"Señor, you are a cheat, a scoundrel!" the woman of easy virtue exclaimed as the last of Artemus Gordon's poker-playing opponents stormed off from the table with less money than they'd arrived with. She batted her lashes at him and poured him another cup of wine. "I like that in a man."

It hadn't been difficult for Arte's bandito persona to insert himself into the outskirts of Hector el Tigre's fortress community. It had been only marginally more difficult to remain in one piece while there. But most of the hoodlums he'd encountered today were no match for the wily Secret Service agent in wits, fisticuffs, gun-drawing or anything else. All of the adventures he and Jim had shared over the years had made him better than the average fighter or gambler that was to be found in this place. If those he'd met so far represented the best caliber of criminal Hector el Tigre could attract, it was difficult to believe the Tiger himself was any equal to Dr. Loveless.

Just as Arte was gathering up his special edged playing cards and wondering how he might attract the attention of a better grade of henchman, he heard a rumbling, rough voice behind him.

"Señor Gonzaleez," the speaker said, addressing Arte by the name he'd chosen for this particular disguise, "I hear you are causing some trouble in this town."

"Oh?" 'Gonzaleez' replied, deliberately keeping his back to the man, but tilting the wine cup to view the thug in the liquid's mirror surface. "I might do that if I could find some trouble worth causing, but this is quite a dull little town."

Arte felt (and saw) the hand coming down on his shoulder, and could have practically read the tough's next line of dialog from a bad playscript.

"Perhaps I can make it less dull for you, Señor."

With reflexes only slightly less quick than his partner's, Arte flung the wine directly into his opponent's face, ducked out of the loosened shoulder grip and simultaneously drove the chair he'd been sitting in into the man's legs and more sensitive parts. Before the thug could recover, Arte spun around and punched the man right in the nose, pressing the palm-side catch on a large ring he was wearing as he did so. A concentrated drop of the same special 'stench oil' Arte had employed in more diluted form when making Jim's raggedy costume shot straight up the thug's left nostril. Then all Arte had to do was stand back and wait for the impressive results. In less than two seconds, with one clenched fist still raised in the air, the unlucky goon gave a startled gasp of pure horror, his eyes crossed, and he fell to the ground in a faint.

"Timber!" Arte whispered with a satisfied grin, being careful as he closed the ring's compartment not to get any oily residue on himself. This particular bully boy he'd just brought down was smaller than Voltaire, but not by a lot. Now if that didn't get the attention of someone in charge around here . . . .

The woman who'd poured Arte the wine was now gaping openly. Arte gave her a friendly shrug and reached to scratch the back of his neck. As he did so, his fingertips touched a small dart that was lodged there and he suddenly found himself frozen like a statue, unable to move. Another pair of hands brought a sack down over his head, plunging him into darkness.

Yes, he'd gotten someone's attention all right . . . .

Arte could feel himself being lifted, stiff as a board, and carried to an unfamiliar location, though he couldn't tell in what direction. The experience was disturbingly similar to an ordeal he'd suffered at the hands of a Chinese 'tong' gang that had wanted to use him as a hostage against Jim. He'd managed to talk his way out of the trap they'd put him in that time, one designed to plunge a knife through his chest at the stroke of midnight if his partner didn't succeed in following the gang's orders. The night had been no fun at all for either agent, and they'd both nearly ended up cooked like lobsters as well. That had made Arte mighty steamed in a different sense. Hopefully he'd be able to talk himself out of whatever mess he'd just gotten himself into this time too. For one terrifying second it felt as if the person holding onto his top half was losing his grip and was about to drop Arte from who knew what height as he was being carried up a flight of steps. But that unseen person regained his balance and grip, and after a few more confusing twists and turns, Arte was set down, standing upright still like a statue, his hand still reaching back to scratch at his neck. Just as he felt his ability to move starting to return, fingers and arm twitching stiffly, the bag was removed from his head and he could see again.

"Welcome to my abode, Señor Gonzaleez, if that is your real name," a new, deep voice boomed down at him. "You make a most interesting looking sculpture. Tell me why I should not have you bronzed and turned into one permanently."

With his neck still the stiffest part of him, Arte had to move in an almost curtsy-performing fashion to angle his head and see the speaker towering above on an elaborate inlaid wooden dais. His lips, tongue and vocal cords hadn't entirely unfrozen yet either, but even if they had, he might still have been struck speechless by the figure in front of him. If Miguelito Loveless were about ten years younger and had surgically transplanted his head onto the body of a circus strongman in aristocrats' clothing, this would be the result. The facial resemblance he bore to Loveless, the wide, thin-lipped mouth with the menacing, toothy smile, the bright, intelligent eyes with a spark of insanity behind them . . . .

"e . . . el . . . Tigre . . . ." Arte managed to stammer.

"Ah! But where are my manners?" Hector el Tigre laughed, making a booming clap of his hands that brought two house-uniformed servants in front of their master's throne. "Wine for our guest! And the towel for the neck!"

A moment later, one of the servants was placing a warm, damp towel around the back of Arte's neck, from which the dart had been removed, and a moment after that, Arte was holding a cup of hot mulled wine in fingers that were once more under his control. He could feel the beginnings of a headache coming on, as he had after the Chinese tong gang had drugged him, but it was nothing he couldn't handle. Tentatively, he took a sip of the wine, conscious that he couldn't afford to offend his host, but also remembering what had once happened to Jim after accepting the hospitality of one of Dr. Loveless' cigars. For all that they were nothing alike in body or voice, the family resemblances shared by Miguelito Loveless and his disagreeable cousin were startling. If Arte hadn't known that Hector was indeed a separate person, he might have thought he was standing before the real Dr. Miguelito Loveless, and that Loveless had been experimenting on himself to give himself the body he'd always wanted. It wasn't a reassuring sensation.

"Your . . . pardon, Señor el Tigre," Arte said, managing to bow his head low before the imperious individual confronting him.

"Well at least you know enough to ask for it!" Hector el Tigre snorted. "So many of the ilk that come here do not! They do not understand the proper way to behave when brought before someone of my majesty and natural superiority! My magnanimity!"

Yes – oh, that monstrous conceit - Hector was Loveless' cousin for certain!

Practically a fraternal twin . . . .

It took every bit of acting skill Arte had in him to keep from appearing as appalled as he was in that moment. One Loveless was bad enough, but two of them? Yet his past encounters with the mad little wizard had been instructive and could help him here too. Miguelito's ego allowed him to be played like a violin using the right technique. This was just a matter of tuning up a slightly different instrument. Arte took another cautious sip of the wine, and as Gonzaleez smacked his lips with appreciation.

"You are a most generous host, Señor el Tigre."

"Yes, I am, aren't I?" Hector el Tigre buffed his fingernails on his outer jacket, inspected them, and appeared pleased by the compliment. "It is a wise man who recognizes it. And you," he peered down again sharply at Artemus, "have passed something of a little test I give to all who seek out my abode. I should tell you now, many who come here in search of employment do not find it with me. But many who come with a desire to make trouble for me succeed in getting more trouble than they can handle – fatal trouble in fact. So what is it that brings you to my little corner of Mexico?"

Artemus shrugged, testing to see if the full range of sensation and motion was coming back into his shoulders and neck yet. So far so good.

"As you say, Señor, you are a man of great reputation, a leader among men, majestic, a visionary . . . ." 'Gonzaleez' was doing his best to lay it on with his biggest trowel.

"Yes, yes?" Hector el Tigre demanded, not because he was annoyed or impatient with the flattery, but because he was so eager to have more of it. His guest obliged.

" . . . . a man who is meant to be a ruler! Such a man is the most worthy to work for! And who of course deserves only the best of talents." Arte shrugged again, indicating himself with his hands. "And as for me, Señor, I wish to serve only such a man as that. I have many skills - many – I do not wish to work for anyone who does not deserve them! But you, Señor el Tigre, I would be very content to be employed by one such as you! Alas!" He shook his head. "There is no other el Jefe Grande1 who can compare to you to work for! There is only you, so I am here to offer you my services," 'Gonzaleez bowed low before the big man on the throne. "I know you are a man of such tastes and distinction . . . ." He let his voice trail off to imply the rest. Are you buying this, you monster?

Evidently, the Tiger did buy it. He threw back his head and laughed – again, with a deep, booming sound unlike Dr. Loveless' high-pitched snorts, cackles and braying – but so like Loveless in appearance and mannerism that Arte laughed along a little to keep himself from shuddering.

"Well, well!" Hector smirked as he brought himself under control. "I can certainly see you are someone with good taste! And no false modesty either – I like that!" Hector held one mighty hand up and the room went silent. 'Gonzaleez' stopped his chuckling and looked about the room, taking his visual cue from the way others were behaving. All of them kept their fixed, and in some cases worshipful, focus on the big man on the dais. Hector then snapped the fingers of his right hand loudly and from the curtain behind the dais, there came a shimmering of the fabrics followed by a parting of the curtain and the appearance of a female figure who strode over majestically to the Tiger's side. Arte again needed all his actor talents to keep his jaw from dropping at the sight of her.

Kitten Twitty! What was she doing here?

But no – this woman couldn't be Kitten Twitty. Not because Arte believed she'd drowned – he knew that Antoinette and Loveless had survived their boating mishap, so he'd always assumed Kitten had as well. However, just as Hector el Tigre was both like and unlike his mad cousin, this woman, while resembling Kitten Twitty a great deal physically, sported some glaringly obvious differences. Arte began noticing and cataloguing them immediately. Her haughty, regal bearing and graceful, confident stride were those of a queen – not a self-loathing, bashful and miserable servant woman. She was dressed and made up to be a Queen of Sheba too, in rich, shimmering silks and precious jewels that flattered her lightly tanned complexion and long, shining hair. In spite of her, ahem, generous proportions, she was in her own way beautiful. She was the person that Kitten Twitty wouldn't have known she had it in herself to become.

"Eh, my Ghattina," Hector smiled at her with affection as his concubine emerged to stand by him. "What do you think of this new recruit?"

Ghattina looked down at Artemus/Gonzaleez as if he were nothing more than a mouseling for her to play with and eat. There was intelligence and suspicion as well as contempt in that glare, however. Arte decided his best bet was not to cower under that gaze, but to meet it as if ready to offer a challenge of his own. As his Great Aunt Maude had told him, when a cat is stalking, it pays to be the dog.

"He's small," she said after a second of hesitation. "But he did beat Toroloco."

"So he did!" Smug and pleased, Hector took her meaty left hand into his even meatier right hand, raised it to his mouth and kissed it. "A tryout, then, and a closer examination of these skills he makes reference to?"

Ghattina nodded, caressing Hector's hand, perhaps unconsciously. Her eyes never left 'Gonzaleez' for a minute.

Ghattina must be his Antoinette, Arte thought. Like Antoinette, she might be extremely dangerous in her own right. Only she's built more like Voltaire! No need to wonder why Hector would have taken such a large woman for his mistress, though. At his own size, he might have had to worry about crushing a smaller woman while romancing her. Together, they were an ultimate power couple. Arte got the sinking feeling that his and Jim's already near-impossible mission had just become twice as hard.

Jim should have made contact with Ruiseñor by now. They'd be expecting Arte to carry out his mission of prepping Hector's hideout for their breaking, entering and grabbing scheme, so Arte had better get on it. Keeping his own eyes on Ghattina and Hector, but bowing low once more, he accepted the offer of a tryout – and a journey into the tiger's mouth . . . .

1 Big Boss