with These Hands (Ss) (2002) (22 page)

Rubio would meet Eberhardt, if that was him in the car, and seven to ten it was. Then they would what... go back to the place where Sixte was held . . . had been held? Or would it simply be a delivery of the tickets? If they split, they would be followed separately, if they went together, so much the better. He stopped shaving and called for another undercover car to be sent out to Rubio's place.

Mike Frost rubbed his smooth cheek and started on his upper lip.

Tom Sixte felt the first strand of the clothesline part, but nothing else came loose. He tugged, it was tight and strong. He waited, resting. It was getting late.

For some time now, there had been restless movements upstairs. Suddenly, the footsteps turned and started toward the cellar steps. Instantly, Sixte rolled over and over, then sat up, his face toward the steps.

Phyllis came down until she could see him, then stopped and stared. Her face was strained and white, her eyes seemed very bright.

She stared at him, and said nothing, so he took a chance. "Did he run out on you?"

Her lip curled and she came down onto the floor. For a minute, he thought she would hit him. Then she said, "He won't run out on me. He wouldn't dare."

Sixte shook his head a little. "Man, have I got a headache!

My head got hit on the steps." She made no reply, chewing on her lip. "Look," he said, "can't we make a deal? You an' me?"

Her eyes were cold, but beyond it, he could see she was scared. "What kind of deal?"

"Get me on that plane and I'll give you the five thousand."

It got to her, all right. He could see it hit home. "You're in this deeper than he is. Why should he collect? Seems to me he's been gone a long time."

"The banks are closed now."

"You'd know somebody. My identification is good. We could tell them I got in a scrap with your boyfriend, and want to get out of town, that I have my tickets, but need cash."

She was thinking it over. No question about that. She had it in mind. "I know a guy who might have it."

"Then it's a deal?"

"I'll give him ten minutes more," she said. "It's almost five."

She went back up the stairs, and Sixte returned to his sawing at the ropes that bound him.

At 5:10 p. M., his cheeks smooth, his hair freshly combed, Mike Frost got a call. Rubio and Eberhardt had made contact.

They had gone into the house and there was a man with them. He was a short, powerfully built man in a gray suit.

An unmarked police car slid into place alongside the curb under some low-hung branches. Nobody got out. A man sauntered up the street and struck a match, lighting a cigarette. It was a cloudy afternoon and there was a faint smell of rain in the air.

Mike Frost was sweating. He was guessing and guessing wild. The man in the gray suit could be Tony Shapiro.

He hesitated, then picked up the telephone and dialed the FBI.

When he hung up, his phone rang. Rubio, Eberhardt, and the other man had come out. They all got into Rubio's car and started away. They were being checked and followed.

At 5:22 p. M., the cellar door suddenly opened and Phyllis came down the steps sideways. She went over to Sixte and she had a gun in her hand. "You try anything, and I'll kill you," she said, and he believed her.

He had his hands loose and he brought them around in front of him. "See?" he said. "I'm playing fair. I could have let you come closer and jumped you." He began to untie the ropes on his ankles.

When he got up, he staggered. Barely able to walk, he got up the stairs. Then he brushed himself off, splashed water on his face, and combed his hair. As they reached the door, a taxi rolled up.

"Don't try anything."

The cabdriver looked around, his eyes hesitating on Sixte's bruised face.

"The Shadow Club," Phyllis said, and sat back in the seat. Her features were drawn and fine, her eyes wide open. She sat on Sixte's right and had her right hand in her pocket. "We'll get out by the alley."

They went up a set of stairs and stopped before a blank door. Phyllis knocked and after a minute a man answered.

At her name, he opened the door, then wider. They walked in. When the man saw Sixte's face, his eyes changed a little.

They seemed to mask, to film. The man turned, went through another door, and walked to his desk.

He was a stocky man in a striped shirt. His neck was thick. "Whatya want, Phyl?" He dropped into his chair.

"Look," she said quickly, "this guy is a friend. He's got dough in the bank and he's got to get out of town. He wants to cash a check for five G's."

"That's a lot of cash." The man looked from one to the other. "What's it worth?"

"A hundred dollars."

The man chuckled. "You tell that to Vince Montesori?

It's worth more."

Sixte produced his identification, and indicated the balance in his checking account. "The check's good," he said quietly, "and I'll boost the ante to five hundred extra if you cash it right away."

Montesori got to his feet. "I gotta check. There's a guy works for the bank. If he says you're okay, I'll cash it, okay?" He indicated a door. "You wait in there."

It was a small private sitting room, comfortably fixed up. There was a bar with glasses and several bottles of wine, one of bourbon. Tom Sixte stepped to the bar. "I could use a drink. How about you?"

Phyllis was watching him carefully. "All right."

He picked up the bourbon and then through the thin wall over the bar, he heard a faint voice, audible only by straining his ears.

"Yeah," it was Montesori, "they just came in. Tell Rubio.

I'll stall 'em."

Sixte finished pouring the drinks, added ice and soda.

He walked back and held the drink out to Phyllis. She stood back, very carefully. "Put it down on the table," she said, "I'll pick it up."

This was not going to work. Whatever happened, he had to get out of here ... fast.

At 5:47, a call came in from a radio car. They had tailed Rubio and the other two men to a frame house, old place off Mission Road. They had all gone in, then had come rushing out and piled into the car.

After they had gone, followed by other cars, a check of the house revealed some cut clothesline in the cellar, an unopened bottle of Madeira, and clothes for a girl and a man. There was some blood on the cellar floor, and a few spots on the living room carpet.

Mike Frost got up and put on his coat. It looked like a double-cross. The babe had taken Sixte and lit out, for where?

The source of information at the Shadow Club would not talk . . . closed up like a clam. In itself, that meant something.

Frost motioned to Noonan and they walked out to the car. "The Shadow Club," he told Noonan. He sat back in the seat, closing his eyes. After a while all this waiting could get to a guy. It was time to squeeze someone and squeeze them hard. Patience got you only so far.

The girl was too cautious, Sixte could see that. He was on edge now. It had been a long time since he had played rough. Not since the Army days. But the events of the past hours had sharpened him up. He was bruised and stiff, but he was mad; he was both mad and desperate.

"It's a double-cross," he said, looking at Phyllis. "That guy out there, that Vince Montesori. He called Rubio."

Her eyes were level and cold. He could see how this girl could kill, and quickly. He explained what he had heard.

"It's your neck, too," he said, "you were making a deal on your own, but our deal stands if we get out of here."

"We'll get out. Open the door."

It was locked. No answer came from the other side.

Phyllis was frightened now. Sixte turned swiftly and picked up a stool that stood beside the little bar. He had heard voices through the wall, low voices, so-he swung the stool.

The crash of smashing wood filled the room and Sixte looked quickly through the hole in the cheap dividing wall. The room beyond was empty. He smashed again with the stool, then went through the hole, and opened the door. Phyllis came out, looking at him quickly-he had not tried to trap her.

The door to the alley was locked tight. The door to the club was locked.

The alley door was metal and tightly fitted, solid as the wall itself. The door to the club was not so tight, and breaking it down might attract help from the club itself.

From the patrons ... he heard footsteps coming along the hall.

"Behind the door," he told her, "get them under the gun when they come in."

Her eyes were small and tight. There was an inner streak of viciousness in this girl. He was accepted as her ally at least momentarily. She looked at him and said, "Don't worry about Kurt. He's yellow."

A key sounded in the lock and Sixte dropped his right hand to the back of a chair. It was a heavy oak chair and he tilted it, ever so slightly.

Montesori stepped inside, behind him were Kurt and two other men. Startled, Montesori looked at him, then beyond him at the smashed panels of the wall. His face went white around the mouth.

"You busted my wall!"

Kurt stepped in, looking at Sixte like he had never seen him before. Rubio followed. "Where's she? Where's the girl?"

"Get over by the wall, Vince. You, too, Kurt. All of you."

Phyllis stepped out with the gun.

Only the man in the gray suit remained in the door.

Sixte gambled. He had the chair balanced and he shoved down hard on the corner of the back. The chair legs slid, shooting out from under his hand on the slick floor. The man tried to jump, but the heavy chair smashed him across the knees and he fell over it, into the room.

Tom Sixte went over him in a long dive and hit the floor sliding. Somebody yelled behind him and there was a shot, then another. Fists started pounding on the alley door, and Sixte scrambled to his feet only to be tackled from behind. Turning, with a chance to fight back for the first time, Sixte hooked a short, wicked left that caught Rubio as he scrambled to get up.

The blow smashed his nose and showered him with blood. He staggered, his eyes wide, his mouth flapping like a frightened chicken, and then Sixte was on him.

Rubio tried to fight back, but Sixte was swinging with both hands. Rubio scuttled backwards into the chair and the gray-suited man who sat very still on the floor, clutching his shin, his face utterly calm.

Vince Montesori jumped through the door, scrambling over the chair, and tried to break past Sixte, but Tom Sixte was in the middle of the hall and he caught the running man coming in with a right that jolted him clear to the spine when it landed. Vince went back and down, and Sixte turned to run but suddenly the room was filled with officers in uniform.

Tom Sixte crouched over, his breath coming in gasps.

Looking through the open hall door he could see Kurt lying on the floor inside. His throat had been torn by a bullet and there was a bigger hole behind his ear where it had come out.

Phyllis was handing her gun to an officer, and a big man in plainclothes walked up to Sixte. The man had rusty hair and a freckled face. He looked very tired. "You Sixte?"

"Yeah?"

Frost smiled wryly. "I'm Mike Frost. Glad to see you Heck, I'm glad to see you alive."

*

Colonel Sharpe bent over the map as Turk Madden spoke. "Sure," he said, "I know the spot, I was there once. It's inland from Enbetu, the railroad from Hakodate to Wakkanai forks off here. Years back I was all over Hokkaido."

"Excellent. We bomb Wakkanai at dawn tomorrow. And naturally, before the attack, we want all communication with Hakodate and Japan proper destroyed. You will cut that railroad, also the telephone and telegraph lines that follow it."

"And Ryan takes care of the radio?"

"Right. The radio and power stations will be destroyed.

Forty minutes later, which should allow time for any reasonable hitch in his plans, we attack. Everything must go on schedule."

He understood the situation perfectly. Wakkanai was a tough nut to crack but its defenders could also call on scores of Nipponese planes from Hakodate. Should this happen the attack would meet with disaster.

The Kurile Isles had been attacked many times, and Wakkanai was the next step. But there was nothing in the Kuriles even remotely approaching Wakkanai.

The job of the saboteurs was essential. They had a fair chance of getting their mission done, but a very small chance of getting out with a whole skin, or even part of one.

Colonel Sharpe straightened.

"Well, that's the setup, Madden. You move out at two thousand hours, and you should be over your goal by midnight. Within a mile of your destination the Japs have an emergency landing strip. That field is unguarded at present.

"At ten minutes past midnight two lights will be shown to indicate the width of the field. These lights can be shown momentarily only. You will not see the men handling the lights. They are Ainu, white natives of the island.

They will show their signals and leave. With your mission complete, you will take off and return here."