He heard footsteps and buzzers ringing. The voice said—presumably over an intercom—“Get dressed and up here! On the double! We got work to do! Jump!”
He decided what to do. If he heard anything that indicated that they were not going after him, he would wait until they left and then enter the house. Conditions would have changed so much that it would be stupid for him not to take advantage of their absence. Anana would have to understand that.
If he heard anything that indicated that he and Anana were concerned, he would take off for the nearest public phone booth.
He felt in his pocket for change and cursed. He had one nickel left over from the calls made that previous evening.
Seven minutes later, eight men left by the front door. Kickaha watched them from behind a tree. Four men got into a Mercedes-Benz and four into a Mercury. He could not be sure which was Cambring, because nobody spoke when they left the house. One man did hold the door open for a tall man with a high curly head of hair and a bold sweeping nose. He suspected that that was Cambring. Also, he recognized two: the blond youth and Ramos, the driver of the Lincoln. Ramos had a white bandage over his forehead.
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 photograph 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.”
“I don’t know anything!” she gasped. “Roy never tells me anything! I don’t even know who the big boss is!”
“Who’s Cambring’s immediate superior?”
“I don’t know. Please believe me! I don’t know! He gets orders from somebody, I’ll admit that! But I don’t know.”
She was probably telling the truth. So the next thing to do was to rouse Walt and find out what he knew. He did not have much time.
He went downstairs with the woman ahead of him. The man was still unconscious. Kickaha told her to get a glass of water from the nearest bathroom. He threw it over Walt’s face. Walt recovered a moment later, but he looked too sick to be a threat. He seemed to be on the verge of throwing up. A big black mark was spreading over the skin on his forehead and nose, and his eyes looked a solid red.
The questioning did not last long. The man, whose full name was Walter Erich Vogel, claimed he also did not know who Cambring’s boss was. Kickaha believed this, since Cambring had not said anything about the destination. Apparently, he meant to tell his men after they got started. Cambring called his boss now and then but he carried the phone number in his head.
“It’s the old Commie cell idea,” Vogel said. “So you could torture me from now until doomsday and you wouldn’t get anything out of me because I don’t know anything.”
Kickaha went to the phone again and, while he kept an eye on the two, dialed Anana’s number again. He wasn’t surprised when Cambring answered.
“Cambring,” he said, “this is the man you were sent after. Now hear me out because this message is intended for your big boss. You tell him, or whoever relays messages to him, that a Black Beller is loose on Earth.”
There was a silence, one of shock, Kickaha hoped, and then Cambring said, “What? What the hell you talking about? What’s a Black Beller?”
“Just tell your boss that a Black Beller got loose from Jadawin’s world. The Beller’s in this area, or was yesterday, anyway. Remember, a Black Beller. Came here yesterday from Jadawin’s world.”
There was another silence and then Cambring said, “Listen. The boss knows you got away. But he said that if I got a chance to talk to you, you should come on in. The boss won’t hurt you. He just wants to talk to you.”
“You might be right,” Kickaha said. “But I can’t afford to take the chance. No, you tell your boss something. You tell him that I’m not out to get him; I’m not a Lord. I just want to find another Lord and his woman, who came to this world to escape from the Black Bellers. In fact, I’ll tell you who that Lord is. It’s Jadawin. Maybe your boss will remember him. It’s Jadawin, who’s changed very much. Jadawin isn’t interested in challenging your boss; he could care less. All he wants to do is get back to his own world. You tell him that, though I doubt it’ll do any good. I’ll call your home tomorrow about noon, so you can relay more of what I have to say to your boss. I’ll call your home. Your boss might want to be there so he can talk to me directly.”
“What the hell you gibbering
about?” Cambring said. He sounded very angry.
“Just tell your boss what I said. He’ll understand,” Kickaha said, and he hung up. He was grinning. If there was one thing that scared a Lord, it was a Black Beller.
CHAPTER FOUR
The sports car was, as he had suspected, Mrs. Cambring’s. She said she would have to go upstairs to get the keys. He said that that was all right, but he and Vogel would go with her. They went into her bedroom, where Kickaha gave Vogel a slight kick in the back of the head with a beam from the ring. He took Vogel’s wallet and dragged him into the closet, where he left him snoring. He then demanded money from the woman, and she gave him six hundred dollars in twenties and fifties. It pleased him that he had been able to live oft the enemy so far.
To keep her occupied, he tore down some curtains, and set them on fire with a sweep from the ring. She screamed and dashed into the bathroom to get water. A moment later, he was driving the Jaguar off the driveway. Behind him, screams came through the open doorway as she fought the flames.
At a corner a few blocks east from the motel, he flashed his lights twice to alert Anana. A dark figure emerged from between two houses. She approached warily until she recognized him. She threw their packs and the instrument case into the back seat, got in and said, “Where did you get this vehicle?”
“Took it from Cambring.” He chuckled and said, “left a message with Cambring for Red Orc. Told him that a Black Beller was loose. That ought to divert him. It might even scare him into offering an armistice.”
“Not Red Orc,” she said. “Not unless he’s changed. Which is possible. I did. My brother Luvah did. And you say Jadawin did.”
He told her about his idea for contacting Wolff. “I should have thought of it sooner, but we have been occupied. And, besides, I’ve forgotten a lot about Earth.”
For the moment, they would look for new lodgings. However, he was not so sure that they could feel safe even there. It was remarkable that they had been located. Red Orc must have set into action a very large organization to have found them.
“How could he do that?” she said.
“For all I know, his men called every hotel and motel in the Los Angeles area. That would be such a tremendous job, though, I doubt they could have gone through more than a small percentage of them. Maybe they were making random spot calls. Or maybe they were going through them all, one by one, and were lucky.”
“If that is so, then we won’t be safe when we check in at the next place.”
“I just don’t believe that even the Lord of the Earth would have an organization big enough to check out all the motels and hotels in so short a time,” he said. “But we’ll leave the area, go to the Valley, as they so quaintly call it here.”
When they found a motel, he ran into difficulties.
The clerk wanted his driver’s license and the license number of his car. Kickaha did not want to give him the license number, but, since the clerk showed no signs of checking up on him, Kickaha gave him a number made up in his head. He then showed him Ramos’ driver’s license. The clerk copied down the number and looked once at the photograph. Ramos had a square face with a big beaky nose, black eyes, and a shock of black hair. Despite this, the clerk did not seem to notice.
Kickaha, however, was suspicious. The fellow was too smooth. Perhaps he did not really care whether or not Kickaha was the person he claimed to be, but then, again, he might. Kickaha said nothing, took the keys, and led Anana out of the lobby. Instead of going to their room on the second floor, he stood outside the door, where he could not be seen. A minute later, he heard the clerk talking to somebody. He looked in. The clerk was sitting at the switchboard with his back to the door. Kickaha tiptoed in closer.
“… not his,” the clerk was saying. “Yeah, I checked out the license, soon as they left. The car’s parked near here. Listen, you …”
He stopped because he had turned his head and had seen Kickaha. He turned it away, slowly, and said, “OK. See you.”
He took off the earphones and stood up and said, smiling, “May I help you?”
“We decided to eat before we went to bed; we haven’t eaten all day,” Kickaha said, also smiling. “Where’s the nearest good restaurant?”
The clerk spoke slowly, as if he were trying to think of one that would suit them. Kickaha said, “We’re not particular. Any place’ll do.”
A moment later, he and Anana drove off. The clerk stood in the front door and watched them. He had seen them put their packs and the case in the car, so he probably did not believe that they were coming back.
He was thinking that they could sleep in the car tonight, provided the police weren’t looking for it. Tomorrow they would have to buy clothes and a suitcase or two. He would have to get rid of this car, but the problem of renting or buying a car without the proper papers was a big one.
He pulled into a service station and told the attendant to fill her up. The youth was talkative and curious; he wanted to know where they’d been, up in the mountains? He liked hiking, too.
Kickaha made up a story. He and his wife had been bumming around but decided to come down and dig L.A. They didn’t have much money; they were thinking about selling the car and getting a second-hand VW. They wanted to stay the night some place where they didn’t ask questions if the color of your money was right.
The attendant told them of a motel near Tarzana in Van Nuys which fitted all Kickaha’s specifications. He grinned and winked at them and wished them luck. Maybe he could get them a good bargain on the Jag.
A half hour later, Kickaha and Anana fell into a motel bed and were asleep at once.
He got up at ten. Anana was sleeping soundly. After shaving and showering, he woke her long enough to tell her what he planned. He went across the street to a restaurant, ate a big breakfast, bought a paper, and then returned to the room. Anana was still sleeping. He called the Los Angeles Times ad department and dictated an item for the personal column. He gave as his address the motel and also a fictitious name.
He checked the personals of the morning’s Times. There were no messages that could be interpreted as being from Wolff.
When Anana woke, he said, “While you’re eating breakfast, I’ll use a public phone booth to call Cambring. I’m sure he’s gotten the word to Red Orc.”
Cambring answered at once as if he had been waiting by the phone. Kickaha said, “This is your friend of last night. Did you pass on my information about the Black Beller?”
Cambring’s voice sounded as if he were controlling anger.
“Yes, I did.” “What did he say?”
“He said that he’d like to meet you. Have a conference of war.”
“Where?”
“Wherever you like.”
Good, thought Kickaha. He doesn’t think I’m so dumb that I’d walk into his parlor. But he’s confident that he can set up a trap no matter where I meet him. If, that is, he himself shows up. I doubt that. He’d be far too cagey for that. But he’ll have to send someone to represent him, and that someone might be higher up than Cambring and a step closer to the Lord.
“I’ll tell you where we’ll meet in half an hour,” Kickaha said. “But before I hang up, did your boss have anything else to say I should hear?”
“No.”
Kickaha clicked the phone down. He found Anana in a booth in the restaurant. He sat down and said, “I don’t know whether Orc’s got hold of Wolff or not. I don’t even know for sure whether Cambring repeated my message about Wolff and Chryseis, but Orc knows the gate was activated twice before we came through and that one of the people coming through was a Black Beller. I don’t think he’s got Wolff and Chryseis, because, if he did, he’d use them as a way to trap me. He’d know I’d be galloping in to save them.”
“Perhaps,” she said. “But he may feel that he doesn’t have to let you know he has Wolff and Chryseis. He may feel confident that he can catch us without saying anything about them. Or perhaps he’s withholding his knowledge
until a more suitable time.”
“You Lords sure figure out the angles,” he said. “As suspicious a lot as the stars have ever looked down on.”
“Look who’s talking!” she said in English.
They returned to their room, picked up their bags and the case, and went to the car. They drove off without checking out, since Kickaha did not think it wise to let anybody know what they were doing if it could be helped. In Tarzana, he went into a department store and purchased clothes for himself and Anana. This took an hour, but he did not mind keeping Cambring waiting. Let him and his boss sweat for a while. While he was waiting for his trousers to be altered, he made the call. Again, Cambring answered immediately.
“Here’s what we’ll do,” Kickaha said. “I’ll be at a place fairly close to your house. I’ll call you when I get there, and I’ll give you twelve minutes to get to our meeting place. If you aren’t there by then, I move on. Or if it looks like a trap, I’ll take off, and that’ll be the last you’ll see of me—at a meeting place, that is. Your boss can take care of the Beller himself.”
“What the hell is this Beller you’re talking about?” Cambring said angrily.
“Ask your boss. Look, I’m going to be in a place where I can see on all sides. I want just two men to meet me. You, because I know you, and your boss. You’ll advance no closer than sixty yards, and your boss will then come ahead. Got it? So long!”
At noon, after eating a hamburger and drinking a glass of milk, he called Cambring. He was at a restaurant only a few blocks from the meeting place. Cambring answered again before the phone had finished its third ring. Kickaha told him where he was to meet him and under what conditions.
“Remember,” he said, “If I smell anything fishy, I take off like an Easter bunny with birth pangs.”
He hung up. He and Anana drove as quickly as traffic would permit. His destination was the Los Angeles County Art Museum. Kickaha parked the car around the corner and put the keys under the floor mat, in case only one of them could get back to it. They proceeded on foot behind the museum and walked through the parking lot.