Dr. Death

Seven

The leprosarium was a squat, heavy, ugly building of crumbling stucco, which someone had painted a vivid red that made it even uglier. It was two stories high, and the windows on each story were covered with heavy wooden shutters, closed tight even in the Caribbean heat. I found a bell pull to one side of the wooden door and pulled hard. I heard a loud metallic clanging inside, then silence. I pulled again. More clanking. Then footsteps. The door opened a crack, and a thin, sleepy female face peered out.

"What do you want?" she asked irritably, in Spanish.

"I am Dr. Jonathan Miller," I replied crisply, in my somewhat rusty, but reasonably fluent Spanish. "I am here to see the patient Diaz."

There had to be a patient named Diaz in the leprosarium. It was one of the most common names in Puerto Rico.

"At this hour you come to see a patient?" the woman said, even more irritably.

"I am from New York," I said. "I am here only a few days. I am doing a favor for Diaz' family. I have no other time. Kindly let me in, Señora. I must be back at my clinic by tomorrow."

The woman hesitated.

"Señora," I said, putting a sharp edge of impatience in my voice, "you are wasting my time. If you will not let me in, call someone in authority."

"There is no one else here at night," she said, a note of uncertainty creeping into her voice. She glanced down at my doctor's bag. "Only two nurses, on duty in the hospital. We are badly understaffed."

"The door, Señora," I said brusquely.

Slowly, reluctantly, she opened the door and stood aside to let me in, then closed and bolted it behind me.

"Which Diaz is it you want? Felipe, or Esteban?"

"Felipe," I said, glancing around a large room lined with ancient filing cabinets and furnished with two rickety metal desks and a few chairs. There was a strong odor of disinfectant, and underneath it, a faint but distinct odor of decaying human flesh.

"Felipe Diaz is in the west wing, with the stabilized cases. But I cannot take you there. I must stay by the door," the woman said. She moved to a desk and opened a drawer, taking out a ring of keys. "If you want to go you must go by yourself."

"Bueno," I said, "I will go myself.

I held out my hand for the keys. The woman extended them. I looked down at her hand and suppressed a gasp. Only a thumb and an inch of forefinger extended from the palm.

The woman caught my look and smiled.

"It is nothing, Señor" she said. "My case is stabilized and I am not infectious. I am one of the lucky ones. With me, it was only a few fingers. With others, like Felipe…"

I forced myself to take the keys from that hand, then moved toward the door in the far wall.

"Diaz is in bed twelve, just opposite the door," the woman said behind me, as I opened the door. "And, Senor, be careful not to enter the south wing. The cases there are highly contagious."

I nodded and moved out into the courtyard, shutting the door behind me. A dim electric bulb barely illuminated a barren dirt yard with a few scraggly palms and some rows of benches. The windows on this side were open, dark, and I could hear snores, sighs, coughs, and a few moans. I crossed the yard quickly toward the west wing, then unlocked the door with the big iron key.

The smell hit me like a hammer. It was thick and heavy, the smell of rotting human flesh, the smell a decomposing corpse gives off in heat. No disinfectant in the world could cover that smell, and I had to fight off the wave of nausea that swept over me. When I was sure I wasn't going to be sick I pulled a pencil flashlight from my pocket and swept the beam along the darkened room. Rows of bodies lying on cots, twisted into the awkward positions of sleep. Here and there an eye flicked open and regarded me warily. I directed the beam at the bed directly opposite the door, and moved quietly across the room. The figure on the cot had the sheet pulled up over its head. A gargled snore came from somewhere under the sheet. I put out a hand and shook one shoulder.

"Diaz!" I whispered sharply. "Wake up! Diaz!"

The figure stirred. Slowly, one arm emerged and pulled down the sheet. The head turned and the face came into view.

I swallowed hard. It was a face from a nightmare. The nose was gone, and one ear was no more than a rotten crumple of flesh. Black gums stared at me where the upper hp had wasted away. The left arm was a stump, shriveled below the elbow.

"Como?" Diaz asked in a hoarse croak, staring at me sleepily. "Qué quiere?"

I reached into my jacket and flipped an I.D. card at him.

"Inspector Miller, San Juan Customs Bureau," I said. "You're wanted for questioning."

The ruined face regarded me uncomprehendingly.

"Put on your clothes and come outside," I said sharply. "There's no need to wake up everyone in here."

He still looked uncomprehending, but he slowly threw off the sheet and stood up. He didn't need to put on his clothes. He was sleeping in them. He followed me across the floor and out the door into the courtyard, where he stood blinking at me in the semi-darkness.

"I won't waste any time, Diaz," I said. "We've received information that a smuggling ring is operating through the leprosarium. Storing smuggled goods here, for one thing. Drugs. And according to our information, you're up to your neck in the whole thing."

"Como?" said Diaz, a startled look replacing the sleepy one. "Smuggling? I don't know what you're talking about."

"There's no use in playing dumb," I snapped. "We know what's going on and we know you're involved. Now are you going to cooperate or not?"

"But I tell you, I don't know nothing," Diaz protested. "I don't know nothing about drugs or smuggling here or anywhere."

I bored into him with my eyes. I didn't like to do what I had to do next, but I did it.

"Diaz," I said slowly, "you have a choice. You can either cooperate with us and go free, or I can arrest you right here and now. That means I put you in jail. In solitary confinement, of course, since the other prisoners can't have a leper among them. And probably for a long time, since it may take us a long time to crack this case without you. And during that time, it will probably be impossible for us to provide the medication you need to keep your disease arrested."

A look of terror crept into Diaz' eyes.

"No!" he gasped, "You can't do that! I'll die! Horribly! I swear to you on my mother's grave, I know nothing of…"

"It's your choice, Diaz," I said grimly. "And you'd better make it now."

Diaz' ruined face had become coated with sweat. He began to tremble.

"But I know nothing!" he pleaded. "How can I help you if I…"

He paused. My nerves tensed. This could be what I was fishing for.

"Wait," he said slowly. "Wait. Perhaps…"

I waited.

"Several months ago," he said, "it happened several months ago. Some strangers were here. Not lepers. Not doctors. But they were hiding something, or maybe someone."

"Hiding it, or him, where?" I demanded.

"Where no one would look. In the infectious section."

"Go on," I said.

"They left, after about a month. Taking with them whatever they had been hiding. That is all I know, I swear to you on the honor of my mother."

"I need more information than that, Diaz," I said in a hard voice. "Where did they take what they had been hiding?"

"I don't know, I swear it If I knew I would tell you. But…"

He paused. An uneasy look came into his eyes.

"Go on," I demanded.

"Jorge. Jorge would know. He is a leper with an arrested case, who works as a male nurse in the contagious wing. He would have seen everything, perhaps overheard something of value to you. But…"

"But what?"

"In order to talk to him, we would have to go into the contagious wing. For me, it is nothing. But for you…"

He didn't have to finish the sentence. I knew the danger. But I also knew what I had to do.

"Can you get me a sterile smock, gloves, cap, the whole outfit?"

Diaz nodded.

"Do it," I said tersely. "And fast."

He disappeared inside the building, and reappeared a few minutes later carrying what I had asked for. When I had put on the smock, cap, surgeon's mask, and gloves, he pushed a pair of shoes at me.

"You must leave your own shoes outside the door. All these things will be sterilized when you have taken them off again."

I did as he said, then started across the courtyard, holding my own shoes in my hand.

"Can you get a key to the south wing?" I asked.

Diaz smiled slightly, his missing upper lip turning it into a horrible grimace.

"It is only locked from the outside, Señor," he said. "To keep the lepers in. There is no difficulty in keeping others out."

Diaz drew the bolt on another heavy wooden door, and stepped aside to allow me to go first. I brusquely motioned for him to go ahead. Again, the darkened room, but this time with a light at one end, where a man in white sat at a table, his head on his arms, sleeping. Again, the rows of cots, the sleep-awkward figures. But here, some were twisting in pain. Moans came brokenly from here and there. The odor was even worse than in the west wing. Diaz went down the aisle to the man in white, looked at him closely, then lifted his head by the hair.

"Jorge," he said roughly. "Jorge. Wake. The Señor wishes to speak with you."

Jorge's eyes opened slightly, he looked up at me in an out-of-focus way, then his head fell back on his arms. Part of his left cheek was gone, exposing the white bone.

"Aiee," he mumbled. "So pretty. And so brave, to come to work with lepers. So pretty."

Diaz looked at me and grimaced.

"Drunk," he said. "He uses his pay to get drunk every night."

He lifted Jorge's head again, and slapped him roughly across the rotted cheek. Jorge gasped in pain. His eyes flew open and focused.

"You must talk to the Senor, Jorge," said Diaz. "He is from the policia, the Customs police."

Jorge stared at me, keeping his head up with an obvious effort.

"Policia? What for?"

I moved beyond Diaz and flipped my I.D. at Jorge.

"For information," I said. "Information about who was being hidden here, by whom, and where they went when they left here."

In spite of his drunkenness, a crafty look crept into Jorge's eyes.

"Nobody hidden here. Just lepers here. Contagious. Very dangerous. You shouldn't be here."

I decided to handle Jorge a little differently than Diaz.

"There's a reward for the information," I said, slowly and clearly, pulling out my wallet. I saw Jorge's eyes widen slightly as 1 extracted five twenty-dollar bills. "One hundred dollars. Paid immediately."

"Aiee," Jorge said. "I would like to have so much money, but…"

"There is nothing to fear. No one will ever know you told me except Diaz. And Diaz knows better than to talk."

Jorge's eyes were fastened to the money in my hand. I slid it across the table. Jorge licked his lips, then suddenly snatched the money.

"I do not know who they were," he said rapidly, "but they were not Latinos. There were three of them. They came in one night and locked themselves into an empty room at the back of the wing. For more than two weeks they did not emerge. A leper with an arrested case brought them food twice a day. It was also this leper who had sterilized the room the night before they arrived. Then, one night, they left as suddenly as they had come. The leper disappeared also, but later we heard that his body was found a few blocks away. He had been strangled."

"Did you get any idea of where they went from here?" I demanded.

Jorge hesitated.

"I am not sure, but I think — twice, when the leper went into the room with food, I think I heard one of the men say something about Martinique."

Something clicked in my brain.

Martinique. The volcano.

Suddenly a door opened in the wall beyond Jorge. Through it stepped a figure clad as I was, in sterile gown, mask, cap, and all the rest. Jorge half-turned, looked, then grinned.

"Buenos noches, Senorita," he said. Then, to me, some of the drunkenness coming back into his voice. "So pretty, such a pretty little chinita, and she comes to help the lepers. Just arrived today."

Chinita. Chinese girl.

Over the surgical mask, double-lidded Oriental eyes looked straight at me.

All too familiar double-lidded Oriental eyes.

"Welcome to the party, Carter," she said.

I stared at her grimly.

"For you, Li Chin," I said, "the party is over."

I moved toward her. She held up one hand.

"Don't make a mistake you'll regret," she said. "We have…"

Her voice died in mid-sentence, and I saw her eyes widen suddenly in alarm.

"Carter!" she shouted. "Behind you!"

I spun. Jorge's bottle missed my skull by inches, shattering on the table in his hand. My karate chop slammed toward the base of his neck a split second later, and it didn't miss. He toppled to the floor like a felled log. Even as he was falling, I heard Li Chin's voice again. This time it was flat, hard, and deadly calm.

"The door," she said. "And to your left."

There were three of them at the door. In the dim, shadowy light, I could see grotesque, misshapen limbs, faces with features eaten away, empty eye-sockets, stumps of arms. I could also see the glint of two knives, and the deadly bulk of a length of lead pipe as they moved slowly toward me.

But it was the figures on the left that sent a cold chill down my spine. There were five, six, maybe more, and they had all arisen from beds, to slide warily in my direction.

They were lepers with contagious cases. And their half-naked bodies moved ever closer, scaled with white, ulcerous swellings protruding horribly from sick flesh.

Li Chin had moved to my side.

"One of your western philosophers once remarked," she said calmly, almost conversationally, "that my enemy's enemy is my friend. Do you agree?"

"For the moment," I said, "absolutely."

"Then let us defend ourselves," she said, and her body moved into a slight crouch, the hands sliding out in front of her in what I instantly recognized as the classic Kung Fu position of readiness.

What happened next happened so fast that my eyes could barely follow it. There was a sudden movement in the group of lepers by the door, and the bright flash of a knife blade flickered through the air. I spun out of the way. Li Chin didn't move. One of her hands darted upward, twisted, made a swift parabola, and the knife was again in motion — toward the man who had thrown it. He gave a scream that ended in a choke as the blade skewered him through the neck.

The next instant the room exploded in a chaotic blur of movement. The lepers moved forward in a group and hurled themselves at us. My right foot shot out to find its mark in the belly of one attacker as I stabbed forward with rigid fingers the solar plexus of another. The lead pipe whooshed past my shoulder. Hugo was in my hand, and the man with the lead pipe dropped it as the lethal blade sliced into his neck. Blood spurted from the carotid artery like a fountain. Beside me, Li Chin's body moved in a smooth, snaking motion, her arms twisting and dropping, and a body tumbled grotesquely through the air to fall crumpled, the head at an impossible angle.

"It's no use, Carter," I heard the hoarse croak of Diaz' voice come from somewhere in the semi-dark. "The door is locked from the outside. You will never get out now. You will become a leper as we are."

I sliced Hugo through the air in front of me, forcing back two half-naked lepers with reaching hands.

"Your clothes," I snapped to Li Chin. "Don't let them rip your clothes and touch you. They're trying to infect us."

"You are going to rot away as we have, Carter," came the hoarse croak again. "You and the little chinita. Your flesh will drop from…"

The croak ended in a gasp as Li Chin crouched, spun, fell back with a grasping motion, and sent Diaz' body hurtling against the wall with the force of a catapult. His eyes went white, and then closed as he fell. At the same moment, I felt a hand clawing at my back, and heard a tearing sound. I whirled, straight-arming the leper back with one gloved hand as Hugo sliced in at an upward angle toward his solar plexus. He crumpled, blood running from his mouth. A piece of my sterile gown was still clutched in his hand. Turning, I caught sight of Li Chin twisting out of another catlike crouch, the body of a leper tumbling toward the wall. Her gown had been ripped, too. For a fraction of a second our eyes met, and the same thought must have occurred to us simultaneously.

"The door," I said.

She nodded slightly, and her body once again became that of a cat. I saw her leap onto the desk Jorge had been using, then perform an impossible flight over the heads of three attackers to land near the door. I was right behind her, using Hugo to clear the way. When we stood together at the door, we had barely seconds before the lepers would be on us again.

"Together!" T snapped. "Now!"

Our feet shot out simultaneously, like twin battering rams. There was a cracking sound, but the hinges held. Again. The cracking sound was louder. Again. The door shot from its hinges and we were sprinting over it, out into the courtyard, disfigured hands reaching out for us, brushing our gowns, the odor of dying flesh close in our nostrils.

"The door to the office!" I heard Li Chin shout. "It's open!"

I could hear the thud of running feet on the parched earth of the courtyard as the lepers pursued us in a group. We were hampered by our surgeons gowns and they were closing in on us fast. I put every last reserve of energy into a final burst of speed, saw Li Chin do the same inches behind me, and hurled myself through the open door into the office. Li Chin's figure was a blur of speed behind me as I swung the door shut, pressing brutally against the weight of oncoming bodies. For an instant I felt that the door was being forced open again. Then, suddenly, it was closed and I was shooting the bolt. On the other side of the door was a clamor of voices, then silence.

Li Chin stood beside me.

"Look," she said, pointing to one corner of the room.

The woman who had admitted me lay crumpled in a heap, motionless. It was easy to see why. Her throat had been slit from ear to ear. Beside her lay a telephone set, its wire wrenched from the wall.

"The lepers who attacked us must have been paid off by the OAS," I said. "This woman apparently wasn't paid off. She may have known nothing about it. When she heard the melee in the contagious wing, she must have tried to phone for the police, and…"

"And made the mistake of leaving the door to the courtyard open when she did," Li Chin finished for me.

I nodded.

"But there's no guarantee one of the lepers didn't use the phone to call for OAS reinforcements. And I have no intention of being here when they arrive. We're going to get out of here now. And together. You've got some explaining to do."

"Of course," said Li Chin calmly. "But what about our clothes?"

Both of our surgeons gowns had been ripped. The clothes underneath were contaminated. It was pretty obvious what had to be done.

"Strip," I ordered, suiting my actions to my words.

"Everything?" asked Li Chin, looking a little suspicious.

"Everything," I said. "Unless you'd like to wake up one day to find your fingers falling off."

"But where will we go? Without clothes…"

"There's somebody waiting for me in a car. Just a few blocks away," I reassured her.

Li Chin looked up from unstrapping her bra.

"A few blocks!" she said. "You don't mean we're going to…"

I nodded, stepping out of my shorts and moving toward the front door.

"Ready?"

Li Chin, tossing aside a wisp of panties, looked dubious, but she nodded. I grabbed her by the hand and flung open the front door.

"Go!"

I like to think we were San Juan's first streakers.