Mission: Earth "Fortune of Fear" (32 page)

No honor amongst thieves, a thing I knew too well.

They had shot their confederate. They had probably also given him a false rendezvous.

On the run myself, I could not go to the police. If he told me anything at all, it would be just to lead me into another trap.

I sat there, hoping they would come back, now that I had a gun. But what would they come back for? They had the flight bag full of money. They had my wallet. They even had my diplomatic passport.

Any credit cards were in that wallet. But I could not use credit cards. The instant I presented one, the credit company would know exactly where I was. The full pack would come in on me from all over the world and stone me to death.

I dared not call Mudur Zengin.

The thought of going back to Istanbul made my forehead prickle with sweat.

If I called the New York office, they might turn me in.

I was in the U. S. without a penny to my name. I didn't even have anything valuable to sell. It was still cold winter and I had no idea whether I could survive sleeping in a park.

Wait a minute.

I knew where there was money.

A safe full of it.

It was early in the day.

Desperate and dangerous though it might be, I had only one place I could go.

Oh, it really put the chills up and down my spine to think of it. But not a soul would ever suspect I would go there.

I would complete my mission to end Heller's mission yet!

I started up the cab.

I headed out of Spring Creek Park. At Exit 14, I went away from Jamaica Bay and headed northwest. I worked myself on diverse streets, moving over toward the Manhattan Bridge. I crossed it, making the correct turn to the right, and got on Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive. I turned off to make my way toward Rockecenter Plaza.

My teeth gritting, but determined, I was heading stealthily for the apartment of Miss Pinch.

I parked the cab in an alleyway three blocks from the apartment of Miss Pinch. It was early afternoon and I knew I had lots of time.

It seemed a shame not to cover the trail again with an explosion but lack of bombs had me stumped. The hacker was still lying on the floor. He had not bled very messily. He was breathing shallowly. Served him right.

I wiped off all the fingerprints from places I might have touched. It really seemed a shame not to properly cover the trail. It left a loose end. They train you in the Apparatus never to do that.

Then I had an inspiration. It seemed highly probable that his radio was in working order and that he had just been pretending.

Watchful that I left no fingerprints, I turned it on and pressed the mike switch. "Dispatcher," I said.

"Yes," she said.

Aha, he
had
been lying!

"Miss," I said, "this is Officer O'Grunty. Your cab Number 73 is blocking an alleyway," and I gave her the address. "Your driver is creating an awful scene. He's claiming he is part of a gang that is about to steal the Holy Sepulcher from Christ. He's even pretending he's been shot, complete with fake blood. Would you please call the Bellevue Psychiatric Section for us and have them send the wagon?"

"At once, Officer," she said. "I always suspected that (bleepard) was nuts."

I put the mike back on the hook. I picked up my bag and walked away. It wasn't perfect, as nothing had been blown up. But if he tried to identify anybody, they wouldn't listen to a crazy. Maybe they'd even throw him in a cell with Doctor Crobe! I cheered up. I had covered my trail.

Now for the dangerous part: Miss Pinch. It would be untrue to say that as I approached that fatal place my skin did not crawl or that I could not taste hot dogs. But such was my dedication to the sacred trust of ruining Heller, I didn't even permit myself to flinch. Some things simply have to be done, come what may.

It was hours before either Miss Pinch or Candy would be home from work. I walked down the basement steps and past the garbage cans. I inspected the contents briefly: kleenex smeared with lipstick fresh as blood, beer cans that were still wet, a half-smoked joint and a newly broken rubber truncheon. That was all I needed to know. They still lived here and were up to their old tricks.

Masked from the street in the deep stairwell, I got out some picklocks and went to work. The iron grill was easy. The door had lately had a key jammed in it and was very abrased and stiff: it showed me they suspected nothing or they wouldn't have left a lock in that condition; it was very easy to pick.

When I opened the door I was hit with a blast of stale marijuana smoke and perfume. My hair tended to stand up but I smoothed it down, with iron control. I had my plans.

I took my bag inside. I checked to be sure there was no evidence of my entering. I closed and relocked both doors.

The main front room I would avoid. I knew it had a bank camera in it and if I guessed right that camera was keyed to the safe, and if anyone tampered with that safe the camera would start to take pictures. There even might be a connection to Miss Pinch's office. No, I would avoid that room. Just then I don't think I could have stood the sight of that bed and the shackles in there or the torture instruments, like cans of pepper and bottles of Tabasco sauce. I had been under strain lately.

I went down the hall that flanked the rooms. I looked out the rear door: the garden was just a mass of tin cans and leftover snow. The board fence around it prevented any view in.

I opened the hall door to Candy's room. Gingham everywhere, pink and white. Organdy curtains and a bedspread stained with lipstick.

Good. I would now get dressed for combat.

Something bit me. This had been going on for quite a while and I was getting tired of it. Here was my chance to get out of these clothes and get rid of some fleas.

I put my suitcase on the boudoir seat and opened it. I took out another gun, my Ruger Blackhawk.30 caliber. I laid it handy to the door with my Beretta. I could not be too careful. I knew exactly what I was dealing with. But also I knew I had to get the combination to that safe, which only Miss Pinch had. And I had the exact plan of how to do it.

But I had lots of time. There was a closet there. It was full of clothes, both Candy's and Miss Pinch's. I suddenly found something astonishingly apt for my plot.

It was a black silk kimono, very long and very big. It had an embroidered design upon the chest. I recognized it at once! It was a figure with two heads: at one end it was a horned dragon, at the other it was a fanged snake. The Ninja! They were a cult of outcast assassins, the most deadly secret executioners of Japan. How apt!

I promptly got out of my clothes. I went into the shower and let it run and run, washing off several fleas. It was a relief.

The towels were all lipstick stained so I dried myself with a wad of Candy's underwear.

I put on the Ninja kimono. Now I certainly looked the part. I grinned at myself in the boudoir mirror. If these two lesbians knew what horrible things awaited them today, they'd both collapse from shock and heart failure.

Oh, I would get that safe combination all right.

I took two objects out of my suitcase. I picked up a pillow off the bed.

I went out into the hall. I put the pillow down behind the front door so I could be comfortable. I sat on it and gently musing, grinning with glee from time to time, I waited.

Candy usually came home first. What a horrible shock was going to be hers today!

I wondered idly if there might not be something to the philosophy of one of Earth's truly great wise men, the Marquis de Sade, renowned propounder of sadism. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, they say. When in the apartment of Miss Pinch, the behavior pattern she set was almost impossible to attain. But I fully intended to go one better than even Miss Pinch's wildest nightmares.

I chuckled now and then, sitting there in the dark behind the door, savoring my plan. A master of Earth psychology was about to improve even upon the Marquis de Sade.

The sound of footsteps coming down the basement entrance steps. The sound of a key being fitted in the iron grate. The groaning sound of hinges as the grill opened. The fumble of a key searching for the slot in the second lock.

I crouched back, waiting.

She came in the door.

Candy!

I gave her no chance to close it. I rose up with a smooth and stealthy spring!

My left arm went around her throat to shut off any scream.

My right hand quivered in front of her face. My thumb broke the capsule of five-minute knockout gas.

I let up on her throat.

She inhaled to cry out.

She didn't cry out. She went down like a pile of laundry, out cold.

I closed the doors.

I took hold of her foot and dragged her down the hall and into her bedroom.

I worked fast. I tore off her coat. Her shoes hit the floor. Her dress went flying to the back of a chair. One stocking went one way, the other soared up and draped over a chandelier.

I stood and looked down at the unconscious body with a triumphant grin.

She was really not a bad-looking woman.

But I had no time for any more scenic wonders today.

I put a wad of stockings in her mouth and gagged her with her own brassiere. I took down a piece of laundry line on which they hung their undies in the bathroom. I cut it and used the shorter piece to tie her hands behind her. I used the longer piece to strongly secure her ankles together. I had it all planned out.

I left her there on the floor. I closed the hall door to her room. I made sure there was no sign of struggle in the hall. I cat-footed back to my position behind the door. I laid out the Beretta and the Ruger just in case. The next one would be trickier, for it would be Miss Pinch. She was the vicious one.

I crouched down to wait. Sixteen minutes went by.

Footsteps on the basement entrance stairs. The crackle of paper as though someone were juggling a bundle. The sound of the bell. It rang but once. There was no one with her, then, for I knew the other signal.

Would she think Candy had not arrived yet? I held my breath.

Another rustle of paper.

Triumph! A key rattling in the grill lock. The groan of its opening. The rattle of another key in the door.

It opened!

"Candy?" called Miss Pinch as she stepped into the hall.

I sprang.

My left arm went around her throat.

She kicked backwards with her heel!

A bag of groceries crashed to the floor.

She was trying to turn.

My right hand was in front of her face. The second five-minute gas capsule burst under my thumb. I eased her throat. "God d..." I kicked her. An intake of breath.

Down she went to join the grocery sack!

I averted my face to avoid the dispersing gas.

I closed the grill and made sure it was locked. I checked for any telltale signs outside. I closed and barred the door. Then I pushed the second, padded door securely into place.

I was in a soundproof apartment with Candy and Miss Pinch. Now I would show the Marquis de Sade a thing or two!

I grabbed Miss Pinch's right arm and dragged her into the front room. The place was much as I had seen it that agonizing last time. There were even some mustard and Tabasco smears on the huge bed. The torture implements were in their usual places but even more caked with dust. But it was no time for scenic tours.

I tore her mannish hat off her head. Her hair spilled out. I got her out of her topcoat and threw it aside. I stripped off her jacket. I unbuckled her belt, grabbed her pants cuffs and, taking her shoes with them, unshucked her out of her pants.

Her mannish shirt would not come off until I realized the tie was holding it on. I got rid of that. I pulled the shirttail over her head and got her out of it.

She was wearing men's shorts! But that wasn't the most astonishing thing. She had on a flesh-colored bra! I had never noticed it before. I thought she had been almost without breasts. It had no straps. It was sort of molded to her. I put my fingers under it and ripped. Off it came. It revealed perfectly normal female breasts! She had been wearing a breast compressor to make them appear flat! Well, well! The trouble some lesbian "husbands" will go to, to appear like men!

I yanked off her right sock and threw it in the air. I yanked off the left sock and it soared to impale itself upon a shield of swords. I stared at her. She was a far less masculine female than I had thought in my past deliriums.

But I would have to move fast. I only had those five minutes and after that the thin lips of Pinch were going to start their acid profanity again.

I had her ready now. I boosted her up on the huge, broad bed. I shackled her right wrist, I shackled her left wrist. I shackled her right ankle, I shackled her left ankle. And each to its nearest bedpost. Then I grabbed each chain in turn and tightened it taut so that she was spread-eagled face-up on that bed.

Ah, what a satisfactory sight! Turnabout is fair play and the worm had turned. Miss Pinch was at my mercy. And Gods, was she going to get a shock!

I went and got Candy. She was conscious now. Her eyes were shifting wildly. Tied though she was, she tried to cower away. Gagged as she was, she still tried to scream. Wonderful!

I picked her up and took her into the front room. I threw her down on the side couch. I stretched her out on her back. Working and holding her down at the same time, I lashed a third rope to her right ankle, which was nearest the couch back. I passed the rope through a slit where the back met the cushions. I passed the rope under the couch and tied her left ankle. Then I untied the original ankle rope. I spread her feet wide apart despite her kicks and lashed her there. When I finished she was spread-eagled on that sofa so thoroughly she couldn't even wobble away.