Istanbul

Chapter 9 The Fat Man

There was a gibbous moon, just past the half, and the pale radiance produced in turn a great many shadows atop the Divan Hotel. There was the larger shadow of a half completed structure — it did seem to be a penthouse going up — and there were the many smaller shadows of water tower, elevator machinery housing, and the children's playground. There was also one tall, angular, wideshouldered shadow that was as silent and unmoving as the others. For a good half hour this latter shadow stood without movement and watched the gold glowing rectangles that were the windows of Defarge & Co., Ltd.

There were only three lighted windows now. The private suite of Maurice Defarge himself, the watcher presumed. Very private indeed. He had seen an armed guard making his tour of the empty offices. The man did a thorough job, but when he reached a short flight of stairs leading up to a single door he stopped. Beyond that, the watcher thought now with a dry little smile, would be the private domain of Maurice Defarge. Where a fat, sick old spider lay in bed and continued to spin webs.

That privacy would be invaded tonight!

At last N3 moved from the shadows into the moonlight. Moved lightly, as stealthy as a ghost. He wore black trousers, very tight fitting, black sneakers and a black sweat shirt. He was bare headed and his close-cropped hair was stained a darker hue than usual. But it was the face that had undergone the most striking change. Here was nothing of the lecherous, late and unlamented Mr. Stout, nor of the real Nick Carter. These were Mongol features — a pale saffron skin, slant eyes, flat nose. Here, indeed was a Chinese gentleman skulking among the shadows atop the Divan Hotel.

Nick had acted on the tip from Hawk over the razor-radio. It appeared that the long, long finger of Peking extended even into this Turkish pie. N3 did not welcome it, it was only another angle to worry about, but he had seen immediately how to exploit it. This gambit might make it just a bit easier to extract information from the fat man — before he killed him.

With soft padding steps N3 went to the edge of the roof and stood looking across at the Annex. He cursed the architect again. The distance across wasn't bad. Say twelve feet. One of the planks scattered about the half completed penthouse would have sufficed for that. No — it was the fact that the Annex was a good eight or ten feet higher than the hotel itself. That was the problem.

N3 stared down into the dark void between the two buildings. He whistled softly between his teeth. Nine floors. A hell of a fall if he missed! Might be fatal. He grinned and the tape at the corners of his eyes, pulling them into slant, plucked at his flesh. Might be hell — it would be fatal. So don't miss!

Nick went to work telling himself that it was a nutty scheme. It was, but it was all he had, and nutty schemes worked sometimes.

He found the plank he wanted and carried it to the roof edge, balancing it on the coping. It was long and thick and, had the roofs been level, he could have waltzed across. N3 sighed. Nothing came easy in this profession!

He went back into the shadows around the penthouse and found the stack of cement bags. Each one a hundred pounds. Nick bent, tensed and groaned just a bit, and walked back to the coping with a bag under each arm. The night was cool but he found himself sweating a little. This was turning out to be work.

He arranged the long plank over the coping to suit him, then put one of the cement bags on it as anchor. He went back for more cement bags. In five minutes he had his diving board arranged to his liking. Diving board! The Chinese gentleman grinned. A diving board with a twist. He was going to dive up. He hoped. Nick glanced down at the ground nine stories down and whistled again. He had better dive up!

When everything was ready he retired into the shadows again to watch. If he had been spotted building his little toy there should be some reaction soon. While he waited he checked his weapons: the Luger was in his belt, the stiletto in its sheath along his forearm. And this time he had brought along Pierre, the little gas pellet. At the moment he planned to kill the fat man with the stiletto, but then you never knew.

When the all-clear sounded in his brain, N3 went to the roof coping without hesitation. From long experience he knew that the trick of going into hazard was to go fast and without hesitation. Faltering, second thoughts, only got you into trouble. You took every precaution, you tried to do everything right — and then you took your chances.

Nick walked out on the plank. It was, he thought with the wry twist of humor he could always summon, a little like walking the plank at that. If he missed and did the Deep Six they would be scraping him up with a shovel!

He bounced tentatively a couple of times. The plank was springy enough, a live thing beneath him. He glanced back at the pile of cement bags — they were holding firmly enough. He reached the end of the plank and stood poised. He looked up. A good eight feet, maybe more. He would have to work up to it gradually.

Slowly, carefully, Nick began to bounce on the plank. Each time a little higher. He forgot the void below him. He forgot everything but the task in hand — to reach that roof beckoning above and away from him. He had one chance, one shot at it. No repeats.

Now! Nick came down on the plank with all his weight, stiff legged, then sprang up with the greatest thrust he could muster. Hi:» hands together over his head, a dark arrow shot upward in the pale moonlight.

He fell short! Short of what he had hoped for. His fingers touched the die coping, clawing, beginning to slip off the smooth surface. He had hoped to get at least one arm over the coning. Now he dangled in space and his fingers were slipping — slipping.

Months or years before some Turkish mason had been careless. He had installed a broken tile and had neglected to fill in the crevice with mortar in proper fashion. This saved Nick Carter's life now. His fingers clawed into the cracked tile, gripped, steeled like the great talons of an eagle — and held.

For the space of a breath he dangled thus, held back from death only by his great and prehensile grip. Four fingers between him and the hard pavement of the area far below.

Then he had his other hand up and over, swinging his acrobat's body over the coping with a fluid sure motion.

Nick stood looking down at the void for a moment. He grinned slightly. A faint sound came from his lips. A sound that might have been Whewwwww.

Rapidly he moved into the shadow of a chimney and stood waiting for alarms. None came. After a few minutes he went back to the roof edge and studied the roof of the Hotel Divan, below him now. His restless, roving, all seeing eyes spotted the children's playground, lined it up with where he now stood. At last he nodded in satisfaction. His back trail was open. There would be a way out of the burrow.

Nick paused to check his weapons once more, then went softly toward the little hut that housed the elevator machinery. The door was locked, as he had expected. The lock was absurdly simple and Nick did not even resort to his Lockpicker's Special — a celluloid collar stay did the job in thirty seconds.

He went down spiraling iron stairs to another door. This one was unlocked and opened on a landing from which fire stairs led downward. Opposite the landing was a frosted glass door. Through that, as Nick knew from his surveillance with the binoculars, was a short corridor leading into the main offices of Defarge, Ltd. At the far end of the offices were the stairs leading into Maurice Defarge's private suite.

Somewhere between Nick and that suite would be the armed guard!

Nick went cat-footed across the landing, careful that his shadow did not fall on the frosted glass door. He listened. A faint sound of music crept through the door. Music? Then he guessed it. The guard was bored with his long vigil. The guard had brought along a transistor radio for company. Nick nodded in approval. The music would locate the man for him.

Nick eased the door open just a crack. A mouse could not have been more stealthy. He peered in. The man was seated at a desk, about half down the central corridor between rows of desks. The man's back was to Nick. He was eating from a tin lunch bucket as he listened to the small radio.

So it would have to be a stalk!

Nick knew that if you watch an animal, or a man, long enough it will sense your presence. He wasted no time. At the last possible moment, when Nick was just behind him the guard turned with instinctive nervousness. Nick chopped him across the back of the neck with the edge of his hand, not hard enough to kill, and caught the slumping figure as it slid out of the chair.

Now he worked with great speed. He took a roll of tape from his pocket and bound the guard's wrists and ankles. He stuffed a handkerchief into the man's mouth and taped it shut. He took the man's revolver from its holster, emptied the chambers and put the shells in his pocket, then put the revolver back in the holster. Then he shoved the unconscious man into the capacious kneehole of the desk and left him.

N3 walked blithely to the stairs leading into Maurice Defarge's suite. As he bounded up them his smile was grim and even beneath the Mongoloid makeup Hawk would have recognized his number One boy on a death mission. It was time, Nick thought, as he tried a padded leather door at the top of the stairs — it was time to begin repaying a few debts! Fat man — you are first!

But there was a little play-acting to be done first, too. Hawk had hinted that it might just work. If the CIA had the right information — and Hawk said a CIA man had died in China to get said information — then the Chinese Reds were moving in on the Syndicate! Play it that way, Hawk had said. So N3 would play it that way — at first.

N3 went softly down a short, thick carpeted hallway and stood looking into the bedroom. It was very quiet in the suite. He had locked the leather door behind him. They were alone — just he and the fat man now reading in bed.

Nick did not announce himself at once. He stood in a patch of shadow and studied the room and the man in bed. There was a faint medicinal smell in the air, tinged with what might be incense. On a bedside table was an array of medicines — bottles, glasses, a spoon, a box of pills. Nick recalled that this fat man had a serious heart condition. He smiled without a trace of mirth. That heart condition was due to get much worse before long!

Maurice Defarge wore tent size magenta pajamas. Nick counted four chins and stopped. The man was a great tub of flab that surrounded and bound him like moulded custard. He had a full head of crisp silvery hair, cut en brosse, above a flaccid doughy face. The nose alone was distinctive — it was a parrot's beak, jutting sharp and hooked over a stingy little mouth, a pale and anus-like mouth. Crumpled and shapeless now because of the absence of teeth. Nick saw the teeth in a glass of water on the bedside table.

N3 stepped softly into the room, careful not to get into the full glare of the bedside lamp. His disguise had been hasty and improvised — best not test it too far.

"Good evening," said Nick in crisp Chinese. "I am sorry to come on you so suddenly, but I thought it best that our first meeting be in complete secrecy."

The fat man started and dropped his book. His hand slid under a pillow. His pale eyes, hooded by fat, stared at Nick in alarm. "Who… who are you? What do you want?"

Nick smiled. Gun under the pillow, he noted. He said: "Gori!"

Now he would know. Know if the death of the CIA man had been worth while. Gori, the name of Stalin's birthplace, was supposed to be the password for this operation. So said Hawk — so said the CIA.

The fat man relaxed visibly. He kept his hand under the pillow, but the little mouth creased in an attempt at a smile. "Gori," he said. "You scared me half to death, sir. Bad for me, too. I've a very bad heart. Couldn't you have had yourself announced properly? There's a guard on duty out there and — " A new wariness flashed across the fat face. "You did see the guard?"

N3 nodded. Quite truthfully he answered, "I saw him." He spoke Chinese.

The fat man looked irritable. "I don't speak much Chinese. They know that! Can't you speak Turkish — or French?"

Nick shook his head. "English, sir?"

Defarge nodded. "English, then. Now what do you want? I am a very sick man! Anyway I, we, hadn't expected you so soon. And why are you in Istanbul? That could be dangerous. Most unwise! Especially right now. We're having a lot of trouble here — if you people are suspected it will only make it worse!"

Nick smiled and bowed slightly. He was in — for the moment. If he could get the information he was after the easy way, good. If not — there was always the stiletto!

"We have heard something of your difficulty," he told the fat man. "The Americans again, of course. Those dung turtles! But you seem to be handling matters well enough — not that it is any concern of ours. You know what we want." As he spoke he watched the fat man carefully, trying to see the effect of his words. Knowing as little as he did of this setup it would be easy to slip.

So far Defarge seemed to have accepted him as genuine. This, N3 knew, was simply because the fat man had been taken off guard and had not yet had time to think. Plus the fact that he had been expecting either a Chinese, or someone representing them. Nick knew he would have to push matters while he could.

"We must know the date and route of the next opium convoy," he told the man bluntly. "It is most essential that we know this. You will oblige, please. At once. I had better not stay too long."

Maurice Defarge struggled to sit up in bed. "I don't understand this at all," he complained. "We made an agreement — to sell you the entire apparatus for ten million Turkish pounds! We've only had a million out of you people so far! Anyway the agreement was that this last shipment belonged to us — vour people not to take over, or bother us, until the fall! What about that?"

Nick shrugged and smiled, keeping in the shadows. "Things change rapidly, sir. I do not understand myself all that goes on — I only obey orders. Those orders were to see you and obtain the date and the route of the next opium shipment. You will tell me now, please?"

Maurice Defarge lost his temper. He struggled farther up in the bed, his face swollen and crimson. "I'm damned if I will! You bastards are all alike — and you Chinese bandits are the worst! I… we, have worked for years to build this thing up! Now you come along and tell us to move over, you're so sorry, but it's your apparatus now! Well, I'm damned if I will. A bargain is a bargain, by God and… and…"

The fat man fell sideways in the bed, clutching at his heart. He clawed at the coverlet and pointed with a trembling finger at the bedside table. "I… guuuugg… I… having… ohhhhh… heart attack! Medicine! My… my medicine! Green bottle!"

Nick walked out of the shadows to the bedside table. He picked up the little green bottle. Digitalis. He extended the bottle. The fat man reached with a pulpy trembling hand. "That… that it! I… I be all right now."

Nick stepped back, still holding the bottle. He kept it out of reach of the frantic hand. His smile was cruel. "You will tell me the date and route of the next opium shipment, please. And do not lie! I will know if you do — I have a way of testing."

Defarge sprawled across the bed like a stranded whale, gasping and fighting for every breath. A bluish tinge crept over his features. His little mouth twisted in agony. His eyes implored and he reached again for the bottle. "N… no time! I… I dying…"

Nick kept the bottle out of reach. "Then hurry! The time and route, please!"

The fat man clawed at the bed in a frenzy of pain. "Urfa." he gasped. "Urfa… Edessa pass! Thre… three days now! Now medicine — for God's sake medicine — I… dying… "

N3 stood looking down at Maurice Defarge for a moment. There was no pity in his glance, no compassion. He thought only in terms of a job to do. Nature was saving him the trouble, a bad heart was doing the job for him.

N3 tilted the bottle and poured the contents on the rug beside the bed. Defarge groaned and for a moment disbelief and terror were mingled in the watery, already fading eyes.

"Uhhhhhhhoooo…" moaned Defarge. Ohhhhuuuuu… I… you… " He rolled over on the bed, clawing at his throat. Nick Carter watched, his face as impassive as though he were actually Chinese.

The fat man stopped breathing. He gave a final grunting sob and a great bubble appeared from the flaccid lips. The bubble hung for a moment, swaying and rippling. The bubble burst.

Nick stepped to the bed. He pressed back an eye-lid with a thumb. A blank orb stared up at him. Nick closed the eye and started to pull the cover over the dead man, then thoueht better of it. Leave everything just as it was. A natural death. Defarge had a lone history of heart trouble. He could have soilled the medicine himself in his last agony. Yes. N3 thought with a grim chuckle. A natural death. Or was it! They will be wondering — and anything that confuses them is good.

He went swiftly to work. Fifteen minutes later he was convinced there was nothing in the suite itself that was of value to him. It figured. This outfit was clever, much too clever, to leave anything incriminatine around.

Narcotics and the Turkish cops had tried to bug the place, tried to search it without detection — and they had failed. He wouldn't do any better.

There remained the ornate bathroom. He wasn't going to find anything there but he had to look.

Urfa, Nick was thinking. Urfa and the Edessa pass in three days. The dying man had probably been telling the truth. Almost certainly. When you are in the final throes you do not have time to think up lies. So now he knew, for once on this mission, where he was going next. What he was going to do next. Upcoming — one hell raid!

So now for a fast look at the bathroom and then on his way. He had stayed too long now pushing his luck.

The moment he stepped into the bathroom he smelled it. This time he recognized it immediately. Acetone. Nail polish remover! The same smell he had noticed in the office and bathroom at Le Cinema Bleu. Nick glanced back at the fat corpse on the bed. Maybe the old goat had been just that — an old goat! Maybe he had his moments, had the little hotsies in and out, in spite of crippled heart.

And maybe not! Nick was beginning to feel a trifle bugged by the smell of acetone. It meant something! He was sure of that. But what?

He opened the white medicine cabinet, sure of what he would find.

There it was. The little bottle of nail polish remover. Fastact. Made in Chicago. Same as that he'd found at Le Cinema, in the bathroom of the murdered Standish woman.

Nick slipped the bottle in his pocket. No time to puzzle over it now. It was time for one phony Red Chinese agent to vanish — completely and forever. He took a final look around the suite and headed for the door.

He opened the padded leather door — and there she was. The blonde from Le Cinema Bleu. Marion Talbot. Defarge's secretary. She had a tiny automatic in her hand and it was pointed straight at Nick's belly. Behind her was the uniformed guard, revolver in hand.

Think fast, Mr. Carter!

Mr. Carter thought and acted at the same time. With incredible speed. He would have liked to put the collar on the willowy blonde and asked some pertinent questions at leisure, but the guard ruined that project. Probably had spare rounds in his pocket, Nick thought even as he was going into action. Black mark for me. Careless.

He kicked the little gun out of the blonde's hand and grabbed her in the same quicksilver motion. He kept her between himself and the guard, using her soft, fragrant body as a shield. The guard backed away, revolver at the ready, looking for an opening.

The girl fought silently except for a hissing noise. She clawed at Nick's face. He picked her up and threw her bodily at the guard. He went backward over a desk, the girl on top of him in a froth of skirts and pink underwear and black elastic and dazzling white thigh.

Nick ran like a thief. Great bounding kangaroo leaps that took him down the office and across the landing and up the iron stairs to the roof before they could disentangle themselves. He had a very good idea that the guard wouldn't shoot at him — the girl wouldn't let him. She wouldn't want the police anymore than Nick did. She was in on this deal somehow — no matter what Mousy had said!

He gained the roof, lined himself up with a certain spot on the tile coping and ran for it at full speed. He went out and over into the void in a smooth sailing dive. Midway down he twisted into position for a perfect fireman's fall. He would land on his back, clutching his knees, a compact ball of muscle and bone.

If no one had moved the trampoline!

They hadn't. Nick hit it squarely, bounced high, twisted erect and came down to bounce once more, then from the canvas to the roof top. He lit running.

By the time the guard and the girl reached the roof of the Annex Apartments nothing was to be seen on the adjacent roof but the silent and motionless moon shadows.