“You some kind of cop?”
“He’s a cop.”
“He’s down here looking for Kaina. But he knows he won’t find Kaina, huh? You know that? You know he’s dead, huh?”
“He knows they’re dead.”
“You killed Kaina, didn’t you?”
“You killed him.”
They had crowded in upon him now. The two immediately in front were the only ones able to get directly at him. The others were hampered by the refuse barrels on each side of him.
It happened quickly. The two boys before him pulled out switch-blade knives, flicked out the blades.
Solo was forced to give them his entire attention. The gun in his holster seemed to press against his ribs, reminding him it was there to equalize the odds. But he did not touch it for the moment. Polly and Kaina had been mixed up in something evil, but these boys were Kaina’s friends, saddened and enraged by his death, and they were boys. There had been killing enough if he could escape without it. The odds didn’t make it seem likely.
One boy on each side of Solo grabbed a refuse barrel and upset it in the alley, rolling it toward him as the two knife wielders sprang at him.
Solo saw the glint of knife blades, the gleam of teeth bared in rage, black eyes wild with hatred.
As the barrels reached him, he lunged upward, going to his left over one and using its forward motion to propel himself hard against the first armed thug.
He heard the boy cry out and try to straighten. Solo chopped down, feeling the side of his hand contact across the boy’s neck. The boy sprawled face down across the rolling barrel and Solo was free beyond him. The three remaining attackers were for the moment caught in a confusion of their own making.
As the nearest knife-carrier whipped around and sprang at Solo, Solo shook free of his jacket, snagging it by the collar as it crumpled almost to the ground.
He brought it upward, feeling the tug as the knife was thrust into it. Solo jerked the coat past him, carrying the boy with it. With his free hand Solo clipped the falling boy in the throat and at the same instant released his jacket. The boy fell gasping and writhing three feet beyond him in the alley.
The last two boys hesitated one moment, glancing at each other, their dark faces troubled. The second knifer jerked his head forward and they leaped upon Solo at the same time, the unarmed youth striking high and the other crouching to rip upward with his switchblade. Solo felt the fierce impact of the two stocky boys and he gave with it, going against the wall again. Another barrel was overturned; another cat howled. Otherwise the alley silence remained unbroken.
The unarmed boy tackled Solo about the shoulders, trying to pin his arms to his side. Solo could hear his heavy breathing.
Solo let the boy clutch him with both arms, still retreating. As he toppled back, he caught the youth with his fingers thrust deeply into his nostrils. He thrust upward, hard, and the boy screamed, releasing his grip.
Still holding him helpless with his fingers in his nostrils, Solo caught his collar and slammed him down on the crouching knifer. Both of them went down, but the knifer was still scrambling forward, and Solo felt the slicing of the knife along his trousers.
From behind him, the other boy had gotten to his feet, still gagging and unable to catch a full breath. He swung wildly with his knife and Solo snagged his wrist, jerking him forward off his feet. He chopped him across the neck, letting him fall into the tangle of bodies and arms and legs and alley refuse.
Solo retreated again, but the second knifer had leaped free, tackling Solo at the ankles. Solo saw the alley springing upward toward him. As he struck, the other two boys turned and leaped upon him. Beat across the face, Solo sagged against the wall, momentarily stunned.
They swarmed over him, taking advantage of this momentary edge. Solo saw the bright gleam of switchblades, silver in the alley light. Silver. The silver whip. Why would he be thinking about a thing like that in a moment like this? A knife sliced at his shirt, scratching at his flesh. He used his knee to checkmate that knifer and saw him fall away, heard the clatter of the knife on the ground. His extended fingers sank into the solar plexus of the next boy, pressing him downward, relieved him of his weight, and he locked the fingers of both hands, catching them under the chin of the last one, knowing that in his rage he might decapitate him as he hurled him backwards. But he was not really thinking about the four boys, or this alley, or their knives. He was thinking about that silver whip he’d seen in Ursula’s suitcase, and even as the knife point made another swipe at him, he was grinning coldly because suddenly he remembered where he had seen that silver whip before…
V
ILLYA KURYAKIN PROWLED the cell in the Honolulu jail. Outside his cell, the detective lieutenant who had arrested him sat relaxed in a cane-bottomed straight chair.
“You will make it easier on all of us to talk,” he said.
Illya sighed. “I have told you for three hours straight, I have nothing to say.”
“You will beg to talk before I am through with you.”
“Perhaps I will. But I am not begging yet.”
“Listen.” The slender man leaned forward, speaking in a conciliatory and confidential tone. “I am Lieutenant Yakato Guerrero. Perhaps you have heard of me.”
“I am afraid not.”
“If you had been long in Honolulu, you would have heard of me. My record as a police detective is without flaw. I did not get my promotion through any influence, only because of my record. I have no blemishes. Each case I have been assigned to, I have completed most successfully.”
“Very commendable.”
“Yes. It is. On this island, people know Lieutenant Yakato Guerrero. The law-abiding feel safer because of me. The criminal hopes I will not set myself on his trail, because I end my cases in only one way—”
“I know. Most successfully. Perhaps you will succeed with the death of that girl, but not by sitting there harassing me. You’re barking up the wrong red herring. I told you. I know nothing of her death.”
“You will talk to me of it before I am through. I am a patient man and I do not anticipate you to spoil my record that has no blemish.”
“Consider me as a nothing, as an innocent bystander caught in this situation. Let me be neither a triumph nor loss to you.”
Guerrero pushed back in his chair and did not speak. For some time there was silence between them, and Illya began to see that Guerrero had not lied. The police lieutenant was a patient man, with an Oriental patience in which time hung suspended, without meaning.
Illya drew his hand across his mouth, knowing that time was not suspended for him. Sam—the mismatched, ugly Eurasian—was incontestably a link in the Tixe Ylno matter, the affair that had seemed blown apart with the death of the beautiful defecting spy.
Finally, as if he had been continuing an unbroken dialogue, the police lieutenant said, “Who are you?”
“I told you. I am George Yorkvitz, a bellhop at the hotel.”
“Who are you really?”
“Oh, come on now, Guerrero. You must have more to do than this! The hotel manager recognized me. I didn’t even ask him. He looked at me, and told you himself that I was employed at the hotel.”
“But he could not tell us what you were doing up there. Only you can tell us this. And this is what you will tell me.”
“I told you. I was called up there.”
The dark face twisted into a pained smile. “By the dead girl, I suppose?”
“No. I never talked to her. Someone called me. A man. Why would I call the police and report her death?”
“If you are the one who did—”
“The hotel manager himself told you that I reported the death to the desk. As an employee of the hotel, I had a right to be up there.”
The lieutenant shook his head. “In civilian clothes?”
“I was getting ready to quit my job. I changed my clothes on the way up there.”
“Why?”
“I told you. I was getting ready to quit my job.”