Warren Murphy: Last Drop

"I might as well tell you that I've fired the upstairs maid," Mrs. Hassam went on. "I've seen the way that strumpet looks at you. Do you think I am blind and deaf?"

"I wish I were," Hassam said mournfully, draining his cup.

"What are you mumbling? I heard you. Don't think you can get away with your nonsense forever, Amfat Hassam. My brothers will know how to handle you."

But Hassam was too absorbed in the coffeepot to answer. He opened the lid, sniffed deeply, smiled, and began to pour himself another cup. Then, watching the slow stream of liquid, he dispensed with the cup and held the spout directly to his lips, greedily gulping down the contents of the pot.

"Excuse me," Hassam said with a belch. "Extraordinary. Most excellent coffee."

"It must have been," Remo mused. Hassam clapped. Within a few moments another pot appeared.

"Are you listening to me?" Mrs. Hassam screamed.

Hassam picked his nose in reply.

She turned to Remo. "What is wrong with him?"

Remo shrugged. Hassam stretched out like a cat, scratching his belly and nodding his head sleepily.

"Hassam! Amfat, my husband, what has come over you?"

"Mmpht," Hassam said, curling into a ball.

"He has gone mad," Mrs. Hassam whispered dramatically. "My mother was right."

"They always are," Remo said.

"If I had married Ali El-Jabbar as she suggested, I would have real jewels now, not cheap paste imitations. I would not have been chained to a thieving drunkard besotted by vice." She turned an accusing finger on Remo. "You forced him into this shameful condition, didn't you?"

"He hasn't been drinking anything," Remo said, poking experimentally at the motionless Hassam. It was all so peculiar. "Smith," he whispered. "Chock Full O' Nuts."

"What are you saying? You are as crazy as he is," Mrs. Hassam shouted.

Remo grabbed the coffeepot from the butler. He opened the lid. The steam wafting from the surface of the liquid stung his eyes and burned his nose. "There's something in this coffee," he said.

Hassam snorted awake and stretched out his arms. "Cof-fee," he chanted.

Remo stuck a finger into the coffee and tasted it.

Bitter. Odd. Hypnotic. "Heroin," he said.

Hassam's eyes opened a fraction of an inch. "Heroin?"

"In the coffee."

Mrs. Hassam gave out a terrifying yell. "A drunkard and a thief, and now my worthless husband is a drug addict as well!" She grabbed Remo by both shoulders and shook him. "What can I do? Help me to do something with this criminal before he attacks me in lust."

"Uh... just a second, Mrs. Hassam," Remo said, carefully removing her viselike fingers from his shirt.

"This is terrible!"

Remo nodded in agreement. "Yes, ma'am. Very bad. I'd say you were in great danger right now."

"Oh," she gasped, backing away a step.

"If I were you, I'd go somewhere right now where there isn't any chance that he'll see or hear you. The basement ought to do it. Just stay out of danger until I can subdue him."

She stole a quick glance at the little man snoring peacefully on the divan.

"Oh, they're unpredictable in this state, ma'am. You can't tell what they'll do next. A kitten one minute, a tiger the next."

Mrs. Hassam faltered backward as far as the doorway. "To... the basement? Would not my bedroom do as well?"

"I'm afraid that's not far enough out of the danger zone, ma'am. Quick! I think he's coming out of it."

With a final shriek, Mrs. Hassam careened out of sight.

Remo shook Hassam awake. "Hassam. Sheik. Listen to me."

"Cof-fee," the old man intoned.

"No coffee. Just tell me where your supply of heroin is."

"You want heroin?" Hassam shook his head slowly.

"No good. Coffee is much better. Besides, business is rotten."

"It doesn't matter."

With an effort, the little man sat up and looked around warily. "Where is Yasmine? She knows nothing of my business activities."

"I sent her to the basement."

Hassam stared at him. "Is she dead? Did you kill her, too?"

"No. She's all right. I just told her to go, and she went."

"Just like that?" His voice was incredulous.

"Yeah," Remo said impatiently. "Now where do you keep the stash?"

Hassam appraised Remo with a long, unfocused glance. "I suppose you will kill me if I don't tell you."

"Worse. I'll release Yasmine."

"It is on a freighter in Miami Harbor. The Maid of Mallecha is the name of the ship." He spelled it out. "But why do you want heroin? It is worthless."

"The police will still be interested."

"You are with the police?" Hassam asked, startled.

"No."

"Oh. That is good."

"I'm an assassin."

Hassam looked into his eyes for several moments. At last he spoke. "Cof-fee," he said.

"Relax."

"You are not going to kill me?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Don't press it," Remo said.

"But what will happen to me?"

"Jail, probably. And a lot of interrogation by the cops."

"Jail? Imprisonment?" Hassam moaned. "But that is terrible! It is the end of my life. Is it not bad enough that I am impoverished? A convict in the land of the free... oh, it is most unbearable..."

"Think of it this way," Remo said. "Jail's for singles only."

Hassam gaped, his mouth flopping open occasionally like a fish. "No Yasmine?"

"Not for twenty or thirty years, anyway."

"Twenty or thirty years." Hassam relished the words.

"Or I could call Yasmine right now and take you both to an uncharted tropical island where there aren't any other people. It's your choice."

"Please," Hassam said shakily. "Do not even joke about such ideas. I am not a strong man. Jail it is."

"Deal," Remo said. He rose. Hassam smiled gently at him. Crook or not, Remo thought, he liked the guy. Who knew what crimes a woman like Yasmine could drive a man to. "I'm going to give you a present," Remo said.

"Yes?" Hassam asked politely.

And Remo showed him exactly how to hold his fingers when pressing a certain spot on a woman's back.

"Yes, very good, but what will this do?" Hassam asked, experimenting with the unusual position.

"I'll let you find out for yourself. Sandy's going to visit you in the pokey. I'll see to it. When she does, you push on the place on her back the way I showed you. She'll come every visiting day, I promise."

"Very strange," Hassam said.

"So long, Squirt."

?Chapter Five

"Hassam's got a freighter full of dope -in Miami Harbor," Remo told Smith. "The Maid of Mallecha is the name of the ship. Hassam's at home, waiting to be picked up."

"Again? Remo—"

"That's just the way it is," Remo said flatly. "I'm not going to kill anyone, no matter what."

Smith sputtered for a few moments. "All right," he said finally. "There isn't time to argue. How was Hassam getting the heroin to the public?"

"He wasn't. He's broke, like all the other drug dealers."

"You mean you don't have a clue?"

"Oh, I've got a clue all right. The stuff's in coffee. I just don't know how it's getting there."

"Coffee?" A mechanical whirr sounded in the background. Smith mumbled to himself while making entries into the computers. "That would explain the widespread proliferation of the drug. But which coffee? And how does the heroin get into the coffee? In the packing stage, or earlier? What city does it originate from? How can one dealer infiltrate every coffee operation in the country? Who has access to so much heroin? And why would anyone want to do it?"

"Hell, I don't know, Smitty—"

"It doesn't even seem that it would be profitable," Smith rambled on, oblivious now to Remo. The background clicks and beeps whipped to a frenzy, then died away. "None of that computes," Smith said wearily. "Are you sure it's coffee?"

"Pretty sure."

"I'll have some tests run. Be where I can reach you this evening."