She giggled again. “I wouldn’t have missed it... for the... world,” she managed, and her eyes closed. She slumped into his arms.
Nick stood there for a long moment, just holding her and thinking dark thoughts about himself. The thrown knife, deflected by his cane, lay near the door where it had fallen after it had struck her. Special Emissary Carter’s hotel room was an unholy mess. He called himself one last, unflattering name and hoisted Liz gently by the legs and shoulders and picked his way past the mess of overturned breakfast cart to the bed. He put her down as carefully as he would a sleeping child.
The wound, he soon saw, was more blood than serious damage. And Liz was far more woman than sleeping child. He slowed the bleeding with a damp towel and rummaged in the bureau drawer for his flask. Two of his clean shirts were smudged with grease, he noted bitterly, and then reproached himself for even thinking of it while she lay there bleeding.
He uncapped the flask and poured a shot into the metal cup.
“Do I smell good Scotch?” she asked interestedly.
Nick turned. Liz was sitting up on the bed and clutching the towel to her well-rounded bosom. She was pale but in full control of herself.
“You do,” he said, and made his way around the mess to give it to her.
She sipped and spluttered and the color came back into her face.
“I’m sorry...” they began at once, and stopped.
Nick tried again. “I shouldn’t have let you come back with me. I did, and I’m sorry. Now pull the top of that dress down and let me have a look — at the wound, of course.”
She reached up obediently and let out a little gasp of pain.
“I can’t do it with one hand. My God, look how it’s spreading! You’ll have to help me take it off.”
He fumbled cautiously with the small hook at the back. At last it loosened, and the short zipper slid down its appointed course.
“Can you stand up? I can’t seem to get it off this way.”
She nodded and rose shakily.
The dress got as far as her hips and stuck. Nick maneuvered and tugged.
“For God’s sake, how can you wear these tight things in this hot climate?” he grumbled.
“It’s not tight. You just don’t have the knack.”
“Hmmph. I don’t have the shape. Wiggle a bit, will you?” Liz wiggled. He tried not to notice how seductively her hips moved. “Now raise your right arm and try to get it out.”
Liz concentrated for a moment.
“Okay. Now pull down,” said Nick, thoroughly engrossed in his task. Liz pulled. Nick tugged.
“There! That’s one,” he said triumphantly. “Now sit down and let me get it over your head.”
There was silence but for their breathing and the rustle of cloth.
“Ah! That does it. Take it easy while I get the left arm out. This may hurt a bit.”
“Yes, Doctor,” she said bravely.
She winced only slightly as her left arm parted from the dress. The other sound was Nick’s involuntary sigh of approval at her scantily clad form. Bloodstains and all, she was delectable in her half-slip and not much else. He was amazed at the magnificence of her high, full breasts, at the ripe but firm perfection of her body. Strange that he hadn’t fully appreciated it before. Obviously her dress wasn’t nearly tight enough.
She looked up into his eyes and saw him staring down at her alluring softness. Her right hand reached up and gently touched his face.
“What a way to have to start,” she said ambiguously, and smiled. Her hand caressed his cheek. He put his own hand over hers and bent to kiss her lightly on the cheek. But somehow his lips found hers and lingered on them, and one hand stole around her back and stroked it soothingly.
She drew her lips away from him with a little gasp and he straightened up immediately. There was a compact first aid kit in his luggage and he made use of it. He cleansed and bound the wound with a light, quick touch, forcing his fingers to behave themselves and his eyes to attend to the business at hand. While he worked his mind reconstructed the hectic events of the last few minutes. Intruder entered via bedroom door. Opened window in readiness for rapid escape. Searched in obvious places, including locked desk drawer, found nothing. Luggage undamaged. Intruder anxious to make getaway, willing to kill and run rather than hang about and answer questions. Naturally.
It didn’t prove a thing. The visit may have had nothing to do with whoever might be listening in. Nick wished he knew if the desk drawer had been opened first or last.
He helped Liz into the seersucker robe he usually forgot to wear himself and went into the bathroom for a rapid wash and change. When he rejoined her he was wearing clean trousers, a fresh shirt with a small grease smudge, and a calculating look. Liz lay back on the bed and watched him, feeling sensual and adventurous.
“I have to get you out of here,” Nick said, “and put in a report on this crazy mess.” For Chrissake, if he’d only removed that bugging mechanism before, he could have called Abe Jefferson and had him straighten this out in one swift, easy motion. But it was too obvious a thing to do just now; he’d have to leave it there. How would a genuine diplomat react? Flustered. Indignant. Ineffectual... Fine, I’m doing fine, Nick told himself with bitter self-disgust. Show me a mouse, and I’ll faint. He eyed Liz.
“Is there some woman friend you can call who can bring you a dress? I can’t let you out of here looking like that.”
“I have no women friends,” Liz said with languid pride.
“Then what about Tad?”
The phone rang.
He scooped it up impatiently.
A muffled voice said distantly: “Carter?”
“Yes!” Nick snapped.
“The meeting is arranged,” the voice said sepulchrally.
“Oh!” said Nick. The light dawned. “I’ll be there.” There was a click. Nick stood there holding the telephone, and a slow grin spread across his face. There he was, in the midst of an ungodly mess — throwing knife, toast and coffee, an ineffectual cane, an undressed girl with large breasts and a shoulder wound, and the memory of a greasy would-be killer with no pants. What he needed more than anything in the world was an honest cop. And here he stood, a telephone in his hand and an honest police chief at the other end. And he couldn’t say a word. It would screw up his whole undercover deal with his friend, the honest cop.
He looked at Liz and slowly replaced the receiver. A score of pictures tumbled through his mind, of the Africa he had adventured through not so many years before. Of the wild journey through the bush, the trumpeting of the great bull elephants, the chanting of the red-eyed woman witchdoctor, the hideous rituals of the leopard men, the eerie stillness of the dripping forests and the sudden animal screams. Mysterious Africa... with not a single bottle-opener in the bathroom. And now? A wild jumble of conflicting politics and bomb fragments and bugs that didn’t wiggle through the beds but listened in on conversations. Intrigue in high places and sinister visitors in search of documents. He shook his head. In some ways this new-old continent was even more mysterious than before. Nick glanced at his watch. After eleven. “The meeting is arranged.”
He’d have to hurry. He reached again for the inquisitive telephone.
The Cockeyed Optimist
“Try to get hold of a what for Miss Ashton?” Abe Jefferson’s voice was incredulous. It had taken some time before the Police Chief could be reached on the telephone. Apparently he had been thoughtful enough to place his mystery call from somewhere other than his office. During that time Nick had been able to think himself into the person of an enraged, bewildered diplomat and prepare a carefully guarded story that would fit in with an eavesdropper’s version of what had happened in Special Emissary Carter’s room.