Ghost in the Machine td-90

by Warren Murphy

  It made a sound that paralyzed Remo's supersensitive eardrums long enough for Chiun to stab the door's CLOSE button. It shut in Remo's unhappy face.

  "Damn," Remo said again, racing for the stairs.

  When he got to the lobby, the Master of Sinanju had placed the trunk in the center of the ornate lobby floor. He flung it open.

  An IRS revenue collector came over to lodge a protest and found himself being escorted to the revolving doors by the pressure of two long-nailed fingers on his right elbow. The incredulous look on his heavy, muscular face-revenue collectors, unlike IRS agents, are chosen for their brawn, not their brains-was that of a man who has been seized by a giant tarantula. He was placed inside, and the door started revolving with him in it. Then it stopped abruptly, bumping his nose hard.

  Nothing the man could do could unstick the revolving door. He was trapped. He looked almost relieved about it.

  Remo warned, "Chiun! That's only going to create more trouble."

  "Stand back," Chiun said, shrugging his kimono sleeves back, exposing spindly arms like bony, tanned leather. He dipped into his trunk and extracted with one hand a bamboo wand decorated with silver bells and with the other a drum.

  Remo put his hands on his hips. "Let me guess. You're going to drive off the evil spirits with those."

  "No," corrected Chiun. "We are going to drive away the evil spirits with these tokens. You may beat the chang-gu drum, since it requires no skill or cadence."

  "I am not beating any freaking drum. I told you, we got Russians. I think something is about to break."

  "Yes. Our contract, if we do not give Smith proper service. You will beat the drum."

  "Will you listen to me if I go along?" Remo asked in a heated voice.

  "Possibly."

  Remo took the drum. He wrapped one arm around it and began slapping the tight skin with his palm.

  "I feel like an idiot!" he protested loudly over the noise.

  The Master of Sinanju pretended not to hear him. Remo paused and then began, "Listen-"

  Chiun flared, "Keep drumming. It is important. Relatively."

  Chiun lifted his wand and shook it. His head rocking from side to side and threatening to dislodge his stovepipe hat, which was tied about his wispy chin by a string, he began to move about the lobby, chanting and making other noises that brought to mind a tomcat caught in the rinse cycle.

  Frowning, Remo woodenly beat the drum. With any luck, he thought, this is the five-minute exorcism.

  In the middle of all this, Yuli Batenin returned from having breakfast in the hotel restaurant, Soup de Rumpp.

  Chapter 27

  By eleven o'clock, Randal Rumpp had figured out that he was being stonewalled.

  The mayor's office wasn't returning his calls. The Planning Commission wasn't returning his calls. No one was returning his calls.

  Randal Rumpp's office suite included several televisions sets in elegant cabinets, and assorted sound systems. All useless in the blacked-out skyscraper.

  "I can't stand this!" he complained. "I'm the lead story on every broadcast, and I'm missing everything. Dorma!"

  "Yes, Mr. Rumpp?"

  "Go down to the lobby and get me a newspaper."

  "But Mr. Rumpp. The only papers would be yesterday's."

  "Then get me yesterday's paper. The Post, not the Times. I gotta read something. This is driving me bugnuts."

  "But the mob . . ."

  Randal Rumpp's voice dropped to a throaty growl.

  "Dorma, can the mob fire you?"

  "No, Mr. Rumpp."

  "Think the mob will hire you if I fire you?"

  "No, Mr. Rumpp."

  "Then go fetch, Chuck."

  "Yes, Mr. Rumpp," said Dorma Wormser meekly.

  She slunk away, slipping through one of the secret exits and closing it after her.

  "Money always talks," said Randal Rumpp confidently. "She'll probably break the stair-climbing record, if there is one. Gotta remember to stiff her for the cost of the paper."

  But when eleven o'clock became twelve-thirty and Dorma Wormser still hadn't returned, Randal Rumpp was forced to conclude that one of two things had happened: either she had deserted him, or she had been torn apart by the unruly mob below.

  He privately hoped it was the latter. Dorma was single. He could probably get away with holding on to her last paycheck.

  But that still left him out of touch. And Randal Rumpp hated to be out of touch. He roamed the twenty-fourth floor looking for a transistor radio. He doubted that he'd find one, inasmuch as personal property that cheap was banned from Rumpp Organization work space, but one never knew. Employees could be treacherous.

  The ringing cellular sent him racing back to his office.

  "Yes," he said, out of breath.

  "Randy?"

  "Don't call me that. The tabloids call me that. I hate it. Call me the . . . the Rumpporama!"

  "This is Dunbar Grimspoon. The IRS has just seized the Rumpp Regis for back taxes."

  "They can't do that."

  "They did."

  "Damn! Well, what are you sitting there for? Get on it! Get on their cases and make 'em cough back it up!"

  "Uh, Rand?"

  "Rumpporama. "

  "This is a bad time for you, I know. But about your last bill . . . It's overdue."

  "Is that all you overpaid lawyers ever think about-money?"

  "That's why we're overpaid. Look, if it were just me, okay. But the partners are bitching. This is a sixfigure bill."

  "Which will never, ever be paid if you don't jump up this seizure thing," Rumpp said heatedly. "Hear me, Chuck? You tell that to your partners, and get back to me within twenty minutes."

  Fifty minutes later, Randal Rumpp was wondering if he had overplayed his hand. His called his law firm. When he identified himself to the switchboard operator, the girl's voice grew chilly and he was put on hold. For an hour.

  Rumpp reluctantly cut the connection. "Okay, I overdid it. It happens. When you've been on a winning streak as long as Randal Rumpp, you're bound to screw up in insignificant ways. No big deal. The world's full of lawyers."

  He ate three chocolate bars and immediately felt his confidence return. Idly, he picked up his dormant cellular and thumbed the bell button. It immediately began ringing.

  Randal Rumpp, more for someone to talk to than for any practical reason, picked up his working cellular and said, "Hello, you still there?"

  "Yes. And I still have cigarette lighter."

  "Keep it. I got a better deal."

  "What is that?"

  "Come in with me."

  "Come in where?"

  "Become a vital player in the greatest deal-making organization on the face of the planet, the Rumpp Organization."

  The voice grew interested. "You wish to hire me?"

  "At a handsome salary. What say?"

  "I say, how much salary?"

  "Twice your previous one. I'll have to check references, though."

  "I do not think KGB will give such things."

  "I know they won't. There's no KGB anymore."

  "Is true, then? Russia is no more?"

  "Oh, Russia's still there," Rumpp said airily. "It's just a heck of a lot smaller."

  "It shrink?"

  "You might say that. Listen, this is chitchat. Are you willing to join the Rumpp team, or not?"

  "Definitely."

  "Okay. I'm going to pick up the other phone now."

  "Before you do that, there are two things you must know."

  "Yeah?"

  "One, I will be unconscious when I leave phone. I will float."

  "I saw that happen. You'll come out of it."

  "Not if I do not turn off suit before battery runs out. "

  "Suit?"

  "I am wearing suit. Vibration suit. It enables me to vibrate through solid objects. If I float into solid object, then battery runs low and rematerialize inside, explosion may be nuclear."

  "What explosion?"
/>   "The one that will result when atoms and molecules attempting to be occupying same space collide. Is bug in suit."

  "That's a pretty big bug," Randal Rumpp said dubiously.

  "That," the voice said, "is the second thing. I am ready to come out now."

  Randal Rumpp thought a moment. He hadn't bargained on a nuclear downside. On the other hand, who would have thought a day ago he could have found a scam to make the Rumpp Tower safe from the banks? He decided to go for it.

  "I'm picking up the other phone now," he said.

  The static roar was brief, loud, and seemed to pierce Randal Rumpp's unwary brain like a noisy stiletto. The air about him turned white. Very white.

  Randal Rumpp fell back in his chair and hit his head. The cellular phone fell from his fingers and struck the floor.

  When Randal Rumpp regained conciousness, he was looking at the ceiling. The ceiling looked ordinary. It was tile. The initials RR had been laid in the tile so large that only Randal Rumpp could see them.

  He saw them perfectly now. He just couldn't understand why he was looking up at the ceiling, when he had been sitting up straight at his desk just a moment ago.

  He found out, when he tried to extricate himself from his fallen chair. His head hurt. The circulation in his legs had been cut off by the weight of his thighs on the chair edge.

  "Damn."

  Unable to climb to his feet, he looked around.

  Then he saw it. The white creature. The Russian. He was floating limply, just inches before the big picture window that looked out over Central Park and the nearby Rumpp Regis Hotel.

  "Oh, shit," said Randal Rumpp, realizing from the limp way the Russian's arms hung down that he was dead to the world. Dead to the world and about to float into the window. The solid window.

  Randal Rumpp's legs refused to support him. So he crawled. He crawled hard. He got under the floating thing.

  Its face was not expanding or contracting. It looked dead. And Rumpp, for the first time in his life, cared about a fellow human being.

  "If that schmuck dies, I'm dead," he said bitterly. "Gotta do something fast."

  He tried throwing objects at the floating apparition. All sailed harmlessly through him. He crawled to his computer and yanked out cables, trying to form a lasso. Desperation made him remember his Cub Scout knots. He flung the loop and actually scored a ringer on a left foot.

  The loop dropped through the ankle like it was composed of fine mist.

  "Gotta figure out a fresh scam," he muttered.

  Then, the creature floated into the window.

  Randal Rumpp covered his head with his hands and hoped for a painless death. He got, instead, utter silence.

  He looked up. Eventually.

  The thing was still in the office. It was moving toward the glass again. This time Rump couldn't tear his eyes away from it.

  It touched and, like a balloon animal sculpture, bounced back.

  Randal Rumpp was exuberant. "Back! It bounced back! This is fantastic! I'm not gonna go nuclear."

  Then, like a patient who had been subjected to electric shock therapy, the floating creature started to wave its arms helplessly. The fat bladder of a face contracted. Expanded. It was breathing again. Somehow.

  Reaching for its belt buckle, the white creature gave the white rheostat affixed there a twist. Immediately, it lost its fuzzy glow and fell to the rug.

  "Ouch!" it said.

  Randal Rumpp forced himself to his feet. His feet felt like they were walking across tacks and not carpet nap.

  "You-ouch!-okay, pal?" he asked.

  "I am fine. Happy not to be vaporized in nuclear fire. "

  "Same here," said Randal Rumpp, giving the thing a hand. He pulled it to its feet. It grabbed its own shoulder as if in pain.

  "You bounced off the wall. How come?"

  The thing tested its footing. Rumpp noticed it stepped carefully, as if testing the solidity of the floor under its ridiculously thick boot soles. "Building was insubstantial. I was insubstantial. We were on same vibratory plane, and so felt solid to one another." The manlike creature extended a rubbery white hand. "Here is lighter."

  "Keep it," Rumpp said.

  "Thank you. I can keep gold pen also?"

  "You stole my graduation Waterman?"

  "Da."

  "What are you, some kind of klepto?"

  "Da. I am klepto. This is why I was sent to America by KGB. To steal. I steal much technology for KGB. And other things for myself, which I send to cousin in Soviet Georgia for black market. All lost now."

  "Okay," Rumpp said impatiently. "Now that I know your work history, let's get down to cases. I wanna buy the suit."

  "What about job?"

  "I changed my mind. How much do you want for it?"

  "I keep suit, all the same to you. Very valuable."

  "Don't be coy. Everybody's got their price. Name it."

  "I want job."

  "And I want that suit. Five million."

  "Dollars?"

  "Yeah."

  "Hokay."

  "Take a check?" Rumpp asked.

  "No."

  "Look, I'm Randal Rumpp, the greatest financial genius since Rockefeller. You know I'm good for it."

  "I know you are not," the other snapped. "I have been trapped in your telephone system, and overhear every phone conversation. You are pauper."

  "The hell I am."

  At that moment, the lights came on.

  Randall Rumpp looked up at the lights. "Oh, shit. Does that mean what I think it means?"

  "If you mean, is building normal again, lights mean that, da."

  "Damn. Okay. Forget my buying the suit, I want you to fax yourself over to my hotel."

  "Why?"

  "The IRS just seized it."

  "Ah. The IRS. I have heard of them. They are more vicious that KGB."

  "You're pretty smart for a guy without a face."

  "Have face under helmet. Is for protection of eyes for when walking through walls."

  "Right, right. Listen, if we can pull off spectralizing the Rumpp Regis, the IRS can't do anything."

  "What about Rumpp Tower II?"

  "On the back burner, until we get this straightened out. How about it?"

  "I do not know if this will work. It is dangerous. Also, I do not trust you. You tricked me once already."

  "Let me make you an offer you can't refuse."

  "There is no such thing."

  "When word gets out that the Rumpp Tower is back on line-so to speak-the mob is going to try to bust down my door and tear me limb from limb."

  "Da?"

  "If you're here when that happens, you get the same medicine," Rumpp pointed out.

  The faceless Russian tilted his head, as if thinking. "You make excellent offer. I will telephone myself wherever you wish."

  "Great. There's just one last thing."

  "What is that?"

  "Any way I can hitch a ride with you? I wasn't kidding about that mob."

  "Nyet."

  "That's Russian for no, isn't it?"

  "Da. "

  "Damn."

  "Sorry. Technology brand-new."

  "Okay," Randal Rumpp said, offering the celluar unit, "I'll be in a better bargaining position when the Regis thing is taken care of. Let's give it our best shot."

  Randal Rumpp repeated a number and the thing dialed it.

  Then the Russian turned on the suit.

  Randal Rumpp had seen it before, but it still amazed him. The thing went white, seemed to congeal and collapse, only to be drawn into the diaphragm like a movie image being run in reverse.

  The hand was the last to go. After the fingers had released their grip on the handset, the hand practically evaporated.

  Rumpp caught the cellular before it could hit the rug.

  "When this is over with," he growled, "I'm gonna own that fucking suit. And I don't care who I have to screw over to get it."

  Chapter 28

  Major Yuli
Batenin took little note of the strangeness that was taking place in the Rumpp Regis lobby. There were two persons, one in some Asian native costume and the other a Western man, engaged in making a racket-to the consternation of the desk staff. No doubt, he concluded, it was related to the odd holiday known as "Halloween."

  Batenin had just had his first American breakfast in three years, and cared little for watching street performers. He had ordered a Spanish omelet, blueberry pancakes, a side order of wheat toast, orange juice, and two cups of good Brazilian coffee.

  It had cost him the equivalent of a year's salary at the bread factory-or it would have, if he'd had any intention of settling his room tab-and probably taken three months off his life span in cholesterol consumption. But Major Batenin didn't care. His first American meal in three years. His first decent meal in the same amount of time. It sat in his stomach like a warm mountain of pleasure.

  It was good to be working-truly working-at his craft again.

  He strode to the elevator and rode it, humming "Moscow Nights," to his fourteenth-floor suite.

  The elevator was old, but soundproofed. So he didn't hear the insistently ringing telephone in one corner of the supposedly nonexistent thirteenth floor.

  IRS agent Gerard Vonneau could hear the phone all too clearly. It had been ringing for fifteen minutes now. If he got his hands on the damned thing, he was not only going to give the caller hell, but personally audit him until the end of time.

  Gerard Vonneau was an agent for the New York regional office of the IRS. It was his job, along with a team of other agents, to inventory the staid old Rumpp Regis and prepare its contents for auction.

  His responsibility was the thirteenth floor, which hotel records indicated had been set aside for no less than Randal Rumpp himself. Somewhere, he knew, there must be an office where that damned phone was jangling. It was the only explanation.

  He was going to enjoy answering that telephone. He was going to take extreme pleasure in giving the caller hell. If he ever found it.

  There were rings under Cheeta Ching's eyes as she tore apart the morning paper. On the front pages were blurry photos of the white floating thing her cameraman had filmed the night before. Each was credited to MBC News.

  "I could just spit!" she hissed, as she ripped the papers to shreds with her busy talons.

  The phone rang and she snapped it up, saying, "What is it?"