Dark vendetta, p.12
Dark Vendetta, page 12
They were seated in Larren’s hotel room in Victoria, not the cheap room that Maxine Kia had taken him to but the room that had been booked for him before he flew into Hong Kong. Kendall had driven him there after Maxine’s disappearance, and now, after fourteen hours’ of rest and a liberal dosing of medicinal whisky, he was back on his feet again. The back of his head was still sore beneath the large piece of plaster that a Naval doctor had applied and his wrists were neatly bandaged, but he insisted that he was fit enough to work.
He listened to what Kendall had to say and then took another sip at his neat medicine before replying.
“So Mason and his party are still penetrating behind the enemy lines. They’re doing well and it’s a pity that we’re letting them down at this end.”
Kendall said grimly, “I’m doing everything possible. I’ve got my own department concentrating on nothing but Maclean’s kidnapping, and I’ve got practically the whole of Hong Kong’s police force on it as well. But everybody concerned seems to have completely disappeared. We can’t even find your Maxine Kia, and according to you she’s shifted over to our side.”
Larren said quietly, “I can understand Maxine doing the vanishing act, she was mixed up too deeply with this tong affair.”
“Maybe, but it doesn’t help us to find Maclean. We seem to have run right out of leads.”
Larren said thoughtfully, “There is still one lead.”
“What’s that?”
“The first one we had: the Scarlet Dragon and Nancy Kang.” He looked sharply at Kendall. “She hasn’t done a vanishing trick too, has she?”
“No. But I don’t see how that’s going to help, as she knows you. And besides, look what happened last time.”
Larren said slowly, “I’m not really sure whether Nancy did send for Dressler or not. Dressler said that I had been recognised at the airport and hinted that I had been watched ever since. And anyway, even if he did receive word from somebody at the club, it doesn’t necessarily have to be Nancy.”
Kendall said doubtfully, “Either way, she still knows that you’re on our side.”
Larren shrugged. “You’re my boss, Commander, but if you have no alternative orders then there’s no reason why I shouldn’t have another talk to Nancy Kang. Even if I do draw a blank it won’t have cost us anything.”
Kendall said, “All right, Larren, you can give it a try. But for God’s sake don’t go A.W.O.L. again.”
Larren grinned. “This time I’m going in daylight, then nobody can switch off the lights.”
The Wan Chai district of Kowloon looked almost as sleazy in the hot afternoon sunlight as it did at night when it was ablaze with neon. Larren walked slowly down a crowded street where children played on the pavements and a swarming throng of faces swirled by. His gaze searched among the gaudy Chinese banners above the heads of the crowd for the sign of the Scarlet Dragon.
It took him some time to find the place and when he did so he could have sworn that it had been moved from its previous position; the densely-packed streets were so similar that it was hard to tell one from another. He pushed his shoulder through an intervening mass of people and stepped through the open door.
The place was in half darkness, and apart for one solitary customer and the waiter behind the bar it was empty. Larren noted that the barman was not the same man who had been on duty the night that Cheng Kia had died and wondered whether the man had quit. He shrugged the thought aside and crossed over to the bar.
The barman said politely, “I am sorry, sir. We are not open.”
Larren glanced at the single customer but decided not to protest. Instead he said:
“I’m looking for Miss Nancy Kang. Is she available?”
The barman hesitated for a moment and then a calm voice from behind Larren’s back said softly:
“She is.”
Larren turned to face the stage. It had been empty when he came in but now Nancy Kang was standing there and regarding him with a slow smile. She wore the same red dress that he had seen her in before, and she was deliberately standing so that the long slit up one side fell away from the smooth line of her leg and thigh.
Larren strolled casually towards her.
“I came to apologise,” he said simply. “The last time that I was here I had to rush out without saying goodbye.”
He stopped in front of her and she looked down at him from the raised dais of the stage. Her eyes were shining with a strange light beneath her slanting eyebrows, but her mouth moulded softly into a sudden smile.
“And now you have apologised?”
Larren smiled back at her. “I’m a television scout, remember — and you promised to demonstrate some of your talents.”
Nancy Kang laughed and stepped down beside him.
“You are a strange man,” she said, “and an intriguing one. I ought to slap your handsome face and send you away, but there is something about you that attracts me.”
Larren raised his eyebrows. “The effect is mutual.”
“You laugh at me — but it does not matter.” Her smile broadened. “I think perhaps that the women you have known do not usually admit it when they find a man attractive. But I am like no woman you have ever known. I live — and love — by rules of my own making, not by those of society.” Her thigh brushed lingeringly against his own as she turned away and she finished softly. “Come, follow me.” She glanced over her shoulder as she spoke and again there was that strange gleam beneath her slanting brows.
Larren was still wary, but he followed her. She led him through the hanging curtains behind the stage and down a short corridor that brought them out on to the street. Taking his arm she turned left and guided him along the crowded pavement.
“Where are we going?” he asked calmly.
“To my apartment, it is only a few yards down the street.” Her smile mocked him. “Does that not please you?”
Larren smiled and shrugged, he wasn’t really sure whether it pleased him or not, he still hadn’t decided what game she was playing.
They were silent after that as they weaved a path through the mass of people jamming the pavement. Then Nancy turned him into a narrow street that was colourful with cheap awnings overhanging the pavement; jumbles of baskets and wares obstructed every doorway and long shop signs hung every few yards along the road. There was a clinging host of smells; sweet, rancid, sickly, the smell of spices, of garlic and of ripe fruit. Above all there was the noisy blare of loudly-tuned radios and the shrill cries of vendors shouting their wares.
Nancy stopped at last before a narrow doorway between two of the shops. She led him inside and up a steep flight of stairs. At the top of the landing she turned right and produced a key to unlock the nearest door. She invited him inside and he crossed the threshold with his mind and body alert for any surprise attack, but the room was empty and she shut the door behind him.
The room was surprisingly clean compared to the sleazy street outside. It was a living-room, sparsely furnished with a low table and some modern-styled chairs, coloured mats on the floor and bright watercolours on the wall gave it a pleasing appearance.
Nancy turned to face Larren and said coyly, “You like it? I am glad. Here we can talk, and you can tell me why you really came to see me.”
She tried to sound naive as she spoke, but her smile gave her away. Larren rested his hands on her shoulders and for a moment she pressed her lithe body against him. Her eyes were looking up into his and this time the gleam in their dark depths was one of clear invitation. Her lips were red and shining, raised for his kiss, but when he attempted to respond she jerked her head back and ducked swiftly away.
She stood back a pace and chuckled. “Now I know why you came.”
Larren shrugged. “All right, I’ll confess. I’m a lipstick salesman. I was merely about to show you what an inferior quality you’re wearing before I start my sales talk.”
Nancy laughed. “You are a rogue and a lecher — nothing more, nothing less.” She glanced down suddenly to where the high split of her dress was revealing the round curve of her thigh. “I think I will change this dress,” she remarked. “It is all right for singing in a nightclub, but to entertain a man — no, it makes him think that I am a bad woman.”
She moved lightly over to the far side of the room and opened the door that obviously led to her bedroom. She leaned in the doorway for a moment and said, “There is drink in the small cupboard, help yourself and pour one for me. I shall not be long.”
The door closed behind her and Larren stared at it thoughtfully. Then he moved over to the cupboard she had indicated and opened it to inspect the selection of bottles. He still couldn’t make up his mind whether Nancy Kang was baiting a trap for him or not.
Giving up the problem for the moment he poured himself a whisky. He drank it slowly and appreciatively and then called out to ask Nancy what she was drinking. When she answered he poured out two more whiskies and carried them to the bedroom door. There he waited, suddenly sure of what was going to happen next.
Nancy Kang called huskily, “Bring mine in here, darling.”
Larren’s mouth hardened and he was certain that there would be somebody waiting behind that door. That was why she had brought him here. He drained one glass at a single swallow, then he set the glass down and lightly gripped the door handle. He thrust the door open and moved swiftly into the room, his body tensed to throw the neat spirit in his hand straight into the eyes of whoever was waiting.
There was nobody there.
Larren stopped awkwardly just inside the bedroom. Like the living-room it was cheaply but attractively furnished; there were a few chairs, a dressing-table and a large double bed. On one of the chairs lay the red silk dress that was too indecent for her to entertain in, and sitting up in the bed was Nancy Kang herself. She held a flimsy sheet up to cover her breasts, but her shoulders and arms were naked. The red lips were smiling and the gleam was back in her eyes.
She seemed unaware that there was anything amiss with the way he had burst into the room. She simply smiled and waited.
Larren walked towards her and handed her the glass, his face was expressionless. She accepted it and sipped without speaking. Her mocking eyes were fixed on Larren’s face. Then she emptied her glass and let it fall to the floor. Calmly she let the single sheet slide from her fingers and settle with a soft whisper around her waist. She was naked and her arms reached out for him, her fingers closing gently over his bandaged wrists. When she spoke her voice was a low, throaty whisper.
“Isn’t this what you wanted?”
Larren stared down at her, his grey-green eyes roving over the cream-white lines of her body. Long ago he had lost the ability to answer a woman’s love, for his heart had frozen and died on the same dark night that his adored Andrea had been murdered; but he had never lost the lust for a woman’s body. When Nancy Kang fell back upon the bed and pulled him down on top of her he came willingly.
Her arms locked around his shoulders, holding him against her as her mouth sought his lips. His left hand closed over the hard curve of her right shoulder, his right hand over the infinitely softer curve of her left breast. She gasped beneath him as his weight crushed her, but still her mouth clamped hungrily against his own. They were locked together by a kiss that burned like a flame between them. Her right hand slipped away from his shoulder and Larren barely felt it go, her left arm still held him down tightly against her. Then suddenly he felt the muscles knotting hard in the soft body beneath him and in the same moment he saw that her eyes were still open and gleaming viciously. In that moment he knew the nature of the trap he had suspected all along; and he knew too that the flame of desire between them burned only on one side. He thrust her hard down on the bed and tore himself away from her embrace in the same instant that the knife that had appeared in her right hand sliced past his stomach.
The razor-edged blade actually ripped through the cloth of his jacket as he pushed his body away and Nancy Kang screamed in a mixture of baffled rage and the crushing pain where his hands still pressed down on her shoulder and breast.
She kicked clear of the sheet and attempted to lunge at him again but he caught her wrist and gave it a twist. She screamed again as the knife fell from her fingers and Larren scooped it up from the bed beside her. Her nude limbs threshed wildly but Larren held her down.
He said savagely, “So you are working for Dressler. Where is he now?”
Nancy Kang answered him by arching her lovely body and spitting viciously in his face.
CHAPTER 13: DISCOVERY OF A CORPSE
Nancy Kang’s nylon stockings lay with her red dress across the back of the bedside chair and Larren used one of them to lash her wrists together. He had great difficulty in holding her as she clawed and bit at him in a writhing fury, but at last he managed to roll her over on to her face and secure one wrist at a time while he knelt with one knee in the small of her back to hold her down. When he eased his weight off her she twisted over and kicked out wildly with her legs until he succeeded in restraining those also and knotted the other stocking about her trim ankles.
At last he stood back from the bed, the side of his face and the backs of his hands were marked with scratches and tiny pinpoints of blood where she had scored with her nails and teeth, and he was breathing heavily as he stared down at her. Her smooth body arched and contorted as she strained against her bonds, and he could see the swell and ripple of her muscles moving beneath her naked flesh. She stopped her struggles suddenly and began to curse him in a virulent stream of Cantonese.
Larren ignored her and turned to make a brief but thorough search of the bedroom. The only thing of interest that he was able to uncover, however, was the leather sheath that had held the knife with which the cursing dancer had tried to kill him; it was strapped to the leg of the bed where it was hidden below the hanging coverlet, and positioned so that she only had to reach down her arm as she lay back on the bed to reach the concealed blade.
Larren eyed the sheath and the knife and then looked back at the woman.
He said grimly, “I’ve heard of people being cold-blooded, but this is going to take some beating. How many more men have you lured in here and then knifed as they lay on top of you?”
Nancy bared her teeth at him and burst into another maddened fit of writhing.
Larren waited until she had relaxed again and then stood over her with the knife. Gently he pricked the point of the blade into her stomach just below the navel, and there was a grimly detached look about his unsmiling mouth and grey-green eyes.
He said softly, “You work for Dressler, don’t you?”
“I work for the Communist party — and for Red Hatchet Tong.”
“And what is the connection between the two?”
“Find out for yourself.”
She screamed the last phrase at him and arched her body upwards in a suicidal effort to thrust her stomach against the knife. Larren drew the blade back only just in time and left nothing more than a slight gash in the soft flesh. Nancy swore at him again and Larren knew that he would learn nothing more from her; she had just proved that she would sooner die than talk.
Without wasting any more time on the dancer Larren returned to the living-room and used her telephone to dial Naval Headquarters in Victoria. He turned the knife over in his hands as he waited and finally tossed it on to a nearby table when he heard Kendall answer.
He said wearily, “It’s Larren here, Commander. I’m speaking from Nancy Kang’s apartment. The woman has just admitted that she works for both Dressler and the tong, but I’m afraid she’s still a dead lead. You can send somebody over to pick her up, but she won’t talk.”
Kendall answered slowly, “I don’t think it matters now, Larren. It’s too late. I was just on my way to answer a call from Superintendent Chappel of the Hong Kong police; one of his Chinese policemen discovered a corpse floating in the harbour half an hour ago. The body hasn’t been positively identified yet, but he’s pretty sure that it’s Maclean’s.”
The body was Maclean’s.
Larren, Kendall, Superintendent Chappel and a police doctor all stood in a grim circle around the long table in the police mortuary, the doctor raised the sheet over the body and Kendall nodded slowly.
The doctor said quietly, “I’d say he had been in the water for several hours before he was picked up. He died from a bullet in the back of his head.” He drew the sheet back a little farther and said, “The only thing that puzzles me are these tiny little pinpricks that are dotted over his body, as you can see by the smears of blood over his chest they are pretty plentiful.” He scowled. “Perhaps the autopsy can tell us.”
Larren said flatly, “I can tell you now.” He was aware of the three men looking up at him as he went on. “Those tiny holes were made by a thin needle-like instrument like a very fine screwdriver. The needle is pushed in and then scraped along the bone, the effect is pretty gruesome.”
The doctor said slowly, “How can you tell?”
“I’ve seen it used before. It’s Franz Reutall’s favourite method of torture.” He stopped for a moment and then added: “He once used it on me.”
Kendall swore softly but nobody else spoke. Instead they stared down at the marks of torture on the dead man’s body. At last the doctor replaced the sheet.
They left the doctor and the corpse in the cold, white-tiled room and thankfully made their way back to the outer office. There Larren and Kendall parted from the Superintendent who promised to keep them informed of any new developments. They thanked the beefy man for his help and then returned to the large black car that Kendall had waiting outside.
They were silent for a half mile or so as their driver cruised the car through the noisy streets. Then Larren said bitterly:
“I suppose it was my fault, Commander. I could have rescued him from that junk if I hadn’t acted on a stupid impulse to save Maxine Kia’s useless neck.”
