Mistress of Death, page 16
“I did not betray her,” Ilunga said.
I paused, knowing that violence was folly, seeking some way out of it, some way to recoup. I felt like a rat in a trap. “Who, then?”
“Amalita Pedro.”
It had to be true. Amalita had known, and was insanely jealous. She had the means and the motive to destroy Chiyako, and had done it. Why hadn’t I realized that before?
“You are not thinking well,” Ilunga observed. “You would do better with the drug. Isn’t that obvious?”
It was obvious. I was reeling from emotional body blows. My fevered reasoning was a patchwork full of holes. Whatever I decided right now was bound to be a mistake. But I would never take the drug.
I lowered the nunchaku. “What do you recommend?” I asked. One part of me was appalled that I should seek her advice; she was the enemy!
“Go after her,” she said. “Immediately, before they contact you. Strike fast and hard.”
“I don’t know where she is.” Now I sounded querulous.
“Neither do I. But I can guess.”
I shook my head, trying to clear it. “You’re helping me? Turning traitor to your own organization?”
“I was not inducted voluntarily. My purposes are my own.”
I remembered Kobi’s description; how Ilunga had been tricked into her first sniff, not realizing she would be addicted. So she had made the best bargain she could, and formed a fighting arm of the demons, working with men she hated. Now she wanted to bring me in on the same basis. “Still—”
“Of course if I help you to recover her—” she began.
“No!” I cried. “No bargaining!” Yet I was bargaining. Somehow she had fought me and overcome me in this verbal struggle. Just as I had overcome her physically, before. It was now apparent that I had won little if anything by that encounter; her strategies were more comprehensive than mine. However I might protest, I had to listen to her, for Chiyako’s life was now at stake.
“All right. No bargaining,” she agreed. “I will tell you the source.”
“You know the source of Kill-Thirteen?” I demanded incredulously.
“A Mayan temple in the jungle of Honduras. That is all I know, and I learned it only this afternoon, with the assumption of my new position in the hierarchy.”
“Why on earth should you tell me this?”
“Female illogic.”
Fat chance! She was either trying to send me into another trap, or to enlist my loyalty to her interests. “If the demon leaders learn you have told an outsider—”
“I think you will keep my secret. We have a common purpose, when you choose to recognize it.”
Yes, she still hoped to convert me. Perhaps that was the only way she could expiate her failure to mutilate or kill me. Still, I had to follow up this lead; it was the only one I had.
Yet I was not satisfied just to walk out of Ilunga’s apartment. “You knew I was coming,” I said. “You set this up for me.”
“This is the way I live,” she said. “The heightened perception Kill-Thirteen gives me enables me to appreciate fine things, and now I have the money and leisure to indulge my tastes for material and aesthetic things. I find that is not sufficient, however.”
“You eat hors d’oeuvres every night?”
“No. That much was for you.”
“How did you know I was coming, when I didn’t know myself?”
“I—hoped.”
“I thought you hated me. That you wanted me dead.”
“That is true, and untrue. You told me I would change, if I ever went half-way to know a decent man. I have gone half-way.”
This was becoming uncomfortable. I was fishing for negative answers and not getting them. She had evidently done some serious thinking in the past few hours. “You said you’d never take up with a honky.”
“Not openly.” She smiled with resignation. “I have an image to maintain.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“I don’t understand myself. Go to your Chinese girl.”
“What do you figure my chances of recovering her are?”
“One in a hundred, if you’re lucky. Your way. My way, a hundred to one your favor.”
That was the way I figured it too. Take a sniff, join the demons, and Chiyako would very soon be back with me. Throw away my mission, desert Shaolin, for the sake of a Shaolin girl. Paradox. “I need a drink.”
“I thought you didn’t drink.”
“Not openly. Image.” But it wasn’t funny. The whole project seemed hopeless. I loved Chiyako, but that love could kill her. Either way I chose. Better for her if I had never known her. Just as it had been with the head monk.
“You know that one sniff would bring her back,” Ilunga said. “But you won’t take it.”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.” She made a little gesture with her hand. “I know something about having a mission, about being alone. I never met a man before who put his principles first. I could respect a man like that, and I’d be disappointed if he took the easy way out.”
She was right. There was a parallel in our situations. Kobi had been right too; Ilunga was no simple criminal but a woman with many redeeming qualities, once her framework was understood.
I kneeled beside her on the couch, and she stroked my hair. I let the nunchaku drop to the floor.
“As I said,” she murmured as her hands moved on down my body with consummate skill, “we don’t have to like each other. Just a little respect.”
Somehow I did not regard what followed as a violation of my commitment to Chiyako. My effort of the following days would proceed regardless. Ilunga’s life would continue as before, and she would still hate men. We were ships of hostile nations passing in neutral territory, exchanging amenities on a guarded basis. There was no commitment on either side beyond that.
It was still one hell of an experience.
*
It was with a certain trepidation that I went to Nicaragua to see Vicente Pedro. He had to know what his wife Amalita had been up to. But I had to have his help. All I could do was tell the truth, the whole truth, and stand for the consequence. If he didn’t kill me, he would help me.
I had, of course, checked Kobi’s home. It was empty. The two had left the hospital in a taxi; that taxi had driven off. And never arrived at its destination. The driver was gone too; his family was distraught. The demon goon squads were not ones to quibble about killing innocent people. The taxi was found in an alley, bloodstained and bullet-ridden. Ilunga had told the truth, but I believed her when she said she had not been involved in that particular deal. She never touched a gun, and neither did her trainees.
Pedro’s vast estate was near the Honduras border, and his comprehensive enterprises reached well beyond it. Given the hint—Kill-13 in a Mayan temple—he would know how to follow it up. I hoped.
I had saved his life, in the snowy wilds of Japan’s Hokkaido Island. I had carried him down the snow-covered mountain, back to civilization, where modern medicine had helped him recover. He was duly grateful. But he was also extremely jealous. In fact, he was very like his wife in that respect. The matter with Amalita might or might not balance out.
The only way to get to his estate, or to anywhere in Nicaragua, was by way of the capital city, Managua. I phoned ahead, of course, and received an impersonal acknowledgment from one of Pedro’s secretarios: a private aircraft would pick me up in Managua.
My plane stopped at Bluefields, Nicaragua, unscheduled, but there was a storm ahead. The city is on the Atlantic, a fishing center and port. Most of the population was black. There was one paved street, five hundred meters long; the rest was mud, and more mud. It rained incessantly.
I understood that this was one of the major cities of the Atlantic coast. I stayed in, feeling miserable.
Next day we made it to Managua. I remembered it from my prior visit, over a year ago. A hilly city rising from the lake on its north. This was December. No snow, of course, but it was the rainy season. The equator was only a few hundred miles to the south. A warm Christmas was only two weeks away, and decorations were everywhere. There were garlands, a few Christmas trees, some Santa Clauses. But many figures of the three wise kings, Los Reyes Magos, bringing toys to children in Latin America. Booths were in the streets, on the sidewalks, selling toys and food. There were many drunks abroad.
I stayed the night at the Plaza Lido Hotel, downtown. Restless, I went out to wander the cobblestone streets in my shirt sleeves, amazed by the winter warmth despite the latitude. Only a day ago I had trekked through snow.
The rain had let up, for how long, I could not be certain.
Many natives were out now; the population of the city seemed to be mostly Indian, about five-feet five-inches tall. I towered above the crowd.
I bore south at first, uphill, stretching my legs. There were parties in the private homes, fiestas; I saw them going on in the open houses. People were dancing to wild Latin music—rhumbas, zapateos, mambos—I couldn’t tell one from the other. But I wished I could join in.
I passed through a marketplace, still open this evening. There was much good food, meat, fish, and so on, but it was covered with flies. Much of it was alive; I saw chickens and pigs. The smell was so strong I felt like retching. And there were crows, as there had been in Chinatown.
Then I worked my way on around the Presidential Palace— such a contrast to the market—and back north a mile or so, to the water. I moved along the Malecon, past a small beach on Lake Managua, looking at the water to see if I could spot one of its unique fresh-water sharks. Of course I couldn’t; it was dark now, and I was not inclined to go for a swim. I went down a set of steps, around Ruben Dario Park, and encountered a small carnival. People were dancing there, more Latin dancing I didn’t understand but enjoyed watching. Those women sure knew how to move in those dresses.
A nine-year-old boy offered me a shoeshine. I had some native money, but didn’t know the going rate for such services. He thought I was haggling, and in the end he did it for the equivalent of two American cents, and seemed well satisfied.
I saw many beggars. Some were blind, or claimed to be, and some were merely old. Women as well as men. Some sold lottery tickets. Some sold newspapers; I would have bought one, if I had been able to read Spanish. In this foreign city, I felt awfully ignorant.
There were many handsome buildings, some tall new skyscrapers. But also many old buildings of stucco or even mudwall, and red tile roofing. The streets were narrow, and the drivers crazy. The carnival seemed the safest place to be.
I rode a small ferris wheel, getting a boyish thrill. Then a girl joined me, and made an offer that needed no translation. I wasn’t interested, but if I had been, the smell would have cured it. She hadn’t taken a bath for a month.
But even that sort of girl reminded me of Chiyako. I was unable to enjoy any of this anymore. I went soberly back to my hotel room, only two blocks south, and spent a restless night. There was no TV to distract me, not even in Spanish.
The phone woke me. “Huh?” I answered groggily, noticing the bandage on my hand was loose. Fortunately that sai cut had not been serious.
“Pedro here,” the familiar voice said. “Do you not remember where you are supposed to be?”
“You’re here?” I asked, still bemused. “In Managua?”
“Well, I am not in Japan, Senor! Do you think I would let an underling pick up my friend?”
So he didn’t know about Amalita! “Pedro, there’s something—”
“Tell me in the airplane!” he said jovially, and hung up. Tell him what: Kill-13, or Amalita? In the plane, where one false move would crack us up?
There was no help for it. We looped over the city, appraising the flat tops of its numerous downtown stores, its parks and statues, its many-columned capitol building, the stately Presidential Palace that I had viewed from the ground. In front of the baseball stadium I could see the big statue of Somoza. And near the carnival, the big plaza in front of the cathedral. Then out across the lake.
I glanced at Pedro. He looked tanner and fitter than he had a year ago. Once he had been wheelchair-ridden; now he stood and walked powerfully. He had gained about twenty pounds of muscle, and grown a big black mustache.
I took a deep breath. “Pedro, I have two pieces of news, and you may not like either one.”
“The drug and my wife,” he said.
I didn’t try to conceal my dismay. “You know?”
“Jason, I am a wealthy man. I can afford to know. But I have a confession.”
“You have a confession!”
“Amalita was never mine. I bought her with my money. I kept her secluded, but I was a cripple, and she was passionate. When you came, it might have been any man, but it was you. At least she had good taste. You at least were honest; you did not know her status. In my anger I misjudged you. For that I am sorry; I apologize.”
“There was another time,” I said grimly. “Save your apologies.”
“Let me finish, amigo! After I could walk, I married her, but still she was not mine. The baby—”
“The baby,” I echoed sickly.
“was mine. Did you think I would not have that verified? The blood tests exonerated you, Mr. Striker.”
“I’m glad!” I said with feeling. “Still—”
“Still she was not mine. She wanted your type of body, not mine. Only my wealth she wanted from me. I was shamed; I thought of having her put away.”
That meant death or a mental institution. He wasn’t fooling. These Latin magnates played hard ball.
“But I gave her leeway, still hoping. A caged tigress is no cat at all. Jason, she is a beautiful woman.”
“Yes,” I agreed. He, too, looked for more than surface qualities. What he meant was that Amalita was fiery, ruthless and cunning, like himself, and young and pretty. A sleek tigress. The proper internal and external mate for him.
“You sent her back to me broken in body, wounded in spirit. There is no hate in the world, Jason, like that she feels for you now. When you struck her, you knocked out of her those illusions, all those notions that her type could ever make it with your type.
When I strike her, she understands, and it makes no difference. But you—you meant it. You tamed that animal.”
“Not quite,” I said bitterly.
He smiled expansively, and did a little swerve with the plane that made my stomach jump. “Now she is mine. In spirit as well as word. And I thank you. Any other man who beat up my wife, I would kill.” He paused. “But just to be sure, I will help you to recover your Chinese girl.”
“Thank you,” I said, somewhat inanely. “Amalita said you were sick.”
“So I was,” he agreed. “Sick with despair and fury. Over her. She thought I had become impotent, but it was her attitude, not my body, that did it. That is changed now.”
A load was off my conscience. “What do you know about Kill- Thirteen?”
“No more than you. I have dabbled.” He paused delicately. He had more than dabbled; he must have made millions in assorted illicit enterprises, drugs included. “But never in that particular commodity. Because I have not been able to make contact. They will not deal with anyone who is not an addict.”
“Well, my information is that their source is in an old Mayan temple, somewhere in the Honduras jungle.”
“Aha!” he exclaimed, his eyes lighting. “I have connections in that country. Perhaps I shall take over that lucrative trade after all.”
“I wouldn’t,” I said. “One sniff and you’re addicted. You’d be taking a hell of a chance.” And I certainly didn’t want a commercial genius like him running the demon show.
He pondered. “A single dose addicts?”
“So it is reported. And it is gaseous. So someone might pipe it into your room, or just open a cupful in your face. A demon assassin, maybe. They take their cult seriously.”
He nodded. “Then I would be marked. My associates would note my red eyes. Business would suffer. You are right. It is too dangerous to play with. Better to remain with the conventional drugs.” He sighed. “All right, Jason—we shall burn their depot.”
“Uh-uh,” I said, relieved. “That could pollute the whole neighborhood with addictive smoke. Better to bury it.”
“What is there to addict, there in the jungle? Burning is certain, and it will be far too diffuse to have much effect. Certainly we must burn their fields, and destroy their equipment. And their formula.”
“Yes!” Then I thought of something else. “Amalita—is she at your estate?”
“I am not so trusting, Jason,” he said, laughing. “She would kill you or seduce you, perhaps both, simultaneously. I have hidden her away for the duration, elsewhere.”
That was good to know.
CHAPTER 12
PYRAMID
We rode jeeps along small dirt roads to the Honduras border: Pedro, I, and twenty armed men. We crossed the broad boundary river, the Coco, and proceeded on foot into the prairie and swamp of the Mosquita section of the country. The going was rough, advancing into jungle terrain. Quite a contrast to the dry, pinewoods hills and short grasses of Pedro’s region. It reminded me unhappily of Cambodia and my adventures there, before being rescued by the monks. I hoped there were not leeches. But to my grief there were. Plus plenty of black-green giant horseflies with considerable sting, and clouds of jejenes, somewhat like no-see-ems, crawling up the nostrils and other orifices. And at night, mosquitoes. Praise God for Pedro’s repellent.
We had guns but were under orders not to shoot, lest our quarry be alerted. There were wild animals: tapirs, monkeys, deer, snakes of all kinds, a few jaguars. Many multicolored birds: parrots, hummingbirds, vultures, hawks, falcons and ducks and other waterbirds in the rivers. But we stuck to our “C” and “K” rations and our white cheese, salted ham, dried salt codfish and Spanish hard crackers. Even cans of sardines and Vienna sausages. And such wild fruit as we came across, avocados, juicy mangos, guavas, papayas, bananas, plantains, sour oranges, and something called pitayas on vines. We did not go hungry.
