Night of the Warheads

Six

Carter left Paris by car on a Wednesday afternoon. Before leaving, he placed the answering ad in both the Tribune and La Voix, one of the smaller Marseille dailies.

He drove leisurely on the A6 to Lyon, where he spent the night, and even more slowly the next day, arriving in Avignon at around three in the afternoon.

After dumping the rented car, he cabbed to the train station, where he shipped both his bags on to Marseille in the Carstocus name.

From there he walked the few blocks to the town's old shopping quarter. From different outside stalls he made purchases of a pea jacket, two denim shirts, two pairs of faded denim trousers, a denim jacket, a pair of boots, and a heavy black turtleneck sweater.

In a surplus store he bought a duffel bag and tipped the acne-scarred young clerk to use the rest room.

Five minutes later he emerged a tramp seaman.

"We have razors, monsieur," the clerk said, eyeing Carter's two-day growth.

"No need," Carter growled in a low French dialect. "I'm back to sea in two days."

Carter left the shop and checked into the cheapest hotel he could find in the roughest part of town.

"Twenty francs, monsieur, in advance."

"Does that include a lock on the door?"

"But of course."

It did, but it didn't work. It took Carter twenty minutes to fix it, even though he knew someone could break it again in a minute if he wanted in badly enough.

Hugo — his deadly stiletto — Carter left strapped to his right calf encased in its chamois sheath. Wilhelmina and two spare clips of shells were secured under a pair of loose floorboards.

Then he stretched out on the rickety bed and, in minutes, was fast asleep.

At ten sharp his mental alarm went off. Instantly alert, he crawled from the bed and dressed in the turtleneck and denim trousers. He pulled the light denim jacket over the turtleneck and went down to the street.

The night was alive with neon and laughter from the open sidewalk cafés. On a hill dominating the city, Carter could see the Palais des Papes, the Palace of the Popes. Near it were other palaces that had been converted into modern hotels. It was there, and across the river in more expensive Villeneuve, where most of the well-heeled tourists would currently be dining and would shortly be looking for the evening's entertainment.

That, thought Carter, looking around, was exactly where he did not want to be.

The six-block stretch of street in front of him was perfect for the evening's hunting. It was full of garish bistros, cheap hotels — some for all-night guests, others that charged by the hour — and three or four nightclubs with hard-looking doormen-cum-bouncers lounging in front of their doors.

Carter moved down the street until he spotted a café that appeared a little cleaner than the rest, and stopped. He chose a table near the sidewalk, and waved to a dour-looking waiter who sported a Gauloise hanging from the side of his mouth and a dirty apron wrapped twice around his middle.

He staggered over.

"Do you wish dinner?"

"Oui."

A greasy menu found its way into Carter's hands. The waiter disappeared, and returned immediately with a glass and a carafe of wine so thick and dark Carter wondered if it would pour.

"What would you like, monsieur?"

"Aubergine aux tomates… le foie de veau grillé… pommes frites"

"I'm sorry, monsieur, the broiled calf's liver is not on the menu tonight."

"I don't give a shit," Carter replied in a very low voice, his teeth gleaming in his tanned face. "That is what I want."

"Monsieur… s'il vous plaét…"

The waiter reached for the menu, and Carter caught his wrist, his nails digging into the soft inner part.

"I am celebrating my last few days ashore. I have told you what I want to eat. Now you tell your excuse for a chef what I want to eat."

The waiter's face was contorted with pain, and he had clamped his jaw so hard to avoid crying out that the burning end of the Gauloise threatened to sear his nose.

"Oui, monsieur!"

He skittered away, and Carter poured a glass of wine. He lit a cigarette to go with it and leaned back to survey the street. Streetwalkers were everywhere, a few of them obviously not straying too far from their pimps.

One caught his eye and started to move across the sidewalk. Carter shook his head, and she faded back to her corner.

There were other characters, drifters, pickpockets, a few slumming tourists, but no panhandlers.

That made him smile. Unemployed Frenchmen do not beg. They either find a job or they steal.

The food came, and he was surprised to find that it was quite good. Enough so that he left a generous tip to the waiter when he left.

He spent the next hour going from bar to bar, casing the B-girls in each of them and fending off the streetwalkers.

In an alley called Pigalle he found the place he wanted: Le Club Poupee. Girls, Girls, Girls and Floor Show danced in garish lights on the marquee, and there was a steady stream of couples going out the door and single girls going in.

"Ten francs, monsieur… cover."

Carter passed a bill through the grill work, got a stamp on the back of his hand, and moved through the doors. The room was narrow and about fifty yards deep, with a bar the length of one side and tables along the other. A very bored-looking trio played loud music on a back bar stage, and most of the tables were occupied with women.

One tall, long-haired blonde had removed a very large breast from the front of her dress and was carefully applying rouge to the areola when Carter hit the doors.

She looked up and grinned widely as Carter passed her table. "Hallo, buy me a drink?"

"Sure."

She returned the breast to momentary safekeeping and followed Carter to a rear, unoccupied table.

He ordered whiskey. She ordered champagne that, when it came, looked like tea. He tasted it.

"Tea."

She shrugged. "I drink all night. I can't afford to get drunk. Don't worry, you'll get your money's worth."

To prove it, she reached for his crotch with a smile. Carter managed to catch her wrist and guide it back to the tabletop.

"Later."

"Good. We'll go to my place after I get off, okay?"

"Maybe.

"You a sailor?" Carter nodded, making a face as he swallowed half the whiskey. "Good, I like sailors. You'll see, I'm terrific."

Carter only smiled. It was the oldest line in the B-girl bar business. The girls never got off until three in the morning. By that time the sucker was drunk and the girl had imbibed a hundred bucks' worth of tea.

But Carter went along with it.

He partied for the next two hours, sipping whiskey and buying tea. In that time, nearly every girl in the bar had passed through the booth. He had just about given up finding the right one, when she suddenly showed up.

"I am Lily. Buy me a drink?"

In fifteen minutes the others had floated away. It was obvious that the handsome, drunken sailor had made his choice for the evening.

Carter toned down his jovial manner and loud laughter long enough to get particulars.

Her name was Lily Luciani. She was twenty-two, born in Avignon, and she was not a whore.

"I will entertain you, talk with you, drink with you… but I will not go to bed with you. I am a student, and this is the only job I could get."

"I think that's bloody marvelous," Carter said in low, unaccented English that made her head snap around.

"You are English?" she asked, her mouth agape.

"American, to be exact."

"But…"

"My French is perfect. Thank you. How much money would you ordinarily make tonight?"

"About one hundred francs… maybe," she stammered.

"I'll pay you that to leave with me now and have a cup of coffee."

"I told you…"

"A cup of coffee."

She leaned forward and, for the first time since she had sat down, stared directly into Carter's eyes. "You are sober."

"Yes, I am," he replied. "Coffee?"

"All right."

"Good, let's go. And, by the way, your English is very good."

She was petite, with a small figure that looked out of place in the tacky, cheap dress she wore. In the less garish light of the café. Carter could see that she had intelligent eyes, an upturned nose, and an almost elfin face.

Right now her neat eyebrows were arranged in a very quizzical vee.

"Let me see if I understand this. You want me to go to Marseille with you. You want it to look like a party, a seaman on his last date with his girl friend before he goes to sea."

"That's right."

"And you want me to take along two sets of clothes."

Carter nodded. "One student set. one bar girl set. Not quite as tacky as you have on. If you need anything to fill out the wardrobe. "I'll buy it."

She shook her head and asked for a cigarette. Carter took one from his pack and held his lighter as she puffed awkwardly.

"You don't smoke," he said with a smile.

"I know, but I have to have something to do with my hands. I do not understand. If you need a girl for your business, why don't you hire one in Marseille?"

"Simple. What I want done won't be dangerous for you while I'm around. It could be when I'm gone. A girl in Marseille might be found after I'm gone. You won't be found in Avignon."

"Why me? Why not one of the other girls?"

Carter's grin broadened. "Do you think you're smarter than those other girls?"

She hesitated but finally replied. "Yes."

"There's your answer. I need someone who needs the money and is willing to go to certain lengths to get it."

"And any girl who would work in Le Club Poupee would go to certain lengths?"

"I think so," Carter said.

Another long pause, and then Lily leaned forward and spoke in a low, throaty voice. "Are you a policeman?"

"No."

"A crook?"

"No."

"But this business you are talking about… it is… illegal."

That's what you're going to help me find out."

She leaned back and sighed in exasperation. "You are not a sailor."

"No."

"Then why…?"

"If I had walked into your club in a business suit, thrown my money around, and walked out with you, how many of those girls would have remembered me?"

"All of them!" she said firmly and then swallowed. "Ten thousand francs?"

"Half now, if you want it."

"No, I… I don't know why, but I trust you."

He grinned. "It's probably because I'm an American. Get your things. I'll meet you at the train station in two hours."

"All right, I'll go. But, remember, I won't screw you!"

The Hotel Vincennes on the Quai Port was cheap, and the management paid very little attention to its patrons as long as the rent was paid in advance.

Carter stayed well behind her from the train station to the port, then killed an hour over breakfast and harsh coffee after she checked in. When he was sure there would be little connection between them, he made his way into the old-fashioned but fairly clean lobby of the hotel.

A bored concierge-desk clerk-bellboy answered the bell and barely glanced at Carter as he whirled the register around.

"Without bath?"

"With," Carter replied, signing "Napoleon Bonaparte III" to the register with a flourish.

The man spun the big book back around, glanced down, and then looked up at Carter with a scowl.

"Monsieur is in the entertainment business?… A comedian, perhaps?"

"Monsieur is trying to get a ship after he became slightly drunk and missed the sailing of his last one."

"I see. Then you have no passport?"

It was a fairly common thing among seamen, but nevertheless dangerous. If a merchant seaman missed his ship and was without papers, he had to apply to the Francois Maritime National for new ones and be incarcerated until he was on another ship.

"Passport?" Carter smiled. "Of course… right here!"

He laid two one-hundred-franc notes on the desk between them. The man's hand came out like a mongoose striking and the notes disappeared.

"The room is two hundred and forty francs a night, monsieur… in advance, of course."

"Of course."

Carter laid out three more big ones. They went into a drawer and no change was offered.

"Merci, monsieur. Room five-oh-one."

Carter took the key and made a detour through the hotel café on his way to the elevator.

Lily, following his instructions to the letter, was seated alone near the entrance. He dropped his duffel bag at the door and crossed the room.

"Calvados, ma petite, s'il vous plaît."

The woman behind the counter selected the bottle, wrapped it, and took his money. Carrying the bottle of apple brandy, Carter moved back through the tables. Passing Lily, he let his eyes flicker downward for the briefest of seconds.

Good girl, he thought.

Right beside her plate was a napkin. On it was written 412. One step beyond the table he saw her take the napkin, dab her lips, and carelessly slide it into her purse.

Going up in the elevator, Carter sighed with relief. He had made a good choice.

In the room, he unpacked, poured three fingers of the brandy into a glass, and sat down to write out the ad.

He waited another twenty minutes to make sure Lily had time to return to her room, and then he took the stairs down to the fourth floor.

His knuckles had barely brushed the veneered wood before the door opened and Carter popped inside.

"This is fun!" Lily said, her dark eyes flashing with excitement and an elfin grin on her face.

"Don't let it be too much fun," Carter said grimly. "Here."

He passed her the scrap of paper then spread a map of Marseille out on the bed.

"I'll leave first. You follow in exactly thirty minutes. The newspaper office is here, Number Eight rue Montparnasse. Take a taxi. After you place the ad. leave the office and walk down to the corner… here. That will put you on the Avenue du Prado. At Bond Point, rum right. At Armenienne, here, go in and pray."

"Pray?"

"That's what I said… for about twenty minutes. When you leave there, take a cab to the Baraly Museum, here."

"And that's where I play the whore?"

"Exactly. There is a little café just across the street, here. Take him there. And, remember, you'll be followed, but at no time look over your shoulder as if you were looking for it. Do you understand everything?"

She nodded.

"Good. Just be natural. I'll be close by all the time."

From a hallway in an office building across the street. Carter watched Lily enter the newspaper offices. The business took only about ten minutes, and soon she was out again, strolling toward the Avenue du Prado.

She looked good in a striped black and white pullover that stretched tautly across her breasts, and a black, shimmering skirt that hugged her hips and bottom like a second skin.

With spike heels, a beret, and mesh stockings, she looked just tacky enough to pull it off.

He could have brought in an experienced operative from the Paris AXE headquarters, but that would have taken time. And there was a good chance that little Lily could perform better anyway. True, there was the risk factor, but with only two small things to perform — and Carter himself on her like glue — it was unlikely anything dangerous would happen.

He watched her turn at the Avenue du Prado, then shifted his concentration back to the newspaper offices.

An untrained eye might not have seen such an infinitesimal change.

Carter didn't miss it.

Above the doorway was a large clock. Just beneath the clock's face was a three-by-four-foot digital readout of the current temperature.

It had been blinking regularly since his arrival. It was now turned off.

It didn't take much looking. They were at a sidewalk table in the café directly below Carter. One was a short, paunchy man with a thick shock of black hair that seemed to be constantly tumbling over his eyes. The other was a little taller but lean as a reed and nattily dressed in a beige gabardine suit. His arresting feature was a horribly pockmarked face and dark eyes that seemed to recede clear inside his skull.

The short, fat one, a paper under his arm, took the point after Lily. The second waited several minutes to see if his comrade was followed.

When he was sure this was not the case, he picked up the trail himself.

Carter made the rear of the building in less than two minutes. He had already reconned the cab stand in the middle of the block. It had not been left unoccupied in the twenty minutes he had been checking it.

And it wasn't now.

"Eglise Armenienne?"

"Oui."

"An extra thirty francs," Carter added in French, "if you make it in five minutes or less."

The G-force of the leaping taxi put him hard against the seat and kept him there for the full three-minute ride.

There was a newsstand directly across from the church. Carter made for it and browsed through racks of paperbacks until he spotted Lily.

Without any hesitation, she walked up the steps and entered the cathedral.

They were exactly thirty seconds behind her, with the taller one now in front. Both of them went a block beyond the church, where they paused at a storefront and conferred out of the sides of their mouths.

Short and pudgy was elected. He returned and entered the cathedral.

Carter did not wait. He purchased the Paris edition of an American skin magazine and took to the street.

Two blocks past the hollow-eyed window watcher. Carter turned onto Rue Paradis and found another cab.

"Musee Baraly?"

"Old."

"Take your time," Carter said, easing back into the seat and lighting a cigarette.

Carter sat, sipping brandy and espresso, in the café directly across the street from the Baraly Museum. Lily had entered the building nearly a half hour earlier. Her two watchdogs were close behind.

Now he watched her crossing the street arm in arm with a tall, athletic specimen in a dark blue, conservatively cut suit. He was about six-three, with wide-set blue eyes, a tanned and seamed face, and just the right amount of steel gray at the temples to give him age and a little class.

He did not have the look of the typical killer. But then Bluebeard wouldn't have.

An excellent choice, Carter thought, one eye on the magazine, the other on the couple.

They sat down three tables away, just close enough for Carter to hear part of their conversation.

Acne-face entered and took a table by the window. Short and pudgy made for a phone booth near the museum steps.

Bingo, Carter thought, and sipped his brandy.

"I am just a working girl, monsieur," Lily was saying, "not a whore."

"Oh, my dear, I'm sure of that. But I am sure you wouldn't turn down a slight gift for your favors…?"

"Of course not," Lily said and smiled coquettishly.

"Then, shall we go? My apartment is just around the corner."

Lily shot a quick look out of the corner of her eye at Carter.

He returned the look with a barely perceptible shake of his head while sipping from the cup of espresso. Whoever short and pudgy was talking to on the phone. Carter wanted them to have plenty of time to arrive.

Lily played it to the hilt. A seasoned actress — or courtesan — couldn't have done it much better.

When the mark began to get too insistent about leaving, she played him along by running her hand up his thigh under the table. When he got too amorous, she got slightly angry, and when he showed signs of cooling off, she whispered all the erotic things she was capable of performing.

When Carter saw the black limousine pick up short and pudgy and move on down the block, he moved to the counter and paid his check.

Lily was already up and moving toward the ladies' room in the rear. She would go on through the hall and exit a rear door into the alley.

Her would-be lover was rubbing his hands together at the table.

Carter donned sunglasses and tugged his knit watch cap down over his forehead when he hit the street. Passing the limo he made the license number, but the windows were blacked out with dark glass, making it impossible to read the occupants.

He walked a measured, slow pace to the comer, but once around, he broke into a sprint. Around the second corner he spotted Lily waiting nervously at the mouth of the alley.

"Was he all right?"

"Perfect. Did you get the address?"

"Eight Rue Celese… a block down and four doors to the right."

"You're an angel," Carter said, pecking her on the lips. "Get back to the hotel. I'll see you later."

Carter took off at a dead run. He made three blocks, turned, and then doubled back until he spotted Rue Celese. Two doors down from Number 8 and across the street was a "To Let" sign.

He rang the bell.

"Oui?" She was a harridan, about sixty, with huge, pendulous breasts, huger hips, and blue hair coiled on top of her head.

"I would like to see the rooms."

The woman looked at his clothes, his unshaven face, and started to close the door.

Carter managed to wedge his body between the door and the jamb. At the same time, he produced a thick wad of bills with the hundred-franc notes in clear sight.

"Actually, madame, I would like to use the apartment for about a half hour."

"Monsieur, you are insane."

Carter peeled off two bills, one hundred francs each, and pressed them into her pudgy hand.

"An affair of the heart, madame. I have been at sea for nearly a year. I return… my wife… ascoundrel…"

He accented his words with the French shrug. She hesitated but also shrugged when Carter added a third bill.

"Two-A, directly above. The door is open. And don't smoke, monsieur. I have just cleaned."

"Madame, I only want a place to set my eyes."

It was twenty minutes before tall and athletic came around the comer with a smile on his face and a spring in his step. The limo was nowhere in sight, but Carter knew it soon would be.

The would-be lover entered Number 8, and one minute later the limo sailed by and parked at the corner. Lily's two watchdogs jumped out and returned to Number 8.

They were efficient. The poor guy barely got out two words before they were through the door.

Five minutes later, the short one was out the door and heading for the limo for instructions. They were short, and in no time he was back in the flat.

Carter smiled to himself. If Pepe was as sharp as he should be, it would not take him longer than five minutes on his car phone to see that the lothario in Number 8 was a far cry from Bluebeard.

It took three minutes.

They both came out the door and made for the limo on the dead run.

Carter waited fifteen more minutes, then headed down the stairs.

The old lady was standing in the open door of her apartment. "Well?"

"Well," Carter said and shrugged. "I guess she decided not to visit him today,"

He cabbed to the Vieux Port and found a phone booth before returning to the hotel.

The call to Paris went through at once.

"Pallmar here."

"This is the man from Washington."

"Yes."

"I have a license number of a motor vehicle in Marseille."

"What is it?"

"F-S-S-X-four-four-one."

"And the number of your phone?" Carter read off the number of the pay phone. "Five minutes."

The connection died, and he lit a cigarette to wait.

It was a long shot but one worth trying. Carter guessed that whoever Pepe was, he was the go-between for the party buying the hit. If Nels Pomroy was Bluebeard's broker, the chances were pretty good that Pepe did not know Bluebeard's real identity.

That was why tall and handsome had taken some abuse that afternoon. If Carter could get a name, the cards were in his corner.

The jangling phone brought him back.

"Yes."

"The car is registered to Marc LeClerc. He has a residence in Nice and one in Marseille on the Rue Emile Zola… Number thirty-seven."

"And what does Monsieur LeClerc do to occupy his time?"

"On the surface he is a munitions broker."

"And underneath?"

"He is the banker for the Basque revolutionary front, Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna."

Lily was pacing the room like a caged animal when Carter made his way down from his own room and deposited food and a bottle of wine on the bed.

"I saw those men."

"Did you?" Carter said, biting into a loaf of bread and stuffing bits of cheese and roast beef into his mouth.

"They looked like killers."

"Did they?"

"Damn you. what is this all about?"

Carter set the food down and pulled the wad of bills from his pocket. He peeled off ten one-thousand-franc notes and placed them on the bed.

"A bargain is a bargain."

"Who are you?" she said, standing before him, chewing on her lower lip.

"I'm a man with a job… a strange job, but just a job."

He added two more bills to the stack and chewed off another hunk of bread.

"We'll stay put until tomorrow evening's phone calls. Once that's done, it's back to Avignon with you and a comfortable life for a while."

"And that is all I am to know?"

"That's all. Eat, the cheese is good."

She nibbled and sipped the wine until Carter had eaten his fill.

She watched him with wide, almost fearful eyes as he stood and stretched.

"Where are you going?"

"Back to my room. It's late and there'll be a lot to do before the phone call tomorrow afternoon." He leaned over and lightly brushed his lips over her forehead. "Good night, my little student."

In his own room, Carter stripped, then slipped Hugo under his pillow and Wilhelmina under the bed.

Between the sheets, he was asleep in five minutes, only to be awakened by a light tap on the door.

He slid from the bed and flattened himself against the wall by the door with Wilhelmina in his hand.

"Yes?"

"It's me… Lily."

Carter growled, then slipped the chain and turned the bolt.

The door was barely ajar before she slipped through it and closed it behind her.

"Where are you…?"

"Right behind you," Carter said, lightly touching her shoulder.

"Oh!… oh."

"What is it?"

"I'm afraid."

"Oh, Christ, this is a fine time to be afraid."

"I do not mean I am afraid of tomorrow…"

"What then?"

"I am afraid of tonight."

Carter frowned. "Well, what do you want me to do about it?"

"Let me stay here with you."

"I thought you said…"

"That I would not make love to you? I will not. But I did not say I would not sleep with you."

Wearily, Carter stumbled to the bed and crawled between the sheets. "Suit yourself."

He heard her undressing in the darkness. Then he felt her weight shift the bed and the tug of the covers.

He was almost asleep when she slithered across the bed and molded her body to his.

"I am not afraid now."

"Good."

Silence.

"Do you want to make love to me?"

"If I say yes, you'll say no," Carter replied. "If I say no, your feelings will be hurt. Right?"

"I… I guess so."

"So I won't say anything."

She wriggled her soft, round bottom into his belly and found his hand. He did not try to stop her when he felt the full, firm mound of one of her breasts fill his palm.

"What is your name?"

He thought for a moment and decided it didn't make a hell of a lot of difference. "Nick."

"Nick?"

"Yes."

"I am not afraid now."

"Good. Good night."

"Good night."

She was sound asleep at least two hours before he was.