The Spanish Connection

Fourteen

Mitch Kelly had been a detective on the San Francisco police force for several years before he resigned to join AXE's stable. I had barely closed the door to Barry Parson's room before he was going quickly through the pockets of Parsons clothes.

He laid the contents out on the top of the bureau and went into the bathroom to get a towel. There was a great deal of blood on the body and also on Kelly's hands. Kelly had shot him in tie heart, and the force of the blow had killed Parson instantly. Kelly had used his own Colt.38 Detective Special, loaded with those special high-muzzle-velocity and high-depth penetrating cartridges.

When Kelly came out of the bathroom, he was wiping himself thoroughly and glancing at his wristwatch.

"Wallet," I said. I was going through the papers. "Barry Parson, it says."

"Strictly cover," Kelly murmured, coming over and standing beside me, watching. "Somebody did a good job."

"The papers? You think it was MI-5?"

Kelly shook his head. "Told you we had contacted the British. They didn't affirm his identity."

"Yes, but…"

"When the British do not affirm, the British deny. You see?"

I continued through the credit cards and the passport. I glanced over the passport, but Kelly shook his head. "Forget that. That's cover, too."

"It looks like the real thing"

"You can get a good set of papers made in Portugal if you have the money to pay for it. Including the finest passport counterfeit on the Continent. There are hundreds of fake identity sets roaming around Europe — all Made in Lisbon."

I sifted through the papers thoughtfully. "Does it smell governmental?"

He shook his head. "I'd say he was a free-lancer. Mercenary for hire. That kind of thing. I told you Interpol had rung up a 'no sale' on him. But I'm going to put through his prints, anyway."

I continued reading the papers, then started in on his luggage. There was nothing there to hint at anything but an affluent Britisher who spent most of his time touring the Continent.

Kelly got out a small kit and began to roll Parson's prints. When he had finished all ten, he wiped off the ink carefully and put the prints in a glassine bag. Then he got out a small mini-camera, Japanese-made with the name filed off, and took several shots of Parson's face. In repose Barry Parson looked quite harmless, lacking in the vitality that made him what he was in life.

There was absolutely nothing in his things to tie Parson to a syndicate of any land. We figured that Parson had not been working for any group Tina was fronting but for her especially.

And that made Tina a number-one question mark. Who was she working for — if, indeed, she was working for anyone?

Kelly kept glancing at his watch.

"Worried about the time?" I asked.

"I'm wondering what we're going to do with this body."

I took a deep breath. "Not much we can do. We just go out and leave it here."

"But Elena Morales?"

"She comes in and finds it. And she blows the whistle. Nothing to tie Parson to us — nothing concrete."

"We were seen in the discothèque with him."

"Can you put in a fix?"

Kelly considered. "It's pretty late. That's why I was checking the time. Eleven-thirty. I don't think my contact is on duty now."

"The tall man with the Fu Manchu mustache?"

Kelly grinned. "Yeah. You know him?"

I sat down and stared at the carpet. "We've got another problem to worry about now. Tina doesn't know her hit man is dead. She thinks he's going to be waiting for her to arrive at Sol y Nieve to finger Corelli. And that means she's going to be coming up here. We've got to stop her."

Kelly frowned. "How?"

I thought hard for a long moment. "Look. How about this? We call Tina at the hotel in Granada. We leave a message from The Man. It says he's leaving Sol y Nieve and wants to know where to meet her. Then we just wait here till she calls the hotel. We find out who she wants to talk to. And that man is Rico Corelli."

I stared out the window, waiting for Kelly's response. "It sounds good. What do we have to lose?"

"Suppose she immediately calls Parson to tell him whom to shoot?"

Kelly shrugged. "She finds out Parson is dead, and then she contacts Corelli. We're ahead either way."

"I'm going down to the lounge to intercept Elena Morales," I said. "I don't want her wandering up here and finding the body. She might alert the whole hotel."

"I'll join you as soon as I take care of the Bergson woman."

We left the door unlocked and stepped into the hallway. No one saw us.

Both Juana Rivera and Elena Morales looked up at me as I entered the lounge a few minutes later. I had heard loud laughter and shouts of mirth all the way out in the lobby. Juana and Elena were in the middle of a raucous party with Herr Hauptli, his two Germans, his Dane, and a group of about twenty other skiing couples.

I strolled over and nodded to Juana and Elena. They made a place for me between them. Herr Hauptli saw me, greeted me, and introduced me to the group.

I grinned, waved my hand, and sank back in the couch between the girls, looking into the blazing fire. It was safe and secure in here, far from the sound of gunshots and the sight of blood.

Herr Hauptli was regaling the group with some of his more entertaining sporting exploits — he was a hunting buff, a fishing expert, a yachtsman of great accomplishment, and a great mountain climber — and I scribbled a few lines on a dinner check and passed it to Juana with a warning to keep it out of sight.

She didn't even acknowledge it, but I knew she was reading it out of sight of everyone. A sharp elbow in my rib told me that she understood.

I had put that last part in because I didn't know quite what to do about Elena Morales. If she was seriously involved with Barry Parson, she might have known — or guessed — what he was up to. If not, there was no need to have her hauled in for investigation. For her sake, I didn't want her to find out about Parson's death just yet. If Juana couldn't handle her, I felt that I could.

Mitch Kelly appeared at the doorway of the lounge, grinning broadly and waving at some of the couples he knew. Then he spotted me, and came over quickly, leaned down and said in a low voice, "Lobby. Quick." No one else had heard. He squeezed my shoulder, kissed Juana on the cheek lavishly, and left the lounge after a nod of apology to Herr Hauptli.

I touched Juana's thigh and got up to go. Kelly stood by the floor-to-ceiling glass window at the rear of the lobby that overlooked the bottom of the ski run. He was watching my reflection in the glass. The lobby was completely deserted.

He spoke in my ear without moving his lips — an old cop trick picked up from prison inmates.

"She's left the hotel in Granada. Seems to be headed for Sol y Nieve."

"When did she leave?"

"This evening. No telling when."

"That's bad news."

Kelly nodded.

In the reflection of the plate-glass window I saw one of the desk clerks put down a telephone and walk across the lobby toward the lounge. After a minute he came out again. Behind him, walking quickly and gracefully, was Elena Morales.

I nudged Kelly. Elena was headed purposefully toward the stairway. That meant that she was going up to her room — the room she shared with Barry Parson!

Kelly and I exchanged startled glances. I could see Juana emerging from the lounge with a worried look. I punched Kelly.

"Hold Juana in the lounge. You join her. I'm going up after Elena."

"Right."

I waited till Elena was halfway up the stairs before I started after her. Something had happened. Someone had alerted her. I couldn't understand who — or why. Yet it was obvious that she was going to her own room.

Third floor. Down the corridor, around the turn. She reached into her bag for her keys. But when she got them out and touched the knob, the door opened. She turned to look up and down the corridor. I had anticipated such a movement and had ducked back around the corner, out of sight.

She didn't see me.

I heard the door close behind her.

Quickly I moved down the corridor and planted myself outside her door. At first I couldn't hear anything through the thickness of the paneling. The carpet kept any sounds from drifting through the crack between the door and the frame.

But then I thought I could hear the murmuring of voices inside. I could hear one light, high voice — a woman's. Elena Morales' voice, certainly. But who was she talking to?

No one. She was using the phone — of course!

Then the murmuring stopped and I couldn't hear anything more. I waited for the sound of the receiver being replaced on the base, but I missed it. Then a door opened and squeaked shut. A closet? Was she dressing to go outside?

I moved quickly to the far end of the corridor and went out onto the balcony that surrounded the building on three sides. I pulled back out of sight and crouched there against the outside wall, waiting for Elena to come out into the corridor.

But she didn't appear.

I glanced at my watch.

Fifteen minutes.

I moved back down the hallway and stopped in front of her door, craning my neck and putting my ear to the paneling.

Nothing.

I drew the Luger and held it against my chest as I stepped forward and turned the knob. The latch was still unlocked, just as Kelly and I had left it.

Quickly I moved inside, placing my back against the door and holding the Luger out in front of me.

There was no one there — alive.

Parsons body lay exactly where we had left it.

But there was no one else in the room.

Where was Elena Morales?

I glanced at the closet doors, but the closet was too small for anyone to hide there. And yet…

It was a faint sound, and at first I wasn't even sure that I had heard it But as I stood there, hardly daring to breathe, I heard it again. It was the unmistakable sound of someone trying to keep very still but shifting his body slightly. I glanced at the closet again, but the sound hadn't come from that direction.

No. It had come from the bathroom.

I held the Luger tightly and moved over to the bathroom door. It was closed.

"Elena," I said in a low voice.

There was no response.

Someone was in there, and it was not Elena. Where had she gone? Or was she in there with someone else?

"Elena," I said, louder this time.

Nothing.

"I'm going to open this door. I have a gun. Come out with your hands above your head," I snapped, standing just to one side of the door.

Nothing.

I grasped the door knob, still standing pressed against the paneling of the door, and twisted it. The door opened and swung inward. I tensed. There wasn't a sound.

Through the open crack I could see inside the bathroom. The light was on. And there, pale and tense, stood Tina Bergson — terrified out of her mind.

I moved around, covering her with the Luger. Then I saw the paraphernalia on the basin, spread out for use. A hypodermic, a bottle of fluid, swabs of cotton.

She watched me, her eyes wide.

"Where is Elena?" I asked her, though there were a hundred other questions I could have asked instead.

She shook her head. "I did not see Elena. I saw only Barry. And he — he was dead." Her voice sank to a whisper. She was on the verge of fainting.

I moved inside the bathroom and gripped her roughly by the elbow. She sagged against me, breathing heavily.

"She killed him?" her voice whispered in my ear.

I said nothing. How could I tell her it was Kelly and me?

"Why did you come back to Sol y Nieve?" I asked her quietly.

Her eyes turned to stare at me. I pushed her around and made her sit down on the edge of the tub. I sank down beside her. I held the Luger on her chest. She was a devious woman, and I didn't trust her at all.

"To see… to see…"

"Barry Parson," I supplied. "To show him Corelli, so he could kill him."

There wasn't a sound.

Her lips trembled, and her eyes moved away from me. "Yes," she whispered.

"You hired Barry Parson to kill Corelli," I said flatly. "You can't deny it. He told us before…"

"I don't deny it," she said steadily. Her face was regaining some of its color. My eyes slid to the hypodermic needle.

"Motive?" I asked. "You're an addict? Is that it?"

She shrugged. "I am all mixed up. I do not know why I want to kill him, except that I hate him more than anyone else in the world."

"But he's giving it up, turning in everyone involved in the drug chain," I said.

She hung her head.

"Why did you come back?" I asked again.

"To find Barry," Tina said softly. "I came up along the balcony, and I looked in and saw him. Dead. I came in…"

I stared past her shoulder. Of course! The balcony! That was how Elena had left the room without my seeing her. When Elena had found Barry dead she had been frightened out of her wits, and she had fled. She had simply opened the French doors, stepped out onto the balcony, and hurried away. Then, just after that, Tina had come up the back way to meet Barry in his room — perhaps the two of them had planned to meet — and she had found Barry dead. Her need for drugs had taken over, and she had gone into the bathroom for a fix just as I had blundered in.

"I came in and found that he had been shot. I thought at first Elena might have killed him. But perhaps Corelli discovered Barry was after him. Perhaps Corelli knew that I…" Her eyes began to fill with tears. "I'm frightened, Nick!"

I shook her. "You've got to take me to Corelli, Tina. It's the only answer. Too many people have tried to keep us from getting that list of names. Too many. Now it's up to you, Tina."

She turned pale. "He'll know, Nick! He'll guess I hired someone to kill him! You can't make me do that. You've got to let me go!"

"No way, Tina!" I snapped. "You're the only answer. You're taking me to him right now. Just point him out to me, and…"

"He won't admit it!" she cried. "He'll deny his identity."

"Tina…"

She reached around for the hypodermic needle. I guessed what she was going to do the moment she turned her shoulder. I pressed the muzzle of the Luger into the soft part of her neck. "No, no, Tina! Not the needle. Sure, that'll make things seem fine for a few minutes, but you'll always have to come back to reality."

"Nick!" she sobbed, still holding the needle.

I slipped the Luger into my pocket and reached for the needle. Her face changed almost instantaneously. From that placid beautiful mask, it turned into the face of a hellcat — eyes flashing, teeth bared, lips pulled back in an animal snarl.

The needle plunged into my forearm before I could defend myself against the crazy, slashing stab.

She laughed in a low, mirthless howl.

I felt everything drain out of me. I felt like a lump of putty.

She was leading me into the next room, then pushing me down into a chair.

"A little mixture of our very own, Nick," she was saying with that satanic smile of hers. "You stay there like a nice little boy. I'm going to get out of here."

No, Tina! I tried to say, but nothing came out.

She seemed to be moving in speeded-up motion — a hundred frames per second — as she ran through the French doors and along the balcony. Then there was silence.

After what seemed like centuries, I heard someone banging on the door. It was Kelly.

"Nick! Are you in there? Nick?"

I opened my mouth. At least it moved. But I had no voice. Was the paralysis wearing off?

The door shot open, and Kelly hurtled into the room, gun drawn. He just stood there gaping at me in astonishment.

"Hey, Nick!"

I moved my lips again. The paralysis was wearing off. I got out a grunt.

Kelly glanced around, checked the bathroom, and smelled the hypodermic needle. Instantly he came back to me, slapped me in the face, lifted me off the chair, and dragged me into the bathroom. He put my head under the shower, and cold water slammed down on my neck.

Kelly was talking to me as he worked.

"It's some new stuff. We've got supplies of it. Knocks you out so you can't move, but you can see everything that's going on. Temporary paralysis. Comes from curari, also known as ourari, urari, woorali, wourali, and woorara. But it's been cut with something else. Don't ask me what. The formularies always disappear the minute we get them."

I soon revived.

"Quick!" I said. "It's Tina. She came up from Granada to meet Barry Parson and found his body here. She's on her way out now. She thinks Corelli killed him. If she escapes now, she can kill him later."

"Hold it!" snapped Kelly. "I came up here to find you. Tina's been downstairs in the lobby, you know, creating a scene!"

"Who?" I asked impatiently.

"Tina Bergson."

"Tina!"

"Exactly. But she's gone now."

"Gone? But…?"

"She was in the lobby, but she left," Kelly told me as we ran out of the room and down the corridor. We started down the stairs, and I could see a crowd of people in the lobby. They were all peering out into the parking lot.

I saw Juana, who turned to wait for us.

"What's this all about?" I snapped.

"She's in the red Jaguar," Juana said, pointing out at the parked cars. I could see the headlights come on in one of them. The light cut through the darkness and illuminated the snow-covered mountainside where the road turned from the Prado Llano and wound up toward the main highway.

"She made a big scene," Juana said quickly. "It was very dramatic."

"Too dramatic!" Kelly said dryly.

"Are you going to tell me what she did?" I asked impatiently.

"She came in here not ten minutes ago, raising hell and asking for Mario Speranza!"

"Who is Mario Speranza?" I asked.

Kelly shook his head. "When they told her that Señor Speranza was not here, she broke down and almost went into hysterics right out here in the lobby."

I could see the Jaguar start to move. Tina's blond hair was blowing out behind her.

"It brought all of us out of the lounge on the run," Juana explained.

"And then she collapsed here and had to be revived by the desk clerk," Kelly concluded. "I went up to get you."

I frowned, thinking quickly. "It's an act — the scene down here. What it's for, I don't know. But I've got to stop her."

"Right," said Kelly. "What do we do?"

"Check out that Mario Speranza," I said to Kelly. "He probably doesn't exist. I'm going after Tina!"

I was moving through the crowd toward the revolving doors and I spotted Herr Hauptli there, with his crew of sycophants. He waved and then turned away.

The Renault was cold. It started up fairly well. I pulled out onto the road and skidded twice before I got it under control. There were ice patches in the roadway, the same as two nights before.

The road descended and then made a right turn. I could not see the red Jaguar at all, but I remembered the road turned right, and then began to curve to the left in a long, wide, horseshoe-shaped turn that clung to the rim of the barranca.

I gunned the engine because I did not want to lose sight of the Jag.

The edge of the road showed in my headlamps, and I involuntarily put on the brakes to test the drag. I was relieved to feel the tension in the bands.

I took the Renault around the turn and I could see Tina Bergson's red Jaguar halfway around the wide horseshoe bend. She was driving slowly, but then she accelerated, just as I caught sight of her.

The car seemed to leap ahead in the darkness, the lights bouncing upward on the road, almost as if they were climbing the sky. And then — as I could hardly believe my eyes — the Jaguar bumped up against the cutbank, almost smashing into the rock wall head-on.

Turn, Tina! I yelled involuntarily. "Turn!"

Whether she did or not I do not know, but the next thing I saw was the Jaguar headed not for the cutbank but for the outer rim of the road. "Tina!"

It was a lost cry.

The Jag gained speed and went over the edge, almost as if it had been trained to do a very shallow swan dive into a pool.

The headlamps caught the jagged mica schist below, the patches of snow snuggled in the schist, and lit a tangle of lights and reflections in the snow, then the car burrowed into the rocks, bounced off, turned over and over, the headlamps describing a pinwheel in the night, and smashed with a grinding roar into a segment of sharp rocks near the bottom of the barranca.

There was a moment's silence.

Then a high flaring blast of fire shot into the sky, and a loud explosion ripped through the air. Smoke billowed up past the orange flames, harsh, choking black smoke.

The fire soared and then fell back into the wreckage of the twisted Jaguar and began eating slowly at the metal. Smoke rose slowly, then, the fire dancing along the edges of the red steel and the clear glass and the colored plastic.

Shaken, I drove carefully along the highway and made the spot where the red Jag had gone over the edge. I looked down. All I could see was a break in the rocks imbedded in the shoulder at the edge of the roadway.

I parked the Renault, pulled the key, and climbed out. It was cold on the highway. I walked over to the edge of the road where the Jag had gone through the rocks. I stood there, staring down at the displaced stones and followed the charred black line on the schist below to the spot where a bright red fire was crackling over the remains of Tina Bergson and the red Jaguar.

In only brief moments the first of the hotel guests came zooming up in a Fiat, parked and joined me at the edge of the roadway. Ogling.

And then more came.

And more.

Thrill-seekers.

They made me sick.

I climbed down the rocky slope, using my pocket flash, and passed the charred section of rock where the red Jag had first hit, and finally reached the section near the car itself.

But the flames were eating at the wreckage and it was impossible to stand any closer without burning myself.

Arm across the top of my head, I stood there and waited.

A fire truck screamed up on the roadway, and soon a big fireman in a ski jacket and loaded with a portable extinguisher came crashing down the slope and began to spray the burning wreck.

I shuddered.

The fireman stood there, staring at tie charred wreckage. A Guardia Civil joined him and pointed a flashlight at the burned car. The light's beam was more powerful than mine.

I came closer.

I saw it, then.

There was a charred body in the front seat. What was left of it was black and smouldering.

Tina.

All that was left of the golden girl with the golden skin.

I turned away, sick.

I must have sunk down on a rock near the wreckage and lapsed into a land of mental funk. Someone joggled my arm and shoulder. I realized a voice had been speaking to me for some moments.

I stirred.

"Nick."

It was Kelly.

"She's dead," said Kelly. "Damndest thing."

"I guess she just felt it was all over and she'd better run." I sighed. "She knew Rico Corelli would be after her for the rest of her life."

"But Corelli didn't even know!"

"He would find out. That's why he left," I said. That was the way I had it figured.

"I checked out that name, Nick."

I looked up, frowning. I did not understand what he was getting at.

"There's no Mario Speranza registered at the hotel."

I sat there thinking about that. "But that's the name she gave the clerk."

He nodded. "The clerk says he told her that. The clerk says that it was then that she went out of her skull."

I stared at the wreckage below us. "Are you saying that Rico Corelli never was at Sol y Nieve at all?"

"I'm saying that he certainly hasn't been here — or at any other hotel in the Sol y Nieve — for the past month or so. If his cover name is Mario Speranza."

"But then…"

"Don't you see it? Maybe he knew about Tina. Maybe he knew she had hired a hit man to kill him."

I shook my head to clear it. "And all that jive about the meet was simply to set up Tina Bergson's death?"

"Not at all. I'm saying that Rico Corelli must have known about Tina Bergson and Barry Parson. And he just didn't come to the resort at all. Everybody else thought he was here — the hit man the Mafiosi hired, the hit man Tina hired — and us, because we wanted to meet Corelli. Everybody was here but Corelli!"

"Then where is the son of a bitch?"

Kelly shrugged. "I think we'd better put a signal out to Hawk and start all over again."

We got up to climb the hillside, but I could not leave it alone.

I turned and looked down at the wreck again.

"Why did she go out that way?"

Kelly shook his head. "She was a beautiful woman, Nick. Beautiful women do dumb things. She must have loved Corelli. And hated him, too."

"Or loved that money," I said.

"You don't think much of people do you, Nick?" Kelly sighed.

"Should I? Should I, really?" I calmed down. "I guess she figured it was a better way to go than to run all over the world trying to get away from Rico Corelli's paid guns."

"She'd never know when he was going to hit her," Kelly observed dispassionately.

"I wonder where the bastard is now?" I mused half aloud.