I tuned my ears to catch anything that was different from the normal night sounds. I heard the slight rustle of the curtains in the breeze of the air conditioner. I heard the faint ticking of the small travelers’ alarm clock that I’d set up on the night table beside my bed. I even heard a drop of water that fell from the bathroom faucet. None of these sounds had drawn me from sleep.
Whatever was different spelled danger to me. An interminable minute went by before I heard it again— the slow, cautious slide of shoe across the carpet nap followed by a thin exhalation of breath that had been too tensely held.
Still without moving or changing the rhythm of my breathing, I opened my eyes the merest slit, watching the shadows in the room out of the corners of my eyes. There were three that didn’t belong. Two of them moved toward my bed.
In spite of every impulse, I forced myself to remain motionless. I knew that in a moment there would be no time for deliberately planned action. Survival would depend on the sheer speed of my instinctive, physical reaction.
The shadows moved closer. They separated, one moving to each side of my bed.
As they leaned over me, I exploded. My torso snapped erect, my hands swept out and caught them by their necks to smash their heads together.
I was too slow by a fraction of a second. My right hand caught one man, but the other pulled out of my grasp.
He made an angry sound and swung his arm down. The blow caught me on the left side of my neck at the shoulder. He’d hit me with more than just his fist; I almost passed out from the sudden pain.
I tried to throw myself out of bed. I got as far as the floor when the third shadow came diving at me, slamming me back against the bed. I knocked him away with my knee, driving it hard up into his groin. He screamed and doubled over, and I stabbed my fingers into his face, just missing his eyes.
For a moment, I was free. My left arm was numb from the blow on my collarbone. I tried to ignore it, dropping to the floor in a crouch just long enough to get the leverage to spring up into the air. My right foot slammed out horizontally in a flat-footed kick. It caught one of the men high on his chest, sending him smashing into the wall. He let out a grunt of pain.
I spun toward the third man, the edge of my hand sweeping out toward him in a short, sideways chop that should have broken his neck.
I wasn’t quite fast enough. I can remember starting the blow and seeing his hand swinging at me with a sap in it, and realizing, in that fraction of a second, that I wasn’t going to be able to get my head out of the way in time.
I was right. Everything went all at once. I dropped into the deepest, blackest hole I’ve ever been in. It took me forever to fall down and hit the floor. And then, for a long time, there was no more.
I came to and found myself lying on the bed. The lights had been turned on. Two of the men were sitting in armchairs near the window. The third man stood at the foot of my bed. He held a big, Spanish-made, Gabilondo Llama .45 calibre automatic pistol pointed at me. One of the men in the armchairs held a Colt .38 with a nasty looking two-inch barrel. The other tapped a spring-loaded sap into the palm of his left hand.
My head ached. My neck and shoulder ached. I looked from one to the other of them. Finally, I asked, “What the hell is all this about?”
The big man at the foot of my bed said, “Stocelli wants to see you. He sent us to bring you.”
“A telephone call would have done it,” I commented sourly.
He shrugged indifferently. “You mighta run.”
“Why should I run? I came down here just to meet with him.”
No answer. Only a shrug of a meaty shoulder.
“Where’s Stocelli now?”
“Upstairs in the penthouse. Get dressed.”
Wearily, I got off the bed. They watched me carefully while I pulled on my clothes. Every time I reached with my left arm, my shoulder muscles ached. I swore under my breath. The six months I’d been away from AXE had taken its toll. I hadn’t kept up with my daily yoga exercises. I’d let my body go slack. Not by much, but that little bit made the difference. My reactions were no longer as fast as they once had been. The fraction of a second delay had been enough for Stocelli’s three thugs. Once, I’d have been able to catch the two of them leaning over my bed and smash their heads together. The third would never have gotten off the floor after I’d kicked him.
“Let’s go,” I said, rubbing my aching collarbone. “We don’t want to keep Carmine Stocelli waiting, do we?”
Carmine Stocelli was seated in a low, deeply upholstered leather arm chair at the far end of an enormous living room in his penthouse quarters. His burly figure was wrapped in a silk lounging robe.
He was drinking coffee as we came in. He put down the cup and looked me over carefully. His small eyes peered out of a round, darkly jowled face filled with animosity and suspicion.
Stocelli was in his late fifties. His head was almost bald except for a monk’s tonsure of oily, black hair that he let grow long and combed in scanty wisps over a polished, bare skull. As he eyed me up and down, an aura of ruthless strength radiated from him so strongly that I could feel it.
“Sit down,” he growled. I sat on the couch across from him, rubbing my aching shoulder.
He looked up and saw his three boys standing nearby. A frown crossed his face.
“Out!” he snapped, gesturing with his thumb. “I don’t need you no more right now.”
“You gonna be okay?” asked the big one.
Stocelli looked at me. I nodded.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m gonna be okay. Beat it.”
They left us. Stocelli looked me over again and then shook his head.
“I’m surprised they got you so easy, Carter,” he said. “I heard you were a lot tougher.”
I met his gaze. “Don’t believe everything you hear,” I said. “I just let myself get a little careless.”
Stocelli said nothing, waiting for me to continue. I reached into my pocket and took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one.
“I came down here,” I said, “to tell you that Gregorius wants you out of his hair. What do I have to do to convince you that it would be bad for you to move in on him?”
Stocelli’s small, tough eyes never left my face. “I think you already begun to try to convince me,” he growled coldly. “And I don’t like what you been doing. Michaud, Berthier, Duprè—you framed them good. It’s gonna be damned hard for me to set up another source as good as them.”
Stocelli went on in his angry, rasping voice.
“Okay, I’m gonna give you the benefit of my doubt. Let’s say you set them up before you talked to me, okay? Like you had to show me you had balls and you could do me a lot of damage. I don’t grudge you that. But, when I talked to you from Montreal, I made it a point to tell you, no more games. Right? Didn’t I tell you no more games? So what happens?”
He ticked them off on his fingers.
“Torregrossa! Vignale! Gambetta! Three of my biggest customers. They got families I don’t want to fight with. You got your message across to me, all right. Now it’s my turn. I’m telling you — your boss is gonna be sorry he turned you loose on me! You hear me?”
Stocelli’s face was red with anger. I could see the effort it cost him to remain seated in his armchair. He wanted to get up and use his heavy fists on me.
“I had nothing to do with it!” I snapped the words into his face.