Puppet on a Chain by Alistair MacLean Read Free Book Online Page A

might well have been as his shoulder was making a peculiar cracking noise, but I couldn't be sure so I pushed a bit higher and removed all doubt, then thrust him out on to the balcony in front of me and forced him over the balustrade until his feet were clear of the ground and he was hanging on to the balustrade with his free left hand as if his life depended on it, which indeed it did.
    'You an addict or a pusher?' I enquired.
    He mouthed an obscenity in Dutch, but I know Dutch, including all the words I shouldn't. I put my right hand over his mouth for the sort of sound he was about to make could be heard even above the roar of the traffic, and I didn't want to alarm the citizens of Amsterdam unnecessarily. I eased the pressure and removed my hand.
    'Well?'
    'A pusher.' His voice was a sobbing croak. 'I sell them.'
    'Who sent you?'
    'No! No! No!'
    'Your decision. When they pick what's left of you from the pavement there they'll think you're just another cannabis smoker who got too high and took a trip into the wild blue yonder.'
    'That's murder!' He was still sobbing, but his voice was only a husky whisper now, maybe the view was making him dizzy. 'You wouldn't -- '
    'Wouldn't I? Your people killed a friend of mine this afternoon. Exterminating vermin can be a pleasure. Seventy feet's a long drop -- and not a mark of violence. Except that every bone in your body will be broken. Seventy feet. Look!'
    I heaved him a bit further over the balustrade so that he could have a better look and had to use both hands to haul him back again.
    'Talk?'
    He made a hoarse sound in his throat, so I hauled him oif the balustrade and pushed him inside to the centre of the room. I said, 'Who sent you?'
    I've said he was tough, but he was a great deal tougher than I had ever imagined. He should have been fear-stricken and in agony, and I have no doubt that he was both, but that didn't stop him from whirling round convulsively to his right in a full circle and breaking free from my grip. The sheer unexpectedness of it had caught me off guard. He came at me again, a knife that had suddenly appeared in his left hand curving upwards in a wicked arc and aimed for a point just below the breastbone. Normally, he would probably have done a nice job of carving but the circumstances were abnormal: his timing and reactions were gone. I caught and clamped his knife wrist in both my hands, threw myself backwards, straightened a leg under him as I jerked his arm down and sent him catapulting over me. The thud of his landing shook the room and probably quite a few adjacent rooms at that.
    I twisted and got to my feet in one motion but the need for haste was gone. He was on the floor on the far side of the room, his head resting on the balcony sill. I lifted him by his lapels and his head lolled back till it almost touched his shoulder-blades. I lowered him to the floor again. I was sorry he was dead, because he'd probably had information that could have been invaluable to me, but that was the only reason I was sorry.
    I went through his pockets, which held a good number of interesting articles but only two that were of interest to me: a case half full of handmade reefers and a couple of scraps of paper. One paper bore the typed letters and figures MOO 144, the other two numbers -- 910020 and 2797. Neither meant a thing to me but on the reasonable assumption that the floor-waiter wouldn't have seen carrying them on his person unless they had some significance for him I put them away in a safe place that had been provided for me by my accommodating tailor, a small pocket that had been let into the inside of the right trouser-leg about six inches above the ankle.
    I tidied up what few signs of struggle there had been, took the dead man's 'gun, went out on the balcony, leaned out over the balustrade and spun the gun upwards and to the left. It cleared the coaming and landed soundlessly on the roof about twenty feet away. I went back inside, flushed the reefer end