Ruby Red Death

Six

The place was called the Rotten Apple, and it smelled worse than its namesake. It was on an alley with no name off Dream Street in one of the worst red-light districts in Hamburg.

They sat at a corner table looking out at the dancers moving frantically on a postage-stamp-size dance floor. The music was loud, pounding the walls, and, Carter was sure, damaging his ears.

Sitting across in a pair of hip-hugger jeans, a purple shirt open to expose his chest, and a pair of Gucci loafers, was Count Otto von Krumm. Otto was somewhere close to forty, claimed to be thirty, and bragged that he hadn’t bedded a woman over eighteen for twenty years.

Otto von Krumm’s father had been in the SS. He had survived the war with only the family castle near the village of Bundesdorg, on the West German/Nether-lands frontier. Eventually the old man had died, still saluting the Fuhrer. He had left young Otto the castle, the grounds around it, and a brilliant criminal mind.

For the first thirty years of his life, Otto had stolen everything he could get his hands on and invested it wisely. When he was rich enough, he retired to become an aging hippie who liked a challenge now and then. Quite often Carter offered that challenge.

Von Krumm leaned over and shouted into Carter’s ear. “I like it here.”

“I can see that,” Carter replied. “Can we talk in front of her?”

The German threw an affectionate arm around the voluptuous blonde who sat beside him, his hand accidentally sliding downward to partially cover a breast.

The blonde smiled at Otto. It was an animal smile, earthy and anticipatory. Carter noted that she didn’t have any pupils in her eyes.

Carter tried again. “I said, can we talk in front of her?”

“Of course,” von Krumm bellowed, and grinned. “She doesn’t speak any English at all. Even her German is terrible. But she has the strongest thighs you have ever seen. They are really quite remarkable. Dear me, look at that. And she seems quite taken with you, Nicholas.”

Carter followed his stare toward the knot of dancers on the floor. A couple seemed to have taken up residence right in front of their table.

The man was uninteresting, small and swarthy with a moronic face. But the woman was startling. She was barefoot, with long legs and a hard figure ensheathed in a shimmering lame dress. Her platinum hair was cut short and contrasted sharply with a deep tan.

Each time the couple made a revolving turn, the woman smiled at Carter and ran her tongue along her lower lip.

“Very nice,” von Krumm remarked. “I would look into that if I were you... in a manner of speaking, of course.” He laughed, a deep, rumbling laugh.

Carter got his lips as close as possible to Otto’s ear. “Can we talk?”

“Must we? I assume it concerns money.”

“It could.”

“Gruesome but necessary, I suppose,” von Krumm sighed.

“Somewhere else,” Carter insisted.

“Very well, we’ll go to my flat.” Otto rose and nodded toward the platinum blonde. “Why don’t you ask her along? We’ll have a little entertainment after we talk business.”

“No, Otto.”

“Very well, follow us to the flat.”

“I have the address,” Carter said. “I’ll meet you there.”

Von Krumm led the way out, holding the blonde by the hand. With one eye Carter was watching the shift of her hips as she moved. With the other eye he was watching the hard-eyed little man leave his platinum-haired dancing partner.

Outside, they turned right. Halfway to the corner, Carter whispered, “When you get to your car, drive around the block and keep circling until you see me in your rearview mirror.”

Von Krumm nodded and Carter darted into the alley adjoining the club. He made his way around to the rear and walked into the kitchen. A burly man at the door stood to block his progress. Carter waved a fifty-mark bill in his face and he was waved on in.

The Rotten Apple didn’t much care if you paid at the front or the rear for entrance, just that you paid.

He was halfway through the knot of dancers when he saw the platinum blonde on a stool at the end of the bar, alone.

“Hi,” he said, moving in beside her, close.

“You,” she murmured. “I thought you left.” Her accent was Belgian or French.

“I came back. Where’s your boyfriend?”

“Boyfriend? Haven’t got one yet. You interested?”

“The short, dark little guy with the wilted eyes. Where is he?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” she said, running her hand over Carter’s crotch. “Want to dance?”

“No.” Carter laid his hand on the inside of her thigh, squeezed, hard.

“Owww, damn you, that hurts!” she exclaimed.

“It can hurt worse. Who is he?”

“Don’t know, I swear. He gave me some marks to dance with him. Said he wanted to dance right by your table. That’s it, I swear.”

Carter believed her. He peeled off another fifty and stuffed it into her cleavage. “Thanks. I like your hair.”

The big one at the rear door just shook his head when Carter exited after so short a time. He moved through the alleys until he was four blocks away, on the street where he had parked the rental car near Otto’s Mercedes. Keeping to the shadows, he moved up the street until he was in the same block, then darted into a doorway. He had already spotted the little man slouched behind the wheel of a beige Audi parked at the corner.

A hand dropped on Carter’s shoulder and he froze.

“You looking for fun, darling?”

He turned slowly, letting the stored-up air in his lungs escape with a hiss.

She was on the wrong side of forty, with a mask of makeup for a face. She wore a thin, clinging black dress relieved by a string of phony pearls and a leather belt with a big silver L on it as a buckle.

“Not fun,” he murmured, “but maybe something else.”

“What else is there?” she said with a throaty laugh, and stepped forward a little so the dim light from the hallway behind lit her.

She had big, heavy breasts, and she showed them by way of a low vee cut to her dress. Her legs were still good where the short skirt revealed them to the darker panty part of her pantyhose. Her skin was dark, swarthy, and it made her nearly white hair stand out like snow on a black stone.

“I can do you back there, at the end of the hall.”

She lifted the skirt. There was no crotch in the pantyhose.

“I’ll take a raincheck.”

“Raincheck? What the hell is raincheck?”

Carter pulled her forward a little. “See that Audi down there, the man behind the wheel?”

“Ja.”

Carter told her what he wanted. As he did, he unrolled two more fifties from the wad in his pocket and curled them into her hand. “Okay?”

“Sure, okay. But for another fifty I give you a quick one to boot.”

Carter saw von Krumm and his blonde go by. “Just do a number on him. That’s enough. And remember — you just forget whatever you see. Go!”

He waited until she was across the street and headed down the block before he moved out himself. He pulled the Rommer and held it at his side as he moved from doorway to doorway.

When the hooker crossed back toward the Audi, Carter dropped into a crouch and moved over the sidewalk to the line of parked cars.

The hooker was doing a real number. She had the short skirt balled around her waist, the merchandise pumping through the open window practically in the guy’s face.

“What are you, cheap?” she was taunting.

“Get lost, whore.”

“Who you calling whore...”

All of it took no more than three seconds. Carter yanked open the passenger side door and dived across the seat.

“Head just like that,” he hissed. “Don’t move. Hands on the wheel.” For emphasis, he thumbed the hammer back on the Rommer.

“What’s this, you her pimp?” the little man snarled.

The hooker took off. She hadn’t seen a thing.

“Start the car, nice and easy.”

“Fuck you.”

Carter cradled the man’s head with his free hand and ground the barrel of the Rommer viciously into his ear.

“All right, all right!” He started the car and eased slowly from the curb.

“Turn right,” Carter barked. The man turned. Three blocks farther on, Carter spotted a deep alley. “In here.” He reached over and killed the headlights as they turned. “Stop here!”

They stopped and Carter pocketed the keys. Practically in the same movement he opened the door and shoved the man out. He had barely sprawled, when Carter had him up against the wall, his legs spread.

“Look, I don’t know—”

“Shut up.”

A fist in the kidneys brought a painful grunt but no more words. A search gave him a fat wallet, a passport, a credentials case, and a Heckler and Koch UP70 automatic pistol.

Inside the credentials case was a badge and an ID card identifying the man as Bruno Lunt, detective inspector, shield G4991411, St. Pauli District, Hamburg.

Carter shook his head in amazement. “What do the police want with me?”

“Routine.” The little man shrugged. “Picked you up at the airport. Suspicious acting.”

“On whose authority?” Carter asked.

“My own.”

“You just lounged around the airport, spotted a suspicious character, and followed me?”

“That’s right.”

“And what flight was I on?”

“Lufthansa 4113 from Belgrade...” He clamped his jaw shut, but it was too late.

Carter gave him another good shot in the kidneys and he went to the ground. The Killmaster put his foot on the back of the man’s neck, and ground.

“I’m the police, you fool!” the little man cried.

“I don’t give a shit. Someone spotted me getting on the flight in Belgrade and phoned ahead, right?”

No words, but a lot of wriggling. Using his hair, Carter bounced the man’s forehead a few times on the bricks, then returned his foot to the back of his neck.

“Right, Bruno?”

“Yes, Jesus, yes...”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. I never know. I just get a call from Berlin now and then. It’s always surveillance. I report, I get an envelope.”

Carter thought this over. It was a good guess that little Bruno had already made Otto; von Krumm was far from unknown. But that might not pose a problem if the count moved out fast.

“Get up.”

Bruno crawled to his feet. Carter pushed him to the rear of the car and opened the trunk.

“What’re you going to do?”

“More important, Bruno, what are you going to do?”

Carter took his State Department ID out and waved it in front of the little man’s eyes just enough so he could read the official seal and not the name.

“You might not know who those callers are in Berlin, Bruno, but I think you can guess. I’m into something big, bigger than anything you’ve ever known. The report you’re going to file is that you lost me tonight. You got that?”

“Ja, ja.”

“If I hear different, and I will hear, I’ll have the West German BfV on your ass like flies on shit. You got that?”

“I lost you right outside the airport.”

“And my friend?”

“What friend?”

“Good. Stick to shaking down hookers, Bruno. One of those phone calls will put you in a grave someday. Get in the trunk.”

The little man scrambled in and Carter shut the lid.

Back at his own car, he waited until von Krumm came by again, and fell in behind the cream-colored Mercedes.

He was big and he was tough, with a muscular build and dark, faintly cruel good looks. He looked as if he could chew nails and stomp any man twice his size for relaxation.

There was something about the man that made you look twice at him, something hard, impressive, and commanding. There was an all-consuming demand in his eyes, the straight, thin, unsmiling line of his mouth, the almost catlike way the muscular six-foot-three-inch form balanced lightly on the balls of his feet.

He leaned tiredly against the wall of the corridor as he pressed the bell of Apartment 6D and then waited. But not even the lines of exhaustion in his face could mask the intensity of his concentrated attention. This was a man who was used to waiting, but at the same time, a man who could spring into action instantly, with no perceptible lag, when action was required.

There were footsteps inside the apartment. A peephole in the door slid aside and a disembodied eye examined the man in the corridor. After a second or so, the peephole snapped shut. Two locks ground noisily and then the door swung open on well-oiled hinges.

A woman stood framed in the doorway. Her age was indeterminate. She could have been anything from twenty-five to forty. Her grooming was perfect. There was no flaw that any man could have found in her makeup. Her figure was a thing of beauty. But like the man in the corridor, her eyes were tired, cynical, and all-knowing. There were no illusions left in her.

“Come in,” she said quietly.

She walked from the door, not bothering to close it. He moved in behind her and closed it gently himself.

One shelf of books in a floor-to-ceiling bookcase swung out, and from behind it she took a velvet bag. He joined her at the table as she carefully unwrapped the bag. It opened, and the overhead light danced off a jewel-encrusted watch, two diamond rings, a necklace, and a matching pair of diamond earrings.

The man screwed a jeweler’s loupe into his right eye and carefully examined each piece.

“He wants thirty thousand,” she said.

“Impossible. I can’t move them without completely remounting every piece, and the stones in the rings will have to be recut.”

He folded all the pieces carefully back into the velvet bag and slipped them into his pocket. Then he took a thick roll of bills from another pocket and counted out twenty thousand American dollars in one pile. He put another twenty one-hundred-dollar bills in a second pile and pushed it across the table to her.

“Your commission.”

“Latos called from Marseilles. He’s got a big score.”

The man shook his head. “Tell him to hold off for a while and take nothing else. I have to be out of the country for a week, perhaps longer.”

She moved close enough to press her breasts against his arm. “Can you stay tonight?”

“No,” he replied, rising and moving toward the door.

“But it’s been so long,” she pouted.

“I must leave the day after tomorrow, and there is much to be done.”

The door closed behind him before she could argue.

On the street, he paused to light a small cigar. Behind the match and the spiraling smoke, he checked every car, every movement, every window as far as he could see.

Only when his animal instincts told him it was safe to move did he cross the street and get behind the wheel of an ancient Opal.

Two blocks away, a tall, slender figure in black leather sat astride a Triumph motorcycle between two parked trucks. The eyes behind the tinted shield of the helmet watched the Opal pull away.

Only after it had made a turn did the rider start the machine and follow.

Count Otto von Krumm’s flat was the penthouse of a seven-story building overlooking the Herbertstrasse, the famous “Street of Harlots.”

“It warms me,” he said, “to be able to look down at any hour of the day or night and see all that sin.”

It was a cheerful apartment, with three guest rooms, a master bedroom suite, a dining room, and living room.

They came into the living room, and Otto dismissed the girl with a kiss on the forehead and a pat on the bottom. When she had gone, he turned to Carter and laughed, as if ashamed of himself.

“What will you drink?”

“Nothing, thanks. You want me coherent, after all.”

“Precisely. How do you expect to order your thoughts without a drink? Scotch?”

“Thank you.”

“A sober man is a depressing man.” Von Krumm walked to the bar and mixed it quickly. Then he produced four bottles with strange shapes and unfamiliar labels. “I’m off scotch, myself. Too dull. Slivovitz with a shot of absinthe. Gets the blood running.” He poured and moved back to Carter with the glasses, handing Carter the scotch. “To money and sin.”

Carter grinned and drank.

“Now, then,” von Krumm said, easing into the plush sofa, “let’s have it. I must warn you that my finances are in an excellent state, so whatever you propose must have aesthetic qualities as well as huge financial gain.”

“First, is the castle at Bundesdorg suitable for guests?”

“Above the first floor, or the dungeon?” von Krumm chuckled.

“The dungeon, actually. One, maybe two, for at least a week.”

“It can be arranged. Will you need a keeper?”

Carter shook his head. “I’ll bring my own.”

“’Nuf said. Consider it done. What else?”

“Your father’s old SS files. I want you to find a Nazi who is dead but could be alive. He must be a man who had access to vast loot and could have fled to South America.”

“That shouldn’t be any problem. Then what?”

“You become that man.”

Von Krumm started. “Oh, dear. He would have to be close to seventy. All that makeup—”

“Otto,” Carter interrupted, “let me explain...”

For the next hour Carter outlined his plan and what they were going after, leaving out only Vadim Vinnick’s name. The more he talked, the more von Krumm became interested. By the time the Killmaster was through, the count was smiling like a cat eating cream, and filling in details of his own.

“Lovely, lovely, Nicholas, a true tour de force! I’ll leave for the castle in the morning.”

Carter stood. He placed the wallet, credentials case, revolver, and car keys he had taken from the Hamburg cop on the table. Von Krumm leaned forward and flipped open the credentials case.

“The reason for your delay?”

Carter nodded. “He does odd jobs for a Berlin source. It’s probably a central number for all the East bloc agencies who want surveillance done but don’t have a man of their own in place.”

Von Krumm chuckled. “Certainly not in Hamburg. I think the last man they had here fornicated himself to death. What do you need?”

“I think I put the fear of hell in him, but it wouldn’t hurt to add an exclamation point to it.”

“No problem,” Otto said. “I have a couple of friends who can return all this to the gentleman and cause him great distress at the same time. Anything else?”

“Yes. I was going to fly to Amsterdam tonight, but they have another watcher at the airport. If you can get me a clean car I’ll drive over. Also, have someone drop my rental at the airport.”

Von Krumm grabbed the phone and dialed. It was answered at once. Less than a minute later he hung up and turned to Carter. “Do you know the Hansa Theatre on Steindamm?”

“Yes.”

“The doorman’s name is Kurt. Trade keys with him. He’ll point his car out to you.”

Suddenly the blonde, completely naked, appeared in the doorway. “Otto, when do you come to bed?”

“Now, my dear,” von Krumm replied, and traded glances with Carter. “Isn’t she lovely?”

“A true gem.”

“Sure you won’t join us?”

“Otto, you have no morals.”

The count was laughing as he moved to the bedroom door. “Absolutely none, my friend. Absolutely none!”