"But the joke is on you, dear father," Douglas said. " 'Cause you are sterile now and have been for years, and that baby that sweetie pie there is carrying isn't yours. In three months, you're going to be the proud doting parent of the son of Dr. Jesse Beers."
Lippincott wheeled. "Gloria. Tell him he's lying."
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"Yeah, Gloria, tell me I'm lying," Douglas said.
"I hate you," Gloria hissed at Douglas. The breath came out of her like a deflating innertube. "I hate you."
Lippincott saw. that she refused to deny the charge. He sank down onto the bed.
"But why?" he sobbed. "Why?"
"For your money," Douglas said. "Why else? She was going to give you a little bastard kid and kill us off and then when the kid was born, kill you off and she and Dr. Gladstone and Dr. Beers and all these nice beautiful people were going to live happily ever after. Isn't that right, Gloria?"
Remo turned to Ruby. "Kid's all right," he said.
"Not bad," Ruby agreed. "A little talky maybe, but basically pretty good."
"If you two are talking about an heir for me," Chiun said, "I wish you wouldn't whisper. I want to know about it."
"You'll be the first to know," Ruby said. "When and if."
Elmer Lippincott buried his face in his hands and wept.
Douglas spat the words at him. "And now, you old son of a bitch, I'm leaving this house. I'm going back to my businesses and I'm going to run you out of them. You may control more stock that I do, Daddy dear, but I know what makes them work and I'm going to shove them down your throat. By the time your sweet little son is born. . . ." He left the sentence unfinished.
"You'd destroy our empire?" his father said.
"No. I'm going to make it bigger and better than ever. But I'm going to do it without you. And when
175
your concubine foals and then you go on to the great board meeting in the sky, she'll just have to get along on a piece of what she expected. And who knows? Maybe you'll live to be a hundred. You can watch your bastard grow up and watch Gloria turn to fat and wrinkles and worry every day that she's putting rat poison in your pablum. Good luck, Daddy."
Douglas walked back to the door. "Thanks," he said to Remo.
"You're welcome," Remo said.
"Don't thank me," Chiun said. "I did everything and you thank him. Ageist."
"Let's go," Remo said, after Douglas left.
"Just a minute," Ruby said.
"What?" asked Remo.
"This is how it ends? You let it end like this? He kills his two sons, four, five other people are dead, and you just walk off into the sunset?"
Remo said, "It's not our business to hand out punishment to him. It's our job to see that no more Lip-pincotts get killed and that the Lippincott businesses don't go under. We've done it, so we go home."
Chiun nodded toward Elmer Lippincott, who was
still weeping.
"He has suffered much already," Chiun said. "Whatever days are left to him will be lived with the knowledge that he killed his own sons." He glanced toward Remo. "And without extenuating circumstances."
Ruby shook her head.
"No," she said. "No way."
"What do you mean," Remo asked.
"Maybe you let it go like that but I don't," Ruby said. "Life ain't that cheap." She turned to a table
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behind them and fumbled with a glass. Remo looked at Chiun and shrugged.
Her right hand behind her, Ruby walked to the bed where Lippincott still sat.
He paid no attention as she unbuttoned the cuff of his shirt and slowly pulled up his left sleeve. When she had exposed his bicep, she took a hypodermic syringe from behind her, jammed it into his muscle arid squeezed.
Lippincott jumped at the shock. He slapped at his arm but Ruby had already removed the syringe.
"What?" he sputtered.
Ruby stared down at him, her eyes flashing.
"You wanna know what?" she said. "Just a little magic medicine from Dr. Gladstone's house of horrors."
"But what?"
"I don't know. I didn't bother to ask," Ruby said. "But some of her experiment stuff. Maybe it makes you afraid of the dark and you'll die some night when the bulb hi your nightlight burns out. Maybe it makes you afraid of high places and someday you'll be up on one of your skyscrapers and you'll get afraid and figure out the best way down is to jump. I don't know, sucker. I hope it makes you afraid of money 'cause you'd deserve that one." She looked across at Gloria. "I'm just sorry, lady, that I didn't save enough for you, too. But I wouldn't wanna hurt the doctor's baby."
She walked back to Remo and Chiun.
"Now we're done," she said. "Let's go."
In the hallway, she dropped the hypodermic into her purse. They walked in silence down to their car, parked in front of the mansion.
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As they were getting into the car, Remo asked her:
"What was in the syringe?"
"Water," Ruby said. "But Lippincott there doesn't ever have to know that."
"Do you think there is any kind of drug that would make him want to buy a painting of me?" Chiun asked.
"There's no drug that strong," Remo said.
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