The man he knew as Remo Rubble smiled and took a long step closer, smiling as he said, "Howard, I think we need to have a little chat."
"Of course," the worried-looking travel agent said. "Sit down, by all means. Where's the missus, then? What brings you back to Puerta Plata?"
"Just a hunch," said Remo, closing on the cluttered desk with easy strides.
"A hunch?" Morgan repeated. "As regards to what, if I may be so bold?"
"Your pirate buddies," Remo said. "I'm betting you can tell me where they spend their time when they're not looting pleasure craft."
"Pirates?" There was a hitch in Morgan's voice, a subtle paling underneath his tan, but he recovered quickly for a man with no experience of rough interrogations. Or perhaps it was the ignorance of what was coming that allowed him to preserve the calm facade. "I'm sure I don't-"
His first kick drove the desk back, scraping furrows in the vinyl, slamming into Morgan's thighs and pinning the travel agent with his hips against a waist-high counter, where his flailing arm upset the coffee urn.
"God's truth!" Morgan wailed, shoving at the desk with both hands, getting nowhere. Remo had it pinned against him with one foot. The travel agent would need far more power than he had to budge the desk. For emphasis, Remo gave the desk another nudge, the hard edge digging into Morgan's groin and thighs. A wordless squawk of pain escaped his lips, as they were drawn back from tobacco-yellowed teeth.
"Hold on a moment now! You've got this wrong, I tell you! I don't-"
Remo stepped back from the desk, as if considering the papers strewed across its top. Morgan prepared to take advantage of the respite, breaking off the lie he was about to tell and shoving at the desk with both hands to release himself.
Before he found the strength to move it, though, Remo bent forward and one hand slapped the desktop. The desk acted as if an ax crashed into it. A fissure opened in the wooden desktop, front to back, and Remo had resumed his easy stance before the shattered desk collapsed into a V-shaped ruin, pinning Morgan's feet and spilling papers all around his legs.
"God rot it!" Morgan blurted out, and lost his balance, toppling forward, sprawled across the desk to lie at Remo's feet.
Remo bent down to grab a handful of the travel agent's hair and hoist him upright, holding him so that his toes were barely grazing vinyl. Morgan was surprised by his new altitude, in evident discomfort from his thighs and groin, his feet, and now the pain that lanced his scalp.
"You're obviously quite upset," said Morgan. "I assure you, even so-"
"I'm running out of furniture to break," Remo warned. "If you plan on lying to me any more, you take your chances."
"Surely you don't mean-"
A twist of Remo's hand, and Morgan plummeted to strike the hard floor on his knees. The pain of impact was nothing to the burning of his scalp, however, where a fist-sized clump of hair had given way to raw, red flesh. The missing hair cascaded past his face, as Remo's fingers opened to release it.
"Looks a little thin on top," said Remo. "You should try some Rogaine."
"Jesus 'aitch!" the travel agent swore. "If you'd but let me speak a moment without smashing furniture or ripping out me hair, there may be something I can tell you."
"I've been counting on it," Remo said.
"You mentioned pirates, now," the travel agent muttered, struggling painfully to gain his feet. "Historically, this area-"
Remo grabbed the man by an earlobe. Howard Morgan never would have thought the most sensitive part of his body was his earlobe, so he got a real education in the next few seconds. The pain was excruciating, and it flooded his body from ear to toes.
He was mute with agony, although his mouth opened and closed, tears streamed down his face and his eyeballs rolled up into his head. He began to stutter finally, then a long low howl began to build up as the pain, impossibly, got worse.
Then, as if the heavens had opened up, the pain was gone.
But Mr. Remo Rubble still held on to the earlobe. Morgan's education continued.
"That was pain. This is no pain," Remo said, then tightened his fingers on the earlobe to an almost imperceptible degree. "You choose."
"No pain! Please, no pain!"
"If I want history," Remo said, "I'll stop by the library. The pirates I'm concerned with are alive and well right now, and one of them's your good friend Pablo Altamira."
"Pablo?" Morgan feigned amazement, lowering the red hand from his face. "He had the best of references. I would have trusted that boy with my life."
"Changed your mind, I see," Remo noted with a nod.
The first time he had given Morgan a full five seconds of the pain thing. But he was annoyed by this whole situation. Annoyed by people who dressed and talked like pirates. Annoyed by tiger sharks. Annoyed by Master Chiun the Moody. Annoyed by Stacy Armitage, because she was making him worry about her.
He gave Morgan ten seconds, and Morgan was blubbering and jerking involuntarily.
He gave Morgan ten more seconds, and Morgan was virtually unconscious from the pain.
"I guess at this moment," Remo said when he stopped, "I'm annoyed by you most of all." Morgan was different now. Not just different temporarily, but altered mentally. He had snapped and broken, and he was never going to get put together again. But he wasn't insane. Remo had stopped just in time.
"Talk," Remo said.
Morgan looked at Remo and did not see death. Death would have been preferable to the mind-expanding suffering he had just endured. He tried to speak and ended up baaing like a sheep.
Remo pinched him on the neck, and Morgan's bodily weakness seemed to recede.
"At your service," Morgan mewed.
"You book tours," said Remo, hoping to save time if he began the tale for Morgan. "Some of them include crewmen like Pablo-or Enrique. You remember him, don't you? He shipped out with Richard and Kelly Armitage, about a month ago. The man's dead, Morgan, but the woman made it out. You hear me? She can testify to your part in the scheme. How do they punish an accessory to piracy and murder here in the Dominican Republic?" Morgan wasn't afraid of the law. Nothing the Dominican jail could dish out would be as bad as the Earlobe Pinch of Remo Rubble.
"So, tell me about Captain Teach."
The travel agent's face went blank. "God's truth," he said, "I've never heard of him. I do all my communicatin' with a local jobber, and he sets up the contacts. He's an odd bird, too, I'll tell you that, and no mistake."
"His name?"
"Calls himself Ethan Humphrey. Old man, he is, got pirates on the brain. He runs an outfit here in town. The Cutlass Foundation, it's called. Some sort of research outfit, as he claims, but I'm not buyin' it."
"How often do you speak with him?" asked Remo.
"Maybe two or three times in a month," Morgan replies. "It all depends on prospects, see? Humphrey wants folks with money. Women, too, if it's convenient, but he don't want kids along if I can help it. Some of those want crewmen, like you did, sir. Others, I just point 'em where they want to go and get sufficient information for old Humphrey's playmates to identify 'em after, see?"
"It's clear," said Remo. "What about the crewmen you hire out?"
"They come around the day I need 'em," Morgan said, "with Humphrey's password. Never seen the same one twice."
"And you don't know the pirates? You can't tell me where they go to count their loot?"
"My honor, sir."
"In that case," Remo said, smiling, "I don't believe I need you anymore."
Morgan's face twitched. "No more earlobe, I beg of you, kind sir!"
Remo shook his head. "No more earlobe. I promise."
ETHAN HUMPHREY'S POWERBOAT had been christened the Mulligan Stew when he purchased it in 1990, and he had never taken time to change the name. It was inconsequential to him, like the color of the paint inside the master cabin. Humphrey cared no more about the vessel's name-or style, for that matter-than he did about the daily weather in Honduras, say, or the cost of bootleg videotapes in Beijing. What mattered was the fact that the Mulligan Stew was seaworthy, capable of taking Humphrey where he had to go, among the islands that were home.