The Copenhagen Affair - Oram John - Страница 9

He flashed the beam of his pencil flashlight around the shed. There was nothing much to see: a broken stove in the rear angle of the walls, a few fruit crates, a collection of empty lager bottles and noisome crusted tins under the window on the house side, and of course the motorcycle, a big Honda. Gasoline fumes dominated the smells, but he could pick out whiffs of moldy sacking, paint, onions and just plain filth.

He took the Mauser from the shoulder holster, pressed a full clip into the butt and slid the first shell into the chamber. The jacket moved sweetly and easily. He tucked the gun into the waistband of his trousers, leaving the safety catch up.

The path led to a door that was solid and not glass-paneled as he had hoped it might be. There was a window at ground floor level on each side of the door. No light showed from either or from the two on the floor above, but that meant nothing.

Solo took a black rubber sucker from his pocket and pressed it against the window to the right of the house door. He ran a glass cutter in a wide circle around the sucker, tapped gently and then pulled. The circle of glass came away. He put his hand through the hole, found the catch and opened the window. No lights went on. There was no sound from inside the house. He lowered himself gently into the room.

It was unfurnished, which made things easier for quick and silent action. He moved carefully over the bare floorboards and into the dark passage beyond.

In the passage he risked another quick flash of his torch. It showed him the front door, a lot of blank wall and a narrow staircase with a one-in-two gradient. The oilcloth on the treads was the first sign of civilization he had seen and all it did was depress him. When he was prowling he liked a lot of thick carpet under his feet

He made for the staircase, treading as lightly as an Indian. With his foot on the first tread he listened again. Then he grasped the handrail and started up.

Something jabbed him in the small of the back and a voice spoke pleasantly:

“All right, mister. Keep going!”

Feeling a gun sticking into the vertebrae seems to affect different people different ways. Movie stars, for instance, just laugh it off—a wisecrack, a double back flip, and ping! another miscreant bites the dust and it’s hey, nonny, and away with the banker’s daughter.

But Solo felt that the barrel prodding his spine probably wasn’t loaded with blank. He kept right on going.

When they were halfway up a door opened, throwing light onto the landing. A man came out and leaned over the balustrade. He said, “Ole? What’s up?”

The man behind Solo said, “We’ve got company. It got in through the back window.”

The room they shepherded Solo into was furnished halfway between an office and a lounge. There was a white wood table with a portable typewriter on it, a bookcase  filled with directories and reference books, a couple of shabby armchairs and a sofa to match. A large scale map of Denmark was pinned against one wall, with a calendar flanking it. Light was provided by a bulb depending from a center-fire ceiling fixture. It was all as innocent-looking as a Boy Scout’s clubroom.

Lounging against the bookcase was one of the handsomest men Solo had ever seen. He had blue-black hair that came in tight, almost negroid curls, a nose and chin like the boys in cigarette commercials, and big eyes that were almost violet. His six-foot frame was beautifully neat in a sweater, riding breeches and laced knee-boots. Solo wondered where he kept his horse.

He looked up incuriously, then went on filling his pipe from a thin plastic pouch.

The other two men filtered in. The one who had stood on the landing was a stocky, nondescript type, the kind that fills the balcony at the movie theater or the unreserved seats at the football game. He flopped into one of the armchairs and started to make a meal of his nails, shooting sidelong glances at Solo all the time.

The man they called Ole kicked the door shut, came from behind Solo and sat on the edge of the table. Solo took a specially good look at him. He was always more than a little interested in people who stuck guns in his spine.

He was about middle height and weight and he had a face more like a rabbit’s than any human face had a right to be. It was crowned with lank blonde hair. His eyes were very pale blue, with a thin darker circle between the iris and the white, and they held the depth of warm human sympathy you are liable to find in a horned toad. He wore a gray flannel suit, tight-waisted, and his shirt was lavender silk. A primrose tie and ultrafashionable ice-calf shoes completed the outfit. He sat there smiling gently and his right hand pointed a Smith & Wesson .38 police special unwaveringly at Solo’s belly.

The handsome man had his pipe going. He took it out of his mouth and asked, “Who is this fellow, Ole?” The creamy voice went with the blue-black curls and the eyes.

Rabbit Face said, “Search me. He came through the window.”

Solo said, “A stork brought me. Now it’s your turn. You say ‘So you won’t talk, huh?’”

It didn’t get his goat, which was what Solo wanted. He said in the same even tone, “You’ll talk before we get through with you. Hold the gun on him, Ole. Here, you, Per—search him.”

Without another glance at Solo he crossed to the table, slipped a sheet of paper into the portable and began typing.

Per came out of the chair reluctantly. He looked as if he resented having his meal interrupted. He muttered, “Don’t try any funny business,” and started to frisk him.

Solo said, “There’s a gun in my belt and three hundred kroner or so in my right-hand pants pocket. No letters, no papers, and I don’t mark my linen. So get it over with. You give me the creeps.”

There was a sudden clatter outside the house. It sounded as if somebody had kicked over the fruit crates in the shed.

Ole said, “Blast! Get his gun, Per, and leave the rest.” Without taking his eyes away from Solo he said to the handsome man, “One of us had better get out and see if that row meant anything.”

The big boy nodded, pushed his chair back. “You stay with him. Come on, Per.” It seemed like Per was the maid-of-all-work.

Solo’s spirits lifted. It looked as if the breaks were coming his way at last. With Handsome busy elsewhere he was prepared to tackle Peter Rabbit, gun or no gun.

Ole must have guessed his thoughts. He said quietly, “Ten feet is quite a jump, mister.”

“What?”

“I’m trying to tell you I’d probably drill you about three times before you reached me. Honestly, friend, I wouldn’t try anything.”

With his free hand he fumbled in his jacket pocket and brought out a pack of Queens. “Cigarette?”

“Why not?”

He shook one out of the pack, stuck it between his lips, found a lighter. He removed the butt long enough to say, “Sorry I had to do it this way but you’ll see why I don’t offer you the pack.”

“Sure,” Solo said. “Oh, sure.” He was getting ready for the fleeting chance he could see coming.

As Ole brought the lighter flame up to the cigarette he dived.

Ole fired once, the slug seared Solo’s shoulder, and then he had him by the ankles. He jerked his feet back and down. His head smacked the flooring, but he didn’t drop the gun and he didn’t lose his nerve.

As Solo twisted to grab him he lashed out viciously and his heel took a piece out of Solo’s ear. The pain and the force of the kick set Solo back on his haunches. In a fraction of a second Ole had squirmed onto his back and Solo saw the gun coming up again.

He lunged forward, threw his whole weight on Ole’s gun arm, pinning it. Then he started to work his knee into Ole’s midsection while Ole lambasted his groggy ear with his free fist. He looked like a rabbit but he had the guts of a mongoose.

It was too bad the big fellow chose that moment to return.