Dr. Death

Six

Mr. Thomas C. Dobbs, of Dobbs Plumbing Supplies, Inc., Grand Rapids, Michigan, and his French-Canadian born wife, Marie, emerged from the. main terminal at San Juan airport; they were laden down with cameras, snorkel gear, all the other equipment necessary for their Caribbean vacation, including a floppy straw hat with Puerto Rico woven across it which Mr. Dobbs had purchased in the terminal immediately upon arrival. They were going to have, as Mr. Dobbs put it to anybody who would listen, a "roaring time." They were going to "paint this little old island red." They were going to "turn little old San Juan inside out, and that includes those casinos."

They were, as anybody could tell, a pair of typical, moderately obnoxious, American tourists.

"Cab! Cab!" bellowed Mr. Dobbs, waving his arms madly.

Mrs. Dobbs was quieter. She looked a little tired. But she was obviously enjoying the sun and warmth.

"Ummm," she remarked to her husband, turning her attractive face upward. "Isn't that sun beautiful? And you can smell so many flowers. Oh, Nick…"

I grabbed her arm, as if to usher her into the cab which had pulled up in front of us.

"Tom," I muttered, without moving my lips. "Not Nick. Tom."

"Tom," she repeated dutifully. "Isn't it beautiful, though? I just want to put on my bathing suit and lie on a beach somewhere in the sun and listen to the ocean." Then she grimaced. "Except, I suppose you have other things to do, and you need me to go with you."

"Hell yes, sweetie," I bellowed. "That's exactly what we're gonna do. Flop ourselves down on that beach and get one hell of a tan. We're paying enough for it."

The porter finished loading our bags into the trunk of the cab. I under-tipped him outrageously, making up for it with a brutally hearty slap on the back and a shouted "Don't spend it all in one place, pal!" and jumped into the cab beside Michelle, slamming the door hard enough to make the cab's body rattle. The driver looked at me with irritation.

"San Geronimo Hotel, buddy. That's where were going. Only the best for Thomas C. Dobbs and his little wife," I said. Then, sharply, a shade suspiciously: "That is the best, isn't it? Sometimes these travel agents…"

"Sí, Señor," the driver said tonelessly, "that is the best. You will like it there."

I was certain that if I'd directed him to a public toilet he'd have said that was the best too.

"Okay, buddy. You get us there fast and there's a good tip in it for you," I said expansively.

"Si," the driver replied. "I get you there fast."

I settled back against the seat cushions, extracting from my jacket pocket a cigar only a little less obnoxious than those favored by Hawk. I could see the driver gag slightly as I lit it.

I was overdoing it, of course. Putting on too much of an act. Making sure I'd be remembered.

And that was the point. A good agent wasn't supposed to overdo it and put on too much of an act and be remembered. Which made me either a very bad agent, or a very smart good agent, who wouldn't be thought of as an agent at all.

"Tom," said Michelle, in a low voice, "did you really mean what you said about going to the beach?"

"1 sure did, sweetie," I said, in moderate tones. "First, we hit the old beach. Then we get dressed, have us a few of those Peeny Colazza's, or whatever they are, then we sink our teeth into the biggest damn steak this island can find, then we hit those casinos and clean a few of them out. How's that sound for the first day and night, hunh?"

"Really?" said Michelle, in the same low voice. "But I thought you…"

"You thought your old hubby didn't know how to have a good time. Thought he couldn't think about anything but plumbing supplies. Well, hang on to your hat, sweetie. Beach and booze, dinner and dice, here we come!"

And there we went, to Michelle's delighted surprise. For one thing, that's what Mr. Thomas C. Dobbs and wife would have done. And for another thing, it would have been suicide to approach my serious business in San Juan before late night anyway. Lying on a white sand beach, with the sun hot on my body, the crashing of Caribbean surf soothing in my ears, was a pretty good way to pass the waiting time.

"Tom."

I rolled over on my side and glanced at Michelle. And decided this wasn't just pretty good, it was — well, name your superlative. Any or all could apply, with Michelle's lush breasts more than filling out the tiny, almost sheer bikini bra she wore, the silken skin of her belly tapering to a bikini bottom which was little more than two little triangles and a piece of string, the long, shapely legs stirring voluptuously against the sand.

"Tom," she purred, eyes closed, face upturned to the sun, "put some suntan oil on me, please."

"With pleasure."

I spread the warm oil over her neck, down her sleek shoulders, across her belly, and down her thighs. Her flesh stirred gently under my hands. Her skin grew warmer, softer. She rolled over onto her belly, and I spread the oil over shoulders again, unhooked her bra, and spread it over her back, my hands sliding down along her sides, brushing her breasts. She sighed, with a sound closer to a moan than a sigh. When I finished, we lay side by side, our bodies touching. We both had our eyes closed, and the aura of sex between us was thick, hot, and growing. The blazing sun seemed to be pulling us together like magnet and iron, inexorably.

"Tom," she whispered finally, "I can't stand it anymore. Let's go back to our room."

Her voice was soft but urgent. I felt the same urgency. Without a word I hooked her bra again, pulled her to her feet and led her back to the hotel. When we got into the room she pulled slightly away from me.

"Slowly, Nick," she said, her voice low, husky, her dark eyes burning into mine. "This time I want it slowly. Make it last forever."

My hand reached out toward her. She caught it and held it cupped against her fullest curve.

"Make it be forever, darling. I want all of you, now, everything."

Under my hand, her sun-hot flesh stiffened. I could feel the blood pulse. The pulse quickened. I pulled her to me and my open mouth covered hers, my tongue exploring, hard and demanding. She writhed erotically, but slowly, as if to an unheard drumbeat whose tempo was increasing at an unbearably controlled rate.

"Can water put out that fire?" I whispered harshly.

"Only increase the flames, darling," she said, immediately realizing what I had in mind.

With one rapid movement I slipped her bra from her, then her bikini bottom. A sensual smile curled her lips. Her hand pushed off my trunks, and her eyes riveted on me in pride and admiration.

I felt my own instincts take over completely as I picked her up and carried her into the bathroom. An instant later we were standing under the scalding water of the shower, our sopping, steaming bodies clasped to each other and feeding furiously on each other. It was still slow, but with the blood-heat tempo of pure sensual ecstasy, increasing to the unbearable, the absolute and utter possession of male by female and female by male.

When it finally happened, we both screamed, wordless as the pure instincts we had briefly become.

"Satisfactory?" she murmured, when we had both recovered a little.

"Absolutely," I said, still trying to focus my eyes and catch my breath.

The rest of the evening was complete and satisfactory, too — or would have been if Yd really been Thomas C. Dobbs. We drank Pina Coladas on an open terrace, manned by an army of scurrying waiters, while the Caribbean sunset put on a Technicolor spectacular as if on demand. When we went inside to eat, the army of waiters became a regiment, the menu was three feet long, and the whole place reeked of money being spent like water. Whatever money could buy was available and being bought, in quantity.

Unfortunately, tropical drink concoctions are my idea of the best way to spoil good rum, and I heartily agree with Albert Einstein that a twenty-four-ounce steak is ideal food for lions, and lions alone. Under more normal circumstances — which I sometimes find hard to imagine — I'd have enjoyed a just-caught "conk," or sea urchins fried in garlic and Caribbean spices. But Thomas C. Dobbs would have turned green at the thought of either one, and for the moment I was Dobbs. So I doggedly Dobbsed it through the evening, consoling myself with the sight of Michelle in a see-through gown which gave every male in the place 20–20 vision on the spot.

Later, when we took a cab to the casino of the Caribe Hilton, I consoled myself with losing a couple of hundred dollars of AXE's money on the roulette wheel, which is what Thomas C. Dobbs would undoubtedly have done. What Nick Carter would have done would have been to play at the Blackjack table and win. Not a gigantic sum, but, with the Carter system, a few thousand for the sport of it.

Which is what Michelle did.

"How much?" I demanded, going back to the hotel in the taxi.

"Fourteen hundred. Actually, it was fifteen, but I gave the dealer a hundred-dollar chip as a tip."

"But I only gave you fifty dollars to play with!"

"Of course," she said cheerfully, "but that's all I need. You see, I have this system…"

"All right, all right," I said gloomily. There were times when being Thomas C. Dobbs was a distinct pain in the posterior.

But there were also times, I reflected back at our suite in the San Geronimo as I watched Michelle emerge nude from the bathroom, when changing back to Nick Carter had its disadvantages too.

And it was time to change back to Nick Carter.

I turned up the television to cover our voices if the room were bugged, and drew Michelle closer to it.

"It's time for business," I said, trying hard to keep my eyes above her neck. "I should be back in four or five hours, at least before morning. In the meantime, stay in the room with the door locked, and don't let anybody in, for any reason. You know what to do if I don't get back by morning."

She nodded. We'd discussed all that before leaving Washington. We'd also discussed the question of whether she should have a gun. She'd never fired a gun of any kind. Therefore, she didn't get a gun. It would have done her no good, in any case, and I don't believe in giving guns to people who don't know how — and when — to use them. What she did get was an imitation diamond ring. The diamond was harmless. Its setting had four prongs which, when the band was pressed, extended just beyond the diamond. If anyone of those prongs punctured the skin of an enemy, the result was an instantly unconscious enemy. The trouble was, the enemy had to get close enough for Michelle to use the ring. I hoped she wouldn't have to use it.

I told her so, then resisted the temptation to emphasize my meaning with a long kiss, and left.

I went out the hotel by, as they say in the movies, "the back way." Except that going out any hotel by "the back way" isn't all that easy. First, you have to find the back way. In this case, it turned out to be in the front, and consisted of a narrow flight of fire stairs. Since our suite was on the fourteenth floor, and nobody in his right mind would have walked down fourteen flights, I walked down fourteen flights. Then, grateful for my gym sessions with Walt Hornsbee, the AXE fitness instructor, I walked down two more flights to the subbasement. There I had to conceal myself behind the stairway until two dungaree-clad hotel employees, telling dirty jokes in Spanish, carried out several dozen garbage cans. When they disappeared upstairs, I let myself out into the street. It was a side street, little more than an alley off the Condado strip. And Gonzalez, sitting behind the wheel of a modest, nondescript, red Toyota, was parked no more than fifty feet away. There was no one else in sight as I climbed into the passenger seat beside him.

"Welcome to the best taxi service on the island of Puerto Rico," he said cheerfully. "We offer…"

"Offer a fast ride to La Perla," I said, sliding Wilhelmina into my hand and checking my ammo. "And while you're driving, tell me how to get to the leper colony in La Perla."

Gonzalez' cheerfulness vanished immediately. He put the car into gear and moved off, but he didn't look happy about it. His mustache began to twitch nervously.

"This," he said slowly, after a few minutes of silence, "is an act of madness. To go to La Perla at this time of night is insanity. To go to the leper colony at any time is unwise, but to go at this time of night is not only insane, but possibly suicidal."

"Possibly," I agreed, reholstering Wilhelmina and checking to make sure that Hugo was snug in his chamois sheath.

"Are you aware that a large section of the leper colony hospital is in the contagious wing?"

"I am aware," I said.

"Are you aware that even the lepers in the non-contagious wing are dangerous, since they are desperately poor and have few legitimate ways of obtaining money?"

"I am aware of that, too," I said, adjusting Pierre against my upper thigh.

Gonzalez spun the wheel, guiding the Toyota off the Condado, and toward Old San Juan.

"And my Blue Cross has expired," he said gloomily.

"You're just the guide," I told him. "I'm going in alone."

"But that is even worse!" he said in alarm. "I cannot possibly let you go in alone. One man would not have a chance, not even Nick Carter. I insist…"

"Forget it," I said tersely.

"But…"

"Gonzalez, your rank is N7. You know what mine is. I'm giving you an order."

He subsided, and we spent the rest of the ride in silence. Gonzalez chewed on his mustache. I kept one eye on the rearview mirror for possible tails. There weren't any. Ten minutes of twisting and turning through small, narrow streets brought us past the old governor's mansion, and down a hillside road to the fringes of the seaside slum called La Perla. As we moved through it, tin roofs rattled in the Caribbean breeze. You could hear surf breaking against the sea-wall and smell decaying fish, garbage, and small, cluttered rooms without indoor plumbing. Gonzalez skirted a small square, navigated the Toyota through an alley that gave it about an inch clearance on either side, and parked around the corner. The darkened street was deserted. Latin music came faintly from a window above us.

"You are determined to do this foolish thing?" Gonzalez asked, his voice thick with anxiety.

"There's no other way," I responded flatly.

Gonzalez sighed.

"The leper colony is at the end of the street. It is a leprosarium, really, a combination hospital and hostel for lepers. It occupies a space equivalent to a city block, and is shaped like a fortress, consisting of one large building with a central courtyard. There is only one entrance and exit. It leads into the offices of the leprosarium. Beyond this there is one locked door. It leads into the courtyard. Off the courtyard there are three wings: the east wing, which is the hospital, the west wing, which is a dormitory for lepers whose condition is stabilized, and the south wing."

Gonzalez turned and looked at me hard.

"The south wing," he said, "houses those lepers who are contagious and who are not allowed out of the leprosarium."

I nodded. I'd done some homework on the ugly subject of leprosy. It is a chronic, infectious disease that attacks the skin, the body tissues, and the nerves. In its early stages it produces white spots on the skin, then white scaly scabs, putrescent ulcers, and nodules. Finally, parts of the body literally waste away and fall off, producing nightmarish deformities. Thanks to antibiotics developed after the Second World War, it's now possible to arrest the disease at a certain point. But in its early stages, it is still highly contagious.

"Do you have what I asked you to bring?"

Wordlessly, Gonzalez reached into the back seat and handed me a doctor's bag and two sets of I.D. cards. One was for a Jonathan Miller, M.D. The other was for an Inspector Miller of the San Juan Customs Bureau.

"The syringes are full," said Gonzalez. "One of them should knock out a grown man within seconds and keep him out for a minimum of eight hours. Carter…"

He paused. I looked at him.

"The lepers whose cases have been arrested are quite as dangerous as the contagious ones. They sleep and eat here free, and are given medication. But they have no money for other things — cigarettes, rum, gambling — and few of them are able to work. So, it is well known that they are involved in many shady things. They…"

I opened the door of the car and got out.

"That," I said, "is what I'm counting on. I'll also be counting on you to wait for me in that little square we passed until morning. If I'm not out by then, leave. Contact Hawk. You know the drill."

Gonzalez nodded. I turned and walked away before he even had the car in gear.

"Buena suerte," I heard him call softly behind me.

Good luck.

I'd need it.