Mystery Of The Sea Horse Page 8

  One of the automatics jabbed into the man's side. "She's where?"

  Fulmer swallowed. "In there ... in the house. I couldn't help it. I had to leave her."

  The masked man pushed him aside, holstered his guns, and dashed toward the house.

  "What the hell is going on?" shouted the cop.

  The Phantom's broad shoulder hit the door as he turned the knob. The door flapped open.

  "Diana!" he called out. "Diana!"

  The burning roof filled the house with a huge crackling sound.

  The masked man hurried down the hall into the living room. "Diana, where are you?"

  The room seemed to be empty.

  Then there was a tapping from the rear hall.

  There was Diana. She had worked one leg free and been able to kick at the wall when she heard him calling her name. "Oh, Kit," she said when he'd removed the gag. "They left me here to—"

  "I know." He lifted the girl and the chair free of the narrow hall and headed for the front door.

  Just as the Phantom reached the. street with the girl, the entire house collapsed behind them.

  Diana lowered her slim legs into Uncle Dave's pool. "I think you're looking very handsome."

  Diana had on a gold-colored one-piece swimsuit. "Sure you don't want to join me for a swim? Uncle Dave has a really lovely pair of trunks he can loan you."

  "No, not quite yet,"

  "Do you think they'll get anything out of Fulmer?"

  "Nothing that'll help me probably," answered the Phantom.

  While he had been saving Diana from the burning house, Anderson and Fulmer had scuffled with the policeman. The calm Anderson had made it to their rented compact and gotten away. The cop had been able to hold on to Fulmer.

  Diana climbed up the tile pool steps and sat on the edge. "You're going to keep on, keep looking for Chris Danton?"

  "Yes, until I find him."

  Her long dark hair brushed her bare shoulders

  as she shook her head. "You're starting to sound like that Anderson, like some kind of hunter."

  "That's exactly what I am," he told her. "Only, unlike Anderson, I'm not a paid assassin. I intend to find Danton and bring him to justice."

  "I didn't mean you were like him . . . only, Kit, I wish you could stop now," said the girl. "I wish we could say this was all over—over and done with."

  "But it's not over, Diana."

  She looked up at the late-afternoon sky. Even here, miles from the nearest fire, the sky had a brown smoky color. "Do you believe what Anderson told me, that Chris Danton was some kind of Nazi war criminal?"

  "It's quite possible," he said. "It would fit in with what you told me about Danton's associate, the old doctor with a fondness for speaking German." He left the chair to stroll, slowly, around the pool. "I've asked a connection with Interpol to provide me with some background information on this Rolf Langweil. They have him written off as dead."

  "Anderson seemed very certain," Diana said. "Unless . . ."

  "Unless what?"

  "It did occur to me that both of them, Anderson and Fulmer, might simply be rival drug pushers."

  The Phantom shook his head. "That doesn't appear likely, Diana. Terry, up in San Francisco, has never heard of either of them. And Fulmer's identification papers seem to be clever fakes, manufactured someplace in Europe. No, I'm inclined to believe those two really are hired assassins whose paths happened to cross ours."

  "I wonder if," said the dark-haired girl, "Anderson will try to ... to make me talk again." "Pretty risky for him to try to see you again," said the Phantom. "But I'll see to it you're guarded while I-"

  "Wait a minute." She got up and walked toward him. "Where are you going?"

  "I have a hunch," he said, "Danton may have another hideout down in Mexico. I'm leaving for there early tomorrow."

  "Were leaving, you mean."

  "I have to work alone on this."

  "But, Kit, every time you leave me alone, something dreadful happens," the girl pointed out. "Besides you'll attract a lot less attention if you visit Mexico as half of a nice clean-cut and innocent tourist couple. Don't you think?"

  After a pause, the Phantom said, "Maybe you're right."

  "Of course I am." The girl hugged him, laughing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Agent Marcus smiled at the bleary window of his office. "Good. This should fix those damn fires." He stuck his finger into his rumpled pack of menthol cigarettes to fish one out.

  A heavy rain was falling, splashing at the windows.

  At his desk, Busino had a marine chart spread out on top of the other clutter. "Lot of ocean between here and Acapulco."

  His partner crossed the office to stand beside the desk. "Aren't you going to bum a cigarette?"

  "I'm making a greater effort to cut down," said Busino.

  "So you're not going to bum them off me any more?"

  "Well, I'm going to bum them less often." He leaned closer to the map.

  "Coast Guard says they can't locate the Sea Horse, huh?"

  "Nope, no trace of Danton's yacht so far."

  Marcus wandered back to his own desk. He lit his cigarette with a wooden match. "This guy Fulmer now," he said through a swirl of smoke. "I wonder about that story of his."

  "Did you talk to the guy?" Busino pushed back from his desk and his chair made a catlike squeak.

  "The local cops let me sit in on their questioning last night." He gave a vague shrug. "He sounds convincing."

  "An assassin," said Busino. "You don't run into

  too many people in that line of work." When he let go of the edges of the chart, it rolled itself up. "So our boy Danton is really an ex-Nazi named—what was it?"

  "Rolf Langweil," answered Marcus. "I'm having some of the boys in Washington see what they can dig up."

  Busino glanced over his shoulder to watch the rain fall. "Where do you think Danton is?"

  "Mexico," answered Marcus.

  "Oh, so? Why Mexico?"

  "Because that's where Walker headed for this morning," said the other agent. "He and the Palmer girl are flying down there."

  "You still don't quite trust Walker, do you?"

  Marcus bit his lower Hp, scowling. "There's something ... I don't know . . . mysterious about the guy," he said finally. "And I was talking to the cop who collared Fulmer up there where the house was on fire yesterday. He says the guy who got Diana Palmer out of the burning building was wearing some kind of costume."

  "A costume? What do you mean—like a gorilla outfit, or a suit of armor?"

  "No, some kind of tight-fitting thing, with gun- belts across here." Marcus traced a line across his own stomach. "And a mask. The guy was big and tall, good-looking. Sounds an awful lot like Walker."

  "Why would Walker be running around all tricked out like that?"

  "I don't know," said Marcus. "Except . . . when this cop was telling me it almost rang a bell. Like it reminded me of something I heard of once."

  Busino suggested, "I bet Terry up in Frisco could tell you more about Walker."

  "Terry is being very cute about all this," said

  his partner. "He tells me to trust Walker, but he won't tell me anything else about him."

  "You know," said Busino as he unfurled the chart and studied the Pacific Ocean again, "this case has a lot of odd elements. More than we usually run into."

  "So I noticed," said Marcus.

  The man who had called himself Anderson had a new name. His hair was a sandy brown, and there was a small bristly mustache on his upper lip. He swallowed the last spoonful of his bowl of chili, finished the last saltine cracker, and wiped his mouth carefully with his paper napkin. He left the small window booth where he'd been sitting alone, paid his check, and walked out onto the run-down street.

  He adjusted a checkered motoring cap on his head and buttoned up the collar of his black raincoat. The rain was coming down heavily; the gutters were running fast and carrying an infinity of debris. The man,
who was now carrying a wallet identifying him as Arthur Helmann, stepped across the dirty brown water at the curb. He crossed the street and walked toward a pale-orange apartment building.

  He cut down the alley between the three-story apartment and a peeling green grocery store. He stood watching the back entrance for several minutes, the rain pelting him.

  Then he selected a key from a ring in his pants pocket and let himself into the building. The corridor was dim, the rug the same shade of brown as the water running in the gutters.

  Helmann, as he called himself, had retained his calm smile. It was on his face as he climbed to the second floor.

  In front of a door marked 2-C, he stopped. With his right hand in his pocket, he knocked on the door with his left.

  "What is it?" asked a voice inside the apartment.

  Helmann knocked again, a steady even rap.

  "I said, what the hell is it?"

  Helmann knocked once more, the bland smile still on his face.

  The door was jerked open. "Who the hell are you?" asked the lean black young man standing there.

  Helmann thrust his snubnose .32 revolver hard into the young man's stomach. "Gabe Rich, isn't it?"

  Rich bent, stumbled back. "Who are you, man?" he gasped. "Listen, I'm clean. I'm not holding any . . ."

  Helmann came in, closing the door quietly behind him with his foot. "Gabe, I don't care if you've got your mattress stuffed with pure heroin.

  Slowly, Rich straightened. "What do you

  want?"

  Helmann's thumb rested on the hammer of the revolver. "You know a young lady named Laura Leverson."

  "No, man. You must of—"

  "Gabe, I am already seriously behind schedule," explained Helmann, smiling. "I am feeling somewhat angry and frustrated. Please, Gabe, please don't cause me any more delay by being coy. I know you are a friend and business associate of the young lady."

  "Okay, so what if I am?"

  "Yesterday, quite early in the morning, you picked up the young lady in a station wagon."

  "Yeah, maybe I did." "Where did you take her?" Rich said, "Look man, what do you want Laura for?"

  Helmann moved the barrel of the gun close to the young man's head. "Where did you take her?"

  "Well, see, she had to move out in a hurry. She thought I ought to, too, but I like it around here and I didn't figure anybody could tie me in."

  The barrel touched Rich's temple. "Where did you take her?"

  "Mexico, man, Mexico."

  "A large country," smiled Helmann. "Be more specific."

  "I drove her just over the border to TJ."

  TJ?

  "Tijuana, man," said Rich. "After that, I don't know where she got to." "Is that the truth, Gabe?" "Yeah, man. I swear. She was going to see a guy there in TJ about getting a lift to somewhere else."

  "And you don't know where that was?" "No, man. All I know is what I told you." "Who was her contact in Tijuana?" Rich told him.

  "Thank you, Gabe," said Helmann. "Need I point out how easily I found you this time? Don't warn Laura Leverson and cause me t;o come looking for you again."

  "No, man, don't worry. I—" Helmann struck out with the revolver, knocking the young man to the floor. Smiling, he left him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The Phantom was driving a compact blue American-made car now. They'd rented it on their arrival in Mexico an hour earlier. He wore dark glasses, a light-tan trench coat. "Glad I decided to bring the raincoat," he remarked.

  Diana, arms folded, was watching the wipers tick back and forth across the windshield. "I guess we picked the wrong time of the year to pose as tourists," she said, laughing. "A woman at the airport told me we just missed the tiempo seco."

  "I don't mind missing the dry season," he said. "I'm hoping we picked the right time to find at least a few members of the Sea Horse gang."

  "That matchbook you found at Laura Lever- son's," said the dark-haired girl. "It could have been left there by some previous tenant."

  "Yes, except that Mocosa, which we are fast approaching, is only fifty miles north of Acapulco," replied the Phantom. "And Acapulco is where Danton's yacht was coming from when it was last positioned."

  Diana listened to the hard rain clattering on the car roof for a moment. "That's a very illusive boat, the Sea Horse of Chris Danton's," she said. "I was promised a ride on it days ago and I've yet even to see it."

  "He's probably got it hidden somewhere along the coast."

  "That's a pretty big thing to hide."

  "Danton's managed to do it, though."

  The fields outside were giving way to low white houses and a few small stores. These were the outskirts of Mocosa, a town of some one hundred thousand people. At this end, there were mostly ragged boys and thin dogs roaming the rain- drenched streets.

  "Not the tourist part of town," said Diana, shaking her head.

  "When you come in the back door, you get a different perspective."

  They drove further into Mocosa, climbing gradually away from the small bay and its wide dull brown beach. On a level street, halfway into the hills stood a scatter of neat white-and-red-tile bungalows. The Phantom and Diana checked in here, taking two adjoining bungalows, numbers eleven and twelve.

  After she'd unpacked, Diana came over through the rain to knock on the red door of the Phantom's bungalow. When she was inside, the girl asked, "What do you figure on doing first?"

  "I'm going to hit the All-American Cantina down on the Calle Pitanza," he said. "See what I can find out by watching and waiting."

  "You want me to stay here?"

  The Phantom nodded as he moved toward the doorway. "It's unlikely Laura will recognize me, since she shot at me from a distance," he said. "You she'll recognize if she happens to drop into the cantina. Besides, from what I've been able to find out, the All-American is not a place much frequented by the sort of bright-eyed homespun tourist you're pretending to be this trip."

  The girl gave a resigned shrug. "Okay, Kit," she said. "Be careful."

  He grinned at her and walked out into the rain.

  The Calle Pitanza was a narrow, twisting street which zigzagged down toward a scrubby section of the beach. It was paved with lumpy cobblestones. A large shaggy yellow dog was investigating something in the gutter in front of the All-Ameri- can Cantina as the Phantom approached the place on foot.

  The rain was hitting against the adobe front of the narrow cantina building. The red-white-and- blue lettering of the name painted on the wall above the doors was running, sending streaks of paint down toward the buckled sidewalk. The one window was filled with tiny pasted-up paper American flags.

  Heavy iron grillwork, long rusted, guarded the door. A relatively new padlock held the grill gates securely together.

  The Phantom stepped back, surveying the facade of the cantina. He could see no sign indicating when the All-American would open.

  "No es abierto, senor," said a small wrinkled old man who was looking out of the doorway next door.

  "When do they open?"

  "Quien sabe?" The old man backed into his little grocery store.

  The Phantom stepped into the shop. "Will they be open tonight?" he asked in Spanish.

  "It is possible," said the old man as he moved behind a wooden counter. "Who can say?"

  "Are they no longer in business?"

  There was a hundred-pound white sack of corn meal on the counter. Leaning one sharp brown elbow on it, the old man replied, "To the best of my knowledge, sir, that rogue Peter Torres is still operating his eyesore. However, the past few days,

  his cantina has been, somewhat mysteriously, closed up tight."

  "You don't know why?"

  "Perhaps Torres has had another run-in with the law; perhaps he is somewhere recuperating from another of his frequent debauches. Who can tell?"

  "Where can I find Torres?"

  "Ah," said the old man, "where indeed? As I hear it, sir, he has not been seen at the pigsty he calls ho
me on the Calle Ababa for two or three days."

  "Ill ask there anyway."

  Shrugging, the old man gave him the address.

  From the second floor of the beachfront restaurant, there was a view of the water. It was still raining. "I understand," said Diana, "the sunsets in these parts are quite magnificent."

  The Phantom grinned at the girl and the gray early evening sky behind her. "One more thing we're missing this time around."

  "You couldn't find out anything about the All- American Cantina or the man who runs it?"

  "A lot of dead ends so far," he answered. "The neighbors of this fellow Torres, who operates the place, say they haven't seen him for the past three days."

  "What next?"

  The Phantom said, "There's another man one of the neighbors mentioned, a sort of silent partner of Torres'. Somebody's supposed to find out where he is and contact me. I'm also going to ask some questions around the harbor tomorrow to see if I can get anything on the Sea Horse. If none of that pays off, then we'll go back to Santa Barbara."

  "Well," said the girl, reaching across the table to place her hand on his, "at least we're having a vacation together. I've seen so little . . ." She had glanced toward the entrance and her voice trailed off. "Kit," she resumed in a lower tone, "that man coming in with the blonde."

  A tan graying man of about fifty was entering the room with a very tall blonde young girl on his arm. He sensed Diana's glance, turned, and saw her. Very casually, he stopped, smiled, and said something Into the ear of his companion. They went back downstairs.

  "He seems to have recognized you, too," said the Phantom. "Who is he?" ,

  "He was a guest on San Obito Island," she said rapidly. "Claimed to be in television, or some kind of communications, but he must be one of Chris Danton's men."

  "It's not likely they'll stay now." The Phantom pushed back from their table. "Wait here, Diana, and I'll see if I can find out where they're headed."

  There was no sign of the gray-haired man in the crowded downstairs room.

  The Phantom asked the headwaiter, "The gray- haired gentleman and the blonde, where did they go?"

  The waiter smiled a perfunctory smile. "They apparently decided they did not wish to dine with us this evening. The rain sometimes makes people act In—"