“I don’t know what you mean, sir.”
“Skip it. Where’s Miss Severence? I want to see her immediately.”
“She telephoned here over an hour ago, sir. She is too ill to work tonight. Everyone will be disappointed.”
“I’m sure they will be.”
Bren drained his drink, threw a five-peso bill on the bar, searched his pocket until he found the slip of paper on which he had written her address.
There were no cars parked in front of the apartment house. He stood as the taxi drove away, tiny warning bells ringing in the back of his mind. The outside door was not locked. He went quietly up the front stairs, placed his ear against her door and listened. He could hear no sound.
He tapped on the door. It opened quickly. Laena looked at him with a start of surprise. “Bren, darling!” She wore a pale green terrycloth robe that reached to the floor.
“Are you alone?” he asked.
“Of course! Just Maria and me, Bren. Close the door and kiss me.”
His suspicions faded. He grinned and closed the door and took her in his arms. She lifted her lips. As he bent his head toward them, she made a sudden motion with her right arm and the impact behind his ear had all the dull weight of an explosion. The bones in his legs melted and he went heavily down onto his knees, his arms too weak to grasp her.
Bren swayed drunkenly on his knees, shaking his head, his vision clouded. But he saw her raise her arm again. He tried to lift his arm to fend off the blow. The last thing he remembered was her gray eyes, her expressionless face as he melted over against the floor into an utter darkness...
Chapter Three
Her Way to Kill
Consciousness was a grayness just above him. It seemed that he moved like a swimmer, struggling up toward the grayness. At last he broke through the surface. His neck ached. He found that he was on his side, his head braced at an awkward angle against the wall. He moved away from the wall a bit, lowered his head onto his arm and closed his eyes, waiting for the weakness to go away.
When he opened his eyes, he saw her. The couch was against the wall. She sat facing him; her face bloodless; her eyes holding a look of wildness.
He opened his mouth and swore. She gave no sign that she heard him. He saw the stains then, the dark crusting stain on the skirt of the robe, the red wetness on the back of her hand.
Slowly she closed her eyes. She leaned over on her side on the couch, her feet still on the floor. With the same slowness, she fell off the couch onto her face on the floor and lay still.
It was quicker to crawl to her than it was to try to stand up. Only then for the first time, did he straighten up and look around the room.
August Brikel sat on the webbed leather chair, smiling at him. The familiar face was as florid as ever, but there was something loose about his mouth. The eyes were still chips of flint, but the polish was dulled. August sat with the fingers of both hands wedged against his body. The front of his clothes was dark and heavy with blood. August had an uncanny motionless about him.
After Bren lifted Laena onto the couch, he went over to Brikel. The drying splatters of blood led from where Bren had been lying over to the chair. Brikel was quite dead.
Bren had gone to sleep for a hundred nights thinking of how Brikel would look when he was dead. But now there was no satisfaction in seeing it. The face, perfect mirror of the soul, showed clearly the evil, a pitiful quality when revealed by a corpse.
Hearing the distant sound of moaning, he traced it to its source in the kitchen. Maria of the long dark hair was crouched half under the sink, her cheek against the wall, wailing endlessly. He tried to talk to her. She didn’t look up at him. He soaked a cloth under the sink faucet, hurried back into the living room and gently bathed Laena’s face. Her eyelids quivered and slowly she opened her eyes. He saw confusion, changing quickly to terror, and then to a tired resignation.
“Cigarette,” she said weakly.
He lit one and placed it between her lips. She exhaled in a long shuddering breath.
“You tried to make a deal, didn’t you?” he asked.
She nodded. “I had his phone number. I called and said I would do what he wanted and told him you were on the way. I told him not to kill you and that if he did, I’d kill him with my own hands. He said he would come right away with Gowan and you’d find no one home. His car dropped him off here. I phoned to say I wouldn’t be at work. We talked. We decided you would come here. He gave me a leather thing with lead in the end of it. We waited.”
“What was the idea?”
“I would hit you and he would tie you up. When you came to, you would know that he was warned. He promised to talk you into giving up the idea and, if that failed, talk to a friend of his to get your turista card rescinded so that you would have to go back home right away, Bren.”
“And you?”
“I was buying your life. I did what he told me to. He had that door open a crack and a gun held on you. He made it clear that if I tried to warn you, he’d shoot. His gun has a silencer.”
“And then he didn’t want to play your game?”
“He came out and stood over you. The hardest thing I ever had to do was to hit you, Bren. He smiled at me. He told me that he’d thought of a better way. He said that his gun was small calibre. He said that there would be very little blood if he shot you between the eyes. Later their people would — would leave you in an alley. He said that you were dangerous to him and that his way was best, as he had a big deal on and didn’t want to take any chances of your spoiling things for him.”
“And then?”
“Your head was at a funny angle. To shoot you properly he had to bend over to aim the gun. It gave me a chance to get to him. I am small but I am a dancer, and my muscles are trained. I grabbed his arm just above the elbow and dug my thumb into the nerve near the bone. It is painful. He straightened up.
“I dug harder and it made his hand open. The gun dropped and he bent to grab it from the floor. I grabbed for it; too. But it hit the floor and went off. It made a very small noise. I didn’t even know he was hurt until he fell across my hand and the edge of the robe. I pulled away. Somehow he got up and walked over to that chair. He was smiling with the pain. Just as you awakened, he died.”
Bren looked around and saw the gun.
“Did you touch it?”
“The gun? I picked it up and then I saw that he was dying. I put it on that table.” Her lips spread in a wild smile and she began to laugh.
He pulled her up to a sitting position, slapped her smartly, forehand and backhand. “There’s no time for that. Go wash your hands. I have to think.”
When Laena came back she was calm. Her face was still pale. She had changed to a wool dress in a rich brown shade that complemented her hair.
“How about Maria?”
“I think she’s completely loyal, Bren.”
“Go talk to her. She’s still moaning. Quiet her down. Send her away.”
Laena hurried to the kitchen. He heard the soft sounds diminish and cease. Laena came back and sat, watching him like an obedient child as he paced back and forth. She did not look toward August Brikel although he sat like a ghastly witness to the conversation.
“As far as you know, they are still in the dope business?”
“I think so. They have agents who smuggle it across into the States. The Corner Club was a wholesale distribution point for a metropolitan area.”
“And there’s a big deal coming up?”
“He said so,” she said in a flat voice. Bren could see that her calm was achieved only through great effort.
“How gullible is Gowan Teed?”