In the foyer stood a hairy ape of a man with fists like steam rollers and hatred in his eyes. He reminded Remo of a Latin version of the Incredible Hulk. One that wasn't going to turn into a skinny movie actor before his eyes.
"What do you do with Mrs.?" he bellowed.
"Nothing," Remo said mildly. "She's just fine, Mr.—"
"Why you spy on our beans?"
"Actually, I'd like to talk with you about that. You see—"
"You talk sheet, meester."
"About those beans—"
"I keel for beans!" he roared as he lunged at Remo.
"And less," Remo said. He dodged a blow that sent a Ming vase crashing to the floor.
Remo stalled for time, ducking, sliding out of the big man's way for two reasons. One, he hadn't known that Esmeralda had a husband. If the lunk smashing a path toward Remo was the real master of Peruvina, he was the one Remo had to talk to. And second, coitus interruptus didn't make for great fighting spirit. At the very least, his uncomfortable condition would affect his balance. Or his breathing. Or his timing. A mistake in any of those areas could be lethal.
It was. The big man came for him again, and Remo deflected the blow. Too hard. He knew it as soon as his arm began its first downward thrust in the spiral designed to repel the attacker. No control. He didn't know whether it had been his balance or his breathing or his timing that had been off, but as soon as he saw the bulky body of the man jerk from the floor, Remo knew it was all over. The man's head struck the wall too fast, too hard. He heard the crack of bone, the harsh rattle in the man's throat, saw the red stripe of blood slide down the wall behind the man's crushed skull.
"So much for not killing," Remo mumbled as he stared, disgusted, at the body. Smith was going to love this. On top of everybody else who'd been dropping dead since this godforsaken assignment began, he'd just silenced the perpetrator of the biggest drug scam in history without finding out how it had been done. Wonderful.
Behind him Esmeralda shrieked in a torrent of Spanish.
"I'm sorry," Remo said flatly. "I didn't mean to kill your husband, but no hysterics, all right? I can't handle it just now."
She burst into laughter. He turned toward her, incredulous. "But... but this is not my husband," she said between fits of hilarity. "It is only Manuel, the head field boss. He must have seen you coming and followed you here."
He stared hard at her. "He's still dead," Remo observed. "You've got a hell of a sense of humor."
"I know it is not good to laugh at the dead," she said, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes. "But I am so relieved it was not my husband. You see, he is much more dangerous than Manuel. He has weapons, special weapons—"
"Hello, Mater."
In an arched doorway at the far end of the living room stood a young man in his early twenties. He was a homely sort of youth, short and thin, with sallow skin punctuated freely with acne. He wore the kind of Coke-bottle glasses that enlarged his eyes to the size of saucers.
"Oh," Esmeralda exclaimed softly, her smiling features momentarily dropping. For an instant, the heady perfume she was wearing was camouflaged by another odor, acrid and wild. Remo had smelled fear often enough to recognize it.
"Your manners, Mater," the young man insisted quietly, not moving from his position in the doorway. He spoke without a trace of Esmeralda's accent.
The youth emanated an eerie calm. Remo had the impression that he could have stood in that doorway all day without so much as shifting a foot if he wanted to. His shirt was tightly buttoned to his neck.
"Yes, excuse me. Arnold, this is a friend—"
"Your name?" the young man snapped.
"Remo," Remo said, a little disconcerted.
Arnold nodded.
Esmeralda continued, her smile now markedly different from the easy, sensual turning of her lips he had seen earlier. It was too bright, too wooden. Clearly the woman was scared to death of the young man in the doorway.
"This is Arnold, my son," she said, appealing to the boy with her eyes.
Remo looked from the pimply creature in the doorway to the woman beside him.
"Stepson," Arnold corrected. A smile, practiced, cold came to his lips. "But we're still a family, aren't we, Mater? We have our affairs to ourselves."
There was a hushed moment. The silence weighed a metric ton.
"Don't we?" the boy repeated, never raising his voice.
"Of... course," Esmeralda faltered.
"Good." The boy turned and left.
Remo followed him. In the corridor behind the archway where Arnold had stood was a closed door beside a telephone set in the wall. Next to the phone was a large red button. Remo opened the door. A skeleton hung inside. With a shudder he slammed it.
"Very funny," he said. He pressed the red button beside the phone, but nothing happened. There was no noise, no signal of any kind. He lifted the telephone. It was an ordinary instrument that gave off only a dial tone.
Arnold had vanished.
"Where'd he go?" Remo asked.
Esmeralda avoided his eyes. "Oh, Arnold makes his own passageways," she said evasively. "He is a genius, you know."
"At what, designing funhouses?" He didn't like the kid. He didn't even like the memory of him. In the archway, Remo could still smell him, a sickly sweet odor. Probably all the starch in his shirt, Remo said to himself.
"The skeleton in the closet— a genius's idea of fun, I suppose."
"I— I will explain," Esmeralda whispered. Her eyes scanned the corners of the house as she took his arm. "Let us go back to the library."
"He didn't even mention the dead man in the entrance," Remo said, settling into an overstuffed chair where Esmeralda placed him.
"He is a strange boy. That is why he is here, away from his home."
"Where is his home?"
"Shhh," Esmeralda said, settling on Remo's lap. "There is time to talk of Arnold later. Let us finish what we have started."
"What? Are you kidding?"
She placed her lips on his. Almost immediately the fire inside him rekindled.
"I suppose we've got a few minutes," Remo said, hating himself.