The Blood Countess by Kenneth Robeson

Author:Kenneth Robeson [Robeson, Kenneth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Action & Adventure, Pulp Action
Published: 2009-08-24T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XV - A Secret Meeting

The man who called himself Bulcao climbed down the metal ladder into the stone room. His heavy boots clanged on the rusty rungs.

The room was thick with the smell of the oil burning in the hurricane lamp that sat on a rough-hewn table in the room's center. The lamp made a flickering yellow globe of light; the corners of the stone room were lost in shadows.

"That's an offensive smell," said Bulcao as his foot touched the stone floor. He was a small man, compact, wearing a suit of military-style dungarees. His .38 revolver hung from the gun belt buckled tightly around his waist.

"Perhaps we can hold our next meeting at the banquet room of the Hotel Segunda," said the other man in the room.

"Humor is uncalled for," said Bulcao, striding to the center of the room.

"But it does help one endure life," said the other man, whose name at the moment was Ensolardo. "And what have you learned?"

Bulcao seated himself in the room's only other chair, a lopsided wooden thing. "They have arrived."

"How many of them?"

"Three."

"Very good, very good," said Ensolardo, nodding. "Which ones?"

Loosening his gun belt a notch, shifting in the chair, Bulcao said, "Fergus MacMurdie, Cole Wilson, and Algernon Heathcote Smith."

"By killing them we will pretty well destroy Justice, Inc.," said Ensolardo. "It will leave them with only two women and a black man. They'll no longer be much of a threat."

"Let's remember," said Bulcao, "that at the moment they are still alive and breathing."

"I want you to put Ferro onto the job of getting rid of them." Ensolardo massaged an elbow, watching the flame of the lamp. "He is to arrange it so it looks like an accident. . . or perhaps as though they were killed by some of the fellows who rob tourists."

"Ferro is one of our own. Until now we've been hiring -- "

"Yes, and until now your hirelings have not been very successful," said Ensolardo. "Put Ferro on the job."

Shrugging, Bulcao said, "Very well, but I feel -- "

"Don't worry so much, my friend. I'm supposed to be the pessimistic one."

"The way Leonard Rodney was killed . . . It wasn't . . . I don't like it. Killing in our line of work must be done quickly, efficiently. Not with so much -- "

"The method was necessary, as it will also be for the Avenger. He must die the same way Rodney did."

Bulcao looked back toward the ladder and crossed himself. "Some things . . . some things are not right. Some things should not be done."

"Anything is right if it serves our cause."

"She delights in that sort of killing. I can see it in her face. Those others who were killed. There was no need to -- "

The stone trapdoor in the ceiling of the room had opened. A figure began to climb down the rusted metal ladder now. "I've just been looking in on our guest," said Erika Mowler. "He is sleeping peacefully."

"He ought to be," said Ensolardo, "with all that stuff you're shooting into him.

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