The End of the Game td-60

by Warren Murphy

  "Good," said Hamuta. He clapped his hands again and the woman was there with a small-bore single-shot rifle.

  He's not going to ask me to kill the woman, thought the lord. I'm not going to.

  "Whom would you kill?" asked Hamuta.

  "Well, of course not the woman. Right?"

  "Of course not. A woman is unworthy of death by a Hamuta." He put the weapon into the lord's hands. The nobleman had never felt a balance like that, nor such an obvious elegance of precision.

  "It's beautiful," he said.

  Hamuta nodded. "You are worthy in taste," he said.

  He clapped his hands again and the woman returned with four bullets on a bed of fresh green azalea leaves. Hamuta took the bullets and cleaned off any moisture. The shells were polished brass and the slugs a shiny substance.

  "That's not silver is it?" asked the lord. "Not silver-tipped bullets?"

  "Silver is too soft. Lead is even softer. Copper is barely adequate. But for a perfect gun, only platinum is worthy. Are you worthy of it?"

  "Yes, by Jove. Yes, I am worthy."

  Hamuta nodded.

  The lord looked again at the gun in his hands. "It's a very simple gun," he said. "There's no silver. No engraving."

  "It is a weapon, Englishman. Not a teacup," Hamuta said.

  The lord nodded, reached into his waistcoat and withdrew a velvet bag which he gave to Hamuta. The gunsmith opened it and emptied the contents into his palm. There were three large rubies and a modest diamond, all perfect gems. Hamuta, it was known, would only take perfect gems. He returned one ruby.

  "That is a perfect ruby," said the lord.

  "Yes, it is," Hamuta agreed. "But it is too much."

  "That's downright decent of you," the lord said.

  "Your gun, your bullets. Now you should test it," Hamuta said and the lord nodded.

  Hamuta clapped his hands again and a door at the other end of the long hall opened. And there was a poor wretch tied to a stake.

  "Kill," said Hamuta.

  "I'm not going to kill someone tied to a stake," the lord said. "I'm not an executioner."

  "As you wish," said Hamuta. He smiled and took the rifle with a simple motion of one hand and loaded one shot and fired. So fine was the tooling that even without a silencer, the shot sounded like a minor hiss coming out of the barrel. A knot exploded on one of the ropes that held the man. The man squirmed and the ropes fell away. The man let out a shout and Hamuta handed the gun back to the nobleman.

  "Oh, gracious," said the lord. The man who had just been set free was large and unshaven and his eyes were flecked with a red madness.

  "He has killed before," Hamuta said. "And I think he wants your jewels as well as your life, old chap. Is that how you Englishmen say it? 'Old chap'?" Hamuta laughed. The lord fumbled a bullet into the rifle and fired and a little pop appeared in the enraged killer's belly. But all it made was a little red mark. From his hunting, the lord knew what was wrong. A platinum bullet was so hard it would cut through someone like a fine pick. The shot had to go into the brain or hit a vital organ, or it would not stop the man.

  But the rifle wasn't in his hands anymore. That vicious beast, Hamuta, had it, and he was laughing. Loading and firing and laughing. And at this point, the nobleman saw what he might need a strong stomach for. With one shot, Hamuta crumpled the man's left ankle, and with another, his right. The poor creature was on his back, screaming in pain, when Hamuta put a shot into his spine and the legs stopped moving. It was then that the lord saw the pain and fear in the victim's eyes.

  And there were no more bullets.

  The lord turned away his hand and glared angrily at his friend.

  "How could you have brought me to this?"

  "You said you wanted a Hamuta."

  "I did, but not like this."

  "You said you had a strong stomach."

  "I did. But I didn't expect this."

  The victim's groans mingled with Hamuta's laughter. The gunmaker was laughing as much at the Englishman as he was at the bleeding figure on the floor.

  "You won't say anything," the friend said.

  "How long does this go on?" the nobleman asked.

  "Until Mr. Hamuta has had his fill of pleasure."

  The lord shook his head. They listened to the screams for more than fifteen minutes and then Hamuta was brought a box of platinum bullets and stunned admiration replaced the disgust.

  Hamuta worked the bullets like scalpels. First he ended the screaming by faintly grazing the victim's skull, just enough to knock him out.

  "I wanted you to hear me," he explained to the lord. "First the skull. Then we take off the Adam's apple. Then the lower lobe off the left ear and then the right ear, and then we move down the body until we are at the kneecaps. Good-bye, kneecaps."

  He put two more grazing shots against the skull, then told the lord to finish the kill.

  The rifle almost slipped from the nobleman's hands because they were so wet with sweat. He knew his heart was pumping wildly.

  Sorry, wretch, he thought, and put a single shot into the heart and ended the whole sorry mess, even while Hamuta continued to giggle.

  He did not bother to tell the nobleman that he had actually rushed this sale. He wanted to get to California. A most wonderful target was being arranged for him, but he had been told he must hurry.

  "It is a challenge for you, Hamuta," the provider of the target had said.

  "I have no challenges," said Hamuta. "Only entertainment."

  "Then we will both have fun," said the provider, Abner Buell of the United States, a man who certainly knew how to give people what they wanted.

  sChapter Nine

  They had all gotten used to the fancy life-style, to the fancy cars and fancy homes and fancy women and fancy vacations, and the fanciest thing of all-- being able to buy anything without bothering to ask what it cost.

  And then the money had dried up, and Bernie Bondini, checkout clerk who had bought the grocery, and Stash Franko, bank teller who had become a stock manipulator, and Elton Hubble, auto mechanic who now owned two auto dealerships, had spent a month scraping and scrapping to meet their overextended obligations. So when they each received a card that read: "What won't you do to have the money turned back on?" and gave an address and a time in Malibu, they all showed up.

  The oceanfront house, jutting out over stone columns, shadowing the sandy beach lapped by the warm Pacific, was a cool three-million-dollar number and just the thing to put them in the right frame of mind to remind them of what they were in danger of losing forever.

  They were let into the house wordlessly by a beautiful redhead who silently ushered them to a balcony overlooking the ocean. When she turned to leave, Bondini said, "Miss, what are we supposed to do?"

  And the woman replied: "Think about what was on the note you all received."

  They thought about it and talked about it. There were things they wouldn't do, not even for money. No. There were certain inflexible rules of morality that they would observe, the things that separated man from beast.

  They saw the parade of beautiful beach bunnies walking by on the sand below, looking up at the house hopefully, and finally Hubble forced himself to look away and said sluggishly, "I don't care. There are some things I won't do for money."

  "Me neither," said Bondini.

  "Such as?" said Franko.

  "I wouldn't kill my mother with a stick," Bondini said. "No way. I just wouldn't do that. I don't care about money that much."

  Hubble nodded agreement. "That would be terrible, I guess. Unless your mother is real old and sick like mine. I mean, sometimes death is a better solution to life's problems than continuing to live."

  "But with a stick?" Bondini said. "No way. I won't kill my mother with a stick."

  "Maybe a big stick so it'd be fast," Hubble suggested, but Bondini was adamant. "No way," he said.

  "Well, I would," said Franko. He was a small man with sandy wiry hair and thirteen months
of secret money going into his secret Insta-Charge account had encouraged him to leave his dullard of a wife and disown his two sluggard daughters. "I remember my wife," he said. "I'd kill my mother. I'd kill your mother too. Anything is better than going back to my wife."

  "I don't believe it," Bondini said stubbornly. "There's something you wouldn't do. Both of you. There's something you wouldn't do."

  Hubble had grown a beard since he had left the grease pit for the manager's office and he stroked it now, thought a moment, and said, "I wouldn't make a porno film." He thought again and added, "With an animal. I wouldn't make a porno film with an animal." He nodded his head up and down once in reaffirmation of this powerful life principle. It was where he drew the line and it made him feel good.

  "Some animals are cute," Bondini said.

  "No. No way," said Hubble. "No porno film with no animal. What about you, Stash?"

  Franko looked up as if surprised that someone would talk to him. Then he looked back out at the ocean and said softly, "I wouldn't screw a dead person."

  "Why not?" Bondini said. He sounded honestly surprised at such a modest qualm.

  "You never met my wife," Franko said. "It'd be like screwing her again. I couldn't do it."

  "Well, you know your wife better than we do," Hubble said. "But I don't think that's all so bad. There are some good-looking dead people. Maybe you'd get a nice one."

  Franko shook his head again. "No, that's where I draw the line. No screwing the dead. What do you call that? There's a word for it."

  "Yeah," Bondini said, but he couldn't think of it.

  "It comes from a word that means dead," Hubble said. "That much I remember."

  "What word?" Bondini asked.

  "I don't know. It just means dead," Hubble said.

  "Corpse," said Bondini. "Maybe it's like corpse-a-phobia."

  "That sounds about right," said Franko. "I think that's it. Corpse-a-phobia. I heard that word once."

  The beautiful redheaded woman who had let them into the house reappeared on the balcony. She was now naked. Her breasts were full and the nipples uplifted. She wore only high-heeled shoes and they displayed her long dancer's limbs. Her skin was oiled and her suntan flawless, without even bikini lines to mar it.

  She asked them what they would like to drink. She licked her lips as she looked at each of them in turn. Her lips were ripe, red, pulpy, her upper lip as full and pouty as her lower lip. And when they gave her their drink orders, she walked quietly away, but even walking was an erotic act as her smooth baby-skin butt swayed lasciviously from side to side.

  "Maybe if it was a real big stick," Bondini said. "So I could do it with one big smack."

  Hubble was talking to himself, still staring at the door through which the redhead had reentered the house. "Some animals are really cute," he mumbled. "Being prejudiced against animals just because they're animals isn't really worthy of me. A cute animal. What's wrong with that?"

  Franko wasn't listening. He was thinking, even though he did not say it, that there certainly were a lot of attractive corpses. Beautiful women who died from overdoses, for instance. You couldn't see anything wrong with them no matter how hard you looked. And if you got them right away, why, hell, they might even still be warm. So they wouldn't give much back, but who said the man always had to be rewarded in lovemaking by a woman's responses? If you wanted noise, later, with the money turned back on, you could hire a woman who was good at making noise. Sometimes you just had to do what's right. A warm pretty corpse sounded okay to him. He certainly liked that idea a lot better than he liked the thought of suffering from corpse-a-phobia.

  "I don't have corpse-a-phobia," Franko said. "I never had anything wrong with me in my whole life. Don't go trying to saddle me with diseases I don't have." He looked around accusingly.

  Their drinks never came. Instead, Abner Buell walked onto the deck, wearing khaki pants and a khaki shirt which were too khaki to be called a leisure suit. He had on heavy woolen socks, puffed out over the top of cheap sneakers without laces. But his hair was still immaculately plasticked into place.

  He stood in front of the three men, looking down at a clipboard he held.

  Finally, he looked up and snapped at Bondini. "You. I want you to beat your mother to death."

  "One hit with a big stick," Bondini said firmly.

  "A small stick. And slowly," Buell said. Without waiting for a response, he looked at Hubble. "You're going to be the star of a sex film. Making It with Mountain Goats. You'll have to screw three sheep." Again he waited for no comment but fixed his hard eyes on Stash Franko. "I want you to have intercourse with a headless corpse, dead three weeks."

  He let the clipboard lower to his side and looked slowly at each of the men in turn. "I want you to know that I have turned over to the three of you a total of $612,000 in the last twelve months. That's money that technically you took from the bank by fraud. Now you will do what I ask or not only will the money stay cut off but the police will be on your doorstep by nightfall. You have sixty seconds to consider your course of action."

  He walked back into the house and when the door closed behind him, Bondini said, "What do you think?" It was more of a plea than a question.

  "I don't know," Hubble said. "What do you think?"

  "I think I don't love my mother a whole lot. I grew up eating liver. How you supposed to love somebody who feeds you liver? A small stick's not so bad."

  Hubble said, "I always liked sheep. They're friendly, kind of."

  "I can keep my eyes closed," Franko said. "And hold my breath. Corpses. They're all the same in the dark, I always say."

  Buell returned in exactly one minute. He stood in front of them, silently waiting. Finally Bondini blurted out, "We'll do it."

  "All of you?" Buell asked.

  "Yes," Bondini said. "We'll do it. All of us."

  "Good," said Buell. "That's ten thousand points each. And now you don't have to."

  "What?" asked Hubble.

  "You don't have to. I was just testing you," Buell said.

  "Oh," said Hubble.

  "I want you all to kill a man instead," Buell said.

  "Which one?" Franko asked.

  "Does it matter?" Buell said.

  "No," Franko said. "It doesn't matter."

  "Doesn't matter at all," said Bondini.

  "Not at all," said Hubble.

  All three were relieved that they only had to kill a man. It didn't matter who.

  The car was wheezing and the temperature gauge was solidly in the red zone as it came down the snaky road that sliced through the hills and led to the coast at Malibu, so Remo turned off the motor, put the car in neutral, and let it coast.

  "What are you doing?" Pamela Thrushwell asked.

  "Trying to get there," Remo said. "Be quiet unless you want to walk."

  The car picked up speed as it free-wheeled down the canyon's roadside, roaring past little shops that sold pots and hole-in-the-wall markets that featured fourteen varieties of bean sprouts, and past long-in-the-tooth hippies with steel-rimmed glasses and women in their forties who still wore fringed buckskin skirts and soft-soled moccasins. It took one corner on two wheels.

  "You're going too fast," Pamela said.

  "How do you figure that?" Remo said.

  She raised her voice to compete with the whine of the tires and the whistle of wind past the open windows.

  "Because the damned auto's going to tip over," she shouted.

  "Not if you lean to the left," Remo said.

  She forced her body toward the center of the front seat and Remo careened the car through a left-hand turn. For a moment, the car lifted up onto its two right wheels and teetered there precariously. Remo grabbed Pamela's shoulders and pulled her closer to him and the car thumped back down onto all four wheels.

  "The next one I can do with my eyes closed," Remo said.

  "Please slow down," she said.

  "All right," Remo said agreeably. He thumped on the brak
e. "I don't care if we get there in time to save the world from nuclear destruction."

  "What?" she said.

  "Nothing," he said.

  "You said something about nuclear destruction."

  "I was thinking about this car," he said.

  "No, you weren't. You were talking about something else."

  "I forget," Remo said.

  "No, you didn't forget." Pamela folded her arms across her chest. "You just won't tell me. You haven't told me anything since we left New York. You've barely said three words to me the whole trip. I don't even know how you figured out where to go in Malibu."

  "Hey, look, I work for the phone company. What do I know from nuclear destruction?" Remo said. "And my office told me where to go and when Mother says go, I go."

  "That's another thing. Why is the New York phone company sending you to California to find an obscene caller? Huh? Why is that?"

  "It's not really the New York phone company doing it," Remo said.

  "No? What is it?"

  "It's part of our new phone system. If your phone is broken, you call somebody and if your telephone lines fall down and electrocute the neighbors in their swimming pool, you call somebody else. That's the way we've got it set up now. Well, I'm part of another company. It's part of Alexander Graham Ding-a-Ling. Obscene Callers Patrol Inc. A new corporate setup. You give us enough time, we'll fix it so that America's phone system is as good as Iran's."

  "I still don't believe you work for the phone company," she said.

  "And I don't believe you came all this way to get revenge on somebody for heavy breathing and copping a feel, so why don't we just drop it?"

  "I want to talk," she said.

  Remo took his hands off the wheel, put them behind his head, and leaned back in the seat.

  "Go ahead then. Talk," he said. "Talk fast. There's a guardrail up there."

  She grabbed his hands and put them back on the steering wheel.

  "All right," she said. "Drive. Don't talk."

  "Thank you," Remo said.