I was laughing my head off, but she only smiled coldly and kept right on with her excruciating ministrations.
“Who betrayed our Manila agent?” Domino wanted to know. “Why did you go to Manila? What led you from there to Malta?” she persisted. “How much have you learned about S.M.U.T.? Who is the informer?”
My laughter was no more than a feeble wheeze now. I hadn’t the strength left to produce any more sound than that. And it felt as if quite soon I wouldn’t even have the breath left for that. I was facing the fact that it might really be possible for me to be tickled to death.
“Talk, Mr. Victor! Tell me every—-”
Domino was interrupted by the door to the room opening and closing. The middle-aged woman strode up to her and stayed her hand. The torture of the tickling stopped, and I felt only a strong steady itch in the blessed hiatus. I managed to focus an upside-down view of the two of them talking, and since they made no attempt to keep me from hearing, I was privy to their conversation.
“I’ve just been in contact with Manila,” the older woman said. “There’s been a mistake. We’ve been taken in.”
“What do you mean, Madam Renado?” Domino asked.
“This man is not Steve Victor. He is an impostor,”
Madam Renado told her. “He has probably been sent to Malta for the express purpose of duping us. Steve Victor is still in Manila.”
“But Why—? ”
“We don’t know why. It’s up to you to find out, Domino. And if your technique doesn’t work, then we’ll have to take stronger measures.”
“I don’t see how he can hold out much longer,” Domino assured her.
I echoed that to myself. Even if my body held up under further feather-torture, I couldn’t be sure that my mind would. The prolonged laughter already had me feeling on the verge of hysteria.
“Then you may resume,” Madam Renado told Domino, and once again she left us alone.
She flicked the feather just once more before I hollered uncle. “No more!” I pleaded. “I can’t stand any more. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Only don’t do it again. Don’t tickle me again.”
“Very well.” Domino knelt to untie me.
I straightened, and it was good to see everything right side up again. Not so good was the main view which consisted of a very large revolver clutched in Domino’s hand and pointed squarely at the left ventricle of my heart. It took my mind off her magnificiently naked and heaving bosom.
“Sit down,” she ordered, motioning to the edge of the bed. I sat down, and she removed the bidet from the chair and sat opposite me. “Now talk,” she said.
“What is it that you want to know? ”
“If you’re not Steve Victor, then who are you?”
For a moment I almost blurted out a protest that I was Steve Victor. But she wouldn’t have believed it, and that way lay only further tickling torture. I decided to improvise. “My name is Boris Karenkov,” I told her.
“Karenkov? Russian! Then you are a Russian agent! But then how is it that you were sent here by the Americans and that you are working with a British agent?”
“I’m a counter-agent,” I elaborated. “I infiltrated the American espionage service.”
“So?” Domino mused. “That explains a lot. But,” she added suspiciously, “how could you convince them that you were Steve Victor when they know very well that Steve Victor is in Manila?”
“I didn’t convince them. They know I’m not Steve Victor. It was the American and British plan to send me to Malta to impersonate Steve Victor to throw S.M.U.T. off the track.”
“I understand that. What I don’t understand is the Russian involvement.”
I pressed my lips together, putting up a pretense of remaining stubbornly mute in the face of being asked to betray a basic allegiance. Domino shifted the gun to her left hand and picked up the feather again. I let my eyes grow very large and trembled a bit to show I was intimidated by the silent threat.
“Now what is your mission for the Russians?” she asked.
My mind raced as I formulated the answer. “To expose S.M.U.T. to the world in such a way as to make it look like a combined plot of the American and British governments,” I told her.
“Aha!” Domino exclaimed.
“Aha!” It was a masculine echo, a familiar voice.
My eyes shot up to the windowsill. Lagula was perched there. He looked quite cool and at ease in an immaculately pressed white linen suit and stylish straw hat. The fingers of one hand were strumming a blowpipe at his lips. I knew from experience that the poisoned dart in the blowpipe could kill on contact.
“Drop the gun!” he told Domino before she had a chance to whirl around.
She did as she was told, her face registering her frustration at having the interrogation cut short just when she was getting what she thought it was she was after from me. I gave her my best "that’s-the-way-the-fortune-cookie-crumbles” shrug and reached for the gun she’d laid down on the bed.
“Keep your hands where they are!” Lagula ordered. My jaw dropped open and I stared at him, not understanding. “Lagula,” I started to say. “You don’t think that -”
“That’s exactly what I think -- comrade,” he added sarcastically.
“Are you nuts? Lagula, this is me, Steve, Steve Victor, your old cloak-and-dagger buddy. Remember?”
“I remember, Comrade Karenkov. And I congratulate the NKVD on how well they’re briefed you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! I just told her that story so she’d stop tickling me. I made it up as I went along. There’s no truth to it. I really am Steve Victor. You know I’m Steve Victor. For Pete’s sake, my face, my voice--”
“It is fantastic,” Lagula granted. “You could be twin brothers. But Steve Victor is in Manila. And you admitted being a Russian agent named Boris Karenkov. Fortunately, Central Intelligence alerted me to the impersonation this afternoon.”
“What impersonation? What are you talking about?”
“They’re onto you, Karenkov. They know there’s an agent impersonating Steve Victor. They thought it was the man in Manila, but they weren’t sure. They can be sure now, though. The real Steve Victor is in Manila. And you almost succeeded in taking his place in London and carrying through the deception in Malta. I have to admit you had me fooled, Karenkov.”
“But I’m not Karenkov! I am Steve Victor!”
“Really?” My Pigmy friend gave me an “aw-come-on-now!” look. “Then how do you explain your presence here?”
“My presence where? I don’t even know where I am! I thought I just stopped at an ordinary farm. I had no idea this place had anything to do with S.M.U.T.”
“I may be small, but my brain isn’t shrunken, Karenkov. Do you seriously expect me to believe that you just stumbled onto this place? Outside of the S.M.U.T. people, I’m the only one who knew of the connection between this brothel and their organization. I didn’t tell you, so how did you find it? There’s only one answer. Russian Intelligence must have been tailing me these past few days, and they passed on what they learned to you. It’s the only explanation. Unless you’d like me to believe you came here to relieve your libido.”
“I didn’t even know it was a brothel until you mentioned it,” I protested.
“And you expect me to believe you’re Steve Victor? The man from O.R.G.Y.? The world’s foremost authority on cat houses? You expect me to believe that Steve Victor wouldn’t recognize a bawdy house with his pants off and a half-naked prostitute by his side? Don’t tell me you thought she was an innocent farm girl who just happened to find you irresistible?”