"Map?" She laughed. "Sure. Help yourself." She threw out her arm in a Bette Davis gesture to indicate the map on the wall. "Have an eyeful, sugar."
It was an ordinary world map. A little old, maybe, Remo thought as he scanned its worn folds, but nothing special.
"Barney Daniels is alive and talking, I suppose," Gloria said, a look of resignation settling over her features and rendering them haggard as she slumped into an overstuffed white chair.
"That's right. His memory's back."
She lifted a weary eyebrow. "It was bound to happen. Care for a drink?" She cocked a frosty glass in his direction.
"No thanks."
"It's only mineral water. Here. Try some." She eased herself out of the chair and poured a tall tumbler for Remo at the bar.
The glass felt cold in his hand. The moisture on the outside of the glass wet his skin. "I guess water wouldn't hurt," he said.
Then he smelled it. It was faint, almost nonexistent, just a tinge. "Ethyl chloride," he said, bewildered. "And something else. Something common."
"Don't be silly. That's just plain old H2O, straight from the hidden springs of New Yrok City. Now bottoms up." She drained her own glass in one nervous gulp.
"And what was that?" Remo asked.
"Gin. I'm tapering off water," she said with a smile.
Remo smiled, too. He held his glass toward her. "Go on. Have a taste."
"No, thanks."
"Come on," Remo said. "You only live once." He squeezed her jaw open and poured the liquid down her throat. "Ethyl chloride and mesquite," Remo said. "Mesquite like in tequila. That's what you hooked Daniels on, wasn't it? The mesquite. First, you fudged up his brain with ethyl chloride, then hooked him on the mesquite. And he kept getting enough of it in his tequila to keep the chloride pumping in his tissues, keeping him under. Until he dried out in the clinic."
Gloria sputtered and coughed. Remo squeezed the junctions of her jaws harder. Her mouth popped open wider. "Let's try this all one more time," Remo said and poured the rest of the decanter into Gloria's mouth. "Let's see what's in your system."
The liquid bubbled over her teeth. It sprayed. It dribbled down her chin and plastered her gauze drape to her breasts.
Abruptly, the woman stopped struggling. As Remo watched, a wild, happy glint lit her eyes. He released her jaw and she winked and smiled at him. She seemed unaware of the spittle running down her face.
"It good," she said, clapping her hands together.
"The ethyl chloride's in you too," Remo said. "Is that why you're involved in this? They got you with drugs?"
"Just a little drinkie now and then," Gloria said.
"Want to talk now?" Remo asked.
"Rather play feelies," she said. She raised her breasts toward Remo.
"Where is everybody?"
Coyly, she waggled a finger at Remo. Her face was twisted in a leer that she must have thought was a smile. "No, no, never tell." She giggled, then said, "All the niggies gone. Niggies, niggies, niggles. All gone to Washington to get blown up."
"Who's going to blow them up?"
Her face lit up. "Me. Gloria. And Robar."
"Estomago?"
She nodded. "The one with the big hose." She rolled her eyes appreciatively.
"Why do you want to blow them up?" Remo asked.
"Not just them. Everybody. All in Washington."
"I thought you loved the Afro-Muslim Brotherhood," Remo said.
She blurted a raspberry. "A game. Niggies got me sent to jail. Robar got me out."
"What'd you do to go to jail?"
She bent her neck down, then peered up at Remo as if she were looking over a fence. "Shot me a niggie and they sent me to jail."
"Poor little thing," Remo said.
"Poor Gloria," she said. She sniffed eloquently. Suddenly a tear blossomed from the corner of her eye. "Gonna blow them up; gonna blow everybody up."
"How are you going to blow them up?"
Gloria giggled. "With bombs, silly, Robar's got bombs. Lots of bombs. Let's play ficky-fick. Too much talk."
"First talk," Remo said, "then ficky-fick. Are the bombs in Hispania?"
She nodded. "At the installation. The girls put them together. Built the camp too."
"What girls?"
"The girls Robar got from the prisons. Like me. Only I didn't have to work at the camp 'cause I'm so pretty." She patted her platinum hair.
"When are you going to explode the bombs?"
"Maybe next week. Maybe never. Whenever the Russians say so."
"What's going to happen to Hispania?" Remo asked.
Gloria shrugged. "Who cares? Robar and me, we going away. El Presidente, he going to Switzerland. Who cares? We got lots of money and we get lots more when the Russians come into Hispania and take the island over."
"Where are the girls now?"
"All dead. We shot 'em. Bang. I like shooting."
"Then why didn't you shoot Barney Daniels?"
Her eyes opened wide. "Cause he got away and came to America. So we sent him a bomb, but he didn't blow up. And then we made him kill Calder Raisin so he would go to jail and rile up the niggles. But he didn't kill Calder Raisin. He can't do anything right."
"Just a deadbeat, I guess," Remo said.
"Good ficky-fick though," Gloria said.
Remo walked once around the room. "I only want to ask one more thing," he said. "What's so important about that map on the wall?"
"Dopey," she said, fluttering over to the map. "It's a bomb map." She pressed a tiny button on the desk below the map and an overhead track light came on, illuminating the map with an eerie green light
As the light glowed stronger, lines on the map began to emerge. Blue lines. Red lines. Dotted lines. And a thick, wobbling stroke from a jungle border of Hispania to Washington, D.C.
"El Presidente had it coated, so that you can't see the lines without this special light." She smiled. "He's so smart."
"A real whip," Remo said.
Gloria seated herself on the window sill. "You gonna stay and play with me?"
"No."
"Aw, c'mon," she teased, unfastening the top of her sari and letting the gauzy fabric unravel and flutter in the breeze outside the open window. "Nice jugs, huh?" she asked.
"Good enough for government work," Remo said.
She unravelled more of her sari, until a long stream of fabric floated in the wind like a white river. She stood up on the window sill and lifted her arms to her sides.
"Look, I'm a flag," she squealed, stretching out her arms to grasp the billowing sheath. "I'm an angel! I'm flying! Death to the niggies!" she shouted. "The angel of death is flying! Death to America! Ficky-fick forever."
Then her feet left the floor and she soared downward, down the sheer face of the building, her garment unwinding behind her in brilliant white streamers as she fell naked to the ground below.
Remo shook his head. "Freaking nutcase," he said. "Everybody in this deal is a nutcase."
Chapter Sixteen
Barney Daniels sat up in bed, rubbing the sore spot where the intravenous feeding needle had been taken out.
"Just a couple more days, Mr. Daniels," said the black nurse. "Then you'll be out of here. Can't happen too soon, either. If some of our regulars found out we had a white man here, I don't know what'd happen." She smiled at him.
"No," said Barney, shaking himself to life. "Now."
"Now, now..." the nurse began.
"Just once," Barney said. "Now. I'm going. Get Doc."
"Doctor Jackson is busy at the..."
"Get him in here." Barney's voice reverberated through the small private room. "Otherwise I'll run out front and tell the whole neighborhood that you're treating white folks. You'll never live it down."