the car's compartment were Wilhelmina and Hugo and a tiny gas bomb known by the codeword Pierre. Under the bar the fourth bottle of gin on the left side of t
he locker contained a tasteless version of Michael Finn that would put you out in about fifteen seconds. And in the garage the next to last coat hook — the one with the shabby, least attractive raincoat — would open the hook-board with a full turn to the left. Wilhelmina's twin sister lay there on a shelf between the studs.

  He listened. Frowned. Nick Carter with nerves? You couldn't hear anything with Tschaikovsky's masterpiece pouring out its suggestive theme.

  It was the waiting. And the doubt. If you went for a weapon too soon you ruined the whole expensive set-up. If you waited too long you might get dead. How had they killed those three? If they did? Hawk had never been wrong...

  "Hi," Ruth came around the archway. "Still feel like a swim?"

  He met her halfway across the room, took her in his arms and kissed her thoroughly, and led her back into the bedroom. "More than ever. Just thinking about you sends my temperature up. I need a dunking."

  She laughed and stood by the king-size bed, looking uncertain as he stripped off his dinner jacket and pulled the knot from his maroon tie. When the matching cummerbund hit the bed she said timidly, "Do you have a suit for me?"

  "Sure," he smiled as he popped the gray pearl studs from his shirt. "But who needs 'em? Are we that old-fashioned? I hear in Japan the boys and girls hardly bother with suits at all in the baths. You just want a suit so you can go home and tell them that I'm a square?"

  She looked at him quizzically and he caught his breath as the highlights danced in her eyes like sparks caught in obsidian.

  "We wouldn't want that to happen," she said throatily and in a low key. She unfastened the buttons of the trim sharkskin, he looked away and heard the promising z-z-z-z of a hidden zipper, and when he looked again she was laying the dress neatly on the bed.

  With an effort he kept his eyes from her until he was completely nude, then he turned casually and gave himself a treat — and his heart gave a slight thump, he was sure, as it began to increase his blood pressure.

  He had seen them all, he had thought. From tall Scandinavians to robust Australians, in Kamathipura and Ho-Phang Road and in the politician's palace in Hamburg where you paid a hundred dollars just to get in. But you, Ruthie, he thought, are something else again!

  She had turned heads at exclusive parties where the competition was picked from the best available in the world, and she had had her clothes on then. Now, standing naked against the background of the oyster-white wall and the rich blue carpeting, she looked like something which had been especially painted for a harem wall — to inspire the owner.

  Her body was firm and flawless, her breasts high-riding twins with the nipples high-centered like redball signals — beware explosives. Her skin was flawless from brow to pink enameled toes, her pubic hair was an exciting bib of soft blackness. He was locked in place. She had him for the moment and she knew it. She carried one long fingernail up under her lips and tapped her chin questioningly. Her eyebrows, plucked in high curves to add just enough roundness above the slight slant of her eyes, came down — went up. "You approve, Jerry?"

  "You..." He swallowed, choosing his words carefully. "You are one tremendous package of beautiful woman. I'd like — I'd like a picture of you. Just as you are this moment."

  "That's one of the nicest things anyone ever said to me. You have some artist in you." She picked up two cigarettes from his pack on the bed, centered one after another in her lips for him to hold a light. After she handed him one she said, "I'm not sure I'd have done this except for what you said..."

  "What I said?"

  "About my being the only girl you've brought here. Somehow — I know that's true."

  "How do you know?"

  Her eyes became dreamy behind the blue smoke. "I'm not sure. It would be a typical lie for a man to tell, but I knew you were telling the truth."

  Nick put a hand on her upper arm. It was round and satiny and firm as an athlete's under the tan skin. "It was the truth, my dear."

  She said, "You have a tremendous body yourself, Jerry. I didn't realize. How much do you weigh?"

  "Two-ten. Give or take the day."

  She felt his arm, around which her slim hand hardly curved, so flat-hard was the surface above the bone. "You get lots of exercise. That's good for anyone. I was afraid that you'd be like so many men today. They grow paunches behind those desks. Even the youngsters at the Pentagon. It's shameful."

  He thought, This isn't really the time or place but, oh brother, and took her in his arms and their bodies melded into one column of responsive flesh. She put both arms around his neck and pressed in his fervent embrace her feet left the floor and she spread them apart several times like a ballet dancer, but with a more jerky, vigorous and excited movement, like a muscular reflex.

  Nick was in excellent physical shape. His program of both body and mind exercises was faithfully practiced. They included control of his libido, but he failed to catch himself in time. His distended, passionate flesh swelled between them. She kissed him, deeply, her body pressed against his.

  He felt as if a child's sparkler had been drawn up his spine from coccyx to crown — lit. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing like a mile runner near the two-minute mark. The gusts from her lungs felt like lascivious jets aimed to sear his throat. Without disturbing her position he took the three short steps to the edge of the bed.

  He wished he had listened harder — but it wouldn't have done any good. He felt— or perhaps caught a reflection or a shadow — the man step into the room.

  "Put her down and turn around. Slowly."

  It was a deep voice. The words came loud and clear, with just a touch of rolling guttural. They sounded as if they came from a man used to being obeyed to the letter.

  Nick obeyed. He quarter-turned and put Ruth down. He took another slow quarter-turn to face a blond giant of a man, about his own age and easily as big as himself.

  In a big hand, held low and steady and fairly close-in to his body, the man held what Nick easily identified as a Walther P-38. Even without his perfect handling of the weapon you would know that this lad knew his business.

  This, Nick thought regretfully, is it. All the judo and savate in the world don't help you in a situation like this. He knows them, too, because he knows his trade.

  If he has come to kill you, you're dead.

  Chapter II

  Nick remained frozen in place. If the big blond man's blue eyes had tensed or flared Nick would have tried a rolling fall — McDonald's Singapore reliable which had saved a lot of men's lives and gotten a lot of men killed. It all depended on your opposition. The P-38 didn't waver. It might have been thumbscrewed into a test-firing mount.

  A short, slim man came into the room behind the big fellow. He had brown skin and features that looked as if they had been smeared on in the dark by the thumb of an amateur sculptor. His face was hard and his mouth expressed a bitterness that must have taken centuries to build up. Nick wondered — Malay, Filipino, Indonesian? Take your pick. There are over 4,000 islands out there. The smaller man held a Walther, too, with nice firmness and pointed at the floor. Another professional. "Nobody else here," he said.

  The record player suddenly stopped. That meant a third man.

  Big blond regarded Nick impassively, waiting. Then without losing focus on him they roved over Ruth and a flicker of amusement showed at the corner of one lip. Nick let out his breath — when they showed emotion or talked they usually didn't shoot — right away.

  "You've got good taste," the man said. "I haven't seen a dish as tasty as that in years."

  Nick was tempted to say go ahead and have a meal if that's your thing, but he bit it off. Instead he nodded, slowly.

  He turned his eyes sideways without moving his head and saw that Ruth was petrified, standing with the back of one hand pressed against her mouth, the other clenched knuckles-up in front of her navel. Her black eyes were fastened on the gun.

  Nick said, "You're scaring her. My wallet is in my pants there. You'll find
about two hundred. No use anybody getting hurt."

  "That's right. You don't even think about making any fast moves and perhaps no one will be. I'm a believer in self-preservation, though. Jump. Jerk. Reach. I just have to shoot. A man is a fool to take chances. I mean that I would consider myself a fool not to kill you quickly."

  "I get your point of view. I'm not even planning to scratch my neck and it's itching."

  "Go ahead. Very slowly. Don't want to now? All right." The man ran his eyes up and down Nick's body. "We are built very much alike. You're big all over. Where did you get all those scars?"

  "Korea. I was very young and foolish."

  "Grenade?"

  "Shrapnel," Nick said, hoping the lad hadn't had too many looks at infantry casualties. Shrapnel rarely stitched you on both sides. The collection of scars were his mementos of his years with AXE. He hoped he wasn't about to add to them; P-38 slugs are vicious. A man once took three and is still around — the odds are four hundred to one for surviving with two.

  "A brave man," the other said in a tone that was commentary, not compliment.

  "I was hiding in the biggest hole I could find. If I could have located a bigger one I'd have been in it."

  "This woman is beautiful, but don't you prefer white women?"

  "I love to love them all," Nick replied. The guy was supercool or crazy. Cracking like that with a brown man behind him with a gun.

  A horrible face appeared in the doorway behind the other two. Ruth gasped. Nick said, 'Take it easy, baby."

  The face was a rubber mask worn by a third man of medium size. He had apparently chosen the most horrible one they had in stock, red gaping mouth with protruding teeth, a fake bloody slash down one side. Mr. Hyde on a bad day. He handed a coil of white line and a large jackknife to the small man.