Dr. Death (8 page)

Later, when we took a cab to the casino of the Caribe Hilton, I consoled myself with losing a couple of hundred dollars of AXE's money on the roulette wheel, which is what Thomas C. Dobbs would undoubtedly have done. What Nick Carter would have done would have been to play at the Blackjack table and win. Not a gigantic sum, but, with the Carter system, a few thousand for the sport of it.

Which is what Michelle did.

"How
much?" I demanded, going back to the hotel in the taxi.

"Fourteen hundred. Actually, it was fifteen, but I gave the dealer a hundred-dollar chip as a tip."

"But I only gave you fifty dollars to play with!"

"Of course," she said cheerfully, "but that's all I need. You see, I have this system…"

"All right, all right," I said gloomily. There were times when being Thomas C. Dobbs was a distinct pain in the posterior.

But there were also times, I reflected back at our suite in the San Geronimo as I watched Michelle emerge nude from the bathroom, when changing back to Nick Carter had its disadvantages too.

And it was time to change back to Nick Carter.

I turned up the television to cover our voices if the room were bugged, and drew Michelle closer to it.

"It's time for business," I said, trying hard to keep my eyes above her neck. "I should be back in four or five hours, at least before morning. In the meantime, stay in the room with the door locked, and don't let anybody in, for any reason. You know what to do if I don't get back by morning."

She nodded. We'd discussed all that before leaving Washington. We'd also discussed the question of whether she should have a gun. She'd never fired a gun of any kind. Therefore, she didn't get a gun. It would have done her no good, in any case, and I don't believe in giving guns to people who don't know how — and when — to use them. What she did get was an imitation diamond ring. The diamond was harmless. Its setting had four prongs which, when the band was pressed, extended just beyond the diamond. If anyone of those prongs punctured the skin of an enemy, the result was an instantly unconscious enemy. The trouble was, the enemy had to get close enough for Michelle to use the ring. I hoped she wouldn't have to use it.

I told her so, then resisted the temptation to emphasize my meaning with a long kiss, and left.

I went out the hotel by, as they say in the movies, "the back way." Except that going out
any
hotel by "the back way" isn't all that easy. First, you have to
find
the back way. In this case, it turned out to be in the front, and consisted of a narrow flight of fire stairs. Since our suite was on the fourteenth floor, and nobody in his right mind would have walked down fourteen flights, I walked down fourteen flights. Then, grateful for my gym sessions with Walt Hornsbee, the AXE fitness instructor, I walked down two more flights to the subbasement. There I had to conceal myself behind the stairway until two dungaree-clad hotel employees, telling dirty jokes in Spanish, carried out several dozen garbage cans. When they disappeared upstairs, I let myself out into the street. It was a side street, little more than an alley off the Condado strip. And Gonzalez, sitting behind the wheel of a modest, nondescript, red Toyota, was parked no more than fifty feet away. There was no one else in sight as I climbed into the passenger seat beside him.

"Welcome to the best taxi service on the island of Puerto Rico," he said cheerfully. "We offer…"

"Offer a fast ride to La Perla," I said, sliding Wilhelmina into my hand and checking my ammo. "And while you're driving, tell me how to get to the leper colony in La Perla."

Gonzalez' cheerfulness vanished immediately. He put the car into gear and moved off, but he didn't look happy about it. His mustache began to twitch nervously.

"This," he said slowly, after a few minutes of silence, "is an act of madness. To go to La Perla at this time of night is insanity. To go to the leper colony at any time is unwise, but to go at this time of night is not only insane, but possibly suicidal."

"Possibly," I agreed, reholstering Wilhelmina and checking to make sure that Hugo was snug in his chamois sheath.

"Are you aware that a large section of the leper colony hospital is in the contagious wing?"

"I am aware," I said.

"Are you aware that even the lepers in the non-contagious wing are dangerous, since they are desperately poor and have few legitimate ways of obtaining money?"

"I am aware of that, too," I said, adjusting Pierre against my upper thigh.

Gonzalez spun the wheel, guiding the Toyota off the Condado, and toward Old San Juan.

"And my Blue Cross has expired," he said gloomily.

"You're just the guide," I told him. "I'm going in alone."

"But that is even worse!" he said in alarm. "I cannot possibly let you go in alone. One man would not have a chance, not even Nick Carter. I insist…"

"Forget it," I said tersely.

"But…"

"Gonzalez, your rank is N7. You know what mine is. I'm giving you an order."

He subsided, and we spent the rest of the ride in silence. Gonzalez chewed on his mustache. I kept one eye on the rearview mirror for possible tails. There weren't any. Ten minutes of twisting and turning through small, narrow streets brought us past the old governor's mansion, and down a hillside road to the fringes of the seaside slum called La Perla. As we moved through it, tin roofs rattled in the Caribbean breeze. You could hear surf breaking against the sea-wall and smell decaying fish, garbage, and small, cluttered rooms without indoor plumbing. Gonzalez skirted a small square, navigated the Toyota through an alley that gave it about an inch clearance on either side, and parked around the corner. The darkened street was deserted. Latin music came faintly from a window above us.

"You are determined to do this foolish thing?" Gonzalez asked, his voice thick with anxiety.

"There's no other way," I responded flatly.

Gonzalez sighed.

"The leper colony is at the end of the street. It is a leprosarium, really, a combination hospital and hostel for lepers. It occupies a space equivalent to a city block, and is shaped like a fortress, consisting of one large building with a central courtyard. There is only one entrance and exit. It leads into the offices of the leprosarium. Beyond this there is one locked door. It leads into the courtyard. Off the courtyard there are three wings: the east wing, which is the hospital, the west wing, which is a dormitory for lepers whose condition is stabilized, and the south wing."

Gonzalez turned and looked at me hard.

"The south wing," he said, "houses those lepers who are contagious and who are not allowed out of the leprosarium."

I nodded. I'd done some homework on the ugly subject of leprosy. It is a chronic, infectious disease that attacks the skin, the body tissues, and the nerves. In its early stages it produces white spots on the skin, then white scaly scabs, putrescent ulcers, and nodules. Finally, parts of the body literally waste away and fall off, producing nightmarish deformities. Thanks to antibiotics developed after the Second World War, it's now possible to arrest the disease at a certain point. But in its early stages, it is still highly contagious.

"Do you have what I asked you to bring?"

Wordlessly, Gonzalez reached into the back seat and handed me a doctor's bag and two sets of I.D. cards. One was for a Jonathan Miller, M.D. The other was for an Inspector Miller of the San Juan Customs Bureau.

"The syringes are full," said Gonzalez. "One of them should knock out a grown man within seconds and keep him out for a minimum of eight hours. Carter…"

He paused. I looked at him.

"The lepers whose cases have been arrested are quite as dangerous as the contagious ones. They sleep and eat here free, and are given medication. But they have no money for other things — cigarettes, rum, gambling — and few of them are able to work. So, it is well known that they are involved in many shady things. They…"

I opened the door of the car and got out.

"That," I said, "is what I'm counting on. I'll also be counting on you to wait for me in that little square we passed until morning. If I'm not out by then, leave. Contact Hawk. You know the drill."

Gonzalez nodded. I turned and walked away before he even had the car in gear.

"Buena suerte,"
I heard him call softly behind me.

Good luck.

I'd need it.

The leprosarium was a squat, heavy, ugly building of crumbling stucco, which someone had painted a vivid red that made it even uglier. It was two stories high, and the windows on each story were covered with heavy wooden shutters, closed tight even in the Caribbean heat. I found a bell pull to one side of the wooden door and pulled hard. I heard a loud metallic clanging inside, then silence. I pulled again. More clanking. Then footsteps. The door opened a crack, and a thin, sleepy female face peered out.

"What do you want?" she asked irritably, in Spanish.

"I am Dr. Jonathan Miller," I replied crisply, in my somewhat rusty, but reasonably fluent Spanish. "I am here to see the patient Diaz."

There had to be a patient named Diaz in the leprosarium. It was one of the most common names in Puerto Rico.

"At this hour you come to see a patient?" the woman said, even more irritably.

"I am from New York," I said. "I am here only a few days. I am doing a favor for Diaz' family. I have no other time. Kindly let me in,
Señora.
I must be back at my clinic by tomorrow."

The woman hesitated.

"Señora,"
I said, putting a sharp edge of impatience in my voice, "you are wasting my time. If you will not let me in, call someone in authority."

"There is no one else here at night," she said, a note of uncertainty creeping into her voice. She glanced down at my doctor's bag. "Only two nurses, on duty in the hospital. We are badly understaffed."

"The door,
Señora,"
I said brusquely.

Slowly, reluctantly, she opened the door and stood aside to let me in, then closed and bolted it behind me.

"Which Diaz is it you want? Felipe, or Esteban?"

"Felipe," I said, glancing around a large room lined with ancient filing cabinets and furnished with two rickety metal desks and a few chairs. There was a strong odor of disinfectant, and underneath it, a faint but distinct odor of decaying human flesh.

"Felipe Diaz is in the west wing, with the stabilized cases. But I cannot take you there. I must stay by the door," the woman said. She moved to a desk and opened a drawer, taking out a ring of keys. "If you want to go you must go by yourself."

"Bueno,"
I said, "I will go myself.

I held out my hand for the keys. The woman extended them. I looked down at her hand and suppressed a gasp. Only a thumb and an inch of forefinger extended from the palm.

The woman caught my look and smiled.

"It is nothing,
Señor"
she said. "My case is stabilized and I am not infectious. I am one of the lucky ones. With me, it was only a few fingers. With others, like Felipe…"

I forced myself to take the keys from that hand, then moved toward the door in the far wall.

"Diaz is in bed twelve, just opposite the door," the woman said behind me, as I opened the door. "And,
Senor,
be careful not to enter the south wing. The cases there are highly contagious."

I nodded and moved out into the courtyard, shutting the door behind me. A dim electric bulb barely illuminated a barren dirt yard with a few scraggly palms and some rows of benches. The windows on this side were open, dark, and I could hear snores, sighs, coughs, and a few moans. I crossed the yard quickly toward the west wing, then unlocked the door with the big iron key.

The smell hit me like a hammer. It was thick and heavy, the smell of rotting human flesh, the smell a decomposing corpse gives off in heat. No disinfectant in the world could cover that smell, and I had to fight off the wave of nausea that swept over me. When I was sure I wasn't going to be sick I pulled a pencil flashlight from my pocket and swept the beam along the darkened room. Rows of bodies lying on cots, twisted into the awkward positions of sleep. Here and there an eye flicked open and regarded me warily. I directed the beam at the bed directly opposite the door, and moved quietly across the room. The figure on the cot had the sheet pulled up over its head. A gargled snore came from somewhere under the sheet. I put out a hand and shook one shoulder.

"Diaz!" I whispered sharply. "Wake up! Diaz!"

The figure stirred. Slowly, one arm emerged and pulled down the sheet. The head turned and the face came into view.

I swallowed hard. It was a face from a nightmare. The nose was gone, and one ear was no more than a rotten crumple of flesh. Black gums stared at me where the upper hp had wasted away. The left arm was a stump, shriveled below the elbow.

"Como?"
Diaz asked in a hoarse croak, staring at me sleepily.
"Qué quiere?"

I reached into my jacket and flipped an I.D. card at him.

"Inspector Miller, San Juan Customs Bureau," I said. "You're wanted for questioning."

The ruined face regarded me uncomprehendingly.

"Put on your clothes and come outside," I said sharply. "There's no need to wake up everyone in here."

He still looked uncomprehending, but he slowly threw off the sheet and stood up. He didn't need to put on his clothes. He was sleeping in them. He followed me across the floor and out the door into the courtyard, where he stood blinking at me in the semi-darkness.

"I won't waste any time, Diaz," I said. "We've received information that a smuggling ring is operating through the leprosarium. Storing smuggled goods here, for one thing. Drugs. And according to our information, you're up to your neck in the whole thing."