"Be quiet and keep working," he said.
So she laboured. Winston Churchill, he thought, would have been proud of her.
They had breakfasted in bed, and lunched in bed and were on their way toward dinner in bed.
"It was never like this," she said.
"I don't know if it was ever like this or not," he said. "But I doubt it."
"I know now you're not a knife-thrower."
"What am I?" he asked.
She put her face close to his ear and told him.
"Maybe that's just my hobby," he said. "Maybe knife-throwing's my profession."
"Then you're in the wrong trade," she said.
"Can I give your name as a recommendation?" he asked.
"You'll never need one."
"Thank you," he said and put his lips over hers.
Then the door was flung open as if it had not been locked. In the doorway stood a black giant, wearing pantaloons and a vest without a shirt. His muscles dripped muscles. He was six-feet-five and weighed at least 250 pounds. The red fez on his head made him seem even taller; linebackers would have thought twice before tackling him.
He stood in the doorway, a bulging lump of glistening black power, his white eyes shining out of the darkness of his face, looking with disinterest at Remo and Maggie.
Remo rolled on his back and looked at him as Maggie pulled the sheet over her. Then Remo said:
"You made a mistake, pal. You swam ashore too soon. The Empire State Building is 5,000 miles that way." He jerked a thumb toward what he considered to be west. "Call us if you need help fighting off the aircraft attack."
The black stood there impassively, his big white eyes taking in the scene slowly.
The man who thought he was PJ Kenny got out of bed and padded, naked, toward the door to slam it in the big buck's face.
Then the black spoke. "You PJ Kenny?" Remo laughed aloud. The man's voice was high pitched and musical, higher pitched than a woman's. He sounded like a munchkin, a six-foot-five, 250-pound munchkin.
Still laughing, Remo said: "That's me."
"Baron Nemeroff wants you." He spoke precise English but the voice was pure soprano.
"About time," Remo said. Good, he thought. Time to find out just who he was and where he had come from.
He turned toward his closet. Maggie, shamelessly, had gotten up from bed. She walked naked across the floor, without embarrassment, head high, shoulders back, breasts erect. "Let's go, PJ," she said, "we don't want to keep the baron waiting." She had her dress on then, was raising it over her head and then sliding it down her arms, aided by a wiggle that Remo decided was exceptionally sexy. He felt outraged that she might have hid it from him. He wondered if Nemeroff, whoever he was, would mind waiting.
He asked the black.
"The baron wants you now," the black said.
Remo shrugged. "I thought as much." He went to the closet and got out slacks and shirt, and dressed quickly. He wore white tennis shoes without socks, a new European glove-leather type that did not make the feet sweaty. Maggie leaned over the dresser, putting lipstick on. While all this was going on, the black stood motionless in the doorway, like a lawn ornament. He needed a lamp, Remo thought.
"Let's go, PJ," Maggie said cheerily. The black took a step into the room and held up his hand in the traffic policeman's universal gesture for stop. "Not you," he said. "The Baron wants only him."
"But I'm his constant companion," Maggie said. "We go everywhere together."
"Not you."
Remo was listening to the words with only half his mind. The black's upraised arm had bunched his bicep into a huge lump and it glistened bluish in the sunlight coming through the windows. It bit at Remo's mind, that somewhere he had seen just such a giant black arm as that, someplace just recently. But he could not remember where.
A cold stare passed between Maggie and the black. Remo stepped into the chill.
"That's all right, Maggie," he said. "I'll go alone. And I'll get right back to you. I promise."
Remo glanced at his reflection next to Maggie's in the dresser mirror. He looked all right. Except for a small bandage on his temple, there was no sign of his wounding last night. He had no headaches, no pain, no problems—except the biggest one. He didn't know who he was.
Where had he learned to throw a knife like that? And make love like that? Maybe he was an international white slaver? Well, there were worse ways of making a living, he supposed. Baron Nemeroff might be able to straighten it out.
Then Maggie was in his arms, her arms around his neck, kissing him hard, and then nuzzling her face against his neck. She whispered into his ear: "PJ, be careful. Nemeroff's dangerous. I can't tell you anything, but don't let on about your amnesia."
He held her away from him. "Don't worry about a thing," he said, smiling. So she knew more about him than she'd let on. Okay, he'd get that out of her when he came back. In the meantime, it was on to Baron Nemeroff.
"Let's go, son of Kong," he said, brushing past the black and out into the hallways.
The black did not move and in the hallway Remo turned to see what was delaying him. He saw the huge man place a big hand against Maggie's chest and push her backwards onto the bed, then stand there looking at her. Even from the side, Remo could see the smile that lit the black's face. It was a smile of evil hatred, not of lust but of something stronger than lust. Maggie lay on the bed, a look of fright on her face. The black stepped toward her. He put his hand on the wooden post at the end of the bed and made as if to climb over it onto the bed after her. Then a knife whizzed into the wood of the bed post, between his fingers. It stuck there quivering. The black froze, and then turned to the doorway.
Remo's arm was just returning to his side. "The next time, Rastus," he said, coldly, "it'll be in your throat."
The black's saucer eyes glared at Remo. For a moment, he seemed on the verge of charging, then he dropped his hands quietly to his sides and walked past Remo out into the hall, striding purposefully toward the elevators.
As Remo closed the door, he told Maggie: "Call the desk and get this door lock fixed. There may be more of these things around," he said, jerking his head in the direction of the black escort.
Then he turned and followed him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"Listen, Ali Baba. If you ever want to come to the states, you can make a fortune as a cab driver. Imagine. A cab driver who doesn't talk."
"And with that costume you could get all the gay trade, running to their latest liberation rally so they can squeak at each other. Man, I'll tell you. You'd be a winner."
Having divested himself of that opinion, the man who thought he was PJ Kenny leaned back in the passenger's seat in the Mercedes Benz limousine, enjoying the scenery.
The black had not spoken since they had left Remo's room in the Stonewall Hotel. Remo had kept up a stream of chatter. He knew he had some reason to dislike the black; he just didn't know what it was. He knew he disliked him even more after he manhandled Maggie. That was one Remo owed him. Was PJ Kenny a vindictive man? The man who thought he was PJ Kenny hoped so.
Algiers is a long, busy city, stretching from hills on the left to hills on the right. The Stonewall Hotel was located on the city's main street, the Rue Michelet, which undergoes two name changes as it winds its way up to the hills on the eastern end of the city. The streets were lined with dwarf evergreens and were spotlessly clean. But they were still all roads leading from nowhere to nowhere. Maybe PJ Kenny was a poet.
They were moving now toward the crests of the hills, and then the black turned off the main paved road, onto a dirt road, and up ahead, atop a hill that looked down over Algiers, Remo could see a massive castle, white against the white sky, its windows massive cut-outs in stone. A touch of Transylvania, Remo thought.