It was how he had done it for the past two years. He would go out one or two nights a week and sprinkle GUTX powder in the breakfast fare. He had tried coffee, eggs, pancake mix, whatever, before finding he had the best results with the breakfast potatoes, of all things.
Almost everybody ate them. The staff at the hotels had received the suggestion that it was perfectly normal and acceptable for him to sprinkle stuff on the breakfast food. It was also standard operating procedure to broadcast Greg Grom's message to Union Island visitors over the loudspeakers during breakfasts following his midnight visits. The tourists invariably complained when the racket started, but soon they would be agreeing with every suggestion Grom made.
It would take him a couple of hours to hit all the resorts. The longer the better, as far as Dawn Summens was concerned.
Chapter 38
"Yech," Remo Williams said. "Get a whiff of that."
"No, thank you," Chiun answered as he crinkled his nose into a hundred extra wrinkles and put his hands in his kimono sleeves as if to protect all possible flesh from exposure to the air in this place, which had to be toxic.
"Sex. Blood. Sweat. Somebody had a hell of an orgy, and it wasn't one of those nice orgies where everybody smiles. Looks like there was some beating and whipping involved."
"And burning," Chiun said, moving to the open doors of the balcony. Remo joined him a moment later and they gazed down at the horrid burned thing in the sand. "These people like it pretty rough," Remo said.
Chiun glanced down at what Remo was holding. It was a small wooden drawer, empty.
"It's from the bedside table." Remo held it up and took a cautious sniff. His eyes widened.
"It is the poison."
"It is, but Grom is gone and he must have taken it with him."
"We must find him."
Remo looked down at the black thing. "Maybe she knows."
OUT OF THE DARKNESS came a souring song of agony. Her body flared to life with pain that burned and burned-
Until a hand touched her, on the neck, and the pain became as nothing.
"I was on fire," she said.
"Your skin is very burned," said a kind voice, a voice like someone old and young at once.
"Am I going to live?"
"Doubtful," said the kind, high voice.
"We need your help," said the voice of a younger man, deep and attractive.
"I'm going to die?"
"Where is Greg Grom?" the younger man's voice asked.
"President Grom is gone," she said, and she tried to smile.
HER EYES STARED into the heavens dreamily. Remo looked at Chiun, who was manipulating the woman's charred flesh, looking for the nerves underneath. "She is badly damaged and very heavily intoxicated with the poison," Chiun said. "Her body is fighting for life and fighting with itself."
"Can't you snap her out of it?"
"She is already much too snapped."
Remo wasn't sure what to think about the poor blackened thing on the sand. She was a victim. They were all victims. Even the pair at the restaurant who tried to poison their dinner. None acted with a will of their own. The list of responsible parties was really extremely small.
"We gotta find Grom," Remo said. Chiun looked at him expectantly.
"I don't know how," Remo answered the unasked question. "I just know we have to."
"Why?" Chiun asked.
Remo made an exaggerated gesture at the sizzling woman. "Hello? Bad man up to no good?"
"Do not speak to me in that way, please. What kind of no good do you think he is up to?"
Remo fretted. "Who knows? Probably doing what he does-you know, poisoning all the tourists. Dosing them up."
"And he would do it in what way?"
"Same way they did us, I guess-put it in the pasta Puttanesca." Remo looked at the moon over the water. He looked suddenly at Chiun. "Or the scrambled eggs. What if he goes at night to the hotels and sprinkles his special seasoning in the food for the morning breakfast buffets? He'd get pretty good coverage."
"That would be effective," Chiun agreed.
"So we make the rounds of the hotels until we find him."
Amelia Powlik sat up. "Where you going?"
"Maybe you should keep from moving around too much," Remo said as he watched part of her upper-arm skin slough off in a black crust.
"Wait, you. You sound kinda good-looking. Stay with me and let's get to know each other."
"You gotta be kidding me," Remo said to no one in particular.
"WE GOT A CALL for a paramedic backup," the dispatcher said.
"Take a message!" answered Chief of Police Checker Spence as another huge boom shook the police station, like a subterranean explosion. "Where's Weil and Lambert?"
"On their way," the dispatcher said.
There was another boom. This time it sounded different. Less resonant. The Coke on a nearby desk sloshed inside its bottle. "What about Fornes? Is he coming?"
"Fornes is dead, Chief," the dispatcher reminded him. Spence stiffened, then nodded. Fornes had been killed by Alan from the tourism department, who bit a chunk out of his neck. The wound was huge. Fornes bled to death. And then Agnes, that nice old lady, had tried to do the same thing to Chief Spence.
The floor shook with another boom from below. That would be Alan from the tourism department. And dear old Agnes. And the rest of the insane maniacs they had transported from the aircraft to the police lockup down below. They had been prone to violence, but at least they had quieted down eventually. Chief Checker Spence liked his maniacs quiet and cooperative.
So he became perturbed when the maniacs in the lockup started getting excited again an hour ago. Soon they were pounding the walls. Now they were pounding the doors. And Checker Spence had a sinking feeling...