He called for help, but the crime-scene team were all busy chasing his thick-wristed attacker into the crowd.
Later, when they returned empty-handed, wearing hangdog expressions, they were in no mood to add the incident to their official reports.
Once the detective had been freed of his own handcuffs, they put it to a vote. The decision was unanimous.
They never saw any thick-wristed man. Ever.
Chapter 21
Sky Bluel heard the voices talking as if through a dreamy purple haze.
There were two voices. One-the tough one-was saying, "She's coming around now. You can tell by the quick intake of air."
"Looks kinda like a rodeo performer, don't she?" the other voice said. It was unctuous and familiar, although Sky couldn't quite place it.
Sky opened her eyes. At first she thought her vision was out of focus. The men were hovering directly over her, but their faces were twin pinkish blurs.
Then she realized both wore rayon stockings over their heads, which distorted their features into unrecognizability.
"Where am I?" Sky asked anxiously, pushing herself up from the cot, catching her falling granny glasses in one hand. "Is this a happening?"
"Little lady, don't you fret. You're in a safe place." The unctuous one had said that. He was shorter and wider than the other, and wore white buck shoes. It was definitely not a happening.
"If this is a safe place, why are you two dressed like Brinks bandits?" Sky demanded.
"Don't sweat it. Once you build me a neutron bomb or two, we'll set you free to do whatever you wanna. "
"Another bomb!" Sky shouted. "I just built one for Don Cooder!"
"What's she babbling about?" the unctuous voice asked the hard voice.
"That musta been what the other guy took."
"What other guy?"
"When I snatched the girl, someone else snatched this big silver thing," the hard-voiced man explained.
"Silver thing? Like a big golf ball wired up to a board?"
"It was more the size of a medicine ball."
The shorter man smacked a fist into a meaty palm, saying, "Damn! Why didn't you heist it too?"
"You said you wanted the girl."
"To build me a bomb, gumshoe! You heard her. She already had another bomb. Hell, you could've snatched the bomb and whacked her, for all I care."
"How was I to know?" the other man said in surly tones. "I never saw a neutron bomb before in my entire life."
"Can I go now?" Sky ventured.
"No!" both voices said in unison.
"What's this other guy look like?" Unctuous asked Hard Voice.
"He was filthy. Like he stepped out from a swamp." "A Dirt Firster!"
"He might have been a street person. We were just across the street from Penn Station."
"Never mind that. We gotta get that bomb. It'll save me a whole pile of time."
"I don't like where this conversation is going," Sky Bluel said uneasily. "I'm getting this really freaked out feeling."
Dr. Harold W. Smith had exhausted the resources of the CURE computers. So he had fallen back on the telephone. Under the guise of being a bank-loan investigator, he had learned a great deal about Connors Swindell.
The chief source of information was Constance Payne, Swindell's secretary.
"He's a genius," she was saying. "Ouch!"
"What is the matter?" Smith asked.
"I stabbed by thumb again. They must be making these condom things thinner or something."
Smith cleared his throat, wondering if he had called at a bad time. "If we could get back to Mr. Swindell's references."
"Well, you know all about the Condome. The Western Arid Bank has the note on that. Let's see . . ."
"Does Mr. Swindell have another long-term employee I could speak to?"
"Well, there was Horace."
"Was?"
"Horace Feely. He was Con's-I mean Mr. Swindell's-chauffeur, but he quit suddenly, while they were in Missouri."
"Did you say chauffeur?" Smith asked suddenly.
"Yeah. He and Con go back years, which was why I thought it was so strange for him to quit like that."
"Do you know his current whereabouts?"
"If you mean Con, he just left for San Francisco."
"I meant Horace," said Smith.
"Search me, honey. He hasn't called for his check."
"Thank you."
Smith hung up and initiated a global computer search for Horace Feely. He was rewarded with a digitized photo and a rap sheet that showed Horace Feely had been a habitual criminal up until 1977, when was released from Folsum State Prison on a breaking-and-entering charge to enter the employ of a sponsor, one Connors Swindell.
It was not the record that interested Harold Smith. It was the photo. It showed a younger version of the dead body Remo had found in Missouri. The same man pictured in FBI wanted posters for having acquired the Lewisite gas that later wiped out the population of La Plomo, Missouri.
And suddenly the numbers began to tally up.
Smith picked up the phone and, calling himself Colonel Smith, got a patch-through to a military-airlift-command line.
"Remo. Smith here."
"So who's right? Chiun or me?" Remo asked. In the background, Smith heard the thundering drone of aircraft engines. After they had reported to him their failure in Manhattan, he had ordered them into the air while he confirmed his growing suspicions.
"It may be more complicated than that," Smith told him. "The Missouri body was a chauffeur, after all. He was Connors Swindell's personal chauffeur. He was not military, not Dirt First!!"
"Does that mean Dirt First!! had no part in any of this?"
"Not exactly. From eyewitness descriptions I've gleaned, it is obvious that a Dirt First!! operative took possession of the Bluel girl's latest device."
"I'm not sure I'm following this," Remo muttered.
"I did say it was complicated," Smith said.
"Uncomplicate it for me."
"Remo," Smith said urgently, "I think we have been wrong in many of our deductions. I have been looking deeper into Connors Swindell's recent activities. There are many puzzling factors. For one thing, he is being bombarded with paternity suits."
"That wouldn't surprise me if he uses his own givaways," Remo muttered, recalling the pierced condom he had examined in La Plomo.
"These suits are all instigated by men," Smith said.
"You get what you pay for," Remo said dryly. "What else?"
"Swindell has been approaching the surviving relatives about buying up distressed La Plomo property."
"So? He's a real-estate speculator. That's his business."
"But he has already signed purchase agreements on twenty-six lots and is in active negotiation over dozens more. Remo, he is on his way to buying up the entire town, lock, stock, and barrel. And he is getting excellent bargains."
Remo frowned. "You don't mean Swindell was behind La Plomo?"
"I'm not prepared to conclude that. But it's the only scenario in which Swindell's dead chauffeur fits."
"So do we go to Palm Springs and grab Swindell," Remo asked, "or San Francisco and grab the neutron bomb from what's left of Dirt First?"
Smith was silent. The picture was still very confused. He would have to make an imperfect decision, and they were always dangerous.
"According to his secretary, Swindell left for San Francisco just hours ago," Smith said at last. "It's possible he's in cahoots with Dirt First!!-bizarre as that may sound. Go there."
"It sounds ridiculous," Remo growled, "but it's all we have."
In the rear of the C-130 transport, Remo hung up the phone.
"We're going to San Francisco," he told the Master of Sinanju, watching for a reaction.
Chiun nodded. The tightly etched wrinkles of his face faded with relief. His ivory countenance had been the bloodless hue of bone. Now it suffused with color again. "Great is my joy upon hearing your words," said the Mas
ter of Sinanju. "I will so inform the pilot."
"Be my guest," Remo said, staring at Chiun's retreating figure. The Master of Sinanju had actually been terrified of returning to Palm Springs. Well, Remo thought, that won't happen now. And whatever happened, Remo would be there to protect his teacher.
Barry Kranish was packing when the downstairs buzzer intruded. He let it buzz. If it was trouble, why let it in? If it wasn't, there was no one Barry Kranish cared to see on his last night in San Francisco. He threw his last bottle of jagua juice into the suitcase and closed it tight.
The buzzing stopped. Kranish lugged two overstuffed suitcases downstairs to the lobby, where an addled woodsy owl hung upside down in its cage and Venezuelan bull roaches ranged freely. Just as it should be.
The two men with the stockings over their heads were not. One held a revolver in his fist. It was pointed at Barry.
"Let's go for a ride," the gunman said in a smoky Humphrey Bogart voice.
"Where?"
"To wherever you put that neutron bomb." This came from the other one. He sounded like Joe Isuzu on meds.
"I'll never tell!" Kranish spat, letting the suitcases fall. "You can do anything you want. Even wild candiru couldn't suck it out of me!"
"I can fix that attitude," the gunman said. "I do it all the-"
Noticing a cockroach scuttling by his feet, he carelessly lifted a brogan to crush out its tiny life.
"No!" Barry Kranish said, dropping to his knees. "That's a bull cockroach. Please don't harm it. I'll tell you anything!"
If it were possible for a man wearing a stocking mask to register an incredulous expression, this one did. But he recovered from his surprise fast enough to spit out, "Then talk quick or the bug gets it."
"Yeah," the other added. "Then we'll do the owl. "
"Not the owl!" Kranish cried. His pain woke the threatened bird. Its wings thrashed in panic. "Palm Springs! It's down in Palm Springs!"
"Why there?" The owl-endangerer put that question forward.
"It's a blot on the perfect sanctity of the delicate desert."
"Palm Springs? A blot?"
"It should be stamped out forever so the sands can blow freely," Barry Kranish said passionately. "So the cactus can spread its needles without fear. So the scorpion may dance in the dust devils, as it did before the white man came despoiling."
"Okay, here's the old sixty-four-thousand-dollar question," asked the man with the Joe Isuzu voice. "Where is the bomb?"
"I hid it in a hotel room."
"Why there?"
"So no one would bother it until it detonates. Actually, I really wanted to nuke that Condome, but I couldn't get a rental car. The agency was closed because of an unexpected death."
"Christ! You armed it?" This from the gunman.
"It's the only way to get the message of Dirt First!! to the world. Over the next five days, media outlets all over America will begin receiving Dirt First!! faxes. If Palm Springs is not razed and restored in its natural barren splendor, then the device will detonate and only the ecologically insensitive will perish."
"The nuke won't go up for five days?" asked the man with the oily salesman's voice.
"That's right."
"Okay, that gives us plenty of time to get to it." The gunman waggled his revolver in the direction of the open front door. "Let's take a little trip."
Obligingly the owl-threatener led the way. Kranish followed. The masked gunman fell in behind him.
On the way out, Kranish heard a tiny crunch. He winced, hoping the insensitive gunman hadn't harmed one of nature's most perfect creatures. It would be one less insect brain to preserve the memory of selfless Barry Kranish in the coming posthuman epoch.
Remo and Chiun arrived less than an hour later to find the front door to Dirt First!! headquarters ajar.
"Oh-oh," Remo said, motioning for the Master of Sinanju to hang back. "Looks like the barn door's open. Better let me go first."
"Over my dead body," spat the Master of Sinanju, pushing past Remo. He strode into the reception room, shaking his tiny fists and shouting at the top of his mighty lungs.
"Enemies of America, come show your villainous faces!" he cried. "The Master of Sinanju, wise in years, but still sound of limb despite his advancing years, challenges you!"
Remo rolled his eyes. "Little Father, you have nothing to prove to-"
Chiun lifted a hand for silence. He cocked one ear, then the other. "I detect no sounds. This domicile is vacant. Can your ears tell you the same story, O callow youth?"
"I'll take your word for it." Remo noticed two suitcases balanced on the winding staircase. He opened them, finding a bottle of familiar yellowbrown juice. "Looks like Kranish was about to split," he said, "and something interrupted him. Maybe the good guys, maybe the bad. Either way, it's a dead end. Come on, let's look for the bomb. Not that we'll find it."
They didn't find the bomb. But in a wastebasket next to an antique Remington typewriter, Remo dug out a crumpled ball of papers. Written on Dirt First!! stationery, they were discarded drafts of a communique warning of the imminent destruction of Palm Springs, California.
The Master of Sinanju drifted in while Remo was reading these drafts.
"You have found something?" he asked.
"No," Remo said hastily, dropping the papers into the basket. "Just old mash notes from the Sierra Club. Looks like he abandoned ship for sure."
"Perhaps Emperor Smith may guide us," Chiun suggested.
"Good idea," Remo said quickly. "Let's find a phone."
There was one in the next room. Remo had to blow dust off the receiver before he dared pick it up. He got Smith on the first ring.
"Smitty?" he said, turning around to see if Chiun was in earshot. To his surprise, the Master of Sinanju had drifted to another room. Great, Remo thought. "Listen up, Smitty," Remo said, sotto voce. "Kranish is gone. There's no sign of Swindell. But the neutron bomb's been planted in a Palm Springs hotel. The Thousand Palms. It's set to blow in five days. "
"Remo, are you sure of this?" Smith demanded.
"I just read the rough drafts. The idiot even gave the room number in the first draft. He must be pretty confident that no one can dismantle the device."
"No one except Sky Bluel, wherever she is. Remo, go to Palm Springs immediately."
"Chiun isn't going to like this," Remo warned.
"Then leave him behind. The fact that the device is in Palm Springs points back to Connors Swindell. "
"I'll be in touch," Remo said, hanging up.
Remo found the Master of Sinanju down in the reception area, feeding live cockroaches to the fish.
"I talked to Smith," Remo began. "He says we should split up. You stay here and wait for Kranish or somebody to show. I'll grab Swindell and wring the truth out of him."
Chiun dropped a frightened cockroach into a tank and watched the fish converge on it. He kept his back to Remo.
"Do not lie to me, Remo Williams," he said severely. "I know you too well after all these years."
"Okay, you got me," Remo admitted. "The bomb is in Palm Springs. It's armed, but we have five days to disarm it. Plenty of time. Since you have a phobia about going back there, why don't I handle it?"
Chiun turned, hazel eyes narrowing. "No," he said.
"Look, what's the big deal? It's Vimu and Songjong all over again, isn't it? Okay, I'm Songjong. I'm telling you, Vimu, to stay here and guard the gold while I go into the Egyptian desert to handle the wicked pretender."
"He was a princeling, not a pretender."
"Whatever. The legend fits. Admit it. I should go and you should stay. It's a piece-of-cake gig for both of us."
Chiun's eyes squeezed down to sightless slits.
"You believe because I am old, I have grown afraid," he intoned.
"It's not that. Heck, I didn't know you were pushing a hundred until you told me. It's just that you have this thing about Palm Springs. Dealing with a nuke is tricky enough. I don't want to have to w
atch you too."
"I am no child who needs watching!" Chiun exploded. "I am the Reigning Master of Sinanju and I am not afraid to go into the desert, no matter what perils await."
Remo threw up his hands in surrender.
"Okay, okay! You win. Let's go. But if we miss a solid lead because of you, you get to break the bad news to Smith."
"I do not think it will be me breaking bad news to Emperor Smith," Chiun said as they walked from the rundown San Francisco Victorian. "But I go without fear, for I am unafraid. As always."
Chapter 22
Because they had military-airlift-command helicopters at their disposal, Remo and Chiun reached the Palm Springs Municipal Airport within an hour. A cab took them to the Thousand Palms Hotel, a palatial Spanish-Moorish monstrosity of stucco and red-tile roofs sprawling on the edge of the desert.
From the lobby they called Room 334 on a house phone.
"It's just ringing," Remo told the Master of Sinanju. "I don't think anyone's up there."
Chiun nodded. He looked about the lobby, as if preoccupied.
They took the elevator and followed a long curved corridor to Room 334. The lock was the key type. Remo simply put his fist to the keyhole, drew back, and punched hard once.
The door jumped inward on its hinges, the tongue of the lock having gouged out a notch in the inner doorjamb.
Before Remo could stop him, the Master of Sinanju leapt into the room. He whirled twice, in different directions, as if to deal with unseen attackers.
Then, lowering his crooked nails in disappointment, he faced Remo.
"This den of evil appears to be empty," he admitted.
"No kidding," Remo said dryly, closing the door behind him. He went around the room, checking in the bathroom and under the bed. Chiun poked about the dresser drawers, dropping the Gideon Bible into the wastebasket.
"Found it!" Remo said, flinging open a long clothes closet.
The Master of Sinanju drew up alongside him.
The neutron device gleamed like a model radome equipped with convenient carrying handles.
"I do not hear ticking," Chiun noted.
"These things don't tick," Remo said, dropping to his knees. He tested the stainless-steel handles on the shaped charges. They were locked up tight. He dismissed pulling them out by force. No telling what might result.
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