Ruby Red Death

Thirteen

When Carter came to, his neck and right shoulder were a mass of pain, intense, throbbing pain. He lay on his belly, and perhaps another minute passed before he heard the groans. It was another minute before he realized they were his own.

Then he concentrated, first to stop making the silly noises, and then to find out where he was.

It wasn’t easy.

He began with his fingers and then his toes. Everything moved. He opened his eyes. A window. Daylight. But his eyes wouldn’t focus.

Fingers first, he pressed down, and groaned again as his shoulder muscles worked. Deliberately, he shut off the pain and continued to press until he sat up.

He looked around slowly, wary of what he might find.

And then he saw her. She sat in a chair at a table; the single eye that wasn’t swollen shut stared fixedly at him. One side of her face was a swollen, purple bruise. He could see fear crawling slowly, obscenely across the rest of her face.

“Who are you?” Her voice sounded as if someone had been beating a tattoo on her vocal cords.

“I need a drink. Water.” She made no move. His hands slipped and he almost fell from the bed, then pushed himself up again.

Verna Rashkin stood and laboriously moved across the room to a sink. She filled a glass of water and staggered back until she stood in front of Carter.

“Who are you? They said you weren’t Huzel.”

“I’m a con man and a thief,” he growled.

He reached for the water and she threw it in his face. Then she turned and made her way back to the chair. She barely made it, when the door opened and Umberto Grossman entered. A second man took up a post by the door.

“Who are you?”

“Christ,” Carter hissed, “everybody around here has the narrowest vocabulary I’ve—”

The side of Grossman’s foot caught him in the ribs, sending him reeling from the bed. When Grossman stepped forward for another kick, Carter was ready. He grabbed the foot and twisted. As Grossman fell, Carter used the leverage to gain his own footing.

But the room was spinning. He drew his foot back to stomp Grossman, but there the motor action ended.

The stormtrooper type at the door leaped forward and got an armlock around Carter’s neck. He was held while Grossman scrambled to his feet and slammed Carter low in the gut.

The guard let go and Grossman hit Carter in the face, rocking him groggily against the wall. He hit Carter again, slamming his head against the wall. His legs turned to water and he slid slowly down the wall, trying to protect his face with his arms.

“We know what you did to Huzel. He escaped from your dungeon, or whatever it was. He is flying to Rio now. Who are you!”

“A thief... I’m a thief.”

“You are a fool,” Grossman grunted, and went to work with his feet.

Carter was slipping away, when from somewhere far off he heard a voice, Bolivar’s, telling Grossman to stop, that he would be of no use to them dead... not yet.

The door slammed, and Carter did slip off for a few moments. Gradually, his mind began to activate again. He felt his head being raised and then life-giving water was flowing down his throat.

He opened his eyes and saw Verna’s beaten face. “Thanks.”

“You really must be a thief,” she said, “or one hell of a fool.”

“Grossman do that to you?”

She shook her head. “Eva. She loved it. I thought I was kinky. She’s gone.”

“Where are we?”

“In a room above the stable.”

Somehow, with her help, Carter got to his feet and across the room to the sink. He turned the tap on full, cold, and put his head under. He came up for air and did it again.

It helped. When he wiped the water from his eyes, they worked. Now he could take a hard look at Verna. The fear was still in her eyes, only now it looked as if she was on the border of hysteria.

“You look like hell.”

She nodded. “I feel worse.” She stepped forward and leaned against his chest. There were no tears. Verna wasn’t the type for tears. But her body was shaking. “They’re going to kill us, aren’t they,” she whispered.

“They’re probably going to try,” Carter said, and set her gently on the bed. “But I think there’s time to do something about it.”

And then it hit him. Time.

He looked at his wrist. His watch was smashed, stopped. “Verna, your watch... does it work?”

“Yeah... it’s noon. Why?”

He remembered the bugs in his room. “Nothing. I have a thing about time, I hate to lose it.”

He cased the room. The smell of leather made him guess that it had once been a tack room. The window wasn’t barred, but there was heavy mesh over it and there were four panes in it. He’d have to kick the glass and the metal ribbing out before he could even get to the mesh.

In the stableyard below he could see a guard lounging against the wall. He had an M-16 slung over his shoulder, and his eyes were looking right at Carter in the window.

The door was solid wood, inches thick. He tried it, very gently, knowing it would be locked. He stood against the door, ear under the sharply angled ventilating slats, and listened. Someone moved, and paused for a long time, and moved again, this time with a slight click-click that Carter knew to come from a gun swivel. A guard.

He looked around some more. He needed a weapon, a club, anything. Seven hours until boom-boom time. He had to be off and running before then.

Then the bed came to mind. He lifted the springs and found a hardwood slat. It was broad for his hand, but solid and heavy.

Verna was watching him. “Against...”

He put a finger over her lips and then his lips at her ear. “To use an old cliché, the walls have ears.”

For some reason that brought life. “Bastards!” she yelled. “You’re all bastards!”

He couldn’t use the slat until seven. He replaced it and stretched out on the bed. “There’s nothing we can do. We might as well rest.”

“You’re right,” she sighed, and stretched out beside him. She was silent for several moments, then, “You know, I still don’t like you.”

“I affect some people that way,” Carter said with a yawn.

It was a little after four. Verna was asleep on the bed. Carter was at the window. He had been there for some time. It allowed him a good view of the helicopter.

For the past half hour, men had been shuttling from the house to the chopper and back. They had carried file boxes and briefcases, and now and then an occasional suitcase.

Bolivar was running, but not for good. If he were leaving with no intent of coming back, the Killmaster was fairly sure the man’s greed would dictate evacuating the works of art scattered around the house.

So far, everything that had been taken to the chopper seemed to relate to business. More than likely he had found a safe place to settle in until the heat on him would blow over and he could quietly return and liquidate before finding a new hole to crawl into.

Where were the jewels? On the chopper? Perhaps. Or maybe not on the estate at all. Maybe they had been in Rio, in a safe-deposit box, all along.

There was a sound at the door and Carter moved away from the window, on his feet, ready. The door swung open and Umberto Grossman stood in its frame, an automatic like a toy in his big fist. He looked at the sleeping woman, then at Carter, and rolled his head toward the outside.

“He wants to see you.”

They moved in procession, a guard in front, Carter and Grossman, and a second guard bringing up the rear.

“I would like to kill you very slowly,” Grossman muttered out of the side of his mouth.

“You’ve already had a good start,” Carter said dryly.

Grossman ignored him. “Bolivar wants to make a deal with you. I would advise you to take it.”

They crossed the compound and entered the big house. Carter noticed that several guards were strung along the way.

Good, he thought; the perimeter of the estate would probably be like a sieve.

They entered the great room, where Bolivar sat at the end of the long dining table. In front of him and on the floor by his side were open file boxes. With glasses on the edge of his nose, Bolivar was refiling some papers and discarding others into the roaring fire behind him.

There was a second chair to his left. Carter felt the hairs ripple on the back of his neck. On the table in front of that chair were two large leather cases. They were flat and rectangular.

“Sit,” Bolivar said without looking up.

Carter sat. “Can I have a cigarette?”

Bolivar nodded. Grossman shoved one between Carter’s lips and lit it, not worrying much if the flame caught Carter’s nose as well.

The old man finished with his current pile of papers and looked up, removing his glasses.

“I managed to get through by telephone to Huzel in Amsterdam. He told me everything that he couldn’t put in a cable.”

Carter crushed out the cigarette, resisting the urge to ask how Huzel had escaped from Mortimer Potts. He also hoped that Potts was alive.

“Why did you take Huzel’s place?” Bolivar continued.

Carter leaned back calmly. “I have fair contacts. I got the word you were selling. I wanted to make a good score. I took Huzel out and impersonated him.”

Bolivar grimaced. “I wish I could believe that.”

Carter shrugged. “It’s true.”

“I have done extensive research over the years. Very few dealers are financially able to convert a buy of this size. If you were one of them, I would know about you. Who are you?”

Carter shook his head. “I can get the cash. You have the merchandise. Once we made a deal, I didn’t want to look over my shoulder while I was converting it.”

This seemed to make Bolivar pause to think. It was a full two minutes before he glanced over Carter’s shoulder and nodded. Grossman stepped forward and opened the two leather cases.

Suddenly the room seemed to explode with new light and color, all of it emanating from the interior of the cases.

Random unset jewels — diamonds, emeralds, and rubies — gleamed from their personalized niches in the layers of felt. The display was dazzling, and in the center of one case was the most dazzling of all... the bloodred, huge Heartstone.

“As you can see, I did not bring people here for nothing,” Bolivar grunted. “Now I would like to know your source of finances.”

“I can give you a number and a code,” Carter lied. “A lot of my financing is through certain gentlemens’ accounts in Switzerland, of course.”

“Of course,” Bolivar replied dryly. “How much of it is through Odessa?”

Carter looked as perplexed as possible. “What?”

“Odessa, you son of a bitch,” Bolivar hissed. “Were you supposed to lure me somewhere else to settle the deal, or were you going to try and assassinate me right here?” He was on his feet now, his eyes full of fury and his face flushed.

“Odessa is a bunch of dying old men,” Carter retorted, standing himself. “I don’t know what the hell—”

Behind Carter, Grossman tried to kidney-punch him. The Killmaster slid to the side, avoiding the punch, and whirled. He brought his knee up into Grossman’s crotch with enough force to drive the man’s sex up into his belly. Grossman doubled with pain and fell to the floor.

It was futile and Carter knew it. Both guards rushed him from the rear of the room. They covered him like an avalanche and he went down under their combined weight.

Bolivar leaned over him, his florid face only inches above Carter’s. “You’re going to die. But before you do, you’re going to let your contact know that your mission was completed. It won’t free me forever, but it will buy me time. Take him back to the stables!”

They half dragged, half carried him back across the compound and up the steps. He was thrown into the room with such force that he bounced off the opposite wall beside the window.

Verna was awake, sitting wide-eyed on the bed staring at him. Carter motioned her to him with a wagging finger. She moved like a zombie and crouched beside him. He twisted her wrist around and looked at her watch.

It was almost six o’clock.