Time to Prey Read online

  Table of Contents

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  Copyright © 1960 by Frank Kane.

  Published by Wildside Press LLC.

  wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com

  CHAPTER 1

  From the air, Havana is beautiful.

  By day the lush shrubbery is green, highlighted by the exotic coloring of tropical flowers. The shores are swept by the white-capped Gulf, the lawns of the luxury hotels are like putting greens.

  By night, the Gulf is black, white-crested as it is swept by the spotlights from the Morro Castle standing guard in the Bay. The twin domes of the Hotel Nacional are purple against the sky, the headlights of the cars along the Malecon Freeway are like fireflies. Beyond the Nacional, the fabulous casinos—the Sans Souci and Tropicana—spill their bright lights and mambo rhythms into the shrubbery that is part of their décor.

  From the air, day or night, it’s a fairyland of beautiful lights, lush shrubbery, wave-swept drives.

  It isn’t until the plane lands that the rot and decay become apparent. What was once a glamorous playground has turned into a city of intrigue, a port of entry for the unwanted.

  Once passengers arriving on airliners made for La Rampa, the modern section overlooked by the Nacional. Today they are more likely to head for the Prado, Old Havana, a collection of decaying Spanish-type houses with ironwork balconies that hover over narrow, smelly streets and rob them of any acquaintance with the sun.

  The Prado starts across from the Morro Castle, whose underground exits to the shark-filled Bay are again serving as more than tourist attractions. It runs a mile through winding, dark streets to end at the President’s Palace. Along the route are signs of revolutions, past and present—some buildings no more than shells, others bearing pockmarks of bullets or grenade fragments.

  The Palace itself is within walking distance of La Rampa, and only a two-dollar cab ride from the Nacional. But very few denizens of the Prado feel impelled to take that journey.

  Sloppy Joe’s, with its paneled dining room and famous food, is on the corner of Agremonte and Animas, just three blocks from Virtudes Street, the heartline of the Prado. It’s an area of crumbling, pocked concrete houses, bird-fouled buildings and walks. Here in the narrow street cars are lined up in hopeless traffic jams, drivers leaning somnolently on horns, creating an ear-shattering cacophony, their attention diverted by the girls congregating to start their nightly trade. The buildings are old and rotted, their iron balconies serving by night as a perch from which to view the activity in the neon-bathed streets below, and by day as a place from which to air dingy, gray linens.

  Chinatown, in Havana, is right around the corner from Virtudes Street. Here, ancient buildings lean against each other for support, blocking out the sun from the streets. Decaying piles of rubbish dot the sidewalks; there is a constant stench.

  At dusk, on the evening of March 12, a heavy-set Chinese slid off his stool at the bar at Jickey’s Club on Virtudes. He checked his wristwatch, dropped some change on the bar, headed for the street. He melted into the thin stream of traffic on the narrow sidewalk, going toward Chinatown.

  His destination was a small Chinese pharmacy on the ground floor of the building fourth from the corner. He stopped for a moment outside of its window, appeared to be studying the displays of Chinese potions made of powdered reptiles and rodents. When he was satisfied that no one was following him, he walked to the door, pushed it open and walked into the dim interior.

  A thin-shouldered Chinese looked up, peered at the newcomer through thick-lensed glasses. “You wish something, sir?” he squeaked in a high-pitched voice.

  “I am Lee Sung,” the heavy-set man grunted. “I am expected.”

  The stoop-shouldered clerk folded his hands in front of him, bobbed his head. “Ah, yes. I have been awaiting your coming.” He signaled for an elderly Chinese to take over the books on which he had been working. “I have had my instructions. You will come with me, please.”

  He led the way to the street, passed a group of stores, stopped in front of one whose windows were piled with a miscellany of junk. Inside, a man was sitting at a white-enameled kitchen table that served as a desk, painting Chinese symbols on an orange sheet of paper. He used a camel’s hair brush held perpendicularly between thumb and forefinger. He glanced up as the two men entered, listened with no change of expression as the spectacled man rattled Cantonese at him, dropped his eyes and resumed his lettering.

  The thin man motioned for Lee Sung to follow him, headed for a curtained recess in the rear. Once inside, he closed the curtain behind them, felt for a cleverly hidden button in the molding. When he pushed it, a portion of the wall slid back noiselessly.

  They stepped into a narrow, dim passageway beyond, slid the panel closed behind them. A flight of rough-hewn steps took them down to another passage that smelled of dampness and age. A few feet farther another flight of steps took them still lower, and they crossed under what was apparently a street above. On the far side, they mounted again to the surface, came to an old wooden door badly in need of repainting. Whole chunks of paint had peeled off, giving it a mottled appearance.

  The spectacled Chinese pushed a button; the area around the door was suddenly bathed in light. After a moment, there was the buzz of a circuit breaker and the door swung open. Lee Sung stepped in as the door swung shut behind him. From the inside of the room he could see that the door was transparent, laced with a fine mesh of steel. As he watched, the light outside faded and the light inside the room came up.

  The room had obviously once been the lower floor of two or more buildings. The walls had been knocked out to make it a single huge room. Thick carpeting covered the floor from wall to wall, the walls themselves were paneled in cypress. In the center of the room was a long, black conference table with rows of intricately carved chairs lining either side. At the head of the table a tall, incredibly thin man sat in a throne chair. To his right a Chinese girl in a Dutch bob sat, hands laced in her lap. The other chairs were empty.

  The man in the throne chair peeled thin lips back from yellowish teeth that matched the ivory tinge of his skin. His eyes were slanted, red-rimmed. “Lee Sung?”

  “I am Lee Sung.” The heavy-set man nodded.

  “Good. We have been waiting.” The thin man indicated a chair on his left with a sweep of his long-fingered hand. “All arrangements have been made. You will leave tonight.” He indicated the girl with no show of enthusiasm. “The woman, Blossom Lee, will go with you.” He placed the flat of his hand on the table top. “You will be met at the boat in New York. You will receive your final instructions then. It is understood?”

  Lee Sung nodded. “I’d better get back to my hotel, pack my things.”

  The thin man permitted himself a thin-lipped grin. “That will not be necessary. Your belongings are even now being packed. They will be delivered to the boat.” He looked from Lee Sung to the woman and back. “You and the woman will remain here until it is time to board the boat. Someone will then call for you, take you there.” He stood up. “There is liquor, food. You have only to ring for it.” With a peculiar gl
iding motion, he headed for a heavy, studded door. At the door, as an afterthought, he turned back. “I need not remind you how important is the success of your mission or how costly the price of failure.” Without waiting for an answer, he turned and left the room.

  After the door had closed behind the thin man, Lee Sung pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, held it out to the girl. She selected one with long, carefully shellacked nails.

  “So your name is Blossom Lee?”

  The girl waited while he scratched a match, held it to her cigarette, filled her lungs with smoke. “It will do as well as any.” She half veiled her eyes, let the smoke escape from between half-parted lips, studied the heavy-set man.

  He put a cigarette between his lips, lit it with the same match. “You have been in New York before?”

  The girl considered, shrugged. “Until now I have worked in Honolulu. It was felt I could be of greater use in New York.”

  Lee Sung nodded. He lifted the cigarette from between his lips, blew a stream of smoke at the lighted end. “You do not talk much. That’s good.” He stuck the cigarette back between his lips, settled back to wait.

  CHAPTER 2

  It was a hot July night.

  Johnny Liddell leaned against the bar at Mike’s Deadline Café and made overlapping circles on the top of the bar with the wet bottom of his glass. Although it was only eight o’clock, the Deadline was almost deserted. A few commuters who had missed the train after the train after the 6:06 were holding up the other end of the bar, planning with dead seriousness to catch the next one to Stamford or Darien.

  The bartender stood at the far end of the bar, polishing glasses with a damp rag. He was listening with half an ear to the woes of a faded and slightly blowsy blonde who alternately sipped at her martini and dabbed at her damp nose with a gray-white handkerchief.

  Liddell drained his glass, signaled for a refill.

  The bartender, glad of the reprieve, took a last puff on his cigarette, balanced it on the upturned end of the glass, hustled down to where Johnny stood.

  “Hit it again, Mike.” He watched while the man behind the stick dumped in some fresh ice cubes, drenched them down with bourbon, then softened it with a touch of water. “What’s a guy do for excitement these days?”

  The bartender grinned lewdly. “You go through your babes too fast, Johnny. You ought to save some for a rainy day.” He replaced the bottle on the back bar. “It’s like the one about the Chinaman who’s walking down the alley where a dame had done a high dive and landed head first in a garbage pail—”

  “I know, I know. What a waste—with all that good mileage left.”

  The bartender’s eyes slid past Liddell to the door. “Say, talking about Chinamen—”

  Liddell turned.

  In the doorway, a slim Chinese girl stood looking around. Her eyes moved from commuter to commuter, finally landed on Liddell. She started across to where he stood.

  Her hair was jet black, cut in a severe Dutch bob that framed the perfection of her features. Her eyes were dark, liquid, slightly slanted—an effect that was enhanced by the expert use of eye shadow. Her lips, a slash of crimson in the ivory cast of her features, looked soft and inviting. She wore no other makeup.

  Her dress was the traditional stand-up-collar, sheath-type cheong sam; the slit up the side exposed a shapely calf as she walked. Her full breasts jutted against the fragile fabric of her gown, had a gentle motion of their own as she walked.

  She took up a position against the bar next to Liddell, giving no sign that she noticed the inventory being taken of her assets by the commuters at the other end.

  Mike swabbed the bar in front of her with a damp cloth, worked on his best smile. “What’ll it be, miss?”

  “Dewar’s and soda,” she told him.

  He made a production of dumping a few pieces of ice into the glass, followed it with a full jigger of scotch, and poured in the soda. She thanked him with her eyes as he pushed it across the bar. Reluctantly, he shuffled back to the other end of the bar where the blowsy blonde took up her tale of woe right from where she’d left it.

  The Chinese girl took a sip from her glass, studied Liddell over the rim. When she replaced the glass on the bar, she fumbled through her bag, came up with a cigarette, stuck it between her lips, leaned over to Liddell.

  “Could I have a light?”

  Liddell dug a paper packet of matches from his jacket pocket, scratched one, touched it to her cigarette. She sucked a mouthful of smoke, let it dribble from between half-parted lips. “You’re Johnny Liddell?”

  Liddell blew out the match, nodded. “Should I know your name?”

  “I don’t think so. I know yours from seeing your picture in the newspapers. You’re a bit of a celebrity.”

  Liddell grinned at her, brought a cigarette from his pocket. He stuck it between his lips, lit it from the end of hers. “First time I’ve ever had publicity do me any good. As long as I don’t know your name, there’ll never be a better time to learn it.”

  “Blossom Lee.” The Chinese girl looked around, ignored the chilling look the blowsy blonde was giving her, moved closer to Liddell until he could feel her thigh against his. “My being here is no accident. I called your answering service, they told me I’d find you here.”

  Liddell relaxed, enjoyed the pressure of her body against his, the soft feel of her breath against his cheek. At the far end of the bar, the blonde, with an indignant snort, got up from her stool, stalked to the door. The bartender looked worried, his eyes jumped from Liddell to the door and back. A look of relief washed the worry from his face as the Chinese girl moved away from Liddell, left a respectable distance between them.

  “Maybe this isn’t the place to talk,” she told him. “Maybe my coming here was a mistake.”

  “Then let’s leave here and find a place where we can—”

  The girl shook her head. “It might be dangerous for me to be seen leaving here with you. What I want to ask of you can wait until morning.”

  Liddell struggled to conceal his disappointment, lost. “But maybe I can meet you some place. Your place or my—”

  She shook her head again. “Not tonight. Tomorrow morning. In your office.” When it looked as though he was going to argue, she half veiled her eyes with expertly tinted lids. “Please?”

  “I’ve always wondered if Chinese girls were different from other girls—”

  The smile froze on the girl’s face.

  “—but I see they’re not. They can get anything they want out of a man just by saying please.”

  Blossom Lee picked up her glass, raised it to. her lips. She turned the full power of the slanted eyes on him over the rim. “You won’t be sorry. Believe me.” She set her glass down, stubbed out the cigarette. “Thanks, Johnny.” She covered his hand with hers, squeezed slightly.

  Liddell nodded, watched glumly as she turned away and headed for the door. The effect from the rear was just as satisfying as it had been from the flip side.

  He drained his glass, waved to Mike. The bartender walked down to where he stood.

  “What was that all about? It sure sent that biddy at the end of the bar brooming off muttering in her beard.”

  Liddell grinned. “Just a business deal. She wanted me to do something for her.”

  The bartender raised his eyebrows, sighed. “What a way to make a living. And my mother wanted me to be a preacher.” He shook his head, reached back to the back bar, snagged a bottle. “You wouldn’t want a small, fat but willing boy to carry your gumshoes?” He looked down, patted his paunch. “I’d even sacrifice my figure if I could get to wear something like that on my arm.” He added water to Liddell’s drink, slid it across the bar. He was still shaking his head sadly as he returned to the end of the bar.

  Liddell was just finishing his drink when the two men came in. One was heavy-set, heavy-jowled. He wore no coat and there were dark crescents of sweat under his arms. His companion was slighter with wavy hair that was
beginning to get thin. He wore a light linen jacket, looked cool beside his sweating friend.

  They walked to the bar, looked around. Their eyes skipped from the still arguing commuters, stopped on Liddell. Mike shuffled over to them, the wavy-haired man ordered two bourbons. While Mike was pouring the drinks, the heavy-set man leaned across the bar.

  “China doll was in here a little while back. Who’d she talk to?”

  The bartender rolled his eyes upward from the drink he was pouring, was about to retort when the wavy-haired man showed him a .38 he held cupped invisibly in the crook of his left elbow. Behind him, down the bar, the commuters had arrived at an agreement of “just one more for the road.”

  Liddell set his empty glass back on the bar, was debating whether to go straight home or to find a bar where things were a little livelier. He paid no attention to the two newcomers and their whispered conversation with Mike.

  The bartender took another look at the muzzle of the .38, turned and glanced down the bar toward Liddell. “Him.”

  The fat man nodded to his partner to keep the bartender neutral, walked down to where Liddell stood. “Understand you have something belonging to a friend of ours, Mac. Thought we’d save you the trouble of delivering it by picking it up.”

  Liddell looked at the heavy man for the first time, didn’t like what he saw. The fat man’s damp hair was pasted to his forehead. His eyes were expressionless black disks countersunk behind heavily veined lids. His face gleamed with perspiration.

  “Anything belonging to a friend of yours, I wouldn’t touch with a six-foot pole,” Liddell told him. “Now, suppose you blow.” He turned to walk away from him.

  The big man caught him by the shoulder, swung him around. With the flat of his hand, he knocked the cigarette from between Liddell’s lips. “You don’t want to smoke so much, mister. It’s bad for the wind.”

  The attack was so sudden and so unprovoked, Liddell was at a disadvantage for a second. The fat man used that moment to sink his left to the cuff in Liddell’s midsection. Johnny stood swaying, his eyes glassy from the blow. The heavy man grinned wolfishly, chopped at the side of Liddell’s neck, knocked him to his knees.