I still kept looking for Greta.
So they let Greta come to me.
Ali Duval arranged to use Virginia Howell's room through Lorenzo Jones, a far-out contact that could have no possible connection with anyone. It was a simple thing for Dulcie to drop a card into Teddy Gates' rotary file and lead me to it, and just as simple to remove it again and send Gates off on an appointment that would lead to his death. The red herrings and the wild geese were all over the place to foul up the trail.
The thing they didn't plan for was Lorenzo Jones' curiosity about Ali. Jones could smell a buck and would chase it, but he could smell trouble too and was scared to death of it. They didn't plan on me pushing it any further after I had seen Greta. She was there because she wanted to be there. She had to be there if she wanted the chance at the big stakes she coveted so desperately.
Dulcie, you damn fool. It couldn't last. You couldn't keep it covered forever.
There was a hum of voices, then a cold hush. I looked through the crack again. Greta had tottered on the block and both the snakes were poised, tongues flicking to find the source of movement, their buttons a steady, sharp buzz in the quiet...
It had to be now.
I jammed the two guns in my belt, felt for the handles that were indented into the frames of the doors and got my feet braced. I was ready to tear them apart when I heard the shouting and saw a tall guy run in from an alcove and point behind him.
"The dog. It has been killed. Someone is inside."
The one in front of the door was too intent on what the other had said and didn't hear me until I was almost through the opening. He whirled, struck out at me and caught the side of the .45 across his face and went down with a scream.
Confusion was immediate. They tried to run and had no place to go. There were more of them than I expected, but they had no way of knowing how many were coming behind me and their first thought was to get out. They were there for pleasure and stayed for panic and when the guy at the door blasted two quick shots in my direction it added to the turmoil. The crowd parted in front of me, faces and bodies just a blur in the dim light.
Not Greta though. She never moved. She couldn't.
I let go two quick blasts through the cage and took the heads off the snakes just as she let herself go and crumpled up on top of their thrashing bodies.
They came in fast from all sides, gun muzzles winking death, the roar lost in the screams and hoarse shouts of the ones trying to get away. I caught one in the chest and shot the leg out from under another, but they weren't the ones I wanted.
Belar Ris was my target and he was someplace in the dark.
I almost had it made. I took down one who blocked the exit and I almost made the door. I could have brought those agents patrolling the area swarming onto the place with a couple of fast gunshots into the night and they could have taken over and finished the job.
That almost was the big one. My luck ran out. I felt the searing finger crease my skull and I went down on my face, hoping the blackness would come before the pain.
The lolling motion of my head woke me up. Dizzy waves of pain swept over me and my stomach heaved in the spasms of nausea. I felt twisted out of shape and tried to pull myself together but couldn't move. My feet were tied and my hands bound together behind my back. I forced my eyes open, saw the two who carried me, and beside the ones who held me under the arms, Dulcie and Belar Ris.
Dog met dog again. He saw me looking at him and said, "You are a fool."
But I didn't answer him. I looked at the other dog and said to Dulcie, "Hello, bitch."
She didn't answer me. The one carrying my feet stopped and said, "In here, Belar?"
"Yes, with the others, Ali."
He let my feet go and turned, taking a set of keys from his pocket. This time I got a good look at his face. I had seen it twice before. "Once in a news photo standing near Belar Ris. But the first time was when I was leaving Dulcie's office and he stepped out of the elevator.
The picture was complete. Only no one was going to see it. Like the one Cleo painted of me, I thought. That was all that was left. My eyes closed and I felt my head fall again, but I could still hear them.
Dulcie said, "You think it's safe?"
Belar's voice was a deep rumble. "The windows are barred and the door is triple locked. They'll keep until we can dispose of them."
"But..."
He cut her short. "You get upstairs and quiet the others. Someone could have heard the shooting. If there's an inquiry we can arrange to have the guards say there was a prowler on the grounds. If not, we'll simply sit down, let everyone return to normal and discuss how we can get rid of the bodies this one provided us with."
I heard the door swing open, then I was tossed inside and the door closed with a metallic clang behind me and the bolts shot home. I lay there waiting, retching at the pain that was like a hot iron against my head, the cold concrete of the floor grinding against my face.
Then there was the rasp of a match and a light blossomed in the comer of the room and a familiar voice said, "Mike?"
Surprise shook me back to normal. I saw her face in the light, grimy with dirt, but smiling. "Hi, Velda." You'd think we were meeting for lunch.
She laughed, reached up and pulled a cord. A single bulb suspended from the ceiling came on, the light barely reaching the corners of the room. She came over, untied my hands and feet, watched while I rubbed the circulation back into them and looked at the cut on my scalp. It was superficial, but painful. At least I wouldn't die from it.
When I could stand up she pointed behind me. Greta Service was lying there, hands and feet tied, a large, blue bruise on her forehead. "They brought her here first," Velda said. "Are there any others?"
"No."
She bent down and untied Greta, then massaged her into gradual consciousness. I let her get done, made sure Greta was all right, then pulled Velda up to me. "Let's have it, kitten. How the hell did you get here?"
"Julie Pelham. That man found her. He must have been looking for her and forced her into the car, then didn't know what to do with her. I saw them go by, grabbed the plate number and had it checked out. It was registered to one of the ones in the legation that occupies this building. I tried to come in through a back way, got cornered by one of those dogs and a guard grabbed me. They were having a conference on what to do with me when some of the others began arriving, so they tied me up and dumped me in here. It took me about an hour to break loose, but at least I wasn't shut up in the dark."
"What happened to the girl?"
Velda pointed toward the far corner with her thumb. "Look."
Two bodies were curled together in a heap. "They both made mistakes," I said. "He couldn't explain the girl, but she explained him." I glanced around me peering into the shadows. "Have you checked this place out?"
"It's part of an old laundry. Those are washtubs down there and there's an old gas stove that leaks. That one window leads out to the ground level. I think we're in the back of the house somewhere, but I'm not sure. The window bars go right into the cement."
She tried to sound matter-of-fact about it, but I could feel the rising fear in her inflection. "Take it easy, kid. Let me look around."
There was no chance of going through the door. It was too heavy and too securely bolted. The only other way out was the window. The glass was on the other side of the bars, coated with black paint. I felt the bars themselves, inch-thick pieces of metal with only a surface coating of rust. At a first glance they seemed to be an impregnable barrier, but the iron had feet of clay.
The old cement they were imbedded in had been eroded by dampness and leakage and I could scratch a groove in it with my fingernail. I went over to the old stove, pulled off one of the grates and began chipping away. It powdered at first, then the cracks appeared and I pulled it loose by chunks. In ten minutes I had the bars wrenched out of place. I didn't have a gun any more, but those bars would make a good weapon if we needed one.