The cars drove off, leaving one car in the driveway. There were also people in the house. He had heard one woman sleepily asking Cambring what was wrong, and a man’s voice surlily asking why he had to stay behind. He wanted some action. Cambring had curtly told him to shut up. They were under orders never to leave the house unguarded.
The cars had no sooner disappeared than Kickaha was at the front door. It was locked, but a quick shot of energy from the ring cut through the metal. He swung the door inward slowly, and stepped inside into a room lit only by a light from a stairwell at the far end. When his eyes adjusted, he could see a phone on a table at the far wall. He went to it, lit a match, and by its light, dialed Anana. The phone rang no more than three times before she answered.
He said softly, “Anana! I’m in Cambring’s house! He and his gang are on the way to pick us up. You grab your clothes and get out of there, fast, hear! Don’t even bother to dress! Put everything in a bag and take off! Dress behind the motel! I’ll meet you where we arranged. Got it?”
“Wait!” she said. “Can’t you tell me what’s happened?”
“No!” he said and softly replaced the receiver on the phone. He had heard footsteps in the hall upstairs and then the creaking caused by a big man descending the steps slowly.
Kickaha reset the ring for stunning power. He needed someone to question, and he doubted that the woman would know as much about operations as this man.
The faint creakings stopped. Kickaha crouched by the foot of the steps and waited. Suddenly, the lights in the great room went on, and a man catapulted outward from behind the wall which had hidden him. He came down off the steps in a leap, whirling as he did so. He held a big automatic, probably a .45, in his right hand. He landed facing Kickaha and then fell backward, unconscious, his head driven backward by the impact of the beam. The gun fell from his hand onto the thick rug.
Kickaha heard the woman upstairs saying, “Walt! What’s the matter? Walt? Is anything wrong?”
Kickaha picked up the gun, flicked on the safety, and stuck it in his belt. Then he walked up the steps and got to the head of the stairwell just as the woman did. She opened her mouth to scream, but he clamped his hand over it and held the knife before her eyes. She went limp as if she thought she could placate him by not struggling. She was correct, for the moment, anyway.
She was a tall, very well built blonde, about thirty-five, in a filmy negligee. Her breath stank of whiskey. But good whiskey.
“You and Cambring and everybody else in this house mean only one thing to me,” he said. “As a means to getting to the big boss. That’s all. I can let you go without a scratch and care nothing about what you do from then on if you don’t bother me. Or I can kill you. Here and now. Unless I get the information I want. You understand me?”
She nodded.
He said, “I’ll let you go. But one scream, and I’ll rip out your belly. Understand?”
She nodded again. He took his hand away from her mouth. She was pale and trembling.
“Show me a picture of Cambring,” he said.
She turned and led him to her bedroom, where she indicated a photo-graph on her bureau dresser. It was of the man he had suspected was Cambring. “Are you his wife?” he said.
She cleared her throat and said, “Yes.”
“Anybody else in this house besides Walt?”
She said huskily, “No.”
“Do you know where Cambring went tonight?”
“No,” she said. She cleared her throat again. “I don’t want to know those things.”
“He’s gone off to pick up me and my woman for your big boss,” Kickaha said. “The big boss would undoubtedly kill us, after he’d tortured us to get everything he wanted to know. So I won’t have any mercy on anybody connected with him-if they refuse to cooperate.”