The Code

Eleven

Barbara was kneeling at her father's side when I got back to the apartment. Pain lined her pale face.

"This is going to demand a lot of you, I know, but I need your help. I have to find Rossi fast," I said.

"What do you think hell do?"

"He isn't going to give up his position and run. He'll make up another story to tell the Organization. For example, that you betrayed your father and joined forces with me."

She stood up. "Then we have to stop him before he can get in touch with them."

"Exactly."

She was driving a little Fiat. As we sped away from the apartment house, she said, "Rossi has an estate in the suburbs. I guess he'll go there."

I directed her to the street where I'd left my rented car the night before. The car was still there, with a ticket for illegal parking on the windshield.

"You drive," I ordered. I sat alongside her, putting together the rifle I'd checked out at the AXE base in South Carolina.

Rossi's house sat on a hill. Iron gates guarded the entrance and a high fence surrounded the grounds.

"An alarm goes off if the gates are forced," Barbara said. "You have to call the house and ask to be admitted."

I slid under the steering wheel and took her place. Then I drove through the gates, popping the lock and knocking them apart. The car shot up the paved drive with one of the gates still hanging onto the hood. A bent fender scraped a tire, sounding like a buzzsaw.

A man in a gardener's clothing yelled at us as we passed him. A second man came running through the shrubbery with a gun in his hand. I picked up the rifle with one hand, crossed my arm over my chest and thrust the barrel out the window. I pulled the trigger and the running man swerved and pitched sideways into a fishpond.

"That's Rossi's car," Barbara yelled, pointing at the Cadillac in the driveway. "He's here, all right."

I jumped out of the car and fired a shot into the Cadillac's gas tank. 1 pumped in two more bullets, then pulled out my AXE lighter and tossed it into the gas that had started to seep from the tank.

"What are you doing?" the girl asked in a bewildered voice.

"Making sure he can't get away," I said.

Flames burst up the body of the Cadillac and then the tank exploded. A man in a chauffeur's uniform appeared on a flight of stairs running down from an apartment above the garage.

"Nick!" the girl cried, pointing at him.

I leaned against the hood of my car, dropped the rifle into position and put a bullet in the chauffeur's chest while he was still trying to get the revolver from inside his jacket.

A slug whined off the fender near me. Someone inside the house was shooting at me. I dropped into a crouch and ran around to the other side of the car where Barbara was already squatting. Another gun started up. There were at least two men inside the house.

Holding the rifle across my knee I looked at the girl. She was breathing hard and the color had returned to her face.

"Barbara," I said, "you're all right."

"So are you, Nick."

"I want you to roll away from the car and hide among those rose bushes," I told her. "Can you fire a gun?"

"Sure, I can."

I pressed my Luger into her hand. "Shoot at the house. You don't have to have a target. Just shoot. I want some cover."

Then I wormed through the open door of the car and turned the key. I got the motor started while lying on my side on the seat, pressing down the accelerator with my hand. I reached up and pushed the gear and the car lumbered up the walk to the front of the house.

I rolled out on the lawn and squirmed through some shrubbery so that I was against the wall. I crawled under a row of windows to the corner of the house. There was a patio and a glass-enclosed porch at the back. Lew Rossi lived in style.

Picking up a small stone bench, I hurled it through the glass. A man came running out, looking for me. I waited, standing with my back against the wall. He finally ventured into the yard. As he passed me, I stepped out and hit him with the butt of the rifle.

I entered the house through the broken glass doors and found a woman in a red dress crouched in a corner. She was in her thirties and so scared she was shaking all over.

"Who in the devil are you?" she said in a quavering voice.

"I'm Nick Carter. Are you Rossi's wife or his mistress?"

"Neither one. I'm visiting from Vegas. And if I ever get out of here, I won't come back."

I walked into a larger room and a man bobbed out of a hallway and took a shot at me. I fired the rifle from my hip and my bullet hit a vase on a long table to the mans right. He jumped back. Turning the long table over, I pushed it out to block the entrance to the hallway. Then I used it for a shield.

The man put two bullets through it, near my shoulder. I lay on my side and moaned. I counted to ten before he took the bait. Then I heard him moving toward me. I waited until he reached the table and leaned over it to look for my body. Then I swung the rifle and knocked the revolver out of his hand.

He grabbed me by the hair, which was the best thing handy. My howl was not as phony as my moan had been. I thought he was going to pull my hair out by the roots. Rising up, I hit him under the chin with the rifle stock. Then I stepped over him and moved down the hallway, which was lined with doors.

"Rossi," I yelled. "Are you too yellow to come out?"

No answer.

I kicked open a door of an empty bedroom, then moved on.

"Rossi," I yelled. "You have to catch a man from behind like you did Joe?"

Silence.

I tried another door. A bathroom. A woman in a maid's uniform was cowering in the bathtub.

"You've got a fine place here, Rossi," I yelled. "Tell you what I'm going to do to it. I'm going to set it on fire if you don't come out."

He came out. He sprang out of a linen closet, hit me with the door and knocked me sprawling, then jumped on me.

The knife flashed as he thrust it up for my throat. I jerked aside and caught his wrist in two hands and started bending his arm backward. He fell away and pulled free, driving a fist into my ribs. Then he slashed with the knife again, cutting a long rent down my trousers leg as I rolled away.

We faced each other in the hallway, both of us panting. He was on his knees and I was on mine and the rifle I had dropped lay on the floor between us.

"Pick it up, Carter," he said. "Try to pick it up and I'll slice off your hand."

I had retrieved Hugo before I left Barbara's apartment. I slid the knife down into my palm and when Rossi saw it, he raised his arm to throw his own knife.

Barbara shot him. She had come into the house and was standing at the end of the hallway. She raised the Luger and held it firmly in both hands and blew the back of his head off. She walked slowly toward us and stood looking down at the dead man. Finally she turned to me with an abstracted expression on her face and said, "The code... he broke the code of the Brotherhood... the bastard."

She was wearing black when we said goodbye the next morning. She had her long hair done up in the chaste bun behind her neck and there was no makeup on her pale face.

"I suppose you're going on to Las Vegas now to try to pick up Moose's trail," she said.

"I have a feeling he'll be there waiting for me."

"Did you read the newspapers? The police can't figure out what happened. They think some kind of gang war is under way."

"We pulled out just in time," I said.

"Nick, there's something I have to say."

"You mean something like maybe we'll meet again when the circumstances are better?"

"I guess I don't have to say it at all."

The number Moose had written down for Cora in Las Vegas was the number of a ranch, a legal brothel run by a woman named Arlene Bradley. When she learned that I didn't want to sample the talents of her girls, the Bradley woman led me into a sparsely furnished office and sat down in a swivel chair.

"Cora left here some time ago. She wasn't meant for this and she found herself another life."

"Do you remember a man called Moose?"

"He and three others came here to see Cora. Naturally, I didn't question them. But I thought they were people she shouldn't have been involved with. As I said, I liked her. She was a nice girl and out of her element in a place like this."

She took a snapshot out of the desk drawer and handed it to me. "I took this. Is she the girl you're talking about?"

It was Sheila Brant.

"Just what are you after, Mr. Harper? What is the object of these questions?" the woman asked.

"Cora's dead. Like you said, she got involved with the wrong people. Only I knew her as Sheila Brant."

She blinked. The news seemed to hit her hard. When she spoke again, her voice was hoarse. "You should have told me sooner. I said I liked her and I meant it. Was the man known as Moose responsible for her death?"

"Yes."

"He is in Las Vegas. I saw him in a casino last night."

"If Moose shows up here, would you call me at my hotel?"

"Of course."

I hunted for Moose that night in the casinos and clubs and hotels, but I didn't find him.

Arlene Bradley called me while I was eating breakfast. "He got in touch with me. Can you come out?"

I drove through the broiling sun to the ranch. My pulse was fast and the adrenalin was flowing. My search was finally near an end.

"They asked about you, just like you asked about them. I said you had been here and were coming back. They want me to set a trap for you," Arlene Bradley said.

"Did you accept the proposition?,"

She smiled for the first time. It was a thin smile, hard and controlled. "I guess they think anyone in my business couldn't object to theirs. They offered me $10,000 to get you alone so they can kill you"

"They must have found the money."

"The money?" she said, frowning.

"Never mind. Tell them you'll do it. Tell them you'll set their trap."

"And you'll trap them instead."

"I'll try," I said.

I had passed an old ghost town on the way to the ranch. We drove out to it and I plodded through the dust until I found a building that looked right for what I wanted. I took the rifle out of the car and hid it on a rafter near the door.

"Am I permitted to ask the reason for your doing that?" said Arlene.

"I'm carrying a sidearm, which is enough protection at close range. But they may try to pick me off from a distance."

She gazed down the deserted street. Although the air was shimmering with heat, she shivered. "A perfect place for a shootout. Like in the movies. Only this isn't make believe."

"You've got some horses at the ranch. Tell Moose you're going to take me out for a ride this afternoon. You'll lead me here, then run off with the mounts and leave me on foot."

"It sounds perfect. For them."

"That's what I want them to believe. When are they going to get in touch with you again?"

"Moose said he'd call at noon. The timetable will suit him fine. So will the part about my stranding you here with no horse."

Back at the ranch, she poured me a drink and touched her glass to mine. "To success."

"To crime," I said.

She smiled for the second time since we'd met. "I keep up a facade of hardness because it's better for business. But I can feel strongly for people. Like Cora. Like you."

I poured us another. "To friendship, then."

We rode out to the ghost town in a sun so hot my shirt was plastered to my back. I dismounted.

"Do you see them, Ned?"

"I saw a glint of sunlight. They're probably watching through fieldglasses. Go ahead and take off. They'll be along. They wouldn't want to miss their appointment."

She pounded off, leaving my horse. That wasn't a part of the plan. But it didn't matter. Moose would still come. I knew I could count on that.

I sat down on the sagging porch of one of the long-abandoned stores and smoked a cigarette. Then I saw the car — a familiar Lincoln. It stopped at the end of the street and a man got out. A big man. He stood looking at me and I felt my heart lurch.

My horse made a noise. I glanced toward the animal and saw the other thug approaching from the opposite direction. He was walking, leading a mount. His feet kicked up dust in tiny spirals.

They had planned to catch me in a crossfire.

I threw the butt of my cigarette down. I got up and moved between two buildings. Standing against the wall of one of the shacks, I waited for my stalkers to make their move. It didn't take long. Moose came around the corner.

"How did you like my girls, Harper?"

"A couple were all right/*

"But not as beautiful as Sheila? She was a sweet thing, that one. I'm really sorry I broke her neck. We'd had some times together. But big money will turn a woman's head, twist up her thinking."

"She didn't rob you."

Moose moved closer. "Then who did? I got her the job in Arlene's house, but I never told anybody else about the money. So how could it disappear like she said?"

My arm was hanging at my side and I had turned so that Moose couldn't see my hand. I moved, brought the Luger around, and Moose's mouth dropped in surprise.

"I guess she made the mistake of telling Arlene," I said.

"Drop it, Harper!"

The other man had circled around the house and come up behind me. He was standing in a crouch, his gun pointed at me. "I said drop it, sucker."

"Don't shoot him," Moose yelled. "I want to hear what he has to say about the money."

I dropped the Luger and backed toward the shack. "Arlene won Sheila over and got her trust. She told me you offered her $10,000 for this setup. Is that right, Moose, or did she tell you it was a favor for an old friend?"

"She said it was a favor."

I turned and dove through the open window of the shack. I hit my shoulder on rotten boards and they gave, spitting up dust. I could hear Moose and the other man yelling at each other. I got up and ran to the rafter and reached for the rifle I had catched there. I should have known it would be gone. Arlene had come back and moved it. She had set me up for real.

The trouble was that I hadn't realized that she was involved until Moose brought up the money again. Moose had said he got Sheila the job in the house, which made Arlene a liar once, at least by sin of omission. Moose had said he still hadn't found the money, which meant he couldn't have offered Arlene the $10,000. That made her a liar twice. And she had given me that line about how strongly she felt about Sheila and about me. She had told me she would be waiting if I came out of this trap alive. With a gun, probably.

Moose came running along the porch of the house. He sounded like a buffalo. He charged through the door without stopping and fell through the floor. His weight was more than the rotten boards could take. He was pinned in the hole. He cursed and writhed, looking around for me.

I stepped toward him and hit him in the face with a loose board I had picked up. The blow was so hard the board splintered.

The other man was climbing in the window. I threw the stiletto at him, but my move was hurried and I missed. I dodged through the door. If Moose's friend hadn't picked it up, my Luger would still be lying outside.

I turned the corner at a trot. The gun was still there, but I didn't lean over for it. Arlene was standing between the building, the reins of her nervous horse in one hand, a middleweight Mauser in the other.

"Go ahead and pick it up. I came back to help you," she said.

"No, you came back to check with the boys and see if everything went according to plan. It didn't. I'm still alive and they know the truth. You stole the money from Sheila. She ran when she found it missing, never guessing you had it. She trusted you."

She fired the automatic.

I dropped fiat in the dust. I raised my head in time to see Moose's companion lean out the window and fire at Arlene. The bullet was a .45 and it tore her face apart.

I let out a yell and lunged for the man, pulling him out of the window. I slugged him in the face and clamped onto his gun hand as we rolled over in the dusty street. Moose lumbered around the corner. He picked up a boulder, raised it over his head, and stepped toward me.

The man under me was trying to get his gun pointed in the right direction, but I had hold of his wrist. I hit him again. I knew Moose was coming. At the last minute, I rolled away. Moose had turned the boulder loose. The other man was sitting up and the boulder hit him with a terrible sound, like a cleaver whacking meat. There was no doubt in my mind that the man was dead. No doubt at all.

Moose looked bewildered by the turn events had taken. He shook his huge head unbelievingly. Then he walked over to his friend. He wrenched the .45 out of the man's fingers.

I had crawled to the Luger. Turning, I shot Moose in the chest. Twice. I shot him a third time when he stood up, eyes wild, mouth working as if he wanted to speak.

Finally he fell and lay still in the dust. I rose slowly to my feet. The ghost town seemed almost soundless, like a cemetery. I was the only person in it who was left alive. The long hunt was over and, except for telling Hawk about the infiltrators in AXE bases, my job was done. But tomorrow there would be another.