Death Check

by Warren Murphy

  Remo did not laugh, because he knew he should be spanked. Lectures were for grownups and beatings were for men. But spankings were for little boys who took up prideful challenges that could so easily get them killed. Stupid. Stupid, Remo thought. You entered as a dumb cop and lest anyone spot you as a real danger by some accident, you went out of your way to let them know that maybe you weren’t so dumb. A cop, all right, but a cop to be watched. The greenest rookie wouldn’t do something that stupid. Give away surprise and you give away your life. How the lecture had been drilled into him, and how logical it was:

  “You must isolate what you wish to do. Most personal assaults fail because they attempt to do too much, not the least of which is to gain respect from your target.” Those were the words of Chiun, the instructor.

  “That’s stupid,” Remo had answered. “No one would do that.”

  “Most people do,” said Chiun quietly. “They show off for their victim. This is because they wish not so much to harm the other person as to force the other to recognize their superiority. You see it even among prize fighters. How foolish.

  “If you learn no other lesson, learn this one, and it will do more to keep you alive than any other. The most dangerous man is the man who does not appear dangerous. Say it after me.”

  “Okay,” said Remo, imitating the squeaky sing-song of the aged Korean. “The most dangerous man is the man who does not appear dangerous. Say it after me.”

  “Ooooh,” said Chiun, clutching his chest. “Ooooh.” And Remo had jumped to his feet from the little cushions they sat on and moved to steady the elderly man.

  “Set me down, please. Please. On my back.” Chiun groaned again and Remo carefully placed his hands under Chiun’s arms and slowly placed the white frosted head on a pillow.

  “I do not look dangerous now,” said Chiun, in obvious pain.

  “No, you do not,” Remo said tenderly.

  “Good,” said Chiun, driving a finger into the back of Remo’s rib cage, rendering him a helpless cripple on the floor. It had felt like pliers tearing his lower rib from his spinal column, causing such pain that Remo was unable to cry out or even to groan.

  When the eternity of the moment was over and Remo could scream, then breathe, and then lie quivering, Chiun had said: “I cause you this pain so that you should remember. Never be dangerous in the eyes of men whom you plan to combat. Never. I cause you pain because I love you. Yes. Love. True love is doing what is good for a person. False love is doing only that which causes that person to love you. The love I have for you is shown in this pain that I give you. The pain is your lesson, best learned.”

  When Remo could speak, but not yet get up, he said:

  “You yellow dink bastard shit. Stop the pain.”

  “I love you too much to stop the pain.”

  “You no good scumbag. Stop the pain.”

  “No, my son.”

  Then Remo went for his emotional lungs. “You look like a Chinaman.” He knew Chiun hated the Chinese almost as much as he hated the people in the next village.

  “You shall not tempt me to rob you of your lesson. I have given too much to you to be robbed of the gift. You see, never again can I pretend this weakness and catch you off guard. I have, in a small way, given you a piece of my future, a piece of my life. I have given to you the knowledge that I am dangerous.”

  “I always knew you were dangerous, you little yellow China bastard.”

  “Ah, but not in that way.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I’ve learned. Stop the pain, please.”

  “True love does not allow it.”

  “Hate me then,” said Remo. “For heaven’s sake, hate me and stop the fucking pain.”

  “No. A gift is a gift.”

  “Your generosity will kill me, you creepy, fish-eating fuck. When does the pain stop?”

  “All your days you may have it. It is a lifelong gift. Ribs can be like that.”

  The pain lessened, but continued from day to day, and from day to day, Remo begged Chiun to do what he must to stop it. Every night, he would interrupt Chiun’s sleep to tell him. And in the second week, Chiun who could endure almost anything but the loss of sleep, succumbed.

  Remo had nudged him in the very dark predawn. “It still hurts me, you bastard.”

  And wearily, Chiun sat up from his mat, and told Remo: “I am sorry, my son. But I do not love you this much. I must sleep.” And he pressed his fingers on the base of Remo’s spine, working his way to the rib of pain and then with a slap at the pain, the pain was gone and Remo felt exquisite relief that almost brought tears to his eyes.

  “Thank you. Thank you,” he said.

  And Chiun had said: “I am sorry, my son. I am sorry I had to do that. But I would not live much longer without my sleep. I am an old man. And I only love you with a part of my life. Not all of it.” He lay down on his mat and before he passed back into slumber, he said, “Forgive me.”

  And Remo had forgiven with a laugh. But standing now over the chess board, he would not forgive himself. And he realized that he had been unworthy of the gift that Chiun had given him. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid, Remo thought. You stupid, idiotic bastard. You entered this room a zero, and now you’re part of the goddam dynamics of the place, with friends and enemies, and it’s just going to be that much tougher to perform if the order comes to waste them.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE MAN ONCE KNOWN AS Dr. Hans Frichtmann had seen the move. Nothing new. Nothing innovative. Rather standard. Nothing that couldn’t be learned. Yet, for its purpose and in context, brilliant. They hadn’t sent a McCarthy this time. Did they suspect that McCarthy was not the victim of an accidental overdose, that he was murdered?

  This was the real thing this time. Could they know about him and his daughter? Perhaps, but doubtful. More likely, they knew about McCarthy as a murder victim. Yet, where were the legions of men in shined shoes and clean shirts and schoolboy honest complexions? There would certainly be all that for a full crackdown.

  Well, perhaps not. Maybe this Remo Pelham person was the best they had. It was strange that he had somehow evaded the men who met him on the ferryboat. Dr. Hans Frichtmann would have to deal with him. The sooner the better.

  He waited until everyone had left the hall, then went to Ratchett’s home. Ratchett had been the first to leave, huffing out indignantly.

  He walked awhile with his daughter, up the tree-graced lane and over the sweetly whistling brook to Ratchett’s house, that white plastered obscenity shaped like an egg, that new design that only an American could call art. Only an American or a Frenchman. How wise it had been on everyone’s part to put it behind a knoll, invisible to sensitive eyes.

  “He would make a fantastic lay,” said the daughter.

  “My dear, for you anything is a fantastic lay,” he said wearily.

  “Not anything.”

  “What is excluded? Please let me know. I will buy one.”

  “I wouldn’t screw a black.”

  “A black man, that is? A black dog or black horse is different?”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “No, it is not the same. What makes you this way?”

  “Watching people herded into ovens and having one’s home lit with lampshades of human skin might be conducive to some deviation in a little girl.”

  “Yes. That. Well, it was the times.”

  “And I have my times, father.”

  “Yes, I suppose you do.”

  “I want that man. I must have him.”

  “Not yet.”

  “It’s always not yet. Every day is not yet. Yesterday was not yet. Tomorrow will be not yet. I am tired of being deprived. Always deprived. Changing names, changing homes. All the time. Running. From Americans and British and French and Russians. Now even from our own people in Germany and God help us, from the Jews. It disgusts me to run from Jews. I want to tell the whole world who we are, what we are. We should be proud. We are Nazis.”

  “Quiet.�
��

  “Nazis. Nazis. Nazis. Seig heil.”

  “Quiet.”

  “Do I get him?”

  “Yes. But not yet.”

  “Nazi, Nazi, Nazi. Dr. Hans Frichtmann, of Treblinka, Buchenwald and various other resorts of final solution. Dr. Hans . . .”

  “All right. All right. You can have him.”

  “When?”

  “Soon.”

  “With the pictures too?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I like being a star, daddy. I like to see your face when you photograph me. That is the best part.”

  “All right. Go home now, dear. I must see Dr. Ratchett,” he said wearily.

  “I will go. It makes you sick to see me do those things?”

  “Yes.”

  “That is the best part.”

  He watched his daughter stride happily away, putting another victory in her pocket, then entered the home of Dr. James Ratchett. Ratchett had not yet entered his special place, but was cutting at a dark wedge which looked like dried chewing tobacco, but was really hashish. The wedge was the size of a domino and he watched Ratchett’s pudgy fingers work the razor at an edge, cutting slivers into the small bronze bowl of a pipe. Every other sliver missed.

  “The beast,” Ratchett said, “I can’t even fill my pipe.”

  “Poor man. How could they let this happen to you? Here, I will prepare your pipe.” They sat in Ratchett’s living room, a dramatic affair of black and white. Behind the fireplace, bordered by two curved elephant tusks, was the place he knew Ratchett would enter.

  The back of the fireplace was the lone slit of dark red. The white tusks surrounded it and were surrounded themselves by a circle of black. Ratchett was the only person at Brewster Forum who did not grasp the symbolism of his design. But then a man’s sickness is invariably hidden from his soul.

  “That policeman made a very good move,” he said, packing the pipe for Ratchett.

  “If I knew that cop knew what he knew, I never would have played that way against Boyle. You know I’m a better player than that.”

  “I know.”

  “It won’t count in the tournament, will it?”

  “I’m afraid it must.”

  “It shouldn’t. Boyle had help.”

  “You offered to allow it.”

  “That Boyle. I could beat him any day of the week. Any day.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “I could kill him.”

  “What for?”

  “For doing that to me.”

  “He didn’t do anything to you.”

  “He took that cop’s advice, that night watchman who is all of a sudden allowed to play in our tournaments.”

  “Yes, he took the advice. But who gave it? Did you see him laugh at you?”

  “He didn’t laugh.”

  “He smirked and started the laughing. All the time he knew you were only toying with Boyle and he knew you could beat him in a fair game. But he saw he could beat you, the only way he could, by taking your generosity toward Boyle and turning it on you.”

  “Yes. The only way he could beat me. Humiliate me.”

  “Of course, and everybody laughed along with him.”

  “The bastards.”

  “They can’t help it. As long as that man is here, they will laugh at you.”

  “Nonsense. They know he’s only a policeman.”

  “They will laugh the more.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. When they see you. They will laugh inside.”

  “You’re a beast for telling me this.”

  “I am your friend. A friend tells the truth.”

  “You’re still a beast.”

  He handed Ratchett the pipe and answered: “Perhaps I should not have told you. After all, there is only one way you can humiliate him and you would not stoop to that.”

  “What way?”

  “Your friends on the motorcycles. Your, what do you call them, rough trade. Imagine a policeman who cannot stop hoodlums.”

  “You’re right. I wouldn’t do that. Nils would be in a snit. An absolute snit.”

  “How would he know it’s you?”

  “I would never stoop that low. Never.” Dr. James Ratchett smiled. “I’m in the right mood now. Would you like to join me in my place? Share the peace pipe?”

  “Thank you no, I must get home.”

  “Besides,” said Doctor Ratchett, “even if Nils did find out, how could he replace Dr. James Ratchett?”

  “How could he, indeed?”

  “Of course, I would never stoop so low.”

  “Of course.”

  “Be at the offices tomorrow at noon,” Ratchett said with a giggle, and ducked between the elephant tusks into the next room.

  The man once known as Dr. Hans Frichtmann smiled at Ratchett’s back, then left the egg-shaped house. He would see what he would see. Some chess moves, he knew very well, could be very destructive. Especially the ones that appeared brilliant at first.

  This Remo Pelham person had made a serious mistake. With luck, it would be a fatal mistake. And by the time they sent yet another to replace him, the people who had drafted the plan to conquer the world would be in the control of another power, who would know how to use that plan. And Dr. Hans Frichtmann would be gone.

  CHAPTER TEN

  NILS BREWSTER WOULD HAVE TO GET it over with. He didn’t let garbage collect in the kitchen. Paid his bills on time. Saw the dentist when his teeth acted up. There was no reason to put it off any longer. He would do it. Get it over with.

  “Send in Remo what’s-his-name,” said Nils Brewster into his intercom and promptly felt quite satisfied with his integrity.

  His office faced out onto a circle, a mass of green ringed by black gravel. Rimming the circle were the white cottages of the forum, which served as both offices and living quarters for the forum’s top brass. Farther back, beyond the ring of cottages, one could see more traditional lab and office buildings where the hirelings worked. The view of the circle was piece-mealed through small, cozy, wood-encased windows in Brewster’s office, which made the world look like a chess game. The trees were mid-board and the sky was enemy territory.

  A white couch graced the far wall of Brewster’s office, and original paintings, mostly geometric forms in day-glo colors, hung from the walls. On the floor was a polar bear rug, “a little whimsy of mine, Lord knows I get so few indulgences.” That little indulgence had cost more than $12,000. It was paid for by one of the funding foundations which annually produced a report showing how it made life better for mankind, particularly black mankind. For some reason, the $12,000 was linked to understanding black rage.

  The office was pleasant and warm. That was the way Nils Brewster had intended it to be, a setting mirroring the warmth and wisdom and understanding of the tweed-draped hulk who occupied it.

  When Remo entered, he saw the hulk. He saw it puffing away at a pipe, engrossed in being Nils Brewster, Ph.D., Chicago U., director of Brewster Forum, author of several books which a few thousand owned, a few hundred read, and seven or eight understood. He saw the hulk was about to tolerate him.

  “Glad to see you,” Doctor Brewster crooned in a low Massachusetts mumble which crackled saliva on the S’s. “You’re Remo… Remo… ”

  “Remo Pelham.”

  “That’s right. Our chess-playing policeman. Well, what can I do for you?”

  “Well, first of all, I’d like to know what you do here?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I can’t figure out what I’m supposed to do here, until I find out what you do here, can I?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Never mind?”

  Remo stood before the desk still, waiting to be offered a seat. The offer did not come, so he sat anyway.

  “That’s right, never mind.” Brewster said this with a smile.

  “Why should I never mind?”

  “Simply because you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try
me.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “I’d rather you would,” Remo said.

  “Really now,” Brewster said, crossing a leg while sucking the fumes from the lit pipe. “You’d rather I would. Well, do you know that the only reason you’re here is because of a government grant? You come with it. Now I don’t wish to make your stay here unpleasant, but you are an unwanted guest. Already, last night, with your uncivilized behavior at the chess tournament, you have created dissension among my staff. I can do without that. I can also do without your skulking about trying to provide security and protection for things that need neither security nor protection.”

  “Did McCarthy understand that?”

  “McCarthy was a policeman, for heaven’s sakes.”

  “Who is a dead policeman.”

  “Right. A dead policeman.” Brewster said it as if he had been asked to say a prayer for a departed piece of roast beef. “Oppressive violence — that is, violence in reaction to violence — breeds greater violence. A pure example is McCarthy. Do you understand what I’m talking about?”

  “I think you’re trying to say that McCarthy got himself killed.”

  “Right. You’re brighter than I thought. Now, let’s take this supposition a little farther. Let us assume that violence is an expurgative, that it is — try to follow me — a natural and necessary occurrence and that to try to curb it or redirect it produces awesomely more-devastating circumstances, by a basic geometric progression of intensity, an intensity that we cannot now measure but that we will ultimately use as a guideline, much in the way of E equals MC square. Do you follow?”

  “Yes. You’re full of shit.”

  “Really? How?”

  “Never mind. I really don’t think I can explain it to you.”

  Brewster broke into the kind of delighted grin a father gets when his six-year-old son challenges him to checkers.