Created, the Destroyer td-1

by Warren Murphy

  «Cynthia has probably told you we're very wealthy,» he said to Remo. «Did she tell you how I made my money?»

  «No, she didn't. I'd be interested in knowing.»

  «I'm a junkman.»

  Remo smiled politely. Cynthia sputtered, «Oh, Daddy.»

  «It's true, my dear. Every penny we have today is from the junk business.» He seemed determined to tell his story and launched into it without urging.

  «Americans, Mr. Cabell, are the world's most prolific producers of junk. They annually throw away many millions of dollars of quite good and quite usable merchandise because buying new things is almost a psychological compulsion with them.»

  «Like a homicidal maniac or a pathological liar,» Remo offered helpfully.

  Felton ignored the interruption.

  «I first noticed this during the war years. How Americans, even faced with shortages, would throw away many products which still had a long life expectancy. In a small way, I capitalized on it. I scraped together every dollar I could and bought a junkyard».

  «Have you ever been in a junkyard, Mr. Cabell, to buy something? It is impossible. There may be hundreds of what you want around, but no one knows where to find them».

  «I decided to bring some organization to the junk business. I hired specialists to supervise the operations. One crew did nothing but buy and recondition old washing machines and clothes dryers. A perfectly good washing machine could be bought as junk for five dollars. We'd fix it until it was as good as new. But instead of selling it back to a private buyer, we put it to work for us. Through the forties, I opened more than seventy-five automatic laundries throughout the metropolitan area-all of them outfitted with junked washing machines and dryers. Because I had no large investment in equipment, I could charge less than any of my competitors. Everytime I heard of a new laundromat opening somewhere, I moved in my junk machinery and opened as near to him as possible. By undercutting his prices, I could put him out of business. Then as he liquidated, I could buy his brand new equipment for a song. This proved very profitable.»

  Felton smiled. «That may sound particularly vicious and cruel to you, Mr. Cabell. But this is a vicious and cruel world.»

  «I've noticed,» Remo said. Felton went on:

  «With junked automobiles, I also feel I have made some contributions to our economy. Perhaps that is a foolish attitude, but each man thinks that what he does is important».

  «I operate an auto junkyard in Jersey City. It is the largest junkyard in the world. It is also, so far as I can tell, the only one that is as organized as a department store».

  «We roll in a junked car that we have bought for only a few dollars. The car may have been almost totally smashed in an accident, but it's surprising now much remains after even a total loss. The car is moved from section to section of the yard. Usable fenders are removed; windows are taken out; seats are taken out in another section; so are such items as steering wheels and headlights and doors. Each of these items is carefully compartmented, and I would daresay that if you went to this yard and asked for a rear door and trunk handle to a 1939 Plymouth, my men would have it for you in less than five minutes. Of course, for this kind of service, we can charge premium rates.»

  Remo nodded and smiled. «Do you think you might have something in stock for my 1934 Maxwell?»

  Before Felton could say anything, Cynthia said: «There you go with that silly Maxwell business again.»

  Felton looked at Cynthia coldly. To Remo, he said: «I don't know if we would have any parts for your Maxwell. Perhaps you'd like to drive down there with me and see?»

  Remo agreed with alacrity, despite Cynthia's protest that they should all spend the night together, getting acquainted.

  «No, dear,» Felton said. «It would be a chance for Mr. Cabell and me to have a father-and-son talk.»

  Felton dropped his fork when Remo said: «He's right, dear, we should have a talk alone. And since we're going to be such close friends, perhaps I can even persuade him to call me Remo.»

  Remo smiled, a good-son smile, and Felton, who had matched Cynthia's prodigious eating ability through the meal, decided he was too full for dessert. Jimmy, the butler, said gruffly, «Shall I remove the plates?»

  He had stared at Remo all during the meal, hating him for killing Scottichio and Moesher and, at one time, Remo thought he detected the welling up of a tear in the corner of Jimmy's eye.

  «Life is rough,» he whispered to the butler. He got no answer.

  «I don't feel like dessert,» Felton said again.

  Cynthia slammed down a spoon. Her beautiful face twisted into a childlike rage. «Well, damn it, I do.»

  «But, darling,» Remo said.

  «But darling crap,» said the Briarcliff philosophy student.

  Felton blinked. «What language!»

  «Language, hell. You're not leaving me here.»

  Jimmy tried to soothe the girl as an old friend. He didn't get a word out of his mouth. His lips parted and Cynthia yelled: «You shut up, too.»

  «Dear,» Remo said.

  «If anyone goes, we all go. That's it.»

  Remo leaned back in his chair, playing with the rim of the full plate. Cynthia had gotten bitchy. All right Fine. He needed a shield. As long as she was with him, Felton would do nothing.

  He glanced at the glowering hulk of a man dominating the end of the table. Or would he?

  Cynthia had her way. The four of them rode silently down in the private elevator to the basement where they climbed into the Rolls. Remo listened for, but didn't hear, the dryer. Sixty cents didn't go too far nowadays, he thought.

  Jimmy drove, Felton sat beside him and Cynthia leaned on Remo in the rear. Before clambering into the car, Felton had peeked in through the window of the black Cadillac, looking for Moesher.

  Cynthia kept kissing Remo playfully. Remo could see Felton watching them in the rear-view mirror, his brow wrinkling at every brush of Cynthia's lips against Remo's cheeks.

  «You know,» she whispered. «I've never seen the Jersey City yard. I'm kind of interested, too. I love you.»

  «I love you, too,» Remo said, staring at the back of her father's head. He could kill them both now. Easy. But Maxwell. They were his lead to Maxwell.

  The car bounced along Kennedy Boulevard. The rutted disgrace that was called the county's main thoroughfare. They rolled past slums, past patches of neat two-story buildings, past brightly lit used car lots, into Journal Square, the hub of Jersey City.

  At Communipaw Avenue, the car turned right. More dingy buildings, more used car lots, then the car wheeled left, down Route 440.

  «We're almost there,» Felton said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  The car sped along Route 440, suddenly bare of construction. Then, a right turn, and they were on a gravel road, bouncing along in a sudden enveloping darkness.

  The car stopped at a corrugated steel gate. The headlights played on a triangular yellow sign which read: «Protected by Romb Detective Agency.»

  The lights went out. Remo heard crickets in the distance. «We're here,» Felton said.

  Remo said a silent prayer to one of Chiun's thousands of gods. «Vishnu, preserve me.»

  He opened the car door and stepped out onto the hard gravel. It made a crunch. The nearby river air bathed him in a chill. The night stars were clouded over. He smelled a faint odor of burnt coffee coming from somewhere. He rubbed his hands.

  Behind him, he heard Felton warn his daughter that there were many rats in the areas. Did she want to come? No, she decided. She'd stay in the car. «Keep the windows closed,» he suggested.

  The doors opened again, then closed.

  «Let's go,» Felton said advancing on the gate. The butler grunted assent. Remo knew they were both armed.

  «Yeah,» Remo said. «Let's go.»

  Felton unlocked the gate and opened it. It groaned, like metal abused by the weather. Remo tried to linger, to be last. But they waited.

  «After you,» F
elton said.

  «Thank you,» Remo answered.

  They walked down the gravel road, Felton in front, Jimmy behind, Remo in the center. Felton went through the motions of explaining the yard's operation, and pointed out where different car parts for different years and different makes were stored.

  The crunch of their footsteps sounded like an army advancing. Remo could not see Jimmy, but he sure as hell could look at the back of the head in front of him. Felton wore no hat.

  On they marched, through the night, down the road. Remo heard water rippling nearby, the lights pulsing off the river.

  The minute Felton's hand went to the back of his head in his giveaway gesture, Remo would move. That was all the leeway he could give.

  A dark hulk of a concrete structure loomed ahead like a giant pillbox by the sea.

  «That's the heart of our operation,» Felton said. Remo moved closer. The pillbox had a concrete ribbon of road leading down an incline into it. A dilapidated car was parked on the ribbon, blocks under the wheels.

  «When we finish stripping a car, what's left goes into this processor and out comes a cube of scrap iron that we sell to the steel mills. We made a lot of money during the war, didn't we, Jimmy?»

  «Yeah,» Jimmy said. He was close behind Remo.

  «This is where…» Felton's hand went to the back of his head… «where we keep our Maxwells! Now!»

  Remo leaned forward as the slow lazy blow came from the butler. He pulled with it like child's play and crumpled to the ground.

  No overconfidence. See what they do. Maybe Maxwell is here.

  «Nice hit, Jimmy. I think we got the bastard. We finally got him.»

  Remo saw Felton's highly polished black shoes move near his lips. Then he felt a sharp crack on his chin. Felton had kicked him.

  He did not move.

  «I think you killed him.» Felton said. «What'd you hit him with?»

  «My hand, boss. I still didn't get a good shot at him.»

  «He's the one,» Felton said, with resignation. «He got Scottichio and Moesher.»

  «I wish he'd a lived to go in the machine.» Felton shrugged. «I feel tired, Jimmy. I don't care anymore. Get him ready.»

  Remo felt Jimmy's large bony hands reach around his rib cage and hoist. He was dragged, his feet scraping, around to the ramp end of the concrete blockhouse. Through half-opened eyes he saw Felton walk to the other end of the building.

  The junk car's doors were off and Jimmy rested Remo on his bony knee for a moment, then threw him headfirst onto the floor mat where the front seat had been. Remo heard engines, not car engines, groan. Jimmy removed a block from in front of the car's front right wheel. Walking toward the back of the car, he leaned in to throw one last punch. Remo Williams had waited long enough.

  With his left hand he grabbed the large bony wrist and snapped it, silently, swiftly. Jimmy would have screamed if Remo's right hand had not buried itself knuckle-deep into his solar plexis, only a split-second earlier, knocking the air and the sound from him. Remo smashed the nose bone with his left hand and Jimmy went out.

  Remo slid out from under Jimmy's limp frame, then pushed Jimmy into the car, in the place intended for Remo. Remo trotted silently to the back of the car and removed another block from behind the rear wheel.

  The engines that Remo had heard groaned louder, and at the bottom of the concrete ramp, a steel door rose on hydraulic pistons. It opened a steel compartment that in the dim light Remo could see was big enough for several cars at once.

  Remo released the emergency brake in the car, gave it a push, then sat on Jimmy's head and gently eased the car down the hill into the giant box.

  As the car bumped to a halt against the end wall, Remo dashed for freedom. He almost stumbled as he heard the giant steel door slowly lowering with a hideous hiss.

  Remo heard sounds from the other end of the giant concrete pillbox. He moved silently on the balls of his feet, like a phantom gliding over a padded graveyard.

  Peering around the wall, he saw Felton, stripped to his white shirt, his coat and jacket lying on the ground, sweating over an instrument panel.

  Felton yelled: «Everything all right, Jimmy? You got him set?»

  Remo stepped around the building. «I'm all set, Felton. All set.»

  Felton went for the gun. With one swift motion, Remo snapped the revolver from his hand. He moved behind Felton, and spun him wildly around in a circle, moving him like a rolling barrel along the concrete sidewalk beside the concrete and steel crusher.

  It was like dribbling a basketball. Felton's blows were wild and thrashing. He was too old for this business, too old.

  By the time Remo got Felton to the other end, the steel door had closed. Felton spun around and swung. Remo caught the blow on his left arm and crumbled Felton with a soft chop to the temple.

  Felton collapsed to the concrete. And Remo saw something sticking out beneath the steel door. It was a leg. Jimmy had tried to slide out. He hadn't made it. The steel door had sliced it like a hot wire going through cheese. The tip of the shoe seemed to be jerking, not from impulses which were severed, but like an organism, primeval without intellect.

  Remo gave Felton another tap on the temple, then went back to the control panel. It was a simple panel but Remo didn't understand it.

  There was a right lever with gradations, a forward lever, a top lever, an entrance lever, and an automatic control.

  Remo grabbed the entrance lever. Then it hit him like a jolt of electricity. He began to laugh. He was still laughing as he heard the heavy steel door begin to hiss open.

  He picked up Felton's pistol, then walked to the ramp at the other end of the concrete blockhouse. «Maxwell,» he kept repeating. «Maxwell.» Felton was where he had left him, his arms spread grotesquely wide over the concrete driveway.

  Jimmy had rolled back down the incline after the door had severed his leg. But the hiss of the opening door drove him on. With his one leg and a stump and two hands, Jimmy was hopping and crawling like a horrible, crippled, crab up the incline, trying to escape. In the faint moonlight, Remo could see the terror etched deeply into his face.

  Remo cocked Felton's pistol and fired a bullet calmly into Jimmy's one good leg. The bullet spun Jimmy around and Remo took a step into the driveway and kicked the big Texan back into the box over the leg that was no longer his.

  Then Remo lifted Felton and heaved him down the concrete incline. Remo ran around to the controls and pushed back the entrance lever. The heavy steel door hissed shut again and a light went on inside the blockhouse. Through some sort of heavy plastic peephole, Remo could see inside. Felton was not moving. Nor was Jimmy.

  Felton would come to soon enough. Remo reached into his shirt pocket and lit a cigarette. He glanced once more at the control panel, mumbled «Maxwell» again with a smile, and settled down to smoking his cigarette. So that was it.

  On the fourth puff, he heard a scratching on the plastic shield. He took a deliberately long time turning around. When he did, there was Felton's face, pressed against the plastic window.

  The old man's hair was wild. He was yelling something. Remo could not make it out.

  Carefully, Remo formed the word with his lips: «Maxwell.»

  Felton's head shook.

  «I know you don't know,» Remo yelled.

  Felton looked desperately puzzled.

  «Here's another one,» Remo yelled. «MacCleary?»

  Felton shook his head.

  «Don't know him either, huh?» Remo called. «I didn't think you would. He was just a guy with a hook. Think of him when you're being crushed to death. Think of him when you're a hood ornament on somebody's car. Think of him because he was my friend.»

  Remo turned from Felton who scratched frantically on the plastic window and examined the idiot panel. He shrugged his shoulders. He heard a muffled plea for mercy. But there had been no mercy for MacCleary or the other CURE agents or for America.

  He had been created the destroyer and t
his was what he was meant to do. He pushed the lever marked automatic and the machine moaned into operations, its giant hydraulic presses forcing hundreds of thousands of pounds of pressure into a moving wall. And Remo knew he was not just working at a job, he was living his role in life, fulfilling what he was born for.

  It took no more than five minutes. First the front wall pressed in to crush the contents of the blockhouse, then a side wall moved in to crush from another direction, then the roof slowly lowered and it was over. When all the hydraulic walls had returned to their normal positions, Remo peered through the plastic window. All he saw was a cube of metal, four feet square. An automobile and two humans, now only a cube of scrap iron.

  Remo looked around for an implement. He saw a rusted crowbar resting against one of the blockhouse's exterior walls.

  He walked slowly over to the crowbar, picked it up, then went back to the panel. He didn't know how to turn off the lights, let alone the machine. Someone would find the cube in the morning. It would probably be shipped out with the rest of the scrap.

  Remo pried a small metal badge from the top of the control panel. It was a trademark. It was as far as CURE'S one agent had been able to penetrate.

  It read: «Maxwell Steel Reducer. Maxwell Industries, Lima, O.»

  Cynthia didn't mind too much that Daddy had decided to stay at the yard. She wanted to be alone with Remo anyway, and she was happy that they had finally gotten to understand each other.

  She didn't even mind that Daddy didn't come home for breakfast. Remo made a personal phone call from Lamonica Towers to Dr. Smith at Folcroft. He made the call from Felton's bed while Cynthia slept beside him.

  «A what?» Smith said.

  «That's what Maxwell was,» Remo repeated. «Felton was the boss.»

  «Impossible.»

  «All right, it's impossible,» Remo said.

  There was a long pause.

  «How much could one of them cost?»

  «How should I know, damn it?»