"You okay?"
"Er... fine," Smith said, rather stiffly. "It must have been some manifestation of stress."
"You were blasted, but never mind," Remo said. "Are you sure that stuff that's going around is heroin?" He explained Arcadi's predicament. "There isn't any market for heroin these days."
"Interesting," Smith said. "But it's heroin, or a close molecular derivative. And organic. There's no mistake."
"All right," Remo said uncertainly. "By the way, you'd better alert the Miami police to come pick up Arcadi."
"He's— he's alive?"
"Yeah," Remo said defensively. "What of it?"
"Remo, I must advise you—"
"Forget it," Remo said, and hung up.
He turned to Arcadi. "Everybody wants you dead."
Arcadi shrugged. "Breaks my heart."
"Well, I'm not going to kill you."
"Don't do me no favors."
"You could be a little grateful."
Arcadi made a disgusted noise. "You mash my assistant into a human bowling ball, then you beat the gas out of me, tie me up like a frigging doughnut, and leave me here for the cops in a warehouse full of smack, and you want gratitude?"
Remo walked away. "Dumb ingrate," he said.
Chiun sniffed. "And you call yourself an assassin," he said. "I am returning to our motel. You can see your Mr. Hassam and not kill him by yourself. Be back by five o'clock. We are eating duck tonight."
?Chapter Four
Amfat Hassam's residence wasn't hard to find. The lawn in front of the mansion was studded with classical Greek statues painted in vivid flesh tones and anatomically correct. Three gigantic fountains sprayed particolored water into the air above a rhinestone-studded reflecting pool with a mosaic of Ann Margaret on the bottom. Although it was only October, twinkling Christmas lights sparkled on the colonnaded façade of the house, which was a replica of the White House except that it was painted Schiaparelli pink.
Remo vaulted over the ten-foot-high brass gates and walked around to the back. In the middle of a vast orchid garden stretched the blue expanse of a star-shaped swimming pool surrounded by leggy girls in bikinis.
"Oooo," a buxom blonde crooned when she saw Remo.
Gorgeous girls no longer had the effect on Remo they once had. Through years of "oooos" and "ahhhs" and the stray manicured hand brushing accidentally against his buttocks, he had grown to accept the fact that he was the sort of man women found attractive. To him, it all seemed like standard equipment. He was tall, and they liked that. He had dark hair and eyes to match.
The eyes, he had to admit, were pretty extraordinary: he could see about a mile in any kind of weather, and his night vision was as good as the daylight variety. Chiun had taught him to control the diameter of his pupils, a feat that had taken nearly four years to learn. But the girls didn't know that. They just thought his eyes were cute, as if that made any difference whatever.
Or cruel. Women were always telling him how cruel his eyes were. Kiss me, you brute. Remo sincerely wondered what mechanism made women enjoy the company of men they found frightening, but his was not to reason why. Women were a species unto themselves, and nothing they said or did surprised him anymore.
Which was why he didn't say anything when the blonde with the rack on her pulled off his T-shirt with one deft motion and buried her face in his chest. Or when the statuesque redhead standing nearby grabbed him by the hair and stuck her tongue in his ear. Or when the brunette with the freckles wound herself around his legs and bit the blonde on the knee. There was no reasoning with them after that, with claws flying and perfumed hair coming out by the handful and enough shrieking and cussing to make Hassam's tropical paradise sound like a cathouse during a panty raid.
"Ladies, ladies," Remo attempted. He got a curvaceous calf in his mouth for the effort. A finger attached to a three-inch-long orange fingernail darted alarmingly, near his right eye, and when he recovered his balance, a well-muscled female belly enveloped him.
"Get off me," Remo griped. "What are you, Hassam's army?"
"Psst. Come with me," whispered the girl attached to the belly. She was a pretty little blonde with the kind of puckish, innocent features that reminded him of old Tuesday Weld movies. She led him, crawling combat style, out of the melee and into the shadows of some tiger lilies.
"I'm Sandy," she sighed, kissing Remo full on the mouth.
"That's okay," Remo said. "I'm a little dusty myself." He smiled broadly.
"Huh?" She batted a lot of genuine mink eyelashes in his direction.
"Never mind. Why'd they attack me?"
Sandy giggled. "It wasn't you they were attacking, silly. It was each other. Men are so scarce around here, every girl wanted you for herself." Her tongue flicked between her lips. "Wanna play doctor?"
A high-heeled shoe whizzed overhead. "Aerial attack," the girl said. Her smile widened into a lascivious grin. "Better stay close to me, Brown Eyes." She ground herself on him to ensure maximum protection. "Can't tell what they'd do for a man."
"Why don't they try the bars?" Remo offered.
"We're not allowed. It's part of the contract."
"What contract?"
"To the sheik." She wriggled onto his lap. Before he could protest, the tiny bikini top she was wearing sprang off and flew into the bushes. "Oops," the girl said, her breasts quivering in Remo's face. "It must have slipped. Well, men will take advantage when the opportunity comes up," she giggled. She drummed her fingers on his thigh as the moments passed. Her smile faded. "They will, won't they?" she asked uncertainly.
"Not always," Remo said gallantly, plucking two leaves off a plant and presenting them to her. "What contract?"
"Our work contract," she said, accidentally losing the leaves in Remo's hair. "Hassam's our employer. We're his harem." She appraised Remo's reaction. "So it's a job," she said.
"Uh, yeah," Remo said. "What do harem girls do, exactly?"
"Not what you think. Squirt's no stallion. His wife sees to that. We're just dancers. Kind of."
"Kind of?"
"Sure. That weird dancing Arabs like. Bumps and grinds and shimmies. I'm the best one here." She demonstrated for Remo at point-blank range. "Works better with tassels, I think."
"I see," Remo said.
"I'm the only real dancer in the bunch. My last job was at the Whiskey à Go-Go in L.A." She arched her back proudly. "Naturally, I feel sort of dumb listing 'harem girl' on my W-2," she reflected, "what with my background and all. But for five grand a week, who's complaining? And Squirt's such a nice guy."
"Squirt?"
"The sheik. Hassam, that is. He's not really a sheik. But his wife makes us call him that." She laughed. "Everybody knows they were both date pickers in some desert slum before Squirt hit it big on the drug scene."
"So I've heard. I want to see him."