Branded Woman

  Wade Miller

  Branded Woman

  Chapter One

  SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 7:00 P.M.

  CAY MORGAN ceased pretending to sleep as the huge Mexican airliner commenced circling through the tropic night for its landing at Mazatlán. Directly above her forward seat, the warning signs lighted up in two languages, advising her to fasten her safety belt and not to smoke.

  A moment later, a handsome black-uniformed steward of the Compañía Mexicana de Aviación appeared from the pilot’s compartment and hesitated alongside her, breathing her ever present aura of sandalwood. “If you will please fasten your seat belt,” he requested in English. “The flight from Tijuana has been wonderfully smooth, has it not, señora?”

  Cay looked up at him through her lashes. “Miss,” she corrected him softly. Just past thirty, she grew vainer every year about her ability to make men perspire. She added, with a strange smile, “Perhaps this trip has been rougher than you suppose.” The steward continued hurriedly along the aisle of the DC-4 to check on the other passengers.

  She knew she was being watched but she didn’t turn her head. She reached into her gray suede purse for her compact, briefly touching her tourist card, which told a few details—mostly falsified—about the American woman Miss Catherine Morgan. The tourist card allowed her to visit Mexico for six months, which she considered enough time for her present mission. Before closing her purse, she nudged her gun nearer to the top of the bag.

  She had come to Mazatlán to kill a man. But now, with mirror, brush, and lip rouge, Cay concentrated on painting her soft wide mouth into its usual seductive shape. Only in her most lonely and self-pitying moments did she ever admit she might be merely striking instead of beautiful. Her small but ripely rounded body, sheathed for traveling in a wheat-colored gabardine suit, was constructed daintily in spite of the impudence of certain curves about the hips and bosom. Her flesh everywhere was so smoothly pale and fine of texture that pearls were naturally her favorite jewelry, almost a fetish. So long as her skin was not dimmed by a pearl’s luster, Cay could say to herself, Yes, I am still young.

  Despite the sultry poise of her figure, men noticed her hair first. It was technically blonde, but silver rather than gold, a hue once called platinum but which Cay herself fondly termed pearl blonde. She wore it flowing to her shoulders so that it framed her piquant face, emphasizing the delicacy of her features. And over her forehead lay a thick straight curtain of pearl-blonde bangs, almost to the arch of her brows. An exotic effect; but the men who’d had the misfortune to know her remembered longest her eyes. They were the sky-blue eyes of a born troublemaker, usually pale with bland innocence yet disquietingly capable of darkening in passion or anger.

  She did not look like a woman planning murder; no one seeing her now would suppose that she could hate so long and so hard. She supposed that she could love the same way if she were ever given a worthy opportunity. Always her idol had been money, but she loved herself even more. She had lived through many a reckless enterprise but she had seldom surrendered jurisdiction over her own sleek body. Promises were cheap; she was not.

  Having perfected her lips, Cay tilted the compact mirror to survey the plane seats behind her. Then she put the compact away grimly. Both of the men were still watching her. With automatic femininity she pulled her skirt more securely over her knees. Yet she knew the watching had nothing to do with her thighs; it had been too steady and too covert, all the way down the coast from Tijuana.

  The big plane made sudden smooth contact with the airstrip and through her window she could see the dark ground race by, slowing gradually. Behind her the passengers stirred with relief and sudden gaiety. Cay began to gather her belongings without once looking over her shoulder.

  One of the watchers sat only two rows in back of her. He was the Slavic-looking one, a small willowy young man, not much larger than she. He had yellow hair and his clothing was nondescript save for the fringed scarf of white silk thrown carelessly around his throat. The lids of his narrow slanted eyes hung constantly half closed, sleepily.

  The other man sat stiffly upright at the rear of the ship. He appeared more dangerous because there was more of him, a tall gaunt body in a dark pin stripe suit. He held his hat in his lap, and a circlet of sandy hair fringed his bald head. The lack of expression on his wooden face, his impenetrable eyes like brown agates tokened long experience in waiting. His only movement was his methodical chewing of gum.

  Yet Cay was more exhilarated than fearful as the DC-4 taxied to a stop. The passengers, Mexicans and Americans, began their bustle of debarking and she rose to her feet. Keeping her pistol-heavy purse handy, she drew on long flaring gloves and from the baggage rack retrieved the short gray suede coat that matched her tam. With the coat masking the open purse in her left hand, she managed to be the last to leave the plane. The steward gave her a final nervous smile as she descended the steps. She was too busy trying to spot her shadowers to acknowledge it.

  The warm night air, heavy and humid, weighed down upon her instantly, as if to prove that she had arrived in the Torrid Zone. It smelled of sea salt and tropical vegetation. She crossed the asphalt, milling with passengers and baggage cars—safety in their numbers—to the airport building. It was a brand-new structure of white stucco and red roof tiles.

  The yellow-haired Slav with the white scarf casually smoked a cigarette beneath a palm tree by the field entrance. She passed close to him, neither of them giving the other a glance. She was unable to locate the bald gum-chewing man, which worried her slightly.

  No sooner had she entered the one-room air terminal than she was cornered by a plump taxi driver, shirtsleeved and pressing his stained felt hat to his chest. “You—Mazatlán? Taxi? Cinco pesos—five pesos! Mazatlán?”

  Her reply in Spanish only confused him until he realized that this blonde American woman spoke the language as fluently as he. Then they conversed more comfortably, Cay requesting that he get her baggage and offering ten pesos to have the taxi all to herself.

  The driver plunged away with her luggage checks in his hand. Beyond him, through the window behind the melee at the baggage counter, she saw the slant eyes of the man with the scarf still sleepily watching her.

  Cay turned and sauntered through the rest-room door marked “Damas.” Once within this narrow stone-floored sanctuary she drew a breath of relief. At the far end of the rest room where the washbowls were, two Mexican women were freshening their make-up before the mirror. The large swing-away window beside them stood wide open. Cay pulled it nearly shut for the sake of privacy. Then she closed herself into a booth.

  She heard the two Mexican women leave, chattering, as the DC-4 began roaring through its warm-up exercises out on the field. Most of the passengers on Flight 585 would continue inland to Guadalajara or Mexico City. But not the silk-scarved Slav or the tall gum-chewer; Cay felt sure of that. She took her pistol from her purse and checked it over carefully. It was fully loaded—six bullets—and its chamber spun smoothly, free of lint. It was a lovely nickel-finished pearl-handled weapon with a snub three inches of barrel: a .357 Magnum S&W revolver, the most powerful handgun in the world. At ten paces it could reduce a man’s skull to splinters. Cay smiled at the thought.

  As she left the booth to go to the washbowls, she sensed something strange, as if disaster waited just outside the door. She piled purse and gloves on the ledge below the mirror and washed her hands, frowning slightly. Then it came to her, the thing she had noticed. The rest-room door she had entered from the air terminal was now bolted on the inside; since she hadn’t bolted it, then who…

  Other eyes than her own gleamed in the mirror, sleepy slant eyes, a face floating over her shoulder. She saw her own mouth drop open in surprise and horror. She h
ad been stalked by a man into this most private of places, a refuge that her woman’s mind had considered absolute.

  She didn’t scream. She whirled to fight as she was dragged backward, away from her precious gun. But the white silk scarf was already bound around her throat, tightening. Outside, the airplane’s engines thundered to a crescendo that threatened to burst her head. She fought wildly with her knees and flailed out judo cuts with her hands and felt her blows land with terrifying weakness.

  Then the room got too dim for fighting and she could only claw at the silk garrote at her throat, scrabbling with her fingers for the breath she couldn’t find. Above her swam glimpses of the sleepy-eyed face, the open window through which the face had come, and flashes of red and ever deepening darkness. She fell finally into the darkness, which received her gently.

  Chapter Two

  SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 7:30 P.M.

  SHE COUGHED rackingly, then gagged at the impact of new air filling her lungs. The stone floor pressed coldly against her back and her eyes were watering badly. Cautiously through her damp lashes Cay focused up at the face above her.

  The face had changed. Now the man was bald, his quizzical forehead and naked skull gleaming in the merciless fluorescent light from the rest room’s ceiling. He still chewed his gum, but he was not so woodenly expressionless as he had been on the plane. Cay’s eyes dropped to his shoulders, then followed down the dark pin-striped material of his arms. He was squatting beside her prone body. In his left hand he carried his hat; he was flexing the fingers of his right.

  Cay whispered, “He took me by surprise, George.”

  His thin lips quirked with relief but his agate-brown eyes continued to gaze at her worriedly. He said in his flat voice, “You know, I wasn’t counting on anything like this.”

  Cay sat up, made certain her bangs were in order, and wiped her watering eyes. George Hodd simply squatted there, saying nothing more. She said angrily, “If you’ll think back to four days ago in Los Angeles, you’ll recall that I hired you. You don’t get hired by people without troubles.”

  Not stirring, George Hodd said, “You hired me as an investigator, Miss Morgan. Not as a bodyguard, not as a strong-arm lad. There’s a big difference between having trouble and making trouble.”

  “I’ll thank you with a bonus.”

  “I still don’t like it. My business isn’t supposed to include violence.” He added, “Maybe yours does.”

  “Oh, don’t act so damn fatherly. I’ll try to see that it doesn’t happen again.”

  They both got to their feet. He didn’t offer to help her. She surveyed the man who still lay on the floor, a bruise swelling the yellow hair behind his right ear, the white silk scarf trailing from his hand like a dead snake. Cay’s mouth curled, and in a sudden access of pure viciousness she stooped and cuffed his pale unconscious face with her right hand. The single pearl in the ring on her third finger left a red dent in his cheek. She was glad to see it.

  Conscious of Hodd’s disapproving eyes, she sauntered to the mirror to see if her throat had been bruised by the scarf. It hadn’t. “What did you hit him with, George? You did it nicely.”

  “I just hit him. You know I don’t carry anything.” He flexed his fingers again, then put on his hat and rubbed his knuckles slowly. “I think I may have sprained something a little.”

  She said caustically, “I presume you’ve been too worried to search him.”

  She knew better; Hodd was a thorough and competent man, despite his misgivings about her. He said, “Clothes labels from Mexico City. No passport or other papers. Assets, about a thousand pesos. According to the case of his pocket watch, his name’s Jack Diki. Know of him?”

  “No.” Cay transferred the pesos from Diki’s wallet to her own purse. She smiled. “That’ll help pay your bonus, won’t it, George? Did he talk to anyone here?”

  “No. On the plane and here, he paid attention to no one but you. When you came in this place, he wandered around to the side. I saw him go through the window. I held off, waiting to hear a disturbance, expecting you would handle him yourself.”

  Cay laughed softly. “I’m glad you think I’m capable.”

  “Capable?” Hodd shrugged distastefully. “Maybe dangerous is a better word, Miss Morgan. At any rate, I had to come in after him.”

  “Jack Diki,” mused Cay, staring down at the sleeping baby face. “There must be some use to be made of him. Obviously, he spotted me in Tijuana while I was trying to trace Valdes. Which seems to prove that Valdes is still important.”

  “But not important enough, you tell me.”

  “I’m only interested in the man at the top. Valdes is close to the top. Diki here is probably considerably less than Valdes.”

  “It makes for a bad situation. Now, if you knew the name of this top man—if you even knew what he looks like…”

  Cay chuckled. “You want high pay for easy work, don’t you? I’m beginning to regret hiring such a timid chap to help me find the Trader. Please snap out of it.”

  Hodd said patiently, “We’ll get along better if you quit mistaking legality for timidity. I’ve got a license and a reputation to maintain. Furthermore, Diki spotted you. He didn’t spot me. Consider that a reference.”

  “Or a rebuke, eh? But it proves you’re elected to do the legwork in Mazatlán. I’m spotted, you’re not. It’s that simple. I’ll go on into town and check into one of the tourist hotels. I believe there are three here. Later on tonight or in the morning, you get a room at the same hotel. But no one must know we’re acquainted, much less hunting together.”

  Hodd glanced down at Diki. “All right. You want me to stick with him for a while?”

  “Exactly. You’d better go now. Diki’s bound to come around pretty soon and I want you to be sure to find out where he goes. Perhaps directly to Valdes. That would save us a lot of time.”

  Hodd chewed his gum contemplatively. “You’re the boss,” he said to Cay finally. “See you.” A second later he had folded his gaunt body through the window and was gone. She complimented herself again on picking a good man, all business. She was grateful to Hodd for his quiet negative virtues; he seemed to have no intentions of trying to paw her, of making sly suggestions about the hotel arrangements.

  Cay collected her gloves and purse from the shelf below the mirror. She paused over Diki’s body. At first sight of him stretched out there, she had felt a little sorry for him, despite everything. His soft smooth face was so childlike and his small frame appeared so helpless, making her wonder what had ever turned such an everyday person into an assassin.

  Then she thought of herself. Why was she out for blood? And the hate flooded up inside of her as she remembered that Jack Diki was part of the Trader. However far removed, he was part of him; perhaps he was of no more consequence than a fingernail, but nevertheless…

  For an instant she was ready to kill the helpless creature on the floor.

  Instead she smiled broadly. She murmured, “Perhaps I should give him something to think about.” She didn’t mean Diki. But it was Diki’s smooth forehead that, crouching, she marked with her lipstick. She drew a blood-red letter T. Then she slipped out through the window and walked around the building to her waiting taxi.

  Chapter Three

  SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 8:00 P.M.

  A CARDBOARD “Libre” sign on its windshield was the only indication that the black Pontiac was a taxi. It hurtled along the highway and into the narrow one-way streets of Mazatlán with a gay disregard of property rights. To disguise her fears, Cay stuck a cigarette into her ivory holder and tried to smoke. She had a hard time lighting it. All the car’s windows were open to the muggy night air, and she couldn’t keep her eyes off the dark faces of the aggressive pedestrians who seemed intent on walking right through the speeding, honking taxi.

  “You have a lovely old town,” she told him in Spanish.

  “Very old, yes. But notice how modern the city, señora. No decaying museum, as some cities p
ride themselves on being to the turistas. Do you come to hunt or to fish?”

  “To hunt, I believe.”

  “Then be so kind as to beware in choosing a guide. The boas and tigres can be dangerous—and there are yet bandits in the hills on occasion.”

  “Gracias. I have a modest ability with firearms.” She didn’t tell him that she had been called a bandit herself on occasion. She got a colorfully blurred impression of the peninsula city, a strolling yet bustling populace in shirt sleeves and cotton dresses. She saw as many Cadillacs as burros, as much glass brick and neon as adobe and iron grillework; flat roofs capping flat façades that rose directly from the high sidewalks, a silver crescent of ocean beach, surf Surging toward the sea wall of a broad marble-benched esplanade.

  This was the Paseo Olas Altas. The taxi driver parked before the starkly modern tower of the Hotel Freeman, eight of its eleven floors completed, and assisted Cay up to the second story, where the registration office was temporarily located in a guest room. With its commanding height and angular balconies, the Freeman loomed above the city like a great gray filing cabinet with all drawers open.

  “I have no reservation, señor,” explained Cay with a doleful smile. “But I am alone, and surely one small single room…”

  “Please be reassured,” said the young man in charge. But he chewed his lip worriedly as he sat down on his stool and searched among the cards on the wooden table. Cay toyed with the postcard rack and looked wistful.

  Five minutes later she found herself the lone occupant of Room 22 on the third floor, gazing amusedly around her quarters. Ranged about the clean tiled floor were the usual writing desk and chiffonier, a canvas deck chair, and three beds—two doubles and a single. Very good, she thought, so long as all this sleeping space doesn’t give George any bright ideas.

  She hung her coat in the closet, pulled off her tam, gloves, and shoes, and explored. Both lock and bolt on the hall door worked efficiently. The bathroom contained a vast shower but no tub, and the transom to the air shaft was too small for even a midget to creep through. Since she had seen bottled water racked in the hall outside, she deemed it safe to drink a glassful from the carafe on the bedstand.