I went in and found myself in a hall that had a floor of random width pine planking that was polished to high gleam. There were a few paintings on the wall, a couple of pieces of good furniture that someone with money and taste might place in a hall, and some stairs. Mr. Ulado headed for the stairs. I followed him.
“This house,” he said, “belongs to an American friend of Mr. Mbwato’s who sympathizes with our cause. He and his wife are on holiday in Europe this summer and he has let us use his house as our Washington headquarters. It’s a most convenient location, don’t you think?”
I told him that I thought it was fine.
The carpeting on the stairs ran out on the third flight. The remodeling apparently had not risen above the second floor. There was a small landing and a door at the top of the third flight. Mr. Ulado pushed the door open and then stood to one side to let me enter. I went in and found myself in a large room that was illuminated by a single, naked bulb that hung by a cord from a fixture in the ceiling. Underneath the bulb were two straight wooden chairs and in the chairs, their backs to me, were a man and a woman. Their hands were tied to the backs of the chairs with what looked to be clothesline. Mbwato, down to shirt sleeves, stood in front of the man and the woman, staring at them as he rocked back and forth a little on his toes, his hands on his hips. He looked up when I came in.
“Mr. St. Ives, how nice,” he said, and managed to make it sound as if I were the late but honored guest at the Embassy reception. “You made good time.”
“I had an incentive,” I said. “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth.”
“Oh, yes, the money.” He looked around the room vaguely. “It’s over there, I believe,” and he pointed to the left side of the room. The suitcase sat under a window, casually, as if someone who had just come back from a trip had placed it there because he wanted to rest a moment before unpacking.
“Thank you,” I said. It was without doubt the most inadequate phrase I’d ever uttered.
Mbwato waved a huge hand, dismissing my thanks. “Think nothing of it. Come meet our two thieves. My word, but they’re being most uncooperative.”
I walked over to Mbwato, stood at his side, and looked down at the pair. The man was about thirty, I guessed, black-haired with long sideburns. He wore a navy turtleneck shirt with long sleeves, black slacks, and black shoes. He stared up at me with hazel eyes that had an oriental cast to them, made even more pronounced by his high cheekbones. Thin, almost colorless lips made a line underneath a sharply pointed nose. There was nothing in his face that I could see other than a kind of animal awareness that can be found in a hustling shoe clerk or a crafty checker-outer at a supermarket.
The woman, or girl, I suppose, was not much over twenty-two, if that. She wore dark slacks and a turtleneck shirt that matched her friend’s. Her hair was long and straight and either brown or blond, depending on which streak you looked at. Blue eyes, an ordinary nose, and a sullen mouth did nothing to set her off from the run-of-the-mill, the not pretty, not plain girls for whom the word average was invented.
“This,” Mbwato said, indicating the man, “is Jack. And this is Jill. That’s all they’ve told us thus far, but I’m sure they’ll become more cooperative as time passes.”
“How’d you get them?” I said.
Ulado was bending behind the man, making sure that the knots were tight, I suppose. When he was satisfied, he checked the girl’s ropes and then stood behind them, his arms folded over his chest.
“You seldom look behind you, do you, Mr. St. Ives?” Mbwato said.
“No, I suppose I don’t.”
“We’ve kept you under constant surveillance for the past several days — up until today, in fact. One of my associates followed you into the Nickerson Building where the man Spellacy was murdered.”
“He didn’t go up the elevator with me.”
“No, he didn’t. He watched you as you read the building directory. Then he watched what floors the elevator stopped at. You were reading the M’s and the elevator stopped on the sixth and eleventh floors. The only listing for a firm beginning with M on the sixth and eleventh floors was Mesa Verde Estates. When you came down, another of my associates picked you up and the other man rode up to the eleventh floor, popped his head into Mesa Verde Estates, and saw that Mr. Spellacy was quite dead.”
“Just how many associates do you have?” I said.
Mbwato turned on his glow-in-the-dark smile. “Oh, a dozen, I think, here and in New York. Most of them are students.”
“What about them?” I said, indicating the man and the girl.
“Quite by accident, I’m afraid. We were on the train that you took down from New York, in a coach, regrettably. Most uncomfortable. We followed you to the Madison and were waiting in the lobby. At least, Mr. Ulado was. He recognized the New York detective when he came in because he had already called on you at your New York hotel twice. So naturally Mr. Ulado kept his eyes on him. Our young couple here suddenly materialized in the lobby — I suppose we all took the train down from New York — and proceeded to stab Mr. Ogden, I believe his name was. So Mr. Ulado, displaying sound judgment, I should add, followed our young couple, still hoping that they would lead us to the shield. We kept them under observation all day, and followed them this evening. When they parked their car tonight at the far edge of the driving range we simply waited. When they came back, rather hurriedly, carrying the suitcase, we decided it was time to take matters in hand. And here we are.”
“And they’ve said nothing?”
“Not yet,” Mbwato said. “But our methods have been most gentle.” He sighed. “I’m really disturbed that we may be forced to turn to more persuasive means.”
“Such as?”
“Torture, Mr. St. Ives,” he said. “The West African variety, which is, I should add for the benefit of our young friends here, most excruciating. Mr. Ulado is an expert, aren’t you, Mr. Ulado?”
Mr. Ulado smiled faintly and managed to look a little embarrassed.
“Why don’t you just turn them over to the police?” I said.
“The shield, Mr. St. Ives, you forget the shield. We intend to obtain it from wherever it now is.”
I moved over to the man. “Your name’s Jack, right?”
He said nothing, but only stared at me with his hazel eyes that seemed curiously empty, containing no fear or alarm or even regret.
“I think you’d better tell the man where the shield is, Jack.”
He looked at me some more and then, quite conversationally, said, “Fuck you.”
I nodded and moved over to the girl. “The man is really serious,” I said. “About the torture, I mean. You’d better tell him.”
Her blue eyes were empty of thought and probably of emotion, except the lustier ones like rage and hate. She smiled a little, repeated what her friend had said, and then giggled. I had heard that giggle before.
I turned to Mbwato. “They’re all yours. What do you have in mind?”
Mbwato sighed. “It’s really not my field, you know. I suppose we should ask Mr. Ulado. Would you care to describe your methods to our guests, Mr. Ulado?”
“Certainly,” he said, walked over to the window ledge, and picked up a package about twelve inches long. He then walked back and stood before the pair. “Unfortunately, we do not have all the equipment that is normally used in such instances, so we have been forced to improvise. The American drugstore is full of items that are most satisfactory substitutes. This one for instance,” he said, and indicated the box. “It contains what is called a curling iron. Operating on electricity, it becomes extremely hot. And when inserted into a man’s rectum or a woman’s vagina, it should produce considerable pain as I will shortly demonstrate.”