"London?" he asked. Carter stood at the bar, put a foot up on the rail, and nodded.
"Just got in."
Tell a person what they expect to hear, and you confirm their intelligence. Instant rapport.
"Went to London once," the bartender went on.
He had pale blue eyes and thin silvery hair swept back close to his head. His dignified posture suited the hushed bar.
"Did you like it?"
"I was disappointed, sir. I'd expected the fogs. You know, the thick pea-soup fogs of Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper?" The bartender of the high-class establishment had a taste for adventure. "But when I got there, they told me that the fog was really smog, just air pollution, and that London had new ordinances against it. There hadn't been a thick pea-souper since the sixties. Very disappointing."
"I can imagine," Carter said.
The bartender stopped polishing and looked at his only customer.
"What would you like to drink, sir?"
"Martini with a dash of Pernod."
"Unusual drink," the bartender said as he went to work.
"Serve it to anyone else lately?"
"No, sir."
The barkeep dropped ice cubes into the shaker one at a time, clinking. He poured in Boodles gin, nipping up the mouth of the bottle at just the right moment. His hands moved with the flourish and drama of a concert pianist. He held up a bottle of Cinzano vermouth.
"Twelve to one?" he asked.
"That's it," Carter nodded, continued. "He would've been a tall man, rangy. About my size. English accent. A pilot."
The silvery-haired bartender worked without pause. He added the quality vermouth and stirred the mixture cold. He splashed Pernod into a stemmed glass, poured in the martini, twisted a lemon peel over it, and with a flick of the fingers dropped the peel into the concoction.
He stood back, crossed his arms. He was a general awaiting the outcome of an important battle.
Carter sipped thoughtfully.
"Excellent," he announced. "Tender, not bruised."
The bartender beamed. Carter had made his day.
To show his appreciation, Carter drank.
As he cleaned up, the bartender watched his customer enjoy the fruits of his talent.
"You have a new bottle of Pernod, I see," Carter said at last.
The bartender hesitated, and looked at the bottle as he returned it to its shell.
"Indeed. We don't open bottles often. Even in the summer."
Pernod was a summer drink, usually served over shaved ice. Green from the bottle, it turned milky yellow when it hit the ice. The liquor was prized for its faint licorice flavor.
"Wonder who had the last drink from it," Carter said casually.
The bartender said nothing. He mopped the bar. He rinsed glasses. He dusted bottles.
"You could call," Carter suggested, sipping. "Ask them."
The bartender who enjoyed his work but still yearned for the adventures of Sherlock Holmes's London fogs nodded, look off his apron, and left the room.
Carter hoped that this was the luck he'd been waiting for.
The bartender was phoning his fellow Wyndham bartenders to inquire whether any gentleman lately had asked for a martini with a dash of Pernod.
He was gone twenty minutes. When he returned, Carter had finished the martini.
"An interesting situation," the bartender confided as he retied the apron.
Carter waited patiently. It was the bartender's moment of glory. Still, he had the urge to throttle him. It'd been a long two days.
"You had success?" he asked.
"I believe so," the bartender said solemnly. "There was a gentleman here, a guest of the hotel, named Shelton Philips. Handsome man. Even dashing, or so the ladies seemed to think."
Carter smiled. Rocky Diamond's birth name was Philip Shelton.
"Last week?" Carter said. "Do you still have the charge slips?"
"His room, sir. Of course you'd want that."
The obliging bartender went through the bar's copy of receipts. When luck happened, it was often abundant. But while you're doggedly, hopelessly pursuing elusive information, you forgot that.
The room number was 203.
When Nick Carter stuffed twenty dollars in her pocket, the second-floor maid of the Wyndham Club remembered Shelton Philips.
Philips was still renting the expensive room, she recalled. She was a short brunette with bright eyes and a mobile mouth. He'd paid up until next week.
With another twenty dollars, the maid unlocked the door, blew Carter a kiss, and disappeared to assault the next room with lemon wax.
Rocky Diamond's room at the Wyndham Club was decorated with hand-painted china plates, brass fixtures, heavy mahogany furniture, a hardwood floor, and a hand-knotted Oriental rug that started just inside the door and extended the length of the oblong room to beneath the high four-poster bed.
Rocky Diamond liked to spend money. Was it his…or someone else's?
Carter started with the drawers in the bureau, found the usual assortment of socks, underwear, and handkerchiefs. The closet contained two business suits — a dark blue and a gray pin-striped — and shoes and leisure clothes.
Wherever Diamond had gone, he hadn't taken much with him. An austerity trip, or perhaps he'd simply been kidnapped, killed, and his body chopped into shark bait.
Carter checked the linings and pockets of the clothes, tipped over and shook the shoes, then went through the rest of the drawers in the room.
He found Wyndham Club stationery, a Gideon's Bible, a woman's brassiere and bikini underpants, tissues, and a case of men's jewelry. He worked with precision, carefully replacing everything as he'd found it.
But his luck had run out again. There were no financial records No checkbooks, credit cards, or even local shop receipts or matchbooks.
It was almost as if Diamond had expected his room to be searched His belongings were personal but revealed nothing of his true identity or his intentions in Christchurch or New Zealand.
Except that he planned to return.
With practiced eyes, Carter's gaze swept the room. What had he not checked?
The walls, ceiling, and floor.
Again he went to work, checking behind and beneath the furniture, the floor heater, the floor of the closet, under the rug, the plates behind the light fixtures, the vent grate. Nothing.
Then he heard the sound at the door.
A small sound, trying to be silent.
There were no other doors. Carter was trapped.
Swiftly he crossed the room and pushed up the window.
There was a narrow ledge, about twenty-four inches wide, and then the two-story drop straight down.
Not an enormous distance, but enough to break a leg… or a spine. And there were no fall-breaking awnings or trees between him and the concrete below.
Carter slipped out the window and onto the ledge. Beneath him, pedestrians window-shopped and cars spumed exhaust into the air.
With luck, no one would notice him, would call him to the attention of others, to the attention of the police. Or Silver Dove.
As he closed the window, the door to the hotel room opened and closed.
The man was slight, quick. He slid skeleton keys back into his pants pocket.
Carter smiled to himself. In a way, he'd been expecting him.
It was the same man who'd left the CB radio and first aid kit for Mike on North Island. The same man who'd returned Carter to his hotel in Wellington after the attack by the Russians. The man who drove the yellow Mazda, wore the tam-o'-shanter cap pulled low to his ears, and had small features.
His movements were careful, experienced. He followed a similar pattern of search to Carter's. He wasn't looking for Carter this time, and he wasn't a burglar. He was a professional agent.