Yet somehow Marvin Meskin found himself on the other side of the front desk, his back crushing the deep-pile royal blue lobby rug and his left arm straining to come out of its socket.
Way up there where the oxygen was, the skinny guy was calmly and methodically using one terrible hand to slowtwist Meskin's going-numb left arm. His other hand rested on his hip. One of his feet-Meskin had no idea which was planted irresistibly in his windpipe, restricting the flow of air.
"Gasp," Marvin Meskin gasped. "Hack! Hack!"
"You'll have to speak up. I didn't hear the answer to my question."
Meskin could not recall a question being put to him, but he signaled with his flailing free hand that he would be delighted to answer.
"Let me repeat it," the skinny guy was saying. "The Iraiti ambassador was dropped off at the Embassy Row Hotel two days ago. The front desk there told the FBI that he never checked in. I double-checked, and what do you know, it was true. Since the FBI understood he was in the habit of being dropped off at the Embassy, according to the ambassador's driver, that means he was pulling the old duck-and-dodge-something that should have occurred to the FBI, but didn't. Your establishment is the closest to that one. Ergo, your establishment goes to the top of the list."
This made perfect sense to Marvin Meskin, so he nodded in agreement. The action scratched the man's shiny shoes. Meskin's five-o'clock shadow appeared around noon. He hoped the desecration was not noticed.
"Okay," the guy in black was saying, "now I ask you if you'd know the Iraiti ambassador if you saw him." And the shoe withdrew.
"I'm a faithful watcher of Nightline," Meskin said hoarsely. He started gulping air in case the shoe returned. It did not.
"He check in two days ago?"
"Yes, he did."
"Check out?"
"I'd have to examine our records."
At that moment the bellboy stepped off the elevator. He started at the sight of his employer being held down on the royal-blue rug.
"Mr. Meskin, should I call the police?" he asked from behind a potted rubber plant. "Say no," the skinny guy said flatly.
"No," Meskin said, really wanting to say yes. But those deep-set eyes promised certain death if he disobeyed.
"Did you hear that?" the skinny guy asked, directing his deadly eyes toward the bellboy.
"I don't work for you," the bellboy said bravely.
"Go look for that maid!" Meskin yelled.
"I found her. I found all of four of them. In the storage room."
"All? What the hell are they doing-playing strip poker?"
"No, sir, they appear to have been strangled."
"Did you say strangled?" the skinny guy demanded.
"Union dispute," Marvin Meskin said quickly. "Nothing for you to concern yourself with. We run a discreet hotel."
The skinny guy frowned. "I'd say this is more than union trouble. Let's look into the ambassador first. I see dead bodies all the time."
"I'll bet you do," Marvin Meskin said as he was hauled by one arm to his feet. Weak-kneed, he stumbled back behind the counter and went to the computer. The skinny guy followed close behind him.
"There's something wrong with this computer," Meskin said, trying to call up the name. The amber screen was misbehaving. The letters and symbols were wavering as if written in disturbed water. "I can't get it to straighten out," Meskin complained, banging the terminal.
"Just a sec," the man said, stepping back.
The amber letters reformed, readable once more.
Meskin looked over his shoulder. The skinny guy stood, his bare arms folded, about twelve feet away.
"Hop to it," he said.
And Meskin hopped to it.
"We have an Abdul Al-Hazred in Room 1045," Meskin called out.
"So?"
"So that's the name the Iraiti ambassador uses whenever he takes a room here."
"He do that often?"
"Quite often. Usually for only an afternoon, if you know what I mean."
"I know. What floor is 1045-tenth or forty-fifth?"
"Tenth," Meskin said, "the same floor we've been having trouble with. Oh, my God," he croaked, his own words registering in their full impact.
The skinny guy came back. The amber screen broke apart like water that had been disturbed by an idly swirling stick. He took Marvin Meskin up by the scruff of his neck and on the way to the elevator collected the bellboy.
"Are we going to be killed too?" the bellboy asked as the elevator shot up to the tenth floor.
"Why?" the skinny guy asked while Meskin felt his stomach contents turn acidic.
"Because I'd like to call home and tell my mother goodbye," the bellboy said sincerely.
"Tell her good-bye over dinner tonight," the skinny guy growled. "I'm in a big rush."
Stepping out into the corridor, Meskin recalled that he had forgotten to bring along a passkey.
"No problem," the skinny guy said, releasing them on either side of Room 1045. "I brought my own."
"You? Where did you get . . . ?"
The question was answered before it was completed. The skinny guy answered it when he took hold of the knob, flexed one monster wrist, and handed the suddenly loose knob to Marvin Meskin.
It was very, very warm, Meskin found. He tossed it from hand to hand, blowing on his free hand by turns.
The door fell open after the man tapped it.
Marvin Meskin was shoved in first. The bellboy stumbled in, propelled by the skinny guy, who had such an irresistible way about him. They collided.
While they were picking themselves up, the skinny guy went for the bed, where the late Iraiti ambassador, Turqi Abaatira, AKA Abdul Al-Hazred, lay spread-eagled, his dark manhood dominating the decor like an overripe banana.
Ambassador Abaatira made a very colorful corpse. His body was a kind of brownish-white, his natural duskiness bleached by his lack of circulation. His tongue was a purplishblack extrusion in his blue face. His manhood was at full mast, a corpsy greenish-black.
The skinny guy looked over the body with a dispassionate eye, as if used to seeing corpses that were lashed to hotel beds by yards of yellow silk. He seemed most interested in the late ambassador's throat. The cords and muscles of his thick neck were squeezed by a long yellow silk scarf.
"Was he into bondage?" the skinny guy asked, turning from the body. His face was two degrees unhappier than before.
"We do not pry into our guests' affairs," Marvin Meskin sniffed, averting his eyes from the ugly but colorful sight. They kept going back to the swollen member in a kind of mesmerized horror. The bellboy was on his knees in front of the wastepaper basket. From the sounds he made, he was straining hard to throw up-but not hard enough. All he did was hack and spit.
When he at last gave up, the bellboy found himself being hauled to his feet by the tall skinny guy.
"Let's see those maids," he ordered.
The bellboy was only too happy to comply. On the way out of the room, the skinny guy paused to shove Marvin Meskin back.
"You," he said in a no-nonsense voice. "Mind the dead guy."
"Why me?" Meskin bleated.
"Because it's your hotel."
Which somehow made perfect sense to Marvin Meskin. Meekly he went into the bathroom and closed the door.
Remo Williams let the nervous bellboy lead him to the storage room.
"I found them in a corner, behind some stacked chairs," the bellboy was saying. "They . . . they were just like that dead guy."
"If they were, medical science is going to have a field day with them. Not to mention the National Enquirer, Hard Copy, Inside Edition, and Copra Inisfree."
"No, I didn't mean exactly like him," the bellboy protested, his face actually reddening with embarrassment. Looking at him in his tight-fitting hotel uniform, Remo decided he would be embarrassed too. "I meant they were killed the same way. Strangled," he added in a hushed voice as he unlocked the storage-room door.