Pacific Vortex! Part 5

Pitt was at a loss. In the faint light Summer looked no more than twenty-five, gentle and sweet. Holding the syringe, he wondered what it held as he dropped the liquid-filled gla.s.s tube carefully into his breast pocket.

He leaned over, awkwardly heaved the girl over his shoulder, and rose shakily to his feet. It had suddenly occurred to him that she probably had a couple of friends lurking about in the shadows; he wasn't about to wait for the posse to block the pa.s.s. His hotel was a good three blocks away, so he balanced his load, steadied himself, and began limping stiffly across the sand.

His one hope of getting past the roving crowds of tourists who wandered the sidewalks at night was to skirt through the heavy foliage of the gardens. He certainly didn't want to meet cruising policemen or a do-gooder vacationer who might conjure up the notion of playing Herbert Hero and rescuing little Eva from the villainous Simon LaPitt.

Along the sidewalks it would have been an easy walk of five minutes, but it took Pitt twenty by way of the backyard jungle. He paused in the shadows, catching his breath and waited for a group of drunken party goers to stagger out of view. He savored the delicate fragrance that whispered about Summer's body. This time he recognized it as plumeria, not an uncommon scent in the Hawaiian Islands, but it was the first time Pitt had sensed its presence on a woman.

His hotel was just across the street now, the lights behind the lobby door beckoning with womblike safety. At the first lull in traffic, Pitt covered the distance on the run, his face strained from the ache in his groin and his lungs tortured from the physical effort of carrying a deadweight over a four-hundred-yard obstacle course in the dark. He threaded his way quickly around the parked cars at the curb, edged up to the doorway of the building, and cast a wary eye in the lobby.

His luck deserted him momentarily. A cleaning woman was vacuuming the carpet outside the elevators, a huge dark-skinned behemoth of a Hawaiian woman with an I'll-scream-for-a-cop-look. He moved around the corner and trotted down the ramp leading to the underground garage. Except for a sprinkling of cars stationed throughout the dim, concrete interior, the garage was empty. He found an open elevator, entered, and pushed the panel b.u.t.ton and then leaned against the heavy teak railing that ran along the clos-etlike walls.

Pitt was a damp ma.s.s of sweat now; the exertion and the humidity of the night had combined to push him within a hairline of total exhaustion. As he stood there, stooped under Summer's weight, he managed to catch his breath. The elevator hummed monotonously and cooperated by not opening on any other floor than the one Pitt had selected.

The panel light blinked 10. Pitt's luck stuck by him -the hall was clear in both directions. Groping clumsily in his pants pocket for several frustrating seconds, he finally managed to extract a key and shove it into the lock of a carved rosewood door marked 1010.

A plushly decorated suite was a luxury Pitt could hardly afford on his salary, but he justified its existence under the excuse that it was his first vacation in three years.

He entered the bedroom and dumped Summer unceremoniously on the bed. Another time, staring down at a woman who was so delicate and smooth, he would have felt desire. Not tonight. Mentally, emotionally, and physically, Pitt had had it. The day began and ended as one grueling endurance run. Pitt left Summer blissfully unconscious and entered the bathroom where he undressed and took a shower.

Nothing made sense. Why would a perfect stranger want to kill him? His only beneficiary was his little white-haired mother, and unless she'd given up charity teas and hooked rugs, and had taken up with the Mafia, she'd have no motive. Besides, he grinned to himself at the sheer fantasy of it all, what proof did he have that the hypodermic syringe held poison?

A drug? That was a semicredible possibility. But again, why? He knew no military codes he could think of, no nuclear bomb secrets, no cla.s.sified missile locations, no top secret plans for the destruction of the world. His thoughts wandered back to Summer's magnificent beauty. Then he finally forced his mind back to the reality of the moment, closing the tap and stepping out of the shower stall. He slipped a robe over his broad shoulders and, returning to the bedroom, placed a damp washcloth over the girl's forehead, noting with a tinge of s.a.d.i.s.tic pleasure that she would wear a healthy-looking bruise on her jaw in the morning.

He shook Summer roughly by both shoulders. Slowly, reluctantly, not wanting to part with the contentment of oblivion, and murmuring incoherently in a soft voice, her big gray eyes crept open. Awaking in a strange place would have startled most women. Not Summer. She was tough. Pitt could almost see the circuits of her mind burst into sudden operation. Her eyes darted about the room, first to Pitt, then to the door, to the balcony, and back to Pitt again. She stared at him casually, but a little too casually to be genuine. Then she raised her hand and ligfrtiy touched her jaw, wincing at the contact.

"You hit me?" It was more a question than a statement.

"Yes." He grinned. "And now that I have you on home ground, I think I'll rape you

At last her eyes came wide. " You wouldn't dare."

"How do you know I haven't already?"

She almost fell for it; her hand began moving down across her lower stomach and then suddenly stopped.

"You're not that perverted."

"Who said I was?"

She looked at Pitt in a very peculiar way. "I was told ..." She stopped herself and avoided his eyes.

"You should be more careful," Pitt said reproachfully. "Believing nasty old rumors and running up and down Waikiki Beach jabbing hypodermic needles into defenseless men can get you into a heap of trouble."

She stared at him for a few seconds, her lips moving as if she were about to reply, but uncertainty slowly welled in those fantastic gray eyes. 1 don't know what you mean."

"No matter." Pitt turned his back on her and reached for a telephone. "I'll let the police figure your game. That's what honest citizens like me pay them for."

"A mistake." Her voice suddenly turned hard and cold. "I'll scream rape and with these marks on my face, who will they believe, you or me?"

Pitt picked up the telephone and began punching the numbered b.u.t.tons. "There's not the slightest doubt that they'd believe you. That is, until Adrian Hunter testifies in my defense. She probably has a few marks of her own." Pitt turned his attention to the phone. The voice that answered on the other end of the line surrendered after the fifth h.e.l.lo and hung up. At the dial tone, Pitt said: "h.e.l.lo, I'd like to report an a.s.sault ..."

That was as far as he got Summer leaped off the bed and pushed the receiver down. "Please, you don't understand." Her voice was low and desperate.

"That's the understatement of the evening," Pitt said angrily. He grabbed her by the shoulders, squeezing hard and staring unblinking, only a few inches from her widening pupils. "Kick a man in the b.a.l.l.s and jam a hypodermic needle into his back and then act like little Miss Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm when you screw up. Just what in h.e.l.l is your game?"

She started to struggle, then relaxed almost immediately. "You gangster" Her voice was a savage whisper.

The obsolete expression caught Pitt off guard. Slowly he released his hold and stepped back. "That's me, one of big Al Capone's torpedoes, fresh off the boat from Chicago."

"I wish to heaven I'd..." She broke off and crossed her arms and ma.s.saged the reddening skin on her shoulders. "You are a devil."

Pitt felt no hate in return, only a touch of remorse as he noted the angry ma.s.ses of red welts where his fingers had dug into her flesh.

There was a long pause before she spoke. "I'll tell you what you wish to know." Despite the subtle change in tone, there was nothing soft in the coldness in her eyes. "But first, could you help me to the bathroom. I feel... I think I'm going to be sick."

Pitt extended his hand and grabbed her wrist, feeling her muscles tighten under his grip. Suddenly she braced one foot against the railing of the bed and threw every ounce of her slender body into a shoulder block to Pitt's stomach. She caught him off balance; he fell backward over a chair, crashing to the floor and taking the bedstand lamp with him. Pitt had hardly collided with the s.h.a.g carpet when Summer jerked open the sliding door and vanished out onto the balcony.

Pitt made no effort to rise, but leaned back and relaxed into a more comfortable position on the floor. Ten seconds pa.s.sed. He could hold it back no longer; he began to laugh. "Next time you exit a man's tenth-floor apartment, you'd best carry a parachute."

She slowly stepped back into the bedroom, her lovely face livid with rage. "There is an evil word for you."

"I can think of at least a dozen," he said, smiling politely.

She moved to the other side of the room, putting as much s.p.a.ce as the room allowed between them, and lowered herself into a chair, her eyes exploring his. "If I answer your questions, what then?"

"Nothing," Pitt said quietly. "When you tell a story I can swallow without gagging, you're free to leave."

"I'don't believe you."

"My dear girl, I'm not the Boston Strangler or Jack the Ripper, and I a.s.sure you, I'm not in the habit of abducting innocent virgins from Waikiki Beach."

"Please," she implored softly, "It was not my intent to harm you. I must work for my government just as you must work for yours. You have information I was ordered to obtain. The content of the syringe was an ordinary solution of scopolamine."

"Truth serum?"

"Yes. Your reputation with women made you a prime suspect"

"You're not making sense."

"The United States Navy, or at least its intelligence section, has reason to believe one of Miss Hunter's lovers has been trying to gain cla.s.sified information concerning her father's fleet operations. I was ordered to investigate your involvement with her. That's all there is to it."

That wasn't all there was to it. There was no doubt in Pitt's mind that she was lying. He also knew that she was trying to buy time. The only cla.s.sified information that Adrian Hunter possessed was how the Navy's up-and-coming crop of future admirals rated on her personal lovemaking scale.

As Pitt rose from the floor and moved in front of her, she saw the brutal gleam in his eyes and she visibly tensed. Confused and angry, Pitt found himself sensing a strong degree of compa.s.sion toward the girl. He gazed at the red hair tousled over one eye, and the long slender hands reclining loosely on an inviting lap.

"I'm sorry it turned out this way," he said. "d.a.m.ned sorry." He felt a little foolish. "Too bad you ruined a good thing. You're not with Naval Intelligence, dear heart. You're not even a bona fide American. h.e.l.l, n.o.body's used the term gangster in this country since the 1930s. You also failed your secret agent test. No professional would have bought that phony telephone call to the police, but you did. Anyway, the Navy isn't in the habit of allowing their female operators to run loose among villain types minus a backup crew armed to the teeth within screaming distance. You don't carry a purse, and your dress is too tight to hide a transmitter to warn the watchdogs when the going gets nasty." The shock treatment was working too well. Her face drained of all color and she truly looked sick.

He went on. "And, in case you think I might be as pure and virginal as you are, you're sadly mistaken. I checked you over from hair to painted toenails when I carried you here from the beach. The only thing you've got on under that dress is a tiny holster for the syringe, taped to the inside of your left thigh."