Nick sighed again. Then he scooped bags and parcels from the beach wagon and trudged up the slope after her.
Janet was at the bar mixing martinis when Nick entered the spacious beach house. Nick lugged the groceries into the kitchen. She won't, he thought as he stored things away, have much trouble finding a new man. Someone to marry. That's what she really wants.
When he joined her Janet was perched on a bar stool smoking a cigarette and staring into the fast pervading gloom. When Nick moved to turn on the lights she said: "No! Leave them off, honey. Suits my mood right now. But you might start the fire — please?"
Here we go, Nick thought as he touched a match to the already laid kindling and logs in the great fieldstone fireplace. A farewell scene played to martinis and fire-light.
He went to sit beside her. Still wearing only the jock. Janet swiveled on her stool and looked him up and down. "You know something, you bastard? You look like a Greek god! Anyone ever tell you that before?"
Nick straddled the stool beside her. "Well, yes — there was a little Greek girl back around 360 B.C. who said…"
"Nick! Please don't! Not tonight."
Janet's face was a pale heart shaped blur in the gloom. Her voice quavered. "Let's be serious this last time together. Serious — and completely honest." She gulped her martini.
"You'd better slow down," he warned, "or you'll be completely passed out."
"I don't give a damn, darling! You don't either, not really." She finished her drink and reached for the shining frosted pitcher of martinis. "Do you?"
Nick told her the exact truth. "Of course I give a damn. I don't want you sodden. I like you, Janet. We've had a hell of a good time together and…"
She didn't let him finish. "But don't get sloppy when it's over?"
Janet filled her glass again. "Okay — I won't. But I'll get drunk. That all right?"
"Up to you," said Nick. "Maybe I'll get a little drunk with you." He tasted his martini. Just right. Cold and very dry. Janet was a good bartender.
"You? You drunk? That I would like to see. You drink gallons and you're always as sober as a judge. You drink the way you do everything else — perfectly!"
She half turned away from him, drinking, a cigarette smouldering between her lingers. Logs were catching in the fireplace now, popping and cracking and casting little whorls of roseate flame. After a long silence Janet said, so softly that Nick could barely hear: "They are not long, the days of wine and roses…"
"I always liked that one," Nick said. He spoke as softly as she had. "Ernest Dowson, isn't it?"
To his surprise Janet laughed. "You see what I mean, Nicholas boy! You even know poetry. You're perfect! Maybe that's why I want you so much. A perfect man is hard to find these days."
Nick sipped his martini. Coldly and without rancor he said, "Drink your goddamned drink and get blistered if you want to! Only don't get maudlin. I can't stand maudlin women."
Janet put her head down on the bar and began to weep softly. Nick regarded her dispassionately.
Without looking up, without ceasing to cry, Janet said: "You are going to leave me, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"You aren't coming back, are you?"
"No."
She sat bolt upright. She finished the last of her drink. She wiped at her eyes with the back of one hand. She turned to him in the fire-splattered gloom and he felt the burn of her flesh on his. Her hand reached for him.
"So that is that," she said. "And damn you, Nick Carter. But before you leave you're going to give me something to remember you by! Tonight I want you to do everything to me. Don't hold off the way you do to keep from hurting me! You do hurt me, you know. I'm too little and you're too damn big, but tonight forget it. Promise?"
Nick told her that he promised. It was, oddly enough, in that moment that he felt a fleeting tenderness for her. It surprised and somewhat dismayed him. Tenderness was a dangerous emotion. It brought your guard down.
In one corner of the large room was a rattan couch covered with soft cushions. Nick picked Janet up and carried her to it. She crooked an arm behind her to unsnap her halter. Her little breasts, like soft pale fruits with sugar candy tips, pressed into Nick's face as he put her gently down on the couch. Her little hands, strong as talons, reached for the single sketchy jock he wore and tugged it down his legs. Nick stepped out of the strap and immediately her hands were avid for his body, demanding, caressing, pinching, stroking.
Janet deftly arranged herself on the couch, her sepia and white limbs glimmering in the firelight. She studied Nick's readiness and her red little mouth rounded into an O of delight and anticipation. She stroked her breasts once with her fingertips and then let the motion segue into one of outthrown arms of invitation.
"Come to me, darling. Quickly now! Love me — Nick. Love me!"
Nick Carter let his senses slough over with the stuff of ecstasy and oblivion. This was a fact of life — not of Death, and for the moment he was safe. This place was safe. This woman was his for the taking.
"No mercy," she begged. "Show me no mercy!"
There was a large window just over the couch. Nick glanced out just before he entered the woman. There was a pale crescent of moon hanging low on the horizon and, by some accident of conjunction — a single star nestled in the horns of the moon. Crescent and star! For a flash of an instant Nick thought of blood red poppies — this time next week he would be in Turkey and the killing would have begun.
Nick surged into the beckoning red target with the brutality she had begged of him. Janet screamed in pleasure and pain. Neither then nor later did Nick show her any quarter.
Chapter 3
Man Overboard
The SS Bannockburn was making heavy weather of it through the Sea of Marmara. It was not that the weather was bad — there was a gentle swell running — but that the Bannockburn was so old. Moreover she was without cargo and carrying insufficient ballast, which had been badly stowed. So the old girl was down by the bow, digging her prow into every wave, rising and shaking the spray off herself like a bedraggled old hen. She was an ancient rustpot with a paintless superstructure and sprung plates and tubercular pumps that barely kept her afloat. Yet there was a certain pathetic dignity about her. She was going home to die.
The Second Engineer was explaining this to Norris, the new oiler who had come aboard at Suez. They had left the reeking engine room to catch a breath of clean sea air and enjoy a smoke abaft the old fashioned high bridge.
The Second was normally a dour man, not much given to chat. But he had an itch of curiosity about the new oiler. Norris, Thomas J.!
Nay, thought the Second. That will never be his true name. And he was never an oiler before, though he had been quick enough to pick it up.
There was the matter of the owners, too. Those squeak-pennies hiring an extra man? Knowing the skeleton crew could cope well enough to get the old lady to the bone yard! Nay — not that crowd! Yet here the man was, shipped aboard at Suez, and as silent a man as the Second had ever seen.
He was dying to ask questions, was the Second, but something about the big man said 'twould not be canny!
It was not so much the size of him, thought the Second. He had seen bigger men. Nor the sleek tremendous muscle of him — the Second had seen bigger muscles. Nay — it would be more the eyes of him! Sometimes in the red shadows of the engine room they glinted as hard as ball bearings.