Free Hour of the Assassins by Andrew Kaplan Page A

other eye. The third time I cut the carotid artery and you’ll be unconscious in less than a minute and dead in less than five. And even if somebody somehow manages to save you, you’ll be blind for life. Nod if you understand.”
    He felt a shudder run through the man and then the weak, desperate nod. Brown Jacket’s agonized gaze was desperately fixed on Caine’s cold green eyes. Cat’s eyes, Lim had called them once, Caine thought irrelevantly.
    â€œWho are you?” he demanded quietly.
    â€œName’s DePalma. Private investigator,” Brown Jacket managed to gasp through his bloody mouth.
    â€œWho sent you?”
    â€œI don’t know. Said his name was Smith.”
    â€œSay good-bye to your left eye,” Caine said and began to press on the point.
    â€œWait, please!” he gasped desperately. “Jesus! Oh, God, that’s what he told me. I just do what I’m paid for. He pointed you out at LAX and told me to stick. That’s all I know, I swear.”
    â€œWhat did he look like?”
    â€œHe was a big guy. Hairy. You couldn’t miss him. Oh, wait, he wore a gold earring,” DePalma added eagerly.
    Freddie, Caine thought ominously. What was that asshole Wasserman trying to do? Of course, he hadn’t really expected Wasserman to trust him, but didn’t Wasserman realize that a tail destroyed his anonymity and made him vulnerable? He frisked DePalma and removed a .38 revolver from a shoulder holster. Then he cracked open the cylinder and dropped the bullets into his jacket pocket and put the gun back in the holster.
    â€œListen to me very carefully,” Caine said quietly. “If I ever see you again, that’s the day you die. You catch the next plane to L.A. and tell the goon that hired you that I don’t like company. Oh, yeah, and don’t stop on your way to the airport.”
    Caine thought he saw a sudden hand movement and, grabbing DePalma’s throat so he couldn’t scream, smashed his fist into the broken nose. DePalma started to slide to the floor, but Caine propped him against the side of the cubicle and left the bar by the emergency exit. He glanced at his watch as he got into the car. He just had time to get back to the hotel to meet Cassidy.
    Cleopatra’s Barge was a gaudy cocktail lounge, complete with oars, sails, waving ostrich feathers, and mini-togaed Nubian slave girls. The barge floated on a five-foot-deep Nile set beside a wide corridor just off the casino. At one end stood a lushly draped royal box, where the queen presumably entertained Antony. At the other end a baritone with capped teeth and an expensive toupee, fighting the battle of the bulge against his cumberbund, was standing on a small stage. He was holding a microphone in one hand, a cocktail in the other, and singing, “I Gotta Be Me.”
    Caine lurched aboard across a gangplank, feeling slightly seasick from the hydraulic mechanism that rocked the barge. He caught the eye of one of the older bartenders and asked for Cassidy. The bartender pointed out a thin, ruddy-cheeked man with short graying hair, wearing a rumpled green suit. Caine sat down at Cassidy’s table and ordered “whatever my friend is having” from a busty blond waitress, her thigh-length toga swirling to show a flash of yellow panties.
    â€œWhat’s the story?” Cassidy asked, briefly glancing at Caine with indifferent eyes and then looking back to contemplate the bubbles in his drink.
    â€œMoney,” Caine replied.
    â€œThat’s what makes the world go round,” Cassidy said and finished his drink, wondering what Caine’s hustle was.
    â€œYou sound like a cynic.”
    â€œSo what?” Cassidy replied cynically.
    â€œThe trouble with a cynic is that he’s just a disillusioned idealist.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong with idealists, come to that?”
    â€œThey make mistakes,” Caine said quietly, his voice almost