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 the 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.