With as much insouciance as he could muster Nick looked up at The Bitch and said, “Where you been, woman? What in hell’s been going on, anyway? I damned near got killed. I was trying to get out of here — I didn’t sign up for any war!”
He was too weak to pull himself out of the water. Two of the guards did it. Gerda von Rothe’s green stare never left him. Nick, looking into those eyes, had the thought that emeralds were jello by comparison.
Chapter 12
The Mortal Kiss
Five minutes after the first beating began Nick passed out. It did not avail him for long. He came back to consciousness to find that nothing had changed, except that now both he and the swan bed were water soaked. They had dumped buckets on him. He was still tied to the bed, spread-eagled, naked as a newborn babe, and his tormentors were still there. Both of them. The Bitch and Erma. In the green eyes, and in the yellow eyes, he could discern no hint of mercy. Quite the contrary. Absurdly, but quite consonant with the surrealistic quality of the scene, a long forgotten quatrain of Kipling’s came back to him.
“I’ve got no rifle,” Nick groaned. He did not know that he spoke aloud.
“What do you say?” It was Gerda von Rothe, who had been sitting in a chair near the bed, a Tommy gun snuggled across her knees. “What is this about a rifle, Jamie?”
The AXEman managed a tortured grin of derision. “Nothing, memsahib. I was dreaming, I guess. About death. And cool waters.”
The Bitch loomed above him, one big hand on her hip, the other holding the machine gun. She had changed into riding breeches that ballooned over high, shiny black boots. She wore a black shirt open at the throat, unbuttoned to reveal her magnificent breasts. On her left arm she now wore a scarlet brassard with, a swastika etched in green. The Crooked Cross!
“I see you’re in uniform,” Nick said. “Showing the true colors at last, eh?”
Her large white teeth glinted at him. “For only a little time. Then I must go back to playing my role as before. But never mind me — it is your true colors I am interested in, Jamie. That is not your real name, of course, as we both know. What is it? And what are you after? You would not, by any chance, be working for the Mexican Government?”
He knew he must be careful in the lies he told. He had tried the ignorant, gold tramp, Jamie bit on the way back to this bedroom and it had earned him a gun butt in the back of the head. That cover was blown forever. What could he substitute for it? Then Nick had an inspiration. Tell her part of the truth — she would never believe it.
He said: “You ever hear of a man called El Tigre? A bandit?”
The Bitch nodded. “Of course. He hides out around here, somewhere in this vicinity. My guards keep a sharp eye on him. I think he would like to raid this place, to loot it, but he does not dare. So what of it?”
Come dusk, Nick thought, come dusk and you will see what of it! If El Tigre kept his promise. Stuck to the plan. And if the AXEman could keep his share of the bargain. At the moment the latter did not seem likely.
“I work for El Tigre,” he told her. “I’m a plant. My job was to get into the castle and spy out the land, get all the details. The Tiger is planning on taking you, sister, sometime next week. And that,” he lied, “is the truth.”
Gerda von Rothe stared down at him, contempt in the green eyes. “Is that the best you can do?”
Nick nodded. “All a man can do is tell the truth.”
She went back to her chair. “Erma!”
Nick Carter had never dreamed the day would come when he would be afraid of a woman. He was afraid of Erma. Not a physical fear exactly, he knew he could endure her worst; it was rather because she was a woman, after all, and the sight of her left a nasty green trail of nauseous slime in his belly. He looked at her now and forced a grin and, more to bolster his own courage than out of defiance, said: “The Gestapo sure missed a bet when they missed you, baby doll.”
Erma stood beside the bed and gazed down at Nick with slitted yellow eyes. She would have been ludicrous had she not been so sinister. She was dressed as before, in a man’s trousers and shirt, but now she also wore a brassard with a swastika on it. And where her lumpy potato face had been red before now it was pale, livid, with dark circles beneath her eyes. She breathed hard as she stared down at Nick. She licked her thick lips with a blunt, coated tongue.
“The Gestapo missed no bets,” she told him. “I worked for them as a young girl. It was pleasant work.”
The whip she held was long and shiny and black. Six lashes of plaited leather were attached to the stock. Erma drew the lashes through her fingers and licked her lips again.
“That figures,” said Nick, eyeing the whip. “You turn in your father and mother? Cousins, too? By the dozens, I’ll bet. You whip them too?”
“Some I whip,” said Erma stolidly. “Some I do other things to — some I just kill quick. You I will not kill quick.”
The Bitch said: “Get on with it, Erma! And be careful — not too much around the private parts. I may have use for him later.”
Erma raised the whip. The muscles writhed in her great biceps. Nick closed his eyes. Here we go again. He tried to remember how bad the pain had been before. He couldn’t. Funny, that. You could never exactly recall how pain felt. You just had to experience it over and—
Erma brought the whip down across his naked chest. Nick groaned. He had promised himself he would not — but he groaned. Six white hot lengths of wire were dragged across his flesh. Again. Lower this time. The pain was steady now, with no respite, and he heard himself yelling and lurching and tugging at the cords that held him to the bed.
Still lower now. She was flailing at his belly with liquid fire, but careful to avoid his genitals. Saving me for stud work, Nick thought just as he screamed again.
His upper legs now. Then down past the knees and across his calves and shins. Sweat dripped from the woman’s blotchy face, ran in salty little streams from under her piled corona of yellow-gray hair. Her eyes were slits, her mouth a stretched pale anus. The big arm went up and down, up and down. Nick felt himself passing out again. It was not to be borne. Let go... let go and fall into the deep hole, the black hole of unconsciousness. Let go!
“That’s enough for now,” said Gerda von Rothe. “I want him conscious. Get the alcohol, Erma.”
Nick kept his eyes closed, hovering on the verge of the dark pit. He knew what was coming and braced himself for the sting. And got an idea. Maybe he could buy a little time. Anything — anything but that whip again.
He heard the heavy tread of Erma coming back from the bathroom. He squinted. She was carrying a large bottle of rubbing alcohol. She sprinkled it over him, into the raw bloody stripes, and his flesh screamed at the new torment. And though he tried, he could not restrain his tongue.
“Nice of you,” he murmured. “After all, you wouldn’t want me to get blood poisoning.”
The Bitch was standing at the bed again. Was that a gleam of reluctant admiration in her green agate eyes?
It was. She said: “You are quite a man, Jamie, or whatever your name is. You are perhaps the sort of man I have been looking for all my life. It is too bad that you had to spoil it.” There was genuine regret in the shrug of her big shoulders. Regret and something else. She was staring down at Nick’s midriff. Her tongue whipped around her lips like a small red snake. Nick glanced down at himself and, despite all the lingering pain, could hardly restrain a laugh. Of all times, and places, to have a reaction! But there it was. The whipping had somehow aroused him. Now his reaction was arousing her, exciting this sadistic bitch who was so well named.