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.