Istanbul

Chapter 6 Cinema Bleu

Le Cinema Bleu made no bones about its existence on a mean street in the Egyptian Bazaar sector, near the Galata bridge. In fact the Cinema Bleu advertised — a squiggle of neon tubing on either side of a plain door of blue painted wood advised the public that within might be found food, drink, and entertainment. Said entertainment consisting of a poodle act, a snake dancer, and Rafe Burke's Jazz Combo straight from the United States. That was all that was promised.

Yet within Le Cinema, as the hour approached midnight, there was an air of expectancy. Patrons, all couples of various sorts and sexes, kept glancing at the Pernod clock over the bar and consulting their watches. One couple, however, seemed very much intent on their own affairs to the exclusion of everything else.

Mustafa Bey of the Istanbul police, plain clothes, could not quite figure this particular couple. He did not try very hard. This was all very old hat to him by now — he and Memet had been sitting around Le Cinema for three months now, with orders to protect the Standish woman — and Mustafa Bey was a little bored with it all. Still — that couple at the tiny table in the dark corner? It gave one to think that such freakish matters could occur, that such oddly matched couples should ever get together! One so small and skinny and — Mustafa Bey shuddered — ugly! The man was not bad, he supposed, if you liked big men in ill fitting suits. Mustafa Bey sipped at his Pernod, which he much preferred to raki, and considered the couple again. He grimaced. Allah only knew what they could see in each other, but then love was a crazy thing. It probably was love — they spent so much time whispering to each other. But then — and Mustafa Bey took another drink and sighed — in this place and all like it a great many strange things passed for love. He glanced at the clock over the bar. Five minutes to midnight. Then those who held cards would go upstairs to see the dirty pictures.

Mustafa Bey shrugged. He had seen the pictures. Not very good. Like everything else out of Syria. The film was coarse and grainy, the focus always bad, the photography amateurish. Even the actors and actresses — Mustafa Bey left his bar stool and went to check on the Standish woman. He went off at twelve. Let Memet worry about things from now on.

The couple at the tiny table in the dark corner watched him go. The man pulled at his collar again, trying to breathe. The horror of a saffron shirt, besides being dirty, was at least two sizes too small. He loosened his tie, sighed in relief, and spoke to the small woman beside him.

"This will be his last check on Standish, right?"

The woman wore a scarf over stiff looking brown hair, a pair of horn rimmed glasses that gave her the appearance — as Nick had said earlier — of a pregnant owl, and a rather expensive looking blue frock that would have gone well with the proper figure. Now she lit a cigarette with nicotine stained fingers which trembled slightly.

"Yeah. He goes off in a couple of minutes. Another guy, Memet, I think, comes on then. The first thing he'll do is make another quick check on Standish, then duck upstairs to see the show." She laughed in a squeaky voice that suddenly slid down into the upper male register.

"He's younger than the other one. Dirty movies still give him a charge! Of course that's a break for us. And I've got a crazy feeling, Nick, that we're going to need a break on this one!"

The man kicked under the table. The woman said, "Ouch, damn it!"

"Stay in character," the man said. "And keep that squeaky voice up! And down! I'll admit you're not much of a date, but you're all I've got." He glanced at his wrist. "One minute. Just what exactly happens then?"

"They click the lights off and on — three times. That means that the feelthy peectures will be starting in fifteen minutes. Those with cards go up those iron stairs over there in the corner. Upstairs there's a long room with regular chairs — and couches and sofas for those who want them. There's a screen and a projector. That's all."

The man lit a Turkish cigarette and coughed bitterly. "Damn these things! How do you get one of those cards?"

"From the boss lady herself, Leslie Standish. She has to pass on you. From what I hear she's not very strict — if you've got ten Turkish pounds."

"Ummm…" the man picked brown specks of tobacco from his tongue. "Does the Standish woman ever go up to watch the show?"

"Not usually. She stays in her office most of the time." The big man, whose muscles seemed about to tear his jacket apart even in repose, smoked for a moment in silence. Then, "One thing about this setup bothers me — they don't seem to worry about the back! Must be a good reason for that?"

"There is. Nothing back there but a little court for junk and garbage and a wall ten feet high with glass set in it."

"People can get over walls."

"If you went over this one," the woman said, "you'd go down into a hell of a mess! A slough runs in from the Horn — and a sewer empties into it! You can't even get a boat through the stuff."

"It still worries me," said the big man. "I wish we'd had more time to case this thing."

"Inshallah! I thought I was the worrier in this outfit!"

The big man frowned and tried to adjust himself again to the instrument of torture Le Cinema called a chair. He also tried to ease his constricted waist. It was a slim waist, slim and hard and muscular, but these pants defeated it. The 9mm Luger in the waistband did nothing to help.

The lights flicked off and on. Three times. Beyond a momentary stoppage in the flow and buzz of conversation no one appeared to pay much attention. Glasses tinkled and clouds of gray-blue smoke drifted through the murky, breathless, hot little cave as usual. An occasional spate of laughter pierced the endless, surf-like hum of talk. Then, as if some demon magician were at work, people began to vanish.

The couple at the table in the corner did not move. They watched as Mustafa Bey returned to the little bar and greeted his relief. The two exchanged a few words, then Mustafa Bey left. The younger policeman lingered at the bar a moment for a drink, then vanished behind curtains to a corridor beyond.

"Regular routine," the woman in the horn rims said. "He'll make a fast check on Standish, then duck upstairs to see the feelthies! Then we go, eh? Can't be too soon for me, Nick. I'm getting the jeebies just sitting here."

"Then we go," said Nick Carter. "We can stop playing masquerade and start operating. I'm as sick of this as you axe, Mousy, but it's the best way. Now let's go over it once more, just to make sure. You know your lines?"

"I should," said Mousy Morgan, sounding grim behind the horrible mess of paint and powder and lipstick that covered his pinched features. "You've made me go over it enough."

"Once more, then."

Mousy sighed. "When you leave to go to the john I take off. I go back to the Opel, start the engine, open the door and wait over against the wall of the alley with the torn gun. No lights, of course. I cover the alley entrance when you come around with the Standish woman. If you haven't got company, meaning anyone on your tail, then we go. You slam her in back and I drive and we get our tails out of there! That's all."

Nick Carter nodded. "And if I'm in trouble — if I have got company? This is the most important part, Mousy. It's got to be done right!"

I hope — Nick added silently to himself. Mousy with a machine gun wasn't exactly his idea of a safe Fourth of July. Not the way the little guy's nerves had been kicking up. But it had to be — there was no one else to help.

"I've got that, too," Mousy was saying. "We don't want to kill any Turkish cops! Better they get us than we kill any cops — so if you're in trouble you let out a yell. I listen. Then maybe I let go with the chopper and maybe I don't."

Nick said: "For God's sake be careful. If I yell ROBBERS, then start shooting — and not at me! If I yell COPS drop the gun and take off. Try to get away the best you can. I'll meet you back at the Hole — if I make it! If we get jammed it's every man for himself."

"It just occurred to me," Mousy said gloomily. "That we are parked in a dead end. There's no other way out of that damned alley, Nick."

"Climb the wall," said Nick coldy. "Well, here I go. The joint is nearly empty. They must be into the third reel by this time." He pushed back the rickety chair and was about to rise when Mousy put a hand on his arm. "Hold it!"

Nick sank into the chair again. "What?"

His partner nodded toward the bar, now nearly deserted. A blonde girl was talking to the bartender, leaning over the bar, her back to them. She was lithe and slim and the spike heels made her appear taller. The black evening dress she wore was tight across hips and thighs that were smooth and round and unblemished by any girdle bulge. She was wearing a short mink jacket and wore a mass of corn yellow hair piled high.

"So?" Nick was impatient. "Maybe she's never been here before. She wants to know where they show the dirty movies, that's all."

"That's not it," said Mousy. "Better get back into character, Nick. See what happens. That's Marion Talbot — she's Maurice Defarge's private secretary!"

N3 sighed, sank back in the obscenity of a chair, and lit a cigarette. He toyed with the glass of raki before him. He segued once more into the role of a stupid young Turk in from the provinces for a nasty night on the town. He tugged at the too tight collar and gave his small confederate a look in which ice glinted. In a soft voice which might have been a lover's voice, but was definitely not, he said: "This is rather an unexpected development, isn't it? Especially right now — at this particular goddamned minute! I don't recall any mention of Defarge having a secretary, private or otherwise. Or do I need glasses? It wasn't in the dossier, was it?"

As he spoke he watched the blonde. The bartender was speaking into an intercom on the backbar. While she waited the blonde took a cigarette from a gold case, lit it, and glanced around the smoky room. Her gaze flicked past the strange couple at the little table without halting. Then the bartender said something and the blonde disappeared through the curtains.

"She was checked out," Mousy said. He sounded a little defiant, Nick thought. He watched as Mousy lit another cigarette. The little man's fingers were trembling visibly. Nick thought of Mousy handling a tommy gun and groaned inwardly. The guy was falling apart right in front of his eyes. Better move fast!

"Narcotics had the FBI check her in the States," Mousy said. "Clean as a whistle. From a good family in St. Louis. She studied art in New York and Paris for awhile, then she fell in love with some phony Italian Count, or Baron, you know — and he left her flat here in Stamboul. I guess she had plenty of dough. Anyway she went to work for Defarge. That was all, as far as the Turkish cops, or Narcotics, could find out. She's just a private secretary!"

Nick Carter did not look at him. "Yet here she is! Just as I'm about to take the Standish woman out — here she is!"

Mousy nodded. Beneath the woman's makeup the little agent was beginning to look like some ghastly caricature of a sick clown. Nick had seen combat fatigue cases before. He made up his mind.

'Take off now," he told Mousy. "Go back to the car and wait. The plan is the same, though I may be a bit longer than expected. But I'll be there — with Leslie Standish or without her. Beat it, Mousy. Be careful."

After Mousy had gone N3 waited fifteen minutes. The tall blonde in the mink jacket did not appear. To hell with it, Nick told himself. This show begins right now! He turned a heavy signet ring on his finger so the intaglio surface was beneath the finger, in line with his palm. There was a tiny, barely visible needle set into the face of the ring. A miniature hypo. Anyone slapped or struck lightly with the ring would receive an injection that acted in seconds, putting the recipient into a gentle trance. They could walk and talk and obey, and the stuff made them very docile. Nick intended to take Leslie Standish out of the Cinema Bleu, take her back to the Hole for a little down-to-earth questioning. N3 smiled grimly at the bad pun. He was sure that Leslie Standish would cooperate with Hugo the stiletto!

But now this Marion Talbot, fat old Defarge's secretary, was back there with the Standish woman. Nick twisted the ring again and stood up. There should be enough drug for two!

He reached beneath his chair for the monstrosity of a green hat that was part of his character tonight. It was a fedora, bilious green and wide brimmed. Nick had darkened his face a trifle and was wearing rubber cheek pads. Now he set the hat squarely on his head — his hair was greasy with sweet stinking brilliantine — and thought that not even Hawk would know him. Or want to.

Acting like a man who really had to go, he approached the bartender. The bar was empty at the moment and the man was reading a copy of Vatan.

"Erkekler tuvaleti?"

Without glancing from his paper the man nodded at the curtains and said, "Dogru yuruyunuz."

"Cok."

Nick went through the curtains. One dim ceiling light showed him a narrow corridor leading back to a blank wall. The floor was of wood, splintered and dirty, and the corridor stank of antiseptic. To his right, as he went swiftly down the hall, were two doors leading to the rest rooms. He kept on going.

As he approached the end of the corridor, where another shorter hallway slashed over to the T, he moved lightly on the balls of his feet. All resemblance to a Turkish lout from the provinces vanished. Even the horrible, too tightly fitting suit could not disguise the splendid animal on the prowl. This was KILLMASTER going to work!

Noiselessly he approached the corner. Halted, fell to his knees as gracefully as a cat and peered around at thigh level. The little corridor was empty. To his left a crack of light glowed beneath a door.

To his right a door stood half open. As N3 watched the door moved, swaying, then banged suddenly. Nick let the tension drain from him and went swiftly to the door. It banged again in the wind as he reached it. This would be the door leading into the courtyard, with the high wall and the slough and the sewer beyond. Nick glanced back at the light glowing beneath the office door, then decided — let her wait a minute or so. He liked to check his back holes!

But without silhouetting himself against light! In the space of a heart beat he was out of the door and into the whimpering wind and rain and darkness. He flattened himself against a rough brick wall and blinked rapidly to help his eyes adjust. As he stood there, waiting, just one more shadow, Nick realized that he had underestimated the vagaries of Turkish weather. It had been fair when he and Mousy had entered Le Cinema Bleu— now rain was falling in thick gray ropes, twisted and snarled by a steadily rising wind. N3 shrugged his big shoulders. Weather meant little to him except as it affected the success or failure of a mission. But his mouth quirked — he could feel the cheap suit shrinking already!

Automatically, without conscious thought, he checked the Luger. Wilhelmina baby might just have work to do tonight! N3 found himself wishing it were so! This whole goddamned setup was beginning to get on his nerves — nothing had gone right so far and he had an uneasy sensation that things would get worse before they got better. Nick Carter had been on jobs like this before and he knew the feeling. The fact that, by average standards, he had no nerves at all did not matter. Things were going badly!

Nick checked Hugo, the vicious little stiletto lying snug along his forearm. Pierre, the gas pellet, was back at the Hole.

He could see clearly now and one glance told him that matters were as Mousy had described them. The high wall, the littered courtyard — nothing else. No way out…

Wind swooped into the little court, a sudden vicious little gust, and blew it against Nick's hand. He had been standing within a foot of it in the dark, all this while, not suspecting its presence.

A rope ladder!

N3 cursed beneath his breath. He flattened himself against the wall again and examined the ladder, more by feel than sight. So much for the Turkish cops and their precautions!

It was just an ordinary rope ladder with wooden rungs. It came straight down from the flat roof three floors up. N3 cursed again and spun it away from him. God knows who had been up and down that ladder tonight!

He had a sickening feeling that the time for stealth was past. He slid through the door and headed for the sliver of light at the far end of the short cross corridor. As he crossed the main hall he glanced down it. Empty.

It was a plain brown door with OFFICE stenciled on it in faded gold letters. Nick tried the knob. Fingerprints didn't matter a damn now. The door swung open and he stepped into the office. He closed it softly behind him. A solitary lamp burned on a desk in one corner.

Nick smelled it before he saw it. Blood! A thick, sweetish odor. Nick had smelled it many times in his life. He reached behind him to latch the door, then took the Luger from his belt. Through a half open door set in one side of the small office he saw the glint of bathroom fixtures.

For the moment he did not so much as glance at the body of the woman by the desk. He went swiftly around the room, careful not to step in blood, and approached the bathroom. He kicked the door open and went in. Empty. A commode, a wash basin and medicine chest glinting pale in faint yellow light. Nothing else. Then N3 stopped to sniff again. There was something else. Another smell! This one sharp and biting to his nostrils. A dry tangy odor, contrasting with the wet stickiness of the blood smell. N3 stood in the bathroom for a moment, sniffing, puzzled. It was a familiar smell, damn it. One he had been around before — then he had it. Nail polish remover. Acetone! N3 smiled and went back into the office.

This time he cautiously approached the body of the woman. She lay on her back near the desk, her arms flung wide, her eyes staring at the ceiling. Around her head and shoulders the blood was already clotting and turning black. Her throat had been cut. Cut with a stroke so vicious that the grizzled head, with the short mannish haircut, was lying aslant at a weird angle. The throat had been cut clear through to the spine, very nearly severing the head.

Nick glanced at his watch, then thrust the Luger back in his belt. Very carefully, keeping away from the blood, he knelt and picked up one of the dead hands. He examined the nails. They were clean, blunt, free of any hint of polish.

Nick dropped the hand and stood up. For a moment he stood contemplating the body. Leslie Standish would not have used nail polish. Mija had given them the right steer on that, he was sure. Doubly sure now as he stood looking down at the dead woman, filing away facts for future reference. And the facts were plain enough. Probably not even very important now, at least from his viewpoint. Leslie Standish wasn't going to help the Turkish cops now, that was sure. And she wasn't going to talk to the stiletto, either. Someone — guess who? — had made sure of that!

N3 stood very quietly near the dead woman while his mind and eyes and subconscious did their work in unison. It was one of Nick Carter's methods of working. He let the essence of the little room and its macabre occupant soak into him.

The dead woman, Nick thought, would be in her fifties. Not important. She had been English, probably upper class, probably a sort of remittance woman. Not important. Just another upper-crust Lesbian. She had been pushing dope, for years more than likely, and only recently had the cops cracked down on her. At the insistence of U.S. Narcotics, no doubt. They had hoped to use her to get a lead on someone higher. No dice as of this date. Nick smiled grimly. Certainly no dice now! Probably she had been a double, or had tried to be — playing both sides and hoping to get the best of it for herself.

He stared down at the stout body in the brown tweed skirt and jacket, the man's shirt and tie, the butch haircut. No compassion stirred in him. She had sold the stuff to Mija Gialellis and a thousand kids like her. Leslie Standish had earned her slashed throat!

Nick went back into the tiny bathroom. The acetone smell still bothered him. Why? Damned if he knew. An old gal like Standish would be bound to have girls in and out. Nick shook his head and went through the medicine cabinet. He worked fast now. Time was running out for him. Any moment someone would be knocking on the door. Probably, as soon as the dirty pictures were over, the Turk plainclothes man would be checking. Nick whistled between his teeth. He didn't particularly want to knock out any Turkish cops — but if he had to he would. That didn't worry him.

He found the small bottle of nail polish remover. It was half empty. He scanned the label. FASTACT. When a girl was in a hurry to get the polish off, no doubt. Made in Chicago. Nick slipped the bottle into his pocket and went back into the office. Time to take off. He'd been pushing his luck as it was.

Nick went around the body to take a final look at the desk. No use trying to go through it, he thought. Standish wouldn't have any really important papers around. She would have been too smart for that. So would the other people — the people who had had her killed. Strictly small potatoes, Leslie Standish. Dead small potatoes now.

The desk top revealed nothing. It was nearly clean, but for a blotter, an ashtray, a telephone. A packet of matches — Nick picked up the shiny little black folder. Gold letters said: Divan Annex.

Nick put the matches in his pocket and went toward the door. He thought — Maurice Defarge, offices and suite in Divan Annex. Entire top floor. Important? Maybe — maybe not. A lot of people would be carrying those matches around. We shall see. Time will tell.

N3 was not at all unhappy or displeased as he reached to unlock the door. He cared not a damn that Leslie Standish had been murdered. Even under torture she probably couldn't have told them much.

Nick whistled softly. A thing from the Threepenny Opera— Mack the Knife.

And Mack was back in town. Or Johnny Ruthless was. This gladdened what the AXE man liked to think of as his heart. He liked to think, too, that his own presence in Istanbul had something to do with Johnny's emergence from retirement.

He was looking forward to meeting Johnny Ruthless!

Nick Carter opened the door and stepped into the dimly lit corridor — and got his wish. There, at the intersecting corner of the two corridors, stood Johnny Ruthless! In dinner jacket, black Homburg, glistening shirt front, a mocking little smile on the thin lips beneath the dark pencil moustache. He stared at Nick, silent, mocking, poised like a dancer.

Nick Carter let shock and surprise wait until later. With first rapid instinct he raised the Luger, then knew it was no good. Gun fire would bring every cop in town. And he didn't want to kill this man — not yet.

Neither spoke a word. Nick went down the hall in great lunging strides. The man in the dinner jacket did a graceful pirouette, a flowing, sinuous feline movement, and ran for the door at the far end of the hall. The door that led into the court. Nick, following, ran squarely into the trap.