In the ensuing moments, the singer — a male — came forward, strumming his guitar, and started to narrate the story of the dance.
"What do you want with me?" Parson asked now, looking across at Kelly.
"Somebody hired you to kill me," said Kelly, flat-lipped.
"I deny that," said Parson.
"Don't give me that kind of crap," said Kelly in a low threatening voice. "Somebody hired you. You're a professional killer. Barry Parson is a cover name. You've been on the payrolls of a dozen countries since World War Two. Come on. Interpol knows all about you."
This was one we had pulled out of the hat.
Parson's face turned to ice. "I work for hire, that's true. I work for anyone who pays me."
I glanced at Kelly. He kept on the pressure. Parson had cracked. He had admitted it. He was up for ire. He would work for Kelly now if Kelly put the ice high enough.
But we did not want that at all.
"Who hired you to kill me?" Kelly asked again.
"If I tell you, I'll be target for tonight," said Parson with a hollow laugh.
"If you don't, you're target right now sitting in this discothèque," said Kelly, putting plenty of force behind the words.
"I'm dead either way," Parson reasoned.
"We'll get you out of here. Tell me who hired you and we'll start for the door right away. We'll get you away from the resort. I have assistants."
Kelly turned and glanced at the bar. One of the waiters standing there looked at Kelly and nodded. Then Kelly glanced at a table in the far corner of the room. A man in black was seated there. He tipped his beret with his finger when Kelly looked at him.
A little window-dressing to make it look right.
Parson was pale now.
The flamenco music started, and a soloist came out to dance. He was fast and sure-footed. His heels went like machine-gun fire. The dance increased in tempo and volume.
"Tell me who hired you!" Kelly rasped.
"Not that," Parson snapped. "Anything else, but not that."
"The Mafiosi?" I asked.
He looked at me scornfully. "That was Moscato's bosses! Not me." His eyes widened. He realized he had practically told me who had hired him.
There was only one person left!
"It was her!" I whispered, leaning close to Parson. "Tina!"
He seemed frozen in time and space.
He opened his mouth and closed it again. His head gave a slight nod. That was all.
Then he moved.
He moved with lightning speed. I saw his hand on his lap dart for the belt where he had his big Webley hidden. I had seen the lump it made in his shirt front. He was hoping to get Kelly with the first shot, but I chopped out at his gun hand the instant he drew. That was the reason I had placed him to my left — so I could control his gun hand. The shot blasted loud and clear, but luckily went wild into the floor.
Instantly there was a second shot.
Parson tensed against the rear of the seat, then slumped in the way a puppet droops when its strings are dropped, and let his head pitch forward onto the table top.
I put my foot on the Webley revolver and Kelly rose quickly to move beside Parson s body. There was so much noise from the music, dancing, and olaying, that to our astonishment no one had really noticed the byplay in the darkness of the discothèque.
Kelly grabbed Parson by the shoulder and straightened him in the seat. I reached down and picked up the Webley, stashing it in between my belt and stomach. Then I turned and grasped Parson's right shoulder and helped Kelly lift him to his feet. Supporting him between us, we wove our way through the packed tables toward the doorway of the discothèque.
"Muy borracho." Kelly nodded to one of the waiters.
The waiter smiled sympathetically.
The second flamenco dance was continuing, with the machine-gun shots of the dancers' heels making it impossible to differentiate between the sounds of a real machine pistol and the dancing heels of the local Jose Greco.
"Sometimes I get to hate this job," Kelly told me as we emerged into the lobby from the stairs.
We pulled the lifeless body of Barry Parson across the lobby — luckily deserted at the moment — to the stairway and then started the slow climb up.
He was very dead when we finally laid him out on his own bed in his own room.
Fourteen
Mitch Kelly had been a detective on the San Francisco police force for several years before he resigned to join AXE's stable. I had barely closed the door to Barry Parson's room before he was going quickly through the pockets of Parsons clothes.
He laid the contents out on the top of the bureau and went into the bathroom to get a towel. There was a great deal of blood on the body and also on Kelly's hands. Kelly had shot him in tie heart, and the force of the blow had killed Parson instantly. Kelly had used his own Colt.38 Detective Special, loaded with those special high-muzzle-velocity and high-depth penetrating cartridges.
When Kelly came out of the bathroom, he was wiping himself thoroughly and glancing at his wristwatch.
"Wallet," I said. I was going through the papers. "Barry Parson, it says."
"Strictly cover," Kelly murmured, coming over and standing beside me, watching. "Somebody did a good job."
"The papers? You think it was MI-5?"
Kelly shook his head. "Told you we had contacted the British. They didn't affirm his identity."
"Yes, but…"
"When the British do not affirm, the British deny. You see?"
I continued through the credit cards and the passport. I glanced over the passport, but Kelly shook his head. "Forget that. That's cover, too."
"It looks like the real thing"
"You can get a good set of papers made in Portugal if you have the money to pay for it. Including the finest passport counterfeit on the Continent. There are hundreds of fake identity sets roaming around Europe — all Made in Lisbon."
I sifted through the papers thoughtfully. "Does it smell governmental?"
He shook his head. "I'd say he was a free-lancer. Mercenary for hire. That kind of thing. I told you Interpol had rung up a 'no sale' on him. But I'm going to put through his prints, anyway."
I continued reading the papers, then started in on his luggage. There was nothing there to hint at anything but an affluent Britisher who spent most of his time touring the Continent.
Kelly got out a small kit and began to roll Parson's prints. When he had finished all ten, he wiped off the ink carefully and put the prints in a glassine bag. Then he got out a small mini-camera, Japanese-made with the name filed off, and took several shots of Parson's face. In repose Barry Parson looked quite harmless, lacking in the vitality that made him what he was in life.
There was absolutely nothing in his things to tie Parson to a syndicate of any land. We figured that Parson had not been working for any group Tina was fronting but for her especially.
And that made Tina a number-one question mark. Who was she working for — if, indeed, she was working for anyone?
Kelly kept glancing at his watch.
"Worried about the time?" I asked.
"I'm wondering what we're going to do with this body."
I took a deep breath. "Not much we can do. We just go out and leave it here."
"But Elena Morales?"
"She comes in and finds it. And she blows the whistle. Nothing to tie Parson to us — nothing concrete."
"We were seen in the discothèque with him."
"Can you put in a fix?"
Kelly considered. "It's pretty late. That's why I was checking the time. Eleven-thirty. I don't think my contact is on duty now."
"The tall man with the Fu Manchu mustache?"
Kelly grinned. "Yeah. You know him?"
I sat down and stared at the carpet. "We've got another problem to worry about now. Tina doesn't know her hit man is dead. She thinks he's going to be waiting for her to arrive at Sol y Nieve to finger Corelli. And that means she's going to be coming up here. We've got to stop her."