Flashpoint

6

When I left the Alhambra that night, I stopped at an all-night restaurant and carried an order of scrambled eggs and a large coffee back to Chryssie's place.

She started a screaming tantrum at my entrance over the loss of her amphetamines which I'd dumped in a convenient garbage can. I straightened her out with a slap in the face and another on the tail, then pushed the scrambled eggs into her a spoonful at a time. She sat there sulkily afterward, sipping at the hot coffee. "God knows you're probably not worth this attempted salvage job," I told her, "but I'm curious about what's underneath that skinful of poppers."

"Don't do me any favors," she answered me, but she didn't sound as flippant as usual.

The next day I spent fifteen hours at the Alhambra, bored to tears. There was no sign of Hawk. I ate food I didn't want in order to counteract booze I didn't want, and my tailbone ached from just sitting on it.

I kept Chryssie under house arrest at her place. The only time I left the Alhambra was to bring her meals. She didn't want to eat, but I forced her. My association with her hadn't gone unnoticed at the Alhambra. Rex, the bartender, stopped by my booth in the afternoon to ask me how she was. He sounded sympathetic. There was something about Chryssie's little-girlness that evidently got through even to Broadway types.

Erikson called me at her place that night. "Talia Rhazmet got her job at the UN through the Turkish

Foreign Office," he told me. "And she spends more money than she makes working as a guide. I'd like to put a man on her, but I'm shorthanded right now, so we've put a tap on her apartment phone instead. So far there's been nothing interesting. What about Hawk?"

"Not a trace."

"There's always the chance the Rhazmet girl will lead us to him. Meantime you hang on at the Alhambra. Call me in the morning with the number of the pay phone there in case I need to reach you in a hurry."

"I don't like being paged in a public place," I complained.

"I'll ask for Tom Dawson, not Earl Drake."

"Listen, how long is this going to last? When I let you talk me into coming here from Tucson, I didn't contract to sit in a bar definitely and blot up Jim Beam. The bartender is even trying to get friendly."

"Just hang on until we can find out if there's a definite connection between the girl and Hawk. Or until he shows up." Erikson was making his tone soothing. "Then you can back out and my men will take over."

"It had better be quick, Karl."

"Okay. Just sit tight for another day or two."

He hung up on me before I could give him further argument.

In the morning, Chryssie was still pouting and complaining, but she looked and sounded better. The deep, dark shadows under her eyes had lessened, and her jittery skittishness had calmed somewhat. She had a habit of parading the apartment in the nude. "I might as well be here with my father," she said resentfully after flaunting herself in front of me once. "I think you're on cocaine or heroin yourself the way you don't turn on to me."

"I'm saving you for an orgy, Chryssie," I told her.

But I was beginning to wonder if this girl could ever sound like a seventeen-year-old with a seventeen-year-old's problems.

She had improved enough physically for me to take her to the Alhambra. I watched her every time she went to the ladies' room, and sure enough, in the middle of the afternoon her eyes began to get the familiar glazed expression. She'd evidently begged a reefer from someone in the John. I took her back to her place and locked her in again. By that time she was floating so high she didn't even know where she was. I went back to the Alhambra and the monotonous vigil.

The next day she was as low as she'd been high previously. I wasn't going to make the same mistake again, so I left her after force-feeding some cereal into her. She was sleeping when I left her place. I had toyed with the idea of calling her father to come and get her, but in the back of my mind was the thought that he'd probably already done it, perhaps several times. A salvage job becomes less attractive as renewed effort is required.

I settled in at the Alhambra again after walking there in a light rain. The waitress brought me my Jim Beam on the rocks without my even ordering. I wondered how long I had to keep it up before I developed cirrhosis. Years, probably. I'd never make it. I was tired already of my mouth tasting like a boiled boot every morning. I was thinking less kindly of Erikson's operation every hour.

And then at 4:10 P.M. Tom Dawson received a phone call at the Alhambra. I almost blew it. I'd been feeling so sorry for myself I'd almost forgotten Erikson's little ploy. "The Rhazmet girl just telephoned someone she called Hawk to meet her uptown in the Picadilly Bar at One-twenty-five West Fifty-seventh," Erikson rapped at me when I got to the phone booth. "Get up there and make sure it's the right guy. Hustle, will you?"

I hustled.

I'd have hustled anywhere to bring an end to what was rapidly becoming one of the least rewarding experiences of my life. I don't have the patience to sit in bars and watch the faces in the booths and the faces coming through the front entrance.

A cab deposited me within a few feet of a marquee with the single word PICADILLY on it. It was an English-style pub with a fake coat-of-arms plaque inside the door. The clientele had some of the chi-chi look that went with the art galleries in the neighborhood. Velvet jackets and wide-flowing ties predominated at the half-filled bar.

I couldn't see the Turkish girl as I took a booth. I ordered a drink I didn't want, and wondered if I'd just exchanged one shellac emporium for another. I wondered if the girl would show. If she somehow knew her phone had been tapped, she could have pitched Erikson a curve.

Then she breezed through the Picadilly front entrance, giving the appearance of a high-fashion model, in a smart lightweight suit. I lowered my eyes to my glass as she settled herself across the width of the room from me. She had placed herself where she could also watch the entrance.

She removed her gloves and placed them in her handbag, fitted a dark-brown cigarette into a jeweled holder, and smiled at the waiter when he lighted the cigarette for her. The waiter came back from the bar with another of the tiny golden liqueurs I had seen previously. Talia Rhazmet sipped at it with an expression of leisured elegance on her beautiful face. She couldn't have appeared more at ease in an embassy drawing room.

Hawk entered the tavern. His powerful looking body filled the entrance for a second as he scanned the room, looking everywhere except at the girl. Then he went to the end of the bar and ordered a drink. If he gave the girl a signal, I didn't see it, but she picked up her handbag and took out her gloves. I saw a quick flash of white as she also placed what appeared to be an unmarked envelope on the seat beside her with her body shielding it from the room. While not nearly as bulky as the package that had changed hands at the Alhambra, this envelope was thick enough to indicate that it contained more than a check. Or a message.

The girl rose to her feet, and Hawk left the bar and started toward her booth as she moved toward the entrance. They had just passed each other with no sign of recognition when a foreign-looking man rose from another booth and walked rapidly to the one the girl had vacated.

At the sight, Hawk accelerated to a run. He landed hard on the back of the foreign-looking man who was leaning into the booth. A knife gleamed in Hawk's hand. One of the wide-tied, velvet-jacketed fags at the bar exclaimed shrilly.

I was on my feet and moving fast when there was another interruption. I didn't see where he came from, but a second man moved in behind Hawk. He had a knife, too. In a single motion he grabbed a handful of Hawk's plentiful black hair, jerked his head back, and slit his exposed throat. The fag at the bar screamed in a falsetto as the man pushed Hawk away from him. The once-powerful body fell to the floor where it twitched and quivered, dark red blood gouting over the imitation parquet.

When she saw the commotion, the Rhazmet girl had run back toward the booth. She and I arrived there at the same time. The first man was again trying to pick up the envelope, and I pushed him off balance. The bartender materialized suddenly with a bungstarter in his hand. " 'Ere!" he exclaimed, menacing everyone with it. "What the bloody 'ell's goin' on!"

Talia Rhazmet leaned across the booth table and tried to recover the envelope. The man with the knife slashed at her and she clutched at her arm. A chorus from the bar echoed her muted scream as she bent double, holding the arm against her body. The man with the knife set himself, and I realized he meant to kill the girl. With Hawk dead, as he surely was from the gaping wound in his throat, the girl was my only link to Hazel's money.

I reached for the man with the knife with one hand while I drew my.38 with my right. I slapped it against the side of his head, and his knees hit the floor with his body still upright. I looked for the first man, but the bartender had him backed into a corner with the menacing bungstarter.

For a second no one was watching me. I reached down into the booth and snatched up the envelope, stuffing it under an armpit inside my jacket. Then I turned to the girl. I straightened her up from her semi-crouching position and examined the blood oozing through a slash in the sleeve of her suit. Her pain-glazed eyes took in the.38 still in my hand. "P-please!" she said in a half whisper. "Get me-out of here!"

It coincided with my own thinking. The man with the knife was on his knees, still dazed. The first man was not. He bounded straight up into the air and nailed the bartender in the throat with a beautiful savage kick. The bartender slid on his back with the bungstarter still in his hand, knocking over chairs.

The first man jerked his companion to his feet and half carried him toward the door. I showed the barflies the.38, and no one moved as I led Talia in the same direction. I holstered the.38 before reaching the sidewalk. I ran out onto the street, stopped a cab, returned to the girl, and loaded her into it. I couldn't see anything of the two foreign-looking types.

The girl's lips were bluish white, and I was afraid she was going to faint. I whipped out a handkerchief and knotted it tightly around the crimson crease in her sleeve jacket. The cabbie had noticed something, too. "Where to, Mac?" he asked, turning to look at us.

"Bellevue emergency," I said. "There's been an accident."

"No-hospital," the girl murmured in a choked voice. "No hospital. My-place."

"Where's your place?"

She had to repeat it twice before I understood her. "Two-twenty East Sixty-third, cabbie," I ordered. If I could handle it myself, it would be better. Once inside a hospital emergency room, I might lose contact with the girl.

She spoke only once during the ride. "Are you-from Iskir?" she asked faintly.

"I don't know an Iskir," I answered truthfully.

We rode in silence then until the taxi pulled up in front of 220 East Sixty-third Street. I could see what Erikson meant about the girl spending more than her wages. The building was a high-rise apartment that looked like ready money. I gave the cabbie five dollars and helped Talia out of the taxi. She had taken a head scarf from her bag and placed it over the sleeve of her suit, concealing the handkerchief I had bound around her arm.

The foyer was small but richly decorated. A splashy mural of abstract design covered one entire wall. We boarded the elevator and Talia pressed the "seven" button. I could see that she had regained a good deal of her composure, but her face was very pale.

The seventh floor corridor was well lighted. Talia stopped before a door marked 7-D. She unlocked the door and went inside, discarding her shoes on a rubber mat. When she turned on a light, I saw that the Japanese custom had a practical application since the carpeting was thick, white pile.

The room we were in was decorated in bright reds, oranges, and black. At the other end of the room a pair of tall french doors that served as windows gave access to a narrow balcony beyond. The decor was Oriental with the furniture being made of natural bamboo. End tables glistened with black lacquer and were topped with lamps with pagoda-shaped bases and coolie-hat shades. On one table was a telephone and a large, smiling, carved ivory Buddha alongside a polished brass elephant with a clock face buried in its side. A black-framed parchment screen half concealed a kitchenette alcove. Another door evidently led to the bedroom.

It was too garish for my taste. The room was too small to stand the vivid colors. There was a burnt incense odor in the air. Talia sank down upon a brightly colored cushion in a bamboo chair. "Take your shoes off, please," she said to me. She was within arm's reach of the telephone, so despite her acceptance of my help, I was far from being totally in her confidence.

"What's your name?" I asked her as I took off my shoes. I had to get her to tell me before I made the mistake of using it. I wasn't supposed to know her name.

"Talia," she said. "Thank you for bringing me here." Her tone was almost formal. I could hear the same slightly foreign accent I'd heard on the voice printer in Erikson's office. She cocked her head to one side until the wings of her dark hair framed her beautiful features so perfectly I knew the pose was calculated. "Now," she said. "Who are you?"

"Earl Drake."

She shook her head impatiently. "No. Who are you? Why do you carry a gun?"

"Sometimes I need it. Lucky for you I had it. That guy was going to carve you good."

She passed it by to ask the question I'd been expecting. "What happened to the envelope?"

"Envelope?"

Her gaze was steady upon my face. "An envelope was being-was being-I lost an envelope in the tavern. What happened to it?"

I shrugged. "In that free-for-all, who knows? Maybe one of the knife-fighters got it. Did you know them?"

"No."

"Was the envelope important?"

"Very." There was distress in her dark eyes. "I shall-I shall have to account for its loss."

"Maybe I can help you get it back," I suggested. "I've, got a few contacts. What about the man who was killed? Was he a friend of yours?"

"Just a man I knew. No friend. How can you help to regain the envelope? I think that I would do anything-"

"Listen, we ought to get you a booster tetanus shot for that arm right away," I interrupted her.

"I have antiseptic in the bathroom," she said. "What do you mean when you say you can help me get the envelope back?"

"I said maybe I could," I corrected her. "But it wouldn't be easy. What Was in it? If it was cash, forget it."

"I wasn't told what it was." She rose from her chair and came to me, standing so close I got a whiff of perfume either from her blue-black hair or from deep within her cleavage, I couldn't be sure which. "My boss is going to be terribly upset with me for not delivering the envelope," she continued.

"You could hardly deliver it to a dead man," I pointed out.

Her voice had turned husky, and with the warmth of her full curves crowding me, I wasn't left in much doubt what "anything" was. "If it was local hoods who got it, I can probably get a line on them," I said. "But if the contents are valuable, it will take money to recover it."

"Iskir will pay," she said quickly. "He will pay well. I must call him now. I should have called before. May I tell him that you will help?"

"Wait a minute," I warned. "For the right price, okay. Otherwise, no. And no guarantee goes with it."

"I must call him," she repeated, but she made no move toward the telephone. She obviously dreaded making the call. She was almost literally afraid to touch the phone. Whoever her boss was, he had her buffaloed.

"Let's fix up that arm of yours," I suggested.

"I must call first," she said, and snatched it up as though afraid she'd change her mind. I could see that there was easily twenty feet of loose cord attached to the phone.

Her bosom swelled as she took a deep breath before dialing. "Talia here," she said. "I must speak to Iskir. Yes, it is urgent." She stood up and carried the phone to the door of what I had surmised was a bedroom, trailing the loose cord behind her. "Excuse me, please," she said over her shoulder and went inside and closed the door.

In the instant the door was open I had a glimpse of my own reflection in a large mirror above a low dressing table on which a lamp glowed with a soft light. The light shone on a gigantic bed covered with a Prussian-blue brocaded spread. A shaggy purple rug covered the floor, and a narrow strip of pale green carpeting suggested a bathroom beyond.

At first I could hear only the indistinct sound of Talia's voice. As the conversation continued, its pitch increased. Overtones of fright and pleading were stark in its inflections. "The man is here with me now," I heard her say. Then there was something I couldn't catch. "He says he might be able to get it back. What? Yes, a gun. Why? Because his throat was cut before he could get to the envelope." Her voice rose still another notch, and she sounded as if she were nearly in tears. "I am telling you the truth, Iskir. You can ask at the tavern. You will anyway. Why do you waste time? I did my best. I-"

There was silence. I unbuttoned my shirt and transferred the envelope from under my armpit to inside my shirt, then rebuttoned. The bedroom door opened and Talia held the phone out to me. "He wants to speak to you."

I took a step toward her, then stopped. "Not on the phone."

"But you must!" she pleaded.

I wasn't about to commit myself to anything until I checked with Erikson. I'd already learned in Erikson's office what could be done with voice prints, too.

"Look, I've got to check out a couple of things first," I said. "If it's local people, there's all kinds, right? Some I can talk to, some I can't. Tell your boss I'll have an answer for him tomorrow, but I don't do business by telephone."

She said something into the mouthpiece in a foreign language. After a silence she spoke again for a good two minutes before she walked back to the table and hung up the phone. She didn't look happy. "No later than tomorrow," she said. "And he will pay you well."

"I should know by then if there's anything I can do," I agreed. "How do I get in touch with him?"

"Through me." She looked down at the bloody handkerchief around her arm and began to unwind it.

"Better let me rebandage that before I go, Talia." She hesitated. "I get the feeling you don't want to go to a doctor, and I've had a little experience with wounds."

"Well-all right."

She led the way through the frilly bedroom into the bathroom. There was a rose-tinted, lighted wall mirror behind a pink, formica-topped lavatory. All the tiling was pink. An array of bottles and jars containing creams, lotions, shampoos, and perfumes covered the space in front of the mirror. I sat down on the toilet seat which was capped with a pink, furry cover.

Talia opened the medicine cabinet and took out a bottle of medicinal alcohol, a box of absorbent gauze, a jar of clear Vaseline, and a roll of adhesive tape. She unwrapped my handkerchief from her arm, then shrugged the jacket of her suit from her shoulders. I stood up and helped her remove it. It was warm in the bathroom. Under the jacket, she had on a long-sleeved white blouse. The left sleeve was spotted with dried blood.

"Off with the blouse, too," I told her.

"Just cut the lower sleeve away," she said.

"Don't play the schoolgirl," I said. She was standing with her back to me, and I reached around in front of her and began to unbutton the tiny, pearl-white buttons lining the front of the blouse. She resisted me for a moment, then apparently thought better of it. I unbuttoned the blouse completely, pulled its bottom edge from the confines of her skirt, and tossed the blouse into a corner.

She folded her arms at once across her lacy-brassiered, large breasts with her palms cradling her biceps, but not before I saw a spot of blue discoloration on the inside bend of her right elbow and needle marks along the purple line of her largest vein. She'd folded her arms so quickly I couldn't tell if the marks were on both arms or only one, but one was enough. The girl was a hophead, and from the number of punctures, not a recent one.

I didn't say anything. I took her left arm and washed the raw-looking slash on her outer forearm with warm water. She flinched when I swabbed it with alcohol, but made no sound. The slash wasn't deep, but she could wind up with a hairline scar. I'm an authority on scars.

I put Vaseline on some folded gauze to form a dressing, wrapped it around her arm with more gauze, and taped it in place. Talia's right arm remained curved across her breasts, but I knew it wasn't the breasts she was hiding. It was the telltale needle marks on her arm. "That ought to do it," I said. "Time for me to hit the road."

"But I haven't even had a chance to thank you!" she protested. "Do have a drink first. It's the least I can offer you." It was said in a tone of voice calculated to convince the hearer that the least was just the beginning. She gave me a smile which made me realize all over again just how much this girl had going for her in the way of good looks. "The liquor cabinet is against the wall under a picture of the Blue Mosque of Istanbul. Pour a glass of raid for me and whatever you like for yourself. The raki is in the square, unmarked, milk-glass bottle. I'll join you as soon as I get into a robe."

From her point of view a robe made sense. Exposed arms exposed too much. "One quick one, then," I said, and walked through the bedroom to the living room.

The liquor cabinet wasn't large but it was well stocked. I found the unmarked milk-glass bottle and poured a drink from it. The liquor was clear and syrupy, and when I held the glass to my nose it gave off a sweet, licoricelike scent. I fixed myself a bourbon on the rocks before I sat down.

I ran an eye appraisingly around the room as I took the first swallow of my drink. Talia obviously had expensive tastes and a large monkey on her back. If there was no sugar daddy taking care of the expenses of this establishment, she needed to work every angle open to her to take care of her habit. She had the youth and looks to do it, but the way she appeared to be mainlining it, she was due to have a very short run.

I wondered if part of the answer to her financing might not lie in the envelope tucked inside my shirt. If Erikson's Israeli contacts were right about a connection between the plane hijacking and dope smuggling, Talia was a good bet to be a connecting link.

But there was also the chance that the envelope contained money enough to buy a few days' drugs supply for a hard-hooked addict, certainly a serious matter to Talia. It didn't explain her fear of the man to whom she had made the phone call, though.

She came out of the bedroom with a smile designed to inflate any male ego. She had changed to an Oriental-looking, choke-collar costume of shining red silk. It had the long sleeves that I expected to see, but it was form fitting, and she had the form to fit it. The skirt was slit to the waist, exposing bare thigh to the hip. I didn't need a fluoroscope to determine that she was as bare underneath as her crimson-nailed bare feet.

"Thank you," she murmured as I rose and handed her the glass of raki. Her eyes looked different, heavy-lidded and unfocused. I guessed that she had shot herself up while she was in the bedroom to quiet her jangled nerves. "Why don't we sit on the chaise longue and make ourselves comfortable?" she went on.

It came to me suddenly what this production was all about. She was trying to freeze me in place until her boss could get someone downstairs to tail me when I left. I downed my drink quickly. She sensed my intention to leave and grabbed my hand. "Put it on ice, Talia," I said, backing away. "I'll see you tomorrow."

She still clung to my hand. "Don't go," she protested. Her full lips pouted provocatively. "There is much of the evening left."

"I've got to put out the word to people I know that I want the envelope intact," I improvised. "Your boss wouldn't pay me for it if it had been opened, would he?"

"That's right," Talia said. She released my hand. "Tomorrow, then," she called after me as I went out in the corridor. "You won't be sorry."

No one was in the lobby when I stepped off the elevator downstairs, but the threat would be outside in the darkness of the street. I couldn't detect anything unusual. I decided to walk the short distance to Chryssie's pad. I wanted to look in on her anyway since I'd left her locked in.

I detoured into an all-night cafeteria on the Avenue of the Americas and called Erikson. "This is Little Boy Blue," I said.

"I was beginning to wonder about you," he answered. "How did you get clear of the mess at the tavern?"

"I was squiring our little bird home. You probably know that someone extinguished the large-nosed bum.

And they put the steel to the girl once, before I got in on the action."

"Badly?"

"No."

"I'd like to hear about it. Come on over."

"It will be awhile. I might have company."

"I see. Be sure you take care of that first."

"Will do."

When I left the restaurant, there was no tail behind me that I could locate. I remained inside behind the dirty panes of the double doors in Chryssie's old building for five minutes before I went upstairs. No one followed me inside.

A single light was on when I let myself into the flat, and the familiar odor of Mary Jane was in the air. Chryssie still had a cache somewhere I hadn't found. She was sprawled on the bed in naked, childishly-smiling marijuana-euphoria. I had never known a girl with less use for clothes. I threw a sheet over her, locked her in the apartment again, and went downstairs to the street.

A lifetime of looking over one's shoulder hones the senses. I hadn't seen anyone follow me from Talia's place, but I still felt vaguely uneasy. I'd stayed there too long after her telephone call. I checked the sidewalk from inside the double doors and saw nothing suspicious.

Still, I had a feeling.

I left the building and walked a block to a subway. I ran down the stairs to the train level and was lucky enough to catch a crowded downtown local. Once aboard, I walked through the cars until I came to the head of the train. I had seen at least fifteen other people board the train at the same stop.

I got off at the first station. There was a crush of other people. I walked half a dozen steps toward the exit gate, then did an about-face. I had to sprint to get back aboard the same train. The closing, double doors almost stranded me. There was no question that I was the last one to make it aboard. And there was no question that if anyone had followed me to that point he was following me no longer.

At the next stop I disembarked and caught a taxi at the surface. I gave the driver an address within a block of Erikson's office. To play triply safe, I punched the elevator button for the fifteenth floor instead of the sixteenth.

I would have preferred to walk down instead of up, but I figured I had just enough juice left to do it by the book.