"Not you."
Remo was listening to the words with only half his mind. The black's upraised arm had bunched his bicep into a huge lump and it glistened bluish in the sunlight coming through the windows. It bit at Remo's mind, that somewhere he had seen just such a giant black arm as that, someplace just recently. But he could not remember where.
A cold stare passed between Maggie and the black. Remo stepped into the chill.
"That's all right, Maggie," he said. "I'll go alone. And I'll get right back to you. I promise."
Remo glanced at his reflection next to Maggie's in the dresser mirror. He looked all right. Except for a small bandage on his temple, there was no sign of his wounding last night. He had no headaches, no pain, no problems—except the biggest one. He didn't know who he was.
Where had he learned to throw a knife like that? And make love like that? Maybe he was an international white slaver? Well, there were worse ways of making a living, he supposed. Baron Nemeroff might be able to straighten it out.
Then Maggie was in his arms, her arms around his neck, kissing him hard, and then nuzzling her face against his neck. She whispered into his ear: "PJ, be careful. Nemeroff's dangerous. I can't tell you anything, but don't let on about your amnesia."
He held her away from him. "Don't worry about a thing," he said, smiling. So she knew more about him than she'd let on. Okay, he'd get that out of her when he came back. In the meantime, it was on to Baron Nemeroff.
"Let's go, son of Kong," he said, brushing past the black and out into the hallways.
The black did not move and in the hallway Remo turned to see what was delaying him. He saw the huge man place a big hand against Maggie's chest and push her backwards onto the bed, then stand there looking at her. Even from the side, Remo could see the smile that lit the black's face. It was a smile of evil hatred, not of lust but of something stronger than lust. Maggie lay on the bed, a look of fright on her face. The black stepped toward her. He put his hand on the wooden post at the end of the bed and made as if to climb over it onto the bed after her. Then a knife whizzed into the wood of the bed post, between his fingers. It stuck there quivering. The black froze, and then turned to the doorway.
Remo's arm was just returning to his side. "The next time, Rastus," he said, coldly, "it'll be in your throat."
The black's saucer eyes glared at Remo. For a moment, he seemed on the verge of charging, then he dropped his hands quietly to his sides and walked past Remo out into the hall, striding purposefully toward the elevators.
As Remo closed the door, he told Maggie: "Call the desk and get this door lock fixed. There may be more of these things around," he said, jerking his head in the direction of the black escort.
Then he turned and followed him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"Listen, Ali Baba. If you ever want to come to the states, you can make a fortune as a cab driver. Imagine. A cab driver who doesn't talk."
"And with that costume you could get all the gay trade, running to their latest liberation rally so they can squeak at each other. Man, I'll tell you. You'd be a winner."
Having divested himself of that opinion, the man who thought he was PJ Kenny leaned back in the passenger's seat in the Mercedes Benz limousine, enjoying the scenery.
The black had not spoken since they had left Remo's room in the Stonewall Hotel. Remo had kept up a stream of chatter. He knew he had some reason to dislike the black; he just didn't know what it was. He knew he disliked him even more after he manhandled Maggie. That was one Remo owed him. Was PJ Kenny a vindictive man? The man who thought he was PJ Kenny hoped so.
Algiers is a long, busy city, stretching from hills on the left to hills on the right. The Stonewall Hotel was located on the city's main street, the Rue Michelet, which undergoes two name changes as it winds its way up to the hills on the eastern end of the city. The streets were lined with dwarf evergreens and were spotlessly clean. But they were still all roads leading from nowhere to nowhere. Maybe PJ Kenny was a poet.
They were moving now toward the crests of the hills, and then the black turned off the main paved road, onto a dirt road, and up ahead, atop a hill that looked down over Algiers, Remo could see a massive castle, white against the white sky, its windows massive cut-outs in stone. A touch of Transylvania, Remo thought.
He leaned back again in the seat, looking around him. Up ahead, he saw a helicopter flying lazy circles around the castle, like a housefly looking for a sweet landing-spot.
And there was another helicopter on the roof, its rotor barely visible from this angle.
So Baron Nemeroff had his own air force. It wasn't much Remo thought, but in an all-out war, it could probably lick the whole Algerian army. Come to think of it, the whole Pan-Arab Union.
Remo looked out the side window at the heavy undergrowth that licked its way up to the road's edge. He saw an armed man wearing hunting clothes walking through the brush. But he was no hunter-not unless hunters had begun to use machine guns.
On the other side of the car, it was the same, Remo noticed. Men moving through the brush, heavily armed men. Remo's eyes glanced down again at the huge black bicep of the driver, as he flexed it while steering the hard-sprung limousine over the bumpy road. The sight of the arm raised a tingle in Remo's head; something he should remember, but couldn't. He had seen that arm before. Oh well, he would remember it eventually. Maybe Baron Nemeroff would tell him.
It would be interesting to find out who PJ Kenny was. He knew the amnesia would wear off soon, but he wanted to know now who and what he was, what he did, and what he was doing here. Maggie had warned him to be careful.
The narrow road, already wide enough for only one car, suddenly became even narrower, and then, as they turned a curve, they came to a gatehouse.
Two armed men stood in the roadway, rifles folded in the crooks of their arms, but they moved aside when they recognized the car and driver. Without slowing, the black sped between the two men, and then the road lifted sharply upward and they neared Nemeroff's castle.
At that same moment, a huge jet appeared over the castle, coming in for a landing at the Algiers airport. Remo glanced at it and wondered what kind of people would come to Algeria if they didn't have to.
The Mercedes spit up gravel as it swerved again, and then it was pulling into a large opened area, at the bottom of stone steps leading up to the first floor level patio of the castle. The parking area was paved with flagstones of different colors and there was room for fifty or sixty autos to park there. The black jammed on the brakes and seemed disappointed when Remo did not go through the windshield. He turned off the motor, got out and headed up the steps toward the patio, crooking a finger at Remo, motioning him to follow.
Remo left the car and walked up the broad stairway to the patio. Its deck was cut from rough unfinished marble and it looked like a Parisian outdoor restaurant, with clusters of small, black wrought-iron tables, each with two chairs at it. At the side of the patio, sliding glass doors opened into what appeared to be a large study, and from the patio, more stone stairs rose outdoors to a second floor, where there was another balconied patio.
"You wait here," the black squeaked in his high-pitched voice, which brought a grin from Remo.
Remo perched himself on the stone wall surrounding the patio and looked out over the grounds. His eyes spotted more men out in the underbrush, all armed, all in hunter's garb, and from the good vantage point, Remo could see them talking to each other over walkie-talkie radios. They seemed to be in four waves; two rows of men on the far side of the gatehouse which blocked the only road, and two rows of men working closer toward the castle. They worked back and forth in a zippering kind of search action, which Remo somehow, instinctively, knew was highly disciplined and highly effective.
Then he heard the whoosh of the glass door opening, and then steps on the patio behind him.
He turned.
The man coming toward him was almost seven feet tall. He was stringy, but his greyhound stride, the angles of his face, his mannerisms, all exuded power. There was strength in his grip, too, as he reached forward and grabbed Remo's hand in his own and began to pump it up and down.
He looked searchingly into Remo's face, his own face wearing a slight questioning look. Them he stared some more at Remo.
He knows, Remo thought. He knows I'm not Kenny.
Then he smiled, his big horse-face breaking into a humourless grin, and said, "Mr. Kenny, well, well. I'm Baron Nemeroff."
So they had never met.
"Glad to be here," Remo said, smiling.
"The plastic surgery is excellent," Nemeroff said. "You look nothing like your photographs." Proof they had never met.
"That was the idea," Remo said, hoping that that indeed had been the idea.
"I trust you had a good trip. Namu did not misbehave in any way?"
"Namu?"
"My eunuch," Nemeroff said.
"So that's it. I thought he was on leave from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir."
Nemeroff smiled weakly. "No. It is an ancient custom of the land. To emasculate one's manservant."