19

You do not wish it.”

Audran looked at him. Wolfe sat there like a self-satisfied statue, his eyes half-closed, his lips pushing out a little, pulling in, then pushing out again. He turned his head a fraction of an inch and gazed at me. “You do not wish it,” he said again.

“But I do!” cried Audran. “I just want all of this to be over.”

“Nevertheless.” He raised a finger and wiggled it. “You continue to hope that there will be some simple solution, some way that doesn’t threaten danger or, what is yet worse to your way of thinking, ugliness. If Nikki had been murdered cleanly, simply, then you might have tracked her killer down relentlessly. As it is, the situation becomes ever more repellent, and you desire only to hide from it. Consider where you are now: huddled in the linen closet of some impoverished, nameless fellah.” He frowned disapprovingly.

Audran felt condemned. “You mean I didn’t go about it the right way? But you’re the detective, not me. I’m just Audran, the sand-nigger who sits on the curb with the plastic cups and the rest of the garbage. You always say yourself that any spoke will lead the ant to the hub.”

His shoulders raised a quarter of an inch in a shrug, and then fell. He was being compassionate. “Yes, I say that. However, if the ant walks all the way around the rim three-quarters of the circumference before choosing a spoke, he may lose more than merely time.”

Audran spread his hands helplessly. “I’m getting near the hub in my own clumsy way. So why don’t you use your eccentric genius and tell me where I can find this other killer?”

Wolfe put his hands m the arms of his chair and levered himself up. His expression was set and he barely noticed me as he walked by. It was time to go up to his orchids.

When I chipped out the moddy and replaced the special daddies, I was sitting on the floor of Jarir’s closet, my head on my drawn-up knees. With the daddies back in, I was invincible—not hungry, not tired, not thirsty, not afraid, not even angry. I set my jaw, I ran my hand through my rumpled hair, I did all those valiant things. Step aside buddy, this is a job for . . .

For me, I guess.

I glanced at my watch and saw that it was early evening. That was all right, too; all the little throat-slashers and their victims would be out.

I wanted to show that bloated Nero Wolfe that real people have their own low cunning, too. I also wanted to live the rest of my life without feeling forever like I had to throw up in the next few seconds. That meant catching Nikki’s killer. I took out the envelope of money and counted it. There was over fifty-seven thousand kiam. I had expected a little more than five. I stared at all that money for a long time. Then I put it away, took out my pill case, and swallowed twelve Paxium without water. I left the little room and passed Jarir. I didn’t say a word to him going out.

The streets in that part of town were deserted already, but the nearer I got to the Budayeen, the more people I saw. I passed through the eastern gate and went up the Street. My mouth was dry despite the daddies that were supposed to keep the lid clamped down on my endocrines. It was a good thing I wasn’t afraid, because I was scared stiff. I passed the Half-Hajj and he said a few words; I just nodded and went by as if he’d been a total stranger. There may have been a convention or a tour group in town, because I remember little knots of strangers standing in the Street, staring into the clubs and the cafés. I didn’t bother walking around them. I just shoved my way through.

When I got to Hassan’s shop, the front door was closed. I stood there and stared at it stupidly. I couldn’t remember it ever being closed before. If it had just been me, I’d have reported it to Okking; but it wasn’t just me. It was me and my daddies, so I kicked the door beside the lock, one, two, three, and it finally sprang open.

Naturally, Abdul-Hassan, the street-American kid, wasn’t on his stool in the empty shop. I crossed the shop in two or three strides and ripped the cloth hanging aside. There was no one in the storeroom in the back, either. I hurried across the dark area between the stacks of wooden crates, and went out the heavy iron door into the alley. There was another iron door in the building across the way; behind it was the room in which I’d bargained for Nikki’s short-lived freedom. I went up to it and pounded on it loudly. There was no response. I pounded again. Finally a small voice called out something in English.

“Hassan,” I yelled.

The small voice said something, went away for a few seconds, then shouted something else. I promised myself that if I lived through this, I was going to buy that kid an Arabic-language daddy. I took out the envelope of money and waved it, yelling “Hassan! Hassan!”

After a few seconds, a small crack opened. I took out a thousand-kiam note, put it in the kid’s hand, showed him all the rest of the cash, and said “Hassan! Hassan!” The door shut with a whuff and my thousand kiam disappeared.

A moment later the door opened again, and I was all ready for it. I grabbed the edge and pulled, wrenching the door out of the kid’s grasp. He cried out and swung with it, but he let go. I flung the door open, then doubled over as the kid kicked me as hard as he could. He was too short to reach where he was aiming, but he still hurt me pretty bad. I grabbed a fistful of his shirt and slapped him a few times, then whacked the back of his head against the wall and let him fall into the refuse-strewn alley. I let my breathing catch up; the daddies were doing a fine job, my heart was pumping away as if I were just humming along with Fazluria, not running for my life. I paused only to bend down and snap back the thousand-K bill the ’ricain kid was still holding. “Take care of the fiqs,” my mother always taught me.

There was no one in the ground-floor room. I thought about slamming and locking the iron door behind me, so that the American kid or any other bogeyman couldn’t sneak up without my knowing, but I decided instead that I might need a handy exit in a hurry. I made no noise as I walked carefully and slowly toward the stairway against the wall to my left. Without the daddies I would have been elsewhere, whispering into a stranger’s ear in some romantic language. I took out my rack of daddies and considered them. The two corymbic implants I had were not fully loaded; I could still chip in another three, but I was already wearing everything I thought I might need in a crisis. All but one, to tell the truth: there was still the special black daddy that plugged directly into my punishment cells. I didn’t think I’d ever use that one voluntarily; but, if I had to face somebody like Xarghis Moghadhil Khan again with nothing but a butter knife, I’d rather go out a snarling, vicious beast than a rational, whimpering human being. I held the black daddy in my left hand and went on up the stairs.

In the room above there were two people. Hassan, smiling faintly and looking just a little distracted, was standing in a corner and rubbing his eyes. He looked sleepy. “Audran, my nephew,” he said.

“Hassan,” I said.

“Did the boy let you in?”

“I gave him a thousand and took the decision out of his hands. Then I took the thousand out of his hands, too.”

Hassan gave me his little ingratiating laugh. “I am fond of the boy, as you know, but he’s an American.” I’m not sure what he meant by that, “He’s an American, so he’s a little stupid,” or “He’s an American, there are plenty more.”

“He won’t be bothering us,” I said.

“Good, O excellent one,” said Hassan. His eyes flicked down to Lieutenant Okking, who was spread-eagled on the floor, his wrists and ankles tied with nylon cords to rings set into the walls. It was obvious that Hassan had used this set-up before—often. Okking’s back, legs, arms, and head were marked with cigarette burns and streaked with long, bright slashes of blood. If he was screaming I didn’t notice, because the daddies had my senses concentrated on Hassan. Okking was still alive, though. I could see that much.

“You finally got around to the cop,” I said. “Are you sorry his brain isn’t wired? You like to use your bootleg moddy, don’t you?”

Hassan raised an eyebrow. “It is a pity,” he said. “But, of course, your implant will suffice. I am already looking forward to that with pleasure. I owe you thanks, my nephew, for suggesting the policeman. It was my belief that my guest here was as witless a fool as he acted. You insisted that he was withholding information. I couldn’t take the chance that you were correct.” I frowned and looked at Okking’s writhing body. I promised myself that later, when I was in my own mind, I’d get sick.

“All along,” I said, as if we were merely discussing the price of beauties, “I thought there were two killers wearing moddies. I’ve been so stupid: it turned out to be one moddy and one old-fashioned crackpot. Here I was trying to out-think some international high-tech hoodlum, and it turns out to be the neighborhood dirty old man. What a waste of time, Hassan! I should be ashamed to take Papa’s money for this.” As I was saying all this, of course, I was edging slowly closer to him, looking down at Okking and shaking my head, and generally acting like a kindly police sergeant in a movie, trying to soft-talk a frantic slob from jumping off a ledge. Take my word for it: it’s harder than it looks.

“Friedlander Bey has paid you the last kiam you’ll ever see.” Hassan actually sounded sad.

“Maybe, maybe not,” I said, still moving slowly. My eyes were on Hassan’s thick, stubby fingers wrapped around a cheap, curved Arab knife. “I’ve been so blind. You were working for the Russians.”

“Of course,” Hassan snapped.

“And you kidnapped Nikki.”

He looked up at me, surprised. “No, my nephew, it was Abdoulaye who took her, not me.”

“But he was following your orders.”

“Bogatyrev’s.”

“Abdoulaye took her from Seipolt’s villa.”

Hassan only nodded.

“So she was still alive the first time I questioned Seipolt. She was somewhere in his house. He wanted her alive. Then when I went back to demand answers from him, he was dead.”

Hassan stared at me, fingering the blade.

“After Bogatyrev died, you killed her and dumped her body. Then you killed Abdoulaye and Tami to protect yourself. Who made her write those notes?”

“Seipolt, O clever one.”

“Okking’s the last, then. The only one left who can link you to the murders.”

“And yourself, of course.”

“Of course,” I said. “You’re a hell of a good actor, Hassan. You had me fooled. If I hadn’t found your underground moddy”—his teeth flashed in a startled snarl—“and some things that connected Nikki to Seipolt, I would never have had anything to go on. Both you and the Germans’ assassin did first-rate work. I would never have guessed you until I realized that every goddamn important piece of information passed through you. From Papa to me, from me to Papa. It was right in front of me the whole time, all I had to do was see it. Finally, I just had to figure it out—it was you, you and your goddamn fat, short, stubby fingers.” I was only about ten feet from Hassan, ready to take another cautious step, when he shot me.

He had a small, white plastic pistol and he stitched a row of needles in the air in a big, looping arc. The last two needles in the clip caught me in the side, just below my left arm. I felt them faintly, almost as if they’d happened to someone else. I knew they’d hurt bad in a little while, and part of my mind beneath the daddies wondered if the needles were juiced or if they were just sharp bits of metal to tear my body apart. If they were drugged or poisoned, I’d find out soon enough. It had become time for desperation. I completely forgot I had my seizure gun with me; I had no intention of having a sharp-shooting match with Hassan, anyway. I took the black daddy and slapped it into place even as I was collapsing from the wounds.

It was like . . . it was like being strapped to a table and having a dentist drilling up through the roof of my mouth. It was like being right on the edge of an epileptic fit and not quite making it, wishing that it would either go away or seize me and get it over with. It was like having the brightest lights in the world blazing in my eyes, the loudest noises exploding in my ears, demons sandpapering my flesh, unnameable vile odors clogging my nose, the foulest muck in my throat. I would gladly have died then just to have it all stop.

I would kill.

I grabbed Hassan by his wrists and fastened my teeth in his throat. I felt his hot blood spurting in my face; I remember thinking how wonderful it tasted. Hassan howled with pain. He beat on my head, but he couldn’t free himself from the purely insane, purely animal hold I had on him. He thrashed, and we fell to the floor. He got loose and slammed another clip into his pistol and shot me again, and again I leaped on his throat. I tore at his windpipe with my teeth, and my stiff fingers dug into his eyes. I felt his blood running down my arms, too. Hassan’s shrieks were horrible, maddened, but they were almost drowned out by my own. The black daddy was still torturing me, still burning like acid inside my head. All my screaming, all the infuriated, savage ferocity of my attack, did nothing to lessen my torment. I slashed and clawed and ripped at Hassan’s bloody body.

Much later, I woke up, heavily tranquilized, in the hospital. Eleven days had passed. I learned that I had mangled Hassan until he was no longer alive, and even then I did not stop. I had avenged Nikki and all the others, but I had made every crime of Hassan’s look like the gentlest of children’s games. I had bitten and torn Hassan’s body until there was barely enough left to identify.

And I had done the same to Okking.