He walked the fifteen blocks. The longer he had to forget the quagmire that was the brain of Darcy Devoe, the better. The streets surrounding the Excelsior were teeming with traffic, and the sidewalks jammed with shoppers and out-of-work drifters. Prostitutes in their short dresses and skin-tight pants were already lining up alongside the buildings for the evening's trade.
Next door to the hotel, a large building was under construction, and the blasts from the riveters and machinery were already giving Smith a headache. No doubt, he thought drily, his room would be on the side of the hotel next to the construction. It was the law of the city: Whatever had to be done would be carried out in the most noisy, obstructive, wasteful, and complicated manner possible. He longed to be back in upstate New York, with its small-town order, its cleanliness, its livable space.
A roar from the construction startled him out of his reverie. He was jostled by a crowd of chattering middle-aged ladies loaded down with packages and enormous handbags, followed by a gang of ghetto toughs engaged in a battle of dueling radios.
Donnelly, you ass, he thought wearily. He chastised himself for his impulsiveness in coming to Washington. He could have accomplished twice as much back at Folcroft at the controls of the computers.
Then, amid the din and scuffle, no more than fifty feet from the main entrance to the hotel, he felt a pain in his side so terrible that he felt his knees buckling.
Heart attack? Was it his heart? Sudden appendicitis? Had he been mugged? He couldn't tell. All he could hear were the pneumatic drills on the building next door and the strains of "Boogie All Night" from a passing radio.
"Oh... my," he said, more surprised than hurt. Somebody shoved him and called him a drunk.
Smith's hand went to his side, where the throbbing pain was sending waves of numbness toward his arms and legs. Hot wetness oozed between his fingers. He pulled his hand away, slowly, so slowly it seemed. Bright droplets of blood fell from it onto the sidewalk in a zigzag pattern.
"Shot," he whispered, sinking to the sidewalk.
With the images of the city blurring into pale, formless colors, he felt the faraway sensation of a gloved hand clasping the handle of his attaché case. He turned his head slowly. The glove was gray.
With no effort, the hand inside the glove released Smith's fingers from the handle of the case and slowly moved away with it. Beneath him was a spreading pool of blood. Smith felt his flesh fall into the sticky fluid. He could smell it, faintly metallic, his life. A woman screamed.
Smith's lips formed one word, "CURE," that no one heard. A passing radio announced the weather.
?Chapter Nine
The pilot of the DC-3 was a man in his fifties with the lined, haggard face of the professional pilot and semipro boozer. Not a doper, Remo was certain. Probably in it for the money.
The other man on the crew was thin and wiry, with a suspicious, weaselly look about him. Small-time hood, Remo guessed.
"I'm Gomez's replacement," Remo said, getting into the cockpit. No one seemed to care much who he was. The weaselly man nodded.
"You got the money?"
"Ten thousand," Remo said.
"Half of it's for us."
Remo didn't argue. He counted out the bills as the captain revved up the engines. The weaselly man snatched the money and recounted it. No one spoke until they were over the Gulf of Honduras.
"We'll be in Colombia in under an hour," the thin man said, pulling out a flask and drinking deeply. The fumes from his breath instantly filled the cabin. "Flying always makes me jumpy." He took another drink. "What's your name?"
"Remo."
The man drank again. The alcohol seemed to loosen him up to a kind of seedy conviviality. "This is Thompson," he said, indicating the pilot. "He got kicked out of the airlines for hitting the sauce." He cackled cruelly, poking the pilot in the ribs. "Hey, Thompson, want a snort?"
"Get away from me," the pilot growled. His eyes remained fixed ahead, out the window and on his instruments, as if he didn't want to soil them by looking at his partner.
"Thompson don't like this business."
"I don't know your business," the pilot snapped, "and I don't want to."
The thin man gave a little snort and lit a cigarette. He tossed the used match onto the pilot's lap. "Miss them fat paychecks and all the juicy stewies, dontcha?"
The pilot picked up the match and threw it to the floor.
"Who are you?" Remo asked, trying to break the tension.
"I ask the questions around here," the weaselly man said, turning around in his seat so violently that the whiskey inside his flask sloshed over the seat.
"Suit yourself."
The answer seemed satisfactory. "Belloc," the thin man grunted. "My name's Belloc. Mr. Belloc to you." He took another drink. "Scared, ain't you?"
"Not really," Remo said.
"Hey, big brave pretty boy." Belloc's eyes appraised Remo the way old-timers in prison, the ones who've sliced up enough inmates to rate an extra carton of smokes a week, looked at new meat. Ex-con, Remo was sure of it. And not enough going for him upstairs to mastermind any plan involving a plane and an unwilling pilot.
"It took a lot of brains to figure out that the heroin was in the coffee," Remo said, feeling Belloc out. "You must be a pretty smart guy to know the coffee would be recalled."
Belloc smiled.
"Smuggling's the only way to make any real money these days," Remo said breezily.
Belloc's smile broke into a derisive laugh. The ash on his cigarette rolled down the front of his shirt. "Bullshit," he said. He pointed at Remo. "That's what you are, pure bullshit. You never done a dope run in your life. You ain't the type." He took a long swallow that dribbled onto his chin. "Just like she said—"
"Shut up," Thompson said.
Belloc sucked on his flask gloomily.
"She?"
"Shaddup," Belloc said, shoving Remo back in the rear seat.
"You said she."
Belloc's face twisted into a lopsided grin. "Hey, baby, you got it wrong. What I said was shut up." He produced a revolver from beneath his seat and pointed it straight at Remo's face.
"Get rid of that, Belloc," the pilot said.
"Aw, dry up. What difference does it make, anyhow? You," he commanded Remo, jutting the gun's barrel forward. "Give over the other five thousand."
"I thought this money was to bribe some kind of Colombian official when we landed."
Belloc chuckled. "Well, I guess you're going to have to think of another way to bribe him, won't you?"
Remo looked out the window. It didn't matter to him if he kept the money or not. What did matter was if the psychopath in front of him discharged a revolver in a small plane at high altitude. He handed over the money. He would get the gun away from Belloc later, when they were nearer to Peruvina. What mattered now was a smooth flight and a quick one.
"That's better," Belloc said, taking the cash. "Nice and cooperative. That's how we like our passengers." He took another drink. Drops of sweat formed on his upper lip. "How much longer?" he asked Thompson.
The pilot didn't answer.
Belloc shifted the barrel of the gun violently to Thompson's head. "I said, how much longer?"
"Get that away from me," the pilot said coldly. "You can't fly this plane."
"Neither can you, if you're dead."
"Crazy son of a bitch," Thompson whispered. "There's Peruvina." He pointed to a green area beyond some trees. "I've already started the descent."
A huge outcropping of rock towered above the greenery. On the very top of the rock rested a palatial hacienda. Beside the sprawling residence squatted a large, opaque white dome.