The Girl Hunters

My hand stopped the old guy and I walked back to the cot. 'Who else wanted Dennis, Red?'

'Guy--gimme this pint.' He reached for the bottle, but was unable to make immediate contact. When he did he sucked at the mouth of it, swallowed as though it was filled and put the bottle down.

'What did he look like, Red?'

'Oh--' he lolled back against the wall. 'Big guy. Like you.'

'Go on.'

'Mean. Son of a--he was mean. You ever see--mean ones? Like a damn Indian. Something like Injun Pete on the Darby Standard--he--'

I didn't bother to hear him finish. I looked straight at Hy and felt cold all over. 'The Dragon,' I said. 'He's one step up.'

Hy had a quiet look on his face. 'That's what I almost forgot to tell you about, Mike.'

'What?'

'The Dragon. I got inside the code name from our people overseas. There may be two guys because The Dragon code breaks down to tooth and nail. When they operate as a team they're simply referred to as The Dragon.'

'Great,' I said. 'Swell. That's all we need for odds.' My mouth had a bad taste in it. 'Show us Dennis's place, Bayliss. We can't stay here any longer.'

'Not me,' he said. 'You guys go it alone. Whatever it is that's going on, I don't like it. I'll tell you where, but I'm not going in any more dark places with you. Right now I'm going back to Benny Joe Grissi's bar and get stinking drunk where you can't get at me and if anything happens I'll read about it in the papers tomorrow.'

'Good enough, old-timer. Now where does Dennis live?'

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 muffled 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 knob, 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 assumed 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 poop.'

'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 newsstand 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. Damn their stinking hides anyway. Damn 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, I thought, and I'll start a hunt of my own. They think they can hunt? Shit. They didn't know how to be 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 crap 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.