It was a nondescript building on a particularly slummy side street. A canopy of wet laundry hung from dozens of lines overhead. A pack of wharf rats feasted on piles of garbage nearby.
Nolan knocked on the door. It opened to reveal a surprisingly well-appointed apartment with clean white walls, expensive furniture and exotic plants everywhere. Calming music was playing over the sounds of gurgling water. Perfume filled the air.
One word came to Nolan immediately.
Cathouse.
As if on cue, four beautiful Chinese girls dressed in short white see-through tunics, appeared. None of them looked older than twenty.
Sitting on a couch off to the side were two burly Asian men, obviously hired heat. The two looked at Twitch quickly without triggering a significant reaction. He was not a threat. But at the first sight of Nolan, stunned by his appearance, they nervously fingered their shoulder holsters
One man asked harshly, “Who sent you here?”
“The twins,” Twitch replied.
The goon made a phone call. After a brief conversation, he said blandly, “OK, go—courtesy of the Boss.”
The girls led Nolan and Twitch deeper into the room. Here were two tubs full of steaming, sudsy water.
“Hot water relax,” one girl kept saying, pointing to the tubs. “Fun time is good for you.”
Twitch needed no prompting. He made a beeline for one of the tubs, pulling two of the girls along with him.
But Nolan knew right away this was not good at all. It was clear that taking a bath was a prelude to anything else that happened in the cathouse. But with the goons on hand, he and Twitch were in no position to decline, especially since it was all courtesy of Sunny Hi himself.
The problem was, the poison pinpoint was still jammed up under Nolan’s fingernail—and he was sure that the hot water would affect its wax enclosure. If that happened, and the ricin inside dissolved, it would quite possibly kill him and the hookers attending his tub.
The goons were watching him intently. Anyone who hesitated in this situation would doubtless arouse their suspicion. But what could he do? He’d run his left hand along the top of the water and indeed, it was almost scalding.
He looked at Twitch and nonchalantly tapped the side of his tub. Twitch got the message right away, deflating his enthusiasm. He gave a slight shrug, as if to say: what can we do?
Nolan had no choice. If he didn’t want to kill them all, he had to neutralize the poison pinpoint.
He indicated to the hookers that before climbing into the tub, he had to relieve himself. They giggled and pointed him to the restroom.
He went inside and carefully removed the pinpoint from under his fingernail. Batman had told him the poison could be neutralized by uric acid, and there was one place where lots of uric acid could be found: urine.
Nolan retrieved a cup from the sink, dropped the poisoned pinpoint into it, and then peed on it. The pinpoint turned from white to red, the sign that it had been neutralized. He reluctantly flushed it all down the toilet.
Then he sat on the edge of the sink and put his aching head in his hands. Could it get any worse? He and Twitch were now in the middle of hostile territory without the weapon they’d come here to use, without their radio, without their transponder and without any kind of Plan B.
Plus, the clock continued to tick down.
Why didn’t we just stay in the Bahamas? he thought grimly.
* * *
AS SOON AS Nolan was out of the restroom, all he wanted to do was flee the cathouse and figure out what to do next.
But then he saw Twitch had climbed into his tub and was getting soap applied all over his body. His prosthetic leg was leaning against the nearby wall.
Nolan was instantly furious. They had no time for this!
But then he saw the two goons eyeing him again. On their silent commands, the two other hookers accosted him, led him to the second tub and stripped him of his clothes, all with little protest. He had to give the girls credit—his face was grotesque and his body was grossly discolored, yet they didn’t give him a second look. They treated him as if he was the All-American poster boy of his youth.
He followed their instructions and eased himself down into the steaming hot water. And it was soothing—for about two seconds. Then another disturbing thought popped into his head. Was there a chance