Night of the Warheads

Seven

The bribe is useful all over the world. When one knows how to use it and can find someone susceptible to it, the options are unlimited.

That was why Lily was needed for Carter's operation to penetrate Pepe. Anyone who was brokering killers in the Bluebeard class could be expected to have someone inside the newspaper offices who would tip him off when a certain ad was placed.

It would be just as easy for him to obtain the location of a phone number, whether it be private or a phone booth.

For that reason, Carter stood just inside the high wall on the third tier of the Ganay Stadium. To the east, south, and north were the open areas of the parking lots for the stadium, Chanot Park, and the Palais des Expositions. To the east were the wide boulevards of the Marguerite district, with their sidewalk cafés, restaurants, bistros, and chic women's wear shops.

From his perch on the soccer stadium wall, Carter could see nearly a mile in every direction. Right now, through a pair of high-powered binoculars, he could see Lily calmly sipping coffee in a café at the corner of Place Michelet and Boulevard Leon. She wore a bright red skirt and a thin white summer sweater that could be spotted easily from any distance.

At the edge of the sidewalk, four paces from her table, was a phone booth. The number of the booth was the number Carter had placed in the ad.

It was five minutes to five, and Pepe's boys were already in place. They sat just across the square from Lily in a dark gray Cortina.

Carter could see them talking to one another without ever shifting their eyes from Lily. They spoke like a pair of old cons, their lips barely moving.

Carter guessed that was exactly what they were.

The black limousine was nowhere in sight, but Carter didn't figure it would be. Pepe or Marc LeClerc would not risk being spotted by Bluebeard twice without knowing what the killer's intentions were.

Carter saw a flash of red in the corner of the glasses, and he shifted back to Lily. She was on her feet and moving toward the booth.

Farther down the block, short and pudgy started the Cortina.

Carter waited until Lily was finished on the phone and was back at her table before sprinting down the three levels of stone stairs to the stadium entrance.

He was pretty sure the men in the Cortina would eventually make a try for Lily, but not while she was in the crowded café.

His heels had barely touched the cement of the first level when the phone near the entrance started ringing.

Carter was in the booth in three strides. He yanked the instrument from its cradle and took a deep breath. Now came the moment of truth. Had Carstocus — as Bluebeard — ever made contact directly with Pepe, or had it always been through Pomroy?

And if that contact had been made, would Pepe recognize Carstocus's voice?

"Bluebeard here."

"This is Pepe. What are you trying to pull?"

Carter relaxed. "I'm being safe. I don't know you, and Pomroy has disappeared."

"We think he is dead. Why haven't you delivered on the contract?"

Again Carter tensed. Now came the second shot in the dark.

"I never received the vitals."

"You what?"

"Just what I said," Carter replied, confidence flowing now like a fast river through his body. "I never got the particulars or the target from Nels."

"Damnit, you received the money!"

True, and I'm willing to fulfill the contract. Give me a number where I can reach you. We'll set up a meet."

"You must be insane! Part of our arrangement was that we never meet… no faces, no names."

"That was your arrangement with Pomroy. Now it's a new deal."

"Impossible!"

"Then no deal."

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Carter guessed that a hand was being held over the receiver because he could distinguish muffled voices in the background.

Then Pepe was back.

"I take it you still want the contract?"

"Yes, on my terms."

"We are not a wealthy organization. We have given you a great deal of money. If we can't come to an agreement, what happens to the half you have already received?"

"It stays in my Swiss accounts."

Another pause with more background voices.

"Very well. Do you have a pencil?"

"I have a good memory."

Pepe rattled off a number. "What time will you call?"

"I don't know. Just stay by the phone."

Pepe was cursing in a mixture of French and Spanish as Carter broke the connection. He quickly dropped the required coins into the slot and waited for Lily to answer.

"Yes?"

"It's me. Everything's right on schedule. Wait ten minutes and then take off. And do exactly as I told you. Okay?"

"Okay," she replied with only a hint of fear in her voice.

"Don't worry, luv, it's almost all over."

He replaced the instrument and jogged back up the stairs.

There was anger and frustration all over the two faces in the Cortina. Lily was visibly nervous, but she was holding fast at the table, her eyes darting to the watch on her wrist every few seconds.

"Just do it like I wrote it, honey," Carter whispered, his eyes watering a bit behind the glasses.

Then she was up and moving across the square, the Cortina crawling along about two blocks back.

For the next hour Lily wandered along the fringes of the park. She bought a newspaper, sat on a bench and played at reading it, and even fed some ducks in a small pond.

Then, at precisely 5:50, with the sun starting to dip, she crossed Boulevard Michelct and entered the narrow streets and alleyways that would eventually lead her to the promenade along the docks.

Short and pudgy left the Cortina to keep track of her on foot, and his buddy slid over into the driver's seat.

They were good, Carter mused, following them with the glasses until they were out of sight: good but predictable.

Carter moved down to the street and hailed a cab.

"Nouvelle Plage."

"Out, monsieur."

It would take Lily, walking, about thirty minutes to cover the distance the cab did in five.

"Stop here," Carter said when they reached the point on the promenade he had already staked earlier that day. "Do you see that alley there that runs alongside the racetrack?"

"Oui, monsieur."

"In twenty minutes, a woman will come out of there wearing a white sweater and a red skirt. Pick her up and take her where she wants to go."

"Twenty minutes it is."

Carter fluttered the torn half of a five-hundred-franc note in the driver's face. "She will have the other half of this."

Carter looked over his shoulder and saw a beaming smile on the cab driver's face.

As he jogged across the promenade, he entered the maze of alleys that adjoined the racetrack, passed the paddocks, and broke into a run across the wide walkway to Baraly Park.

He could see Lily just entering the park on the opposite side. Short and pudgy was about a block behind her, and the Cortina was about twenty yards behind him. Both of them were closing fast.

Carter had guessed right.

They knew the city and had picked the best spot to take her: a narrow lane between two hedgerows about halfway through the park.

Carter made the lane first and moved into one of the many alcoves in the hedge that housed benches and statuary. A few hours from now, under cover of complete darkness, the alcove would become a meeting place for a pair of young lovers.

Right now Carter had a very different use for it.

He could hear Lily's heels clicking on the narrow walk. getting louder and louder, until she flashed past. She did not glance into the alcove, but then she would not know which one he had chosen, and in the pea jacket and dark sweater he was almost invisible.

Close on her heels, his pace increasing with every step, came her pursuer.

Carter rolled his weight to the balls of his feet and tensed to spring.

He saw a coat sleeve and then a short, stocky body.

"Monsieur…"

"Oui?… Que…?"

Carter's clenched hands, forming one powerful fist, came down smack in the center of the man's face. He felt and heard the nose go, and just as a cry of pain rolled from the man's smashed lips, Carter grasped him by the lapels.

In one swift, deft movement he whirled, ramming the small of the man's back against the edge of the fountain. A second howl of pain was cut off as the side of Carter's hand came down across the back of his neck.

Like wet laundry, the body folded to the brick floor of the alcove, but Carter was already in the lane walking toward the headlights of the Cortina. A cigarette was in his mouth, and his hands cupped the flame of a match.

About ten yards from the crawling car, Carter squinted through the smoke streaming from his nostrils. The driver's dark, deep-set eyes were darting everywhere looking for his mate.

By the time Carter was directly alongside the car's open window, he had sucked the cigarette between his lips into a glowing ember.

"Hey, you…!"

The pockmarked face turned directly toward him just as Carter flipped the cigarette. The ash hit the bridge of the guy's nose and spread. Some of it must have caught one or both eyes, because the howl from his throat was blood-curdling.

But he was game.

He must have been rolling along in neutral, because when his foot hit the accelerator nothing happened but a lot of rpm's and no movement.

Before he could find the gear shift, Carter had the door open and had grabbed a handful of his hair. As Carter yanked, the guy tried to claw a PPK from beneath his jacket.

It was a mistake for two reasons.

One, the pistol had a long, cumbersome silencer screwed into its snout. The end of the silencer caught on his jacket and wouldn't let go.

Two, he had thumbed the safety off when he tried to pull it.

Carter heard the phfft sound, and the guy was dead weight in his hands. He flipped him over, and when he saw the dark stain clear across his chest, Carter did not even bother to check for a pulse.

He hit the dash button to release the trunk lid and dragged the body to the rear of the car. When he had it stuffed as far inside as it would go, he lifted the guy's wallet.

As he jogged back to the alcove, he emptied the wallet into the pea jacket — ID and miscellaneous cards in the left pocket, cash in the right.

When short and pudgy was stuffed in with his buddy. Carter did the same with his wallet, then threw the two pieces of leather in with the bodies and slammed the trunk lid.

Lily was waiting under a streetlight at the foot of the Musee Baraly steps.

"Get in!"

She did, and sat, white-faced and rigid, as Carter pulled into traffic on the boulevard and headed for the train station.

"Where are they?" she asked at last in a surprisingly calm voice.

"In the trunk."

"Are they… are they… dead?"

Carter barely made a yellow and pushed the little car up to fifty on the Corniche J.F. Kennedy before flicking her a quick, sidelong glance.

Her jaw was set in a hard line, and her complexion was an ashy white. But she was not trembling, and there was no sign of hysteria.

"Are they?" she asked again, turning her face toward him but unable to meet his eyes.

"No," Carter half lied, then he checked his watch. It was 7:00 sharp. The train to Avignon would leave at 7:14.

"They are evil men, aren't they?"

"Yes," Carter said, "they are."

"Then it is all right… what you have done."

"Am doing," he corrected and threw her another quick glance. Her fragile lips were trying to smile.

Ahh, youth, he thought, whipping the car into the station drive.

He rolled on past the entrance into shadows, stopped, and tugged her purse from her hands. Pulling the wads of money from the right-hand pocket of his pea jacket, he stuffed the whole amount into the purse.

"What is that?"

"A little bonus," Carter replied, dropping the purse in her lap. "It will replace your bag and clothes at the hotel. Adieu."

"Just adieu…?"

"That's it," he replied, looking straight ahead. "That's got to be it."

She leaned across the seat and turned his face to here with one hand. With the other she stuffed a piece of paper into his hand as she kissed him.

It was a short but sensitive kiss that said a lot without promising anything.

And then she was standing outside the car, her face obscured in the shadow from the building.

"What's this?"

"My address… my telephone number in Avignon. Perhaps one day…"

She left it hanging and turned away.

Carter watched her all the way through the station before he lit a cigarette and pulled the Cortina back into traffic.

Rue Emile Zola was a narrow, tree-lined street in one of Marseille's more posh and older residential districts. The estates were large and set far back from the road in the midst of heavy shrubs and towering, leafy trees.

Number 37 was not a great deal different man its neighbors, except that its huge wrought-iron gates fronted just across from a side street that angled up a hill.

Carter smiled when he noticed this and lightly ran his fingertips over the small electronic device clipped to the sun visor above his head.

He made two passes in front of the gates, then turned into the side street and climbed until he could look down into the property behind him. When he was satisfied, he made a U-turn, parked, and killed the headlights.

With the binoculars he studied the layout.

A thick, crenelated wall ran around the entire perimeter of the property. The house itself was massive. Architecturally, it was a bastard cross between an English Tudor mansion and a French country chateau.

To the right, where the stables had once been, three sets of open double doors now revealed a garage. On the left was a swimming pool, and beyond that were a pair of tennis courts.

Monsieur LeClerc's organization might be pleading poverty, Carter thought, but the gentleman himself certainly managed to live in style.

A wide, asphalt lane led straight down from the gate to a courtyard and the main entrance of the house. The Mercedes limousine and a dark blue Citroen station wagon with Paris VLT plates sat near the marble steps leading up to the front portal.

Satisfied that his little plan of surprise had at least a ninety-five percent chance of success. Carter moved to the rear of the Cortina.

"Hey, sleeping beauty," he whispered, tapping lightly on the lid with the silencer of the Walther.

There was no response.

He opened the trunk with the keys and felt short and pudgy's pulse. It was faint but still there.

"Well, little man," Carter said, "if you survive the crash, you're going to have a lot of explaining to do to your boss.

He dragged both bodies — one dead, one breathing — from the trunk and propped them up in the back seat. When they were secured with the seat belts, he closed the trunk lid and crawled back behind the wheel.

Everything had to be arranged just so.

The electronic gate opener he held in his left hand. The PPK — with the safety safely on — he tucked into his belt.

Then he started the Cortina.

"Ready, gentlemen?" he growled, glancing at his passengers in the rearview mirror.

Hollow-eyes stayed that way. Short and pudgy s lips were twisted into a grotesque grin.

"Good show… we're off!"

He rolled forward in low, then pressed the accelerator halfway as he shifted into second.

Fifty yards short of the bottom of the hill, he pointed the little gray instrument forward, pushed the «open» button, and sighed with relief as the huge iron gates rolled inward.

At the edge of Rue Emile Zola, he floored the car for two seconds, then shifted into neutral.

Ten feet short of the gate he rolled from the car and hit the soft, grassy ditch in a tuck.

One roll brought him to his knees and then to his toes. Without a second's pause, he scrambled back up the drive.

The Cortina was already through the opening and careening directly down the hill toward the courtyard.

Carter hit the «close» button, and the gates swung swiftly and silently shut. The latch had barely clicked before he was pumping shells into the black box just inside the gate that controlled the electric eye.

When the Walther clicked on empty, he threw it and the gate opener over the wall and took off in a sprint up the hill.

He did not turn around until he heard the crash. By that time he was in the darkness at the top of the hill.

The smile that creased his face was pure satisfaction as he crouched on one knee and brought the glasses to his eyes.

The Cortina had sideswiped the Citroen and kissed grille to grille with the Mercedes. The bigger, heavier, and better-made car was far from out of commission, but cosmetically it was a mess.

There had been only two or three lights on in the house. Now it was like a Christmas tree, and men were pouring through the front door and around the side of the house from the garage.

Two of them assessed the situation in the Cortina instantly. They both looked toward the now closed gate, gestured, and sprinted toward the Citroen. The driver's side door was unopenable, so they both had to get into the car through the passenger side.

In no time they had the car started and were roaring up the hill toward the gate.

Through the glasses, in the Citroen's dashboard lights, Carter could see the man on the right feverishly pumping the button on an electronic device similar to the one Carter had just used and tossed over the wall.

When both men realized that the gate was not going to work, the driver slammed on his brakes. The sound of screaming tires broke the night stillness, and the car rocked to a halt with its front bumper inches from the gate.

Carter replaced the glasses in their case under his arm and jogged on over the hill. Sure now that there would be no pursuit, he slowed to a leisurely walk when he hit a main boulevard and made for the port.

About a mile from Rue Emile Zola, he stepped into a small bistro. Inside, there was a young crowd, mostly college age. They sat at tables surrounding a small stage where a girl strummed a guitar and sang a lamentation about the state of French politics.

"Monsieur?"

"Calvados, s'il vous plaît."

"Oui. monsieur."

Carter sipped the brandy and smoked for the next twenty minutes.

"Is there a phone?"

"In the rear, monsieur, in the Gentlemen's."

"Merci."

Carter made his way down a dark hallway and entered the men's room. Inside, he checked the two booths, found them empty, and dropped coins into the phone.

"Oui?" It was answered on the second ring.

Carter squeezed his nostrils with a thumb and forefinger and spoke with his tongue hitting his teeth to simulate a lisp.

"Monsieur LeClerc, s'il vous plaît."

"Un moment."

LeClerc's voice, raspy with tension, was on the line in ten seconds.

"Yes?"

"Monsieur LeClerc?"

"Yes, yes, who is this?"

Carter dropped the lisp and removed the fingers from his nose.

"This, Pepe, is Bluebeard."

The silence from the other end of the line was like a tomb. Carter waited until he was sure that LeClerc had digested the fact that his cover for Pepe was blown, then he spoke again.

"Did you get my message, LeClerc?"

"So it was you. I suspected as much. Did you have to kill Petri to make your point?"

"I didn't. It was an accident. He killed himself. How about the other one?"

"A broken back."

"Too bad," Carter said. "The misfortunes of a dangerous business. You should have called them off."

"I think it's clear why I didn't. You now have the advantage of knowing who I am, and I know nothing about you."

"In fairness, LeClerc, I am willing to rectify that. If you see my face and can identify me, will that give you some insurance that I plan on carrying out my part of the bargain?"

"I think that would be acceptable."

"Good. Do you know the vista drive above the Hippodrome?"

"Of course, the Pont de Vivaux."

"Very well. Tomorrow morning, I want you to drive to the very top… just you and a driver."

"What time?"

"The forecasters tell us that sunrise tomorrow will be at six fifty-eight. Shall we say, two minutes past dawn?"

"Agreed."

"Au revoir, monsieur," Carter said. "Sleep well!"

He moved back through the bistro, pausing only long enough to drop a few bills on the bar.

Three blocks away, he hailed a cab and rode directly to the Vieux Port and the hotel.

"Wait," Carter said to the cab driver, dropping some francs over the seat.

"Oui, monsieur."

He took the tiny elevator to the fifth floor and walked down to the fourth. It took less than five minutes to gather all of Lily's things and take them back to his room, where he packed them in his own duffel bag.

At the desk, Carter dropped the keys in the slot and regained the taxi.

"La gare principle, s'il vous plaît."

It was ten minutes to the main railway station. There he paid the cabbie and made directly for the transient bag claim area.

"Your claim check, monsieur?"

The old man paid little attention to the seedy-looking sailor picking up the two very expensive leather bags. Carter tipped him just enough francs to keep him happy but not enough to crease his memory.

A block from the station he deposited the duffel bag in a large garbage container and continued on to the public baths.

A half hour later he emerged, clean-shaven, in a conservative black suit with gray pinstripes, soft leather loafers from Italy that could not be purchased anywhere for less than two hundred dollars, and a crisp white-on-white shirt with a narrow, unpatterned indigo tie.

On the street, he shunned a cab and walked the ten blocks to an all-night rent-a-car.

"I ordered a car by phone this morning," he said, passing over his passport and credit card.

"Oui, monsieur. It is ready for you."

An attendant loaded the car with his bags while Carter filled out the papers under the clerk's watchful and appreciative eyes.

It was not often he had a customer who could afford a month's rental on a forty-thousand-dollar automobile.

The doorman was just as appreciative of Carter's style of arrival when he pulled into the drive from Rue la Canebiere and rocked the impressive little car to a halt in front of the Hotel Grand et Noailles.

The crisply attired concierge waited behind the huge mahogany desk with a beaming smile.

"May I be of assistance, monsieur?"

"You may. I have a suite reserved."

"The name, monsieur?"

"Carstocus. Nicholas Carstocus."