Free Dr. Death by Nick Carter - [Killmaster 100]

slum called La Perla. As we moved through it, tin roofs rattled in the Caribbean breeze. You could hear surf breaking against the sea-wall and smell decaying fish, garbage, and small, cluttered rooms without indoor plumbing. Gonzalez skirted a small square, navigated the Toyota through an alley that gave it about an inch clearance on either side, and parked around the corner. The darkened street was deserted. Latin music came faintly from a window above us.
    "You are determined to do this foolish thing?" Gonzalez asked, his voice thick with anxiety.
    "There's no other way," I responded flatly.
    Gonzalez sighed.
    "The leper colony is at the end of the street. It is a leprosarium, really, a combination hospital and hostel for lepers. It occupies a space equivalent to a city block, and is shaped like a fortress, consisting of one large building with a central courtyard. There is only one entrance and exit. It leads into the offices of the leprosarium. Beyond this there is one locked door. It leads into the courtyard. Off the courtyard there are three wings: the east wing, which is the hospital, the west wing, which is a dormitory for lepers whose condition is stabilized, and the south wing."
    Gonzalez turned and looked at me hard.
    "The south wing," he said, "houses those lepers who are contagious and who are not allowed out of the leprosarium."
    I nodded. I'd done some homework on the ugly subject of leprosy. It is a chronic, infectious disease that attacks the skin, the body tissues, and the nerves. In its early stages it produces white spots on the skin, then white scaly scabs, putrescent ulcers, and nodules. Finally, parts of the body literally waste away and fall off, producing nightmarish deformities. Thanks to antibiotics developed after the Second World War, it's now possible to arrest the disease at a certain point. But in its early stages, it is still highly contagious.
    "Do you have what I asked you to bring?"
    Wordlessly, Gonzalez reached into the back seat and handed me a doctor's bag and two sets of I.D. cards. One was for a Jonathan Miller, M.D. The other was for an Inspector Miller of the San Juan Customs Bureau.
    "The syringes are full," said Gonzalez. "One of them should knock out a grown man within seconds and keep him out for a minimum of eight hours. Carter…"
    He paused. I looked at him.
    "The lepers whose cases have been arrested are quite as dangerous as the contagious ones. They sleep and eat here free, and are given medication. But they have no money for other things — cigarettes, rum, gambling — and few of them are able to work. So, it is well known that they are involved in many shady things. They…"
    I opened the door of the car and got out.
    "That," I said, "is what I'm counting on. I'll also be counting on you to wait for me in that little square we passed until morning. If I'm not out by then, leave. Contact Hawk. You know the drill."
    Gonzalez nodded. I turned and walked away before he even had the car in gear.
    "Buena suerte,"
I heard him call softly behind me.
    Good luck.
    I'd need it.

Seven
    The leprosarium was a squat, heavy, ugly building of crumbling stucco, which someone had painted a vivid red that made it even uglier. It was two stories high, and the windows on each story were covered with heavy wooden shutters, closed tight even in the Caribbean heat. I found a bell pull to one side of the wooden door and pulled hard. I heard a loud metallic clanging inside, then silence. I pulled again. More clanking. Then footsteps. The door opened a crack, and a thin, sleepy female face peered out.
    "What do you want?" she asked irritably, in Spanish.
    "I am Dr. Jonathan Miller," I replied crisply, in my somewhat rusty, but reasonably fluent Spanish. "I am here to see the patient Diaz."
    There had to be a patient named Diaz in the leprosarium. It was one of the most common names in Puerto Rico.
    "At this hour you come to see a patient?" the woman said, even more irritably.
    "I am from New