“Any time.”
I noticed that there were two paper cups with the bottle. Somehow I got a grip on myself.
“Later, Miss Van Hazinga. Later.”
I went through the book for the tenth time. I kept letting myself be distracted, though, by the rattle of my secretary’s typing. My eyes wandered of their own accord to her long leather-clad thighs. Her waist was narrow, and I couldn’t help noticing that each time a finger hit a key, her generous breasts moved hypnotically. I wondered idly if it was worth encouraging her. Clearly, she’d be a more than sympathetic companion. Hell, in the right situation she might even be a witty conversationalist too.
Then her fingers flipped another gumball between her red lips, and I stopped thinking about idyllic affairs with Miss Van Hazinga.
At the end of the day, Hawk asked me into his office.
“Well, Nick, you ship out in forty hours. Have you and Special Effects come up with the system yet?”
“I have.” I placed a list on his desk. “This is what I need.”
His eyes scanned the paper in a second, and then he went over it twice more.
“I don’t believe it. An order with a Portuguese exporter, a railway-car lease, and ownership of this German firm. It’s so easy.”
“Special Effects wanted to hide the snow,” I explained. “That’s the wrong approach.”
“I can see that. Yet this is foolproof, so foolproof it’s a joke. You’ve done it again, Nick. Congratulations.”
“Oh, I don’t deserve the credit, sir. Miss Van Hazinga was my inspiration.”
Hawk narrowed his eyes.
It’s always amazed me how a man of Hawk’s genius can have such a dirty mind.
Three
Sun glared off the beach. It was five days since I’d left AXE headquarters, four days since my arrival in Turkey, and one day since I’d moved on to Lebanon and the resort hotels of Beirut. Special Effects’ changes in my appearance were small but effective. I was no longer Nick Carter, but Raki Senevres, Turkish national, aged thirty-seven, self-employed. My dark hair was cut close to the skull and curled, giving the effect of widening my cheekbones. The silicone bridge of my nose sharpened my face, making it hatchetlike, and the way my mouth curled, I looked like I wouldn’t mind some blood. My one pleasure was the excuse to smoke good Sobranie Turkish cigarettes as I padded along the sand in a white robe and sandals.
Well-paid Lebanese prostitutes played with beach balls and eyed me provocatively as I passed. I’d made sure to wear a platinum Rolex and an oversized diamond ring, trademarks of a hood and a potential “john,” but the girls hesitated to approach me. Dr. Thompson really had made me look fierce. Either that, or somehow the remodeling had brought out a latent cruelty in my face.
Girls, beach towels, and transistor radios thinned out as I came to a part of the beach monopolized by the very, very rich. Red-and-white-striped cabanas lined the water’s edge. Here the international set snoozed in privacy, running out from time to time to dip into the Mediterranean. Two girls, expertly made up, topless though with tiny breasts, stopped to stare at me arrogantly before they ran back to the arms of their boyfriends waiting in their cabana. I was an intruder, their eyes said, a hood.
“If you’re looking for Mister DeSantis, he’s over there,” the thinner girl said pointedly and waved at a far cabana.
“Thanks.”
I didn’t move though until I saw the goose pimples spread over their shoulders, and the girls covered their hard little nipples with their arms. Then I ground out the cigarette in the sand and walked in the direction the thin one had pointed.
Charles “Happy” DeSantis was just the man I was looking for — resident of Yonkers, New York, president of two refuse-disposal companies, real-estate dealer, racetrack shareholder, charity chairman. “Happy” DeSantis, as he was known, was also consigliere, counselor, to one of the two biggest Mafia families in New York. He was in Beirut for a short vacation, but I planned to make it a business trip.
I felt two men approaching me from behind. I sensed they had guns pointed at my back, so there was no point in running. I stopped, lit another cigarette, and waited.
They were burly Muscle Beach types in tight bikini trunks and windbreakers, their hands casually resting on the lead in their pockets. Dark glasses and white teeth.
“You looking for someone?” the biggest smiler of the two asked.
“I have some business to discuss.”
“Who with?”
“The man in that cabana. Here’s my calling card. I’ll move my hand slowly.”
From my robe I took a small plasticine sack of white powder. There wasn’t more than four ounces, about $20,000 of calling card altogether.
The talker of the two bodyguards grinned wide.
“If you think you’re going to plant that on the man in that cabana, you’re crazy. He’d just buy every cop in Beirut.”
“If I didn’t know that I wouldn’t bring my card onto the beach. Give him the card. He can dispose of it as he wishes. Only, tell him to take a look at me. I want him to recognize me when I see him later.”
The bodyguards considered. My approach was professional, and I was making things easy on them. I was pretty sure what their answer would be. You can get ahead in any business if you follow the rules.
“What’s your name?”
“Senevres. It’s Turkish.”
“Well, Mr. DeSantis doesn’t like to be bothered when he’s on vacation, but I’ll see what I can do.”
The silent bodyguard stayed with me while the first went to see his employer.
After five minutes a girl emerged from the tent. She was a sleek Eurasian in a chic transparent tank suit, part of Mr. DeSantis’s vacation. She ran laughing down to the water.
A minute later, DeSantis came out. He was tall, white-haired, with a tennis-club build. He looked around casually as he just wondered whether the sun was out, and then he strolled down to the water to join the girl for an innocent frolic in the mild surf.
But he’d seen me, I knew, and recorded my face in his consigliere’s memory bank. I strolled off.
The contact was made.
The rest of the day I laid low. I’d booked a cheap room in one of the larger resort hotels — the same one DeSantis was in. I knew DeSantis needed time to check the quality of the heroin I’d given him. My room’s television got Beirut and Cairo stations, and my Arabic was good enough to understand a new show that announced Israel had suffered one more horrendous, fictitious defeat.
By eleven o’clock I was asleep. At one there was a knock on my door. I opened it, and a gun in my stomach shoved me half over a bureau. The talkative bodyguard held the gun and with his other hand switched on the lights. His expression was as blank and businesslike as my own. The other bodyguard was pulling out the drawers of the bureau, searching my bags and mattress, going through every cache the room could possibly offer. Naturally, he found the Astra .32 I’d taped under the night stand; he would have thought it pretty odd if there hadn’t been a gun. Finally, when the search was through, the gun was taken out of my stomach, and Mr. DeSantis sauntered in from the hall, closing the door behind him.
He tossed the resealed bag of heroin onto the bed.
“You said you wanted to talk to me?”
His attitude was brisk but showed no displeasure. I guessed why. Busy men often find it hard to do nothing but relax. Breaking in on me put an edge on his vacation. He was having fun, and he was being shrewd. His dark eyes measured me for either a deal or a coffin. It made no difference to him. And he wanted to see how much I sweat late at night.
“I think you’d like to talk to me, too.” My accented English was slow and deep but not too thick. I didn’t want them having any problems understanding me. “I am taking a shipment of the highest grade Turkish heroin to the United States.”