“Why that one?” Kidd asked Billy Teach, nodding to the old man.

  “Guy said he cooks great Chinese food.”

  “Which guy would that be, Billy?”

  “Skipper of the good ship Melody,” his second in command fired back, without a moment’s hesitation.

  “He’s no longer with us here, alas. A swimming accident.”

  Kidd smiled. At least Teach had not brought all three of them back to the camp on Île de Mort. The woman would be useful in more ways than one, perhaps an item he could sell to the commercial flesh dealers, once he had sampled her himself. As for the ancient Chinaman, if he could cook and clean, so much the better. Captain Kidd would let him live while he was capable of doing women’s work, and when his time ran out…well, there were always hungry fish in the lagoon.

  “So far, so good,” Kidd told his first lieutenant. “How’s the tub?”

  “A classy one,” Teach replied. “Bet her retail value makes her one of our best ever. Don’t know what we’ll get for her, though. I reckon the Colombians will take it off our hands, but they won’t appreciate her fine appointments.”

  “Let’s check it out,” the captain said, already moving toward the exit from his quarters, passing close before the redhead and the wizened Asian. “And leave the woman here,” he added. “Under guard.”

  A frown at that from Billy Boy, and that was fine. He didn’t have to relish every order from the captain, just as long as they were carried out immediately, to the letter.

  And God help him on the day he failed in that.

  The sailboat slowed when it spotted him. There was a figure in the bow—a man, bare chested, heavyset—who pointed toward him with one hairy arm and waved the sailboat’s skipper onward with the other.

  Moments later, Remo’s would-be savior plucked a life preserver from the deck, between his feet, and tossed it overboard. The outsized doughnut trailed a nylon line behind it as it splashed down on the surface at about the same moment Remo was hauling himself over the rail and onto the deck.

  The hairy lookout was slack jawed for a second, then got his wits together. “Are you all right, pal?”

  “Getting better by the second,” Remo said.

  “How long you been swimming around out here?” The spotter’s lanky sidekick demanded.

  “Couple of hours.”

  “Huh,” the taller of the two men said. “You damn lucky we came along. You damn lucky Dink’s got good eyes.”

  The lookout, Dink, was staring hard at Remo. “Two hours?”

  “My boat went down,” said Remo, improvising on the spot. “Some kind of engine trouble. I don’t know exactly what it was. First thing I knew about it was a little smoke, and then the damn thing blew. I swear she went down five minutes flat. I barely got over the side.”

  “Explosion, huh?” the tall man said, still sounding skeptical. “We didn’t hear a thing or see no smoke.”

  “It was a couple of hours ago, like I said,” Remo said. “I’m not sure that I could have lasted if you hadn’t come along.”

  “Nobody lasts out here, without a deck beneath ’em,” Dink replied. “What kinda boat was that? What did you call ‘er?”

  “Trudy,” Remo said, answering the final question first. “A cigarette.”

  “Where from?” the tall man asked.

  “St. Croix. Took off this morning, but I must’ve lost my way.”

  “Don’t read the compass all that well, I take it?” There was clear suspicion in Dink’s voice this time.

  “Apparently,” said Remo. “Maybe there was something wrong with it.”

  “You shoulda checked it out before you out to sea,” the tall man groused. “Damn foolishness to take a chance with your equipment thataway.”

  “You’re right, I guess. Of course, it wasn’t really mine. I borrowed Trudy from a friend of mine, back in Miami.”

  “He’ll be tickled pink to hear this news,” said Dink.

  Remo considered Dr. Harold Smith, then thought of Chiun and Stacy, riding with the pirates toward an unknown destination. “Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said. “Speaking of news, where are we putting in for the report?”

  “I reckon Fort-de-France would be the closest,” Dink replied. “Right, Titch?”

  “That’s it,” the tall man said, still frowning.

  “Fort-de-France it is,” Dink said. “We best be haulin’ ass.”

  Chapter 13

  Howard Morgan smiled obsequiously, turning on the well-oiled charm for Mr. Burston Sykes, of Bristol, Connecticut, and his young, blond wife. She was so young, in fact, that Morgan would have pegged her as the fat man’s daughter if Sykes had not made a point of introducing her otherwise. The wedding ring on Mrs. Sykes’s hand was new, the solitaire diamond on her engagement ring an easy four carats.

  That spelled money, and Morgan didn’t care if Ellie Sykes was Burston’s daughter, as long as some of the fat American’s dollars found their way into Morgan’s pocket. The American was big in textiles, or so he said. Probably meant he ran sweatshops in Third World nations, but the source of his money was likewise a matter of total indifference to Morgan. The travel agent always focused on the bottom line—meaning his bottom line, the profit he could turn from any given deal.

  In this case, Burston Sykes and his child bride were talking package tour, the kind of deal that would turn a handsome profit for the owner-operator of Trade Winds Travel. It meant a boat and crew, provisions, berths and tours on sundry islands—all paid in advance, with a sweet commission for Morgan himself.

  It was the best deal he had closed that month—the best legitimate transaction, anyway—and Morgan was already calculating how to spend the money as he finished touching up the deal on paper. He was dotting i’s and crossing t’s while his clients sat beneath the lazy ceiling fan and sweated through their clothes.

  “Damn hot in here,” Burston Sykes said. “Why don’t you spring for air-conditioning?” he groused.

  “Bit pricey in the islands, don’t you know? We have to make ends meet,” Morgan said, striving just a little harder to preserve the phony smile. “Trimmin’ expenses does the trick, you know?”

  “It’s still damn hot,” Sykes told him. “Keep your patrons sweating, and you won’t have much repeat business. You mark my words.”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll keep that fact in mind.” The paperwork was done, and Morgan spun the contract deftly, pushing it across the desk toward Burston Sykes, offering his fountain pen. “Now, if you’ll just sign here, right at where X marks the spot…”

  The textile magnate looked over the contract, pausing here and there to read the fine print in detail, before he signed and dated it, then passed it back to Morgan. “Done,” he said.

  “I’ll get to work immediately,” Morgan said, reserving his brightest smile for the fetching Mrs. Sykes, “as soon as you’ve filled out that check we spoke about…”

  Sykes frowned and reached for his hip pocket, bringing out a checkbook that was probably real alligator hide. He used the pen Morgan had handed him, together with the contract. Despite his evident wealth and the relatively small fee involved, Sykes still showed visible reluctance as he filled out the check, looked it over and handed it to Morgan.

  “We done here?” the businessman asked.

  “Indeed we are, sir,” Morgan answered. “All you and your lovely wife must do, from this point on, is pack your bags and find your way to the marina in the morning. Let’s say tennish, shall we?”

  “Ten o’clock it is,” Sykes said.

  “Your vessel is the yacht Christina,” Morgan said. “She and her crew will be prepared to sail when you arrive.”

  “I hope so,” Sykes informed him, shepherding the missus out of Morgan’s office to the street, where afternoon was baking shadows on the sidewalk.

  Howard Morgan smiled, folded the check in two and slipped it into his shirt pocket. It was damn good money, and his five percent was still enough to put fresh lobster on his plate for several nights if he was so inclined—or land a fresh piece in his bed, assuming that he felt like shelling out a good deal more.

  If nothing else, the Sykes deal meant that he could close down for the day. He would have to, in any case, if he was going to arrange the details of the tour package he had sold. The yacht Christina was on call, he knew, together with her captain and a two-man crew, but there was shopping to be done—for food and liquor, any incidentals that a rich man and his wife would likely carry with them on a tour of the Caribbean.

  He pushed back in his chair, the casters rasping on the vinyl floor, and rose to hit the kill switch on the coffee urn that occupied one corner of the Trade Winds office. Morgan was a coffee addict, even in the tropic heat, without an air conditioner, and certain clients also favored it above the cold drinks he kept handy in his minifridge.

  He was about to flick the switch off when a voice behind him said, “I’ll take some if you’ve got it made.”

  The sound made Morgan jump, as unexpected as it was, but the surprise paled when he turned and recognized the man who stood before his desk. “Er…Mr. Remo Rubble, isn’t it?”

  “That’s very good.”

  The travel agent glanced in the direction of his office door, wondering why the damn cowbell suspended on a leather strap had failed to warn him of a new arrival in the Trade Winds office.

  “Back so soon?” he said, cold perspiration forming on his face. “There’s nothing wrong, I hope.”

  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.