Remo followed the long corridor leading into the interior of the house. The place seemed empty. He saw room after room of magnificent tapestries, priceless collections of English and Chinese porcelains, ancient scrolls glittering with gold leaf painted by the Japanese masters of the eleventh century. Peruvina was a far cry from Amfat Hassam's gaudy finery. Whoever owned the plantation evidently was accustomed to wealth.
The corridor led him into a dimly lit room redolent of old leather. The walls were lined with first-edition volumes and scholarly works in both Spanish and English.
Who lived here? Remo wondered as his hand brushed against the polished, rust-colored wood of an enormous Cuban mahogany desk. His footfalls were silent on the deep gray carpet. Who was the master of Peruvina?
"You are looking for someone, señor?" a woman's throaty voice whispered from the doorway. In the deep silence, it sounded to Remo like the din of cannon. He caught his breath.
She was beautiful, one of those women you only see in ads for liquor. Five-foot-seven or so, every inch of it perfect, with thick curly black hair and green-blue eyes that got hotter as she narrowed them. Beneath the eyes there was a nose straight and aristocratic enough to have been the masterpiece of some Latin plastic surgeon, but somehow Remo didn't think so. There was something in the ripe mouth, in the carriage of her breasts, that suggested she'd never been less than perfect, and knew it.
In her manicured hands was a pistol, a chrome and mother of pearl Rohm RG-7 .22 caliber.
"If I were you, I'd get a better gun," Remo said.
"Oh, jes?" She fired. Straight into the Shakespeare first folio Remo had been standing in front of.
"Jes indeed," Remo said.
She smiled. "You are a man of humor, señor. I like that," she said. "Although you are very quick. I do not know if I like that so much in a man." Watching Remo, she slowly laid down the weapon on a small table. She folded her arms across her chest and caressed herself languidly. The movement made her breasts swell over the low neckline of her dress.
"I am Esmeralda," she said in a way that made Remo's mouth feel as though he hadn't swallowed in days. "Why are you here?"
He tried to clear his head. She was wearing perfume. Or something. Spanish Fly, maybe, Remo thought stupidly. Digitalis. Something that made standing seem like the wrong position for them both to be in.
"I want to see the owner of this place."
The impossibly rich mouth curved more deeply. "Well?" She spread her arms. "How much more do you wish to see?"
"You run Peruvina?"
"You expected maybe Juan Valdez?"
He looked at the splendor around them. "Alone?"
"This was my father's house before he died," she said. "Peruvina has belonged to my family for centuries. But I am its last descendant."
She. Belloc had taken orders from a woman. But hell, Remo thought as Esmeralda shimmied out of the loose garment she was wearing, did it have to be this woman?
"The beans," he said, averting his eyes. It was difficult. Her breasts were high and full, the nipples erect. The skin of her belly was taut and tan, and the place above her long legs glistened with anticipation.
"There's a drug in the coffee beans that comes from Peruvina and nowhere else. It's heroin. I want to know how you get it into the coffee."
She moved closer to him. With each slow step her flanks rippled like a leopard's. He had never seen any woman so unself-conscious about her nakedness.
"When I tell you— and I will," she purred, "you will understand many things." She nuzzled his ear. "Perhaps you will be angry. Perhaps only indifferent. You will tell your government, whomever you work for, or else you will steal the secret of the beans for your own profit. I do not know which." She ran her soothing, hypnotic hands through his hair and down his back as she continued to tease him softly with her words. "What I do know is that things will be forever changed between us. We will no longer be strangers. The fire here, in our bodies, will be cooler, because we will have spoken too much. It will be like the marriage, yes? With friendship but not the magic of first love."
She pulled off his shirt and rubbed herself on him like a cat. Hot, she was. Silky. Unknown. Dangerous. "Let us enjoy each other once, when the magic is strong."
It was wrong. Remo knew that. There was a dying man in a grove of trees outside, Remo was on assignment, and Esmeralda had probably ordered the deaths of nearly a score of people, including his own. Dead wrong. All of his discipline fought against it.
And lost. They sank together to the plush carpet. The fire inside them both burnt into incandescent, uncontrollable flame. Her mouth opened for him.
A door slammed, bringing Esmeralda gasping to attention, followed by the sound of heavy footfalls.
"Caramba, my husband," she squeaked.
"Come on," Remo grumbled. "This is like a rotten movie." He struggled into his clothes. "You said you were alone," he complained.
"No," she whispered excitedly. "I said I was the last descendant of my family. My husband, he is of another family."
"Terrific," Remo said. "Fine time for a semantics lesson."
"He'll kill you."
"Probably." Remo staggered out of the library and down the hall.
In the foyer stood a hairy ape of a man with fists like steam rollers and hatred in his eyes. He reminded Remo of a Latin version of the Incredible Hulk. One that wasn't going to turn into a skinny movie actor before his eyes.
"What do you do with Mrs.?" he bellowed.
"Nothing," Remo said mildly. "She's just fine, Mr.—"
"Why you spy on our beans?"
"Actually, I'd like to talk with you about that. You see—"
"You talk sheet, meester."
"About those beans—"
"I keel for beans!" he roared as he lunged at Remo.
"And less," Remo said. He dodged a blow that sent a Ming vase crashing to the floor.
Remo stalled for time, ducking, sliding out of the big man's way for two reasons. One, he hadn't known that Esmeralda had a husband. If the lunk smashing a path toward Remo was the real master of Peruvina, he was the one Remo had to talk to. And second, coitus interruptus didn't make for great fighting spirit. At the very least, his uncomfortable condition would affect his balance. Or his breathing. Or his timing. A mistake in any of those areas could be lethal.
It was. The big man came for him again, and Remo deflected the blow. Too hard. He knew it as soon as his arm began its first downward thrust in the spiral designed to repel the attacker. No control. He didn't know whether it had been his balance or his breathing or his timing that had been off, but as soon as he saw the bulky body of the man jerk from the floor, Remo knew it was all over. The man's head struck the wall too fast, too hard. He heard the crack of bone, the harsh rattle in the man's throat, saw the red stripe of blood slide down the wall behind the man's crushed skull.
"So much for not killing," Remo mumbled as he stared, disgusted, at the body. Smith was going to love this. On top of everybody else who'd been dropping dead since this godforsaken assignment began, he'd just silenced the perpetrator of the biggest drug scam in history without finding out how it had been done. Wonderful.
Behind him Esmeralda shrieked in a torrent of Spanish.
"I'm sorry," Remo said flatly. "I didn't mean to kill your husband, but no hysterics, all right? I can't handle it just now."
She burst into laughter. He turned toward her, incredulous. "But... but this is not my husband," she said between fits of hilarity. "It is only Manuel, the head field boss. He must have seen you coming and followed you here."
He stared hard at her. "He's still dead," Remo observed. "You've got a hell of a sense of humor."