Madison and I got out. I looked around. I saw that Utanc had a new car: an awesome red Ferrari, a vehicle that represented an awful lot of bucks, at least a hundred thousand.
The staff was peering timidly from around corners, very nervous.
Musef waddled forward. Gods, he was fat on all this good food-he must be three hundred and fifty pounds! Torgut was right beside him, swinging a hefty club. They were both grinning like a couple of apes.
"Welcome home!" they both cried.
At least my bodyguards were glad to see me. They might not be in wrestling shape but they could certainly make the staff step. Torgut had only to point his club and three staff dived to grab Madison's bag.
Well! This was more like it!
I limped across the yard into the patio. The fountain was plinking away.
Utanc's door was open.
Her eye was applied to the crack.
The two little boys had evidently been caught in the open. They rushed feverishly to her door. She let them in and then closed it.
"You want anything, you just yell," said Musef. "It won't take us any time at all to beat it out of these people. We got lots of practice."
"Who's he?" said Torgut, pointing at Madison with his club.
"This fellow won't be with us long," I said. "But he's not to know it. I'm disposing of him later. Don't let him wander around or get into things and don't let him reach a phone."
"We hear and obey," said Musef, grinning.
"What are they talking about?" said Madison. "I don't speak this lingo."
"They're telling me that the Mafia has been prowling around," I said in English. "There's lots of them in this valley. You can hear them howling at night."
"They didn't seem very serious about it," said Madison.
"Oh, that's because they enjoy killing them. These two men are my bodyguards. They're the champion wrestlers of this province. I told them to look after your safety and not let you go wandering about getting yourself shot." I pointed to a guest room. "So why don't you just go in there and have a bath and get some sleep. The staff will see that you get fed. And don't be alarmed if we keep the door locked. We don't want the Mafia to get you."
"Got it," said Madison. He went into the room. Two staff carried his grip in. I winked at Musef and he locked the door.
Well, things were going much better. Maybe I could work this out after all. At least I wasn't going to be stoned to death and I could probably even wriggle out of paying the kaffarah to the violated wives.
I went into my room. I handed the American International machine gun to Musef and told him to clean it and its magazines before it rusted to pieces. I got out of my clothes and gave them to Karagoz and told him to go out and burn them.
I shaved with a proper spin razor.
I got into a shower and scrubbed the goat stink off.
The careless bandages Prahd had thrown on my feet got wet so I took them off. I scrubbed the lacerations with soap. I wondered if I would get lockjaw from the goat droppings. Well, I had my own medical kit now. When I had dried myself I worked proper Voltar antiseptic into the wounds-ouch, but it stung! I covered the open ones with false skin.
I dressed in black pants and a poinsettia-pattern sport shirt. But I couldn't stand the tightness of boots and got into some curl-toed slippers that were loose.
The waiter served me some ice-cold sira and the fermented grape juice was the first thing that had scaled my throat in weeks. It was followed with some iskembe corbasi, a soup of tripe and eggs. I began to feel better.
But just as I was beginning to believe that things would work out all right, the axe fell.
Karagoz came into the dining room. "There's a very polite fellow at the gate. He says he wants a word with you that will make you very happy."
In that mood of feeling things would now work out, I said carelessly, "All right. I'll go out and see him." I didn't even pick up a gun!
I limped in my curl-toed slippers out to the twin pillars. I didn't see anyone. I stepped further toward the road, looking up and down. Nobody.
I turned around to go back in the gate.
He was standing beside the left-hand pillar.
THE BLACK-JOWLED MAN!
Unarmed, in the open and helpless, I stared. Then I said, "How did you know I was here?"
He moved forward, blocking my escape back through the gate. "Oh, we've been in communication with your friends. About dawn yesterday, I got a radio from Doktor Muhammed Ataturk that you'd be here today for sure. That's why we thought it wiser not to look for you in all that underbrush. Besides, you had a machine gun then. I see you don't now."
Prahd! He'd been helping these people to round me up!
"I know who you are," I said. "You're acting for Mudur Zengin of the Piastre National Bank of Istanbul!"
"No, no," he said. "Mudur Zengin is a friend of yours, though I can't understand why. When your concubine bought the yacht in New York, he helped execute the purchase with a mortgage by his bank. And he's been advancing money for its bills to Squeeza credit. Of course, we've seized the yacht now that it is in Istanbul and Mudur Zengin is quite cross."
"Then who the Hells ARE you?" I demanded.
"Perhaps I better introduce myself," he said, taking out a card from his wallet.
I looked at it.
FORREST CLOSURE
International Mortgage Division
GRABBE-MANHATTAN BANK
"Hold it," I said. "I don't owe you anything. I don't have a mortgage with you on anything. You have gone crazy."
"Oh, I am afraid you do," he said.
I decided to let him have it. "Grabbe-Manhattan Bank is owned by Rockecenter! I don't think you know who you're talking to!" I assumed a very haughty mien. "I am a Rockecenter family spi!"
He smiled. "Change it to you were. The City of Miami suddenly stopped ordering fuel oil. Octopus instantly investigated and found that they were getting an unlimited supply of electricity from Ochokeechokee, Florida. They showed some photographs around and identified Wister as the engineer. Mr. Rockecenter couldn't believe it! You can't have inexpensive energy flying around wrecking things! He sent Mr. Bury to find why the cheap fuel man had not been stopped and Bury found that you had kidnapped Madison, closed his office and gone on a happy yachting cruise. Mr. Bury even confirmed it by travelling himself personally to Elba to see with his own eyes. And there you and Madison were, thousands of miles off the job. Obviously you had both been bought: a yacht like that costs a fortune. So, no, Mr. Inkswitch/Sultan Bey, you are no longer a Rockecenter family spy. You've been fired with malice aforethought and I'm afraid you have no protection there. Quite the contrary. You could be charged with taking bribes if you ever set foot in America again."
I was reeling under these blows. The secret sign tattooed on my chest was worthless. But I rallied: "That doesn't explain this silly nonsense about a mortgage!"
"Well, oddly enough," said Closure, "when this mortgage thing occurred, we did not know Sultan Bey and Inkswitch were the same person. All that we were led to believe was that one Sultan Bey owned a villa, the total land of a mountain and thousands of acres of prime, arable, poppy soil. And when you had us approached to mortgage it for a mere two million dollars, we, of course, leaped at the chance. So we rushed it right through and granted you the mortgage."
"Hold it!" I said. "I didn't take out any mortgage like that."
"Oh, I am afraid you did," said Closure. And he displayed the papers.
I gripped them. My Gods, the land involved comprised not only the thousands of acres of prime opium land Voltar held but THE ENTIRE EARTH BASE!
And right there at the bottom was my SIGNATURE.