"All right " Remo said at last. "I'll pitch in. For the world. Not for Smith or the organization."
"Excellent," Smith said.
"But I'm not wearing that cockamamie suit," Remo added firmly. "And that's final."
Chapter 8
Douglas Lippincott was in banking. His father had been in banking, and before that his father had been a banker.
The difference between Douglas Lippincott and his ancestors was, as Douglas Lippincott saw it, that he never foreclosed on widows and orphans.
Douglas Lippincott, president of the Lippincott Mercantile Bank, foreclosed on corporations. Douglas Lippincott was an investment banker. When he lowered the boom, individual families weren't put out on the street. Instead, entire towns went on welfare.
As a result of foreclosures, Douglas Lippincott presided over a multinational corporation that cut timber in Alaska, raised minks in California, processed shale in Kentucky, and made money everywhere else.
He was seated in his plush office sixty floors above lower Manhattan, contemplating his moral superiority over his widow-abusing forebears, when there came a crashing noise outside his office. Lippincott, of the Providence Lippincotts, was old-money. He loved old things. Although the Lippincott Building was barely a decade old, he eschewed the glass and steel of its ultramodern exterior for maple paneling and a solid oak door which shielded him from the eyes of his underlings. Thus he could not see what had caused the commotion, any more than his employees could see into the sanctity of his well-appointed office.
Lippincott ignored the crashing sound. If it was important, he knew, one of his assistants would bring it to his attention. He went back to picking his nose with a personalized silver tool handed down through generations of Lippincotts so they needn't sully their hands pursuing everyday personal hygiene.
The crash sound was repeated, causing Lippincott to cut his septum with the scraping edge.
"Blast it!" he said, reaching for a silk handkerchief to stem the blood.
He forgot all about the handkerchief and his nose when an office worker opened the door with his skull. The door banged open and seemed to catapult the man into a bookcase. The books came out of the shelves like quarters from a slot machine. They struck the man on the head. Lippincott winced. Not for the man, but for the books, which had been in the Lippincott family since before the Revolution. Many were first editions.
Lippincott reached for his intercom and then forgot about that too.
His widening eyes went to the towering hairy apparition that lumbered into the room. It stood upright on two hind legs and had a bear's head mounted on its forehead. The face under the bear's head was enveloped in a bearskin helmet with two ragged holes excavated to expose the eyes.
The eyes were mean.
"Who . . .what are you?" Douglas Lippincott demanded uncertainly. Miss Manners had never, to his knowledge, written on the subject of conversing with bears.
"You've heard of the bear market?" the apparition rumbled.
"Of course."
"I'm the bear."
"Is this a joke?"
"I wish."
"Come again?"
"Your company brought up over nine thousand shares of Global," the bear said, pointing an accusing claw directly at Lippincott.
Lippincott clutched the edge of his desk. He got a grip on his voice before he spoke again. "Possibly. What of it?" he asked quietly, his eyes going to the door. He hoped that some brave loan officer would rush to his rescue, but all he saw were frightened sheep running for the doors. A few did not run. They sprawled across untidy desktops. A head stared out from over the top drawer of a file. Lippincott wondered where the rest of the man was.
"Someone is up to no good," the bear said. "And I'd better not learn it was you."
The bear turned to go.
"Wait," Lippincott called after him. "Is that all?"
"That's the message."
"This is most unbusinesslike," Lippincott said. "What is your name?"
"Just call me Bear-Man, cleaner-upper of Wall Street."
"I don't suppose you have a card?"
"Thanks for reminding me," the bear said, lumbering back into the office. He reached up and yanked a bear tooth off his chest shield. He clapped it into Lippincott's open palm.
"What is this?" Lippincott demanded, looking down at the discolored tooth.
"A warning tooth. Don't screw up or you get the next one through the brain. Bear-Man warns only once."
Lippincott looked up at the retreating creature and demanded, "My God, man, couldn't you have just faxed this?"
Bear-Man didn't answer.
Douglas Lippincott closed the door to his office and waited an hour. When no one came in or called, he ventured out again. The outer office was empty, except for poor Peabody, whose head was sticking up from a file cabinet. His eyes were closed.
Lippincott approached carefully, and hearing the sounds of breathing, went in search of a glass of water. He came out of his private washroom carrying a full glass and threw it in Peabody's face.
Presently Peabody opened his eyes. They blinked, focused, and then went stark.
"Is it gone?" Peabody demanded anxiously.
The file cabinet shook with his agitation, which reassured Lippincott that Peabody was not merely a disembodied head in a drawer. He was worried about the company insurance premiums.
"What happened?" Lippincott demanded.
"The . . . the bear . . ." Peabody said shakily.
"Yes, yes, I saw it. Don't fret. It's gone now."
"Thank God," Peabody said. "I tried to stop it, sir, but it insisted upon seeing you."
"Did it state its business?"
"It refused. And when I told it to make an appointment, it . . . well, you can see for yourself what happened."
"Precisely how did you get into this . . . predicament?" Lippincott demanded curiously. He pulled on the top drawer and looked in. Somehow, Peabody's body had been forced into the cabinet, so that the lower drawers had been forced out to make room for his imprisoned body.
"I don't recall, Mr. Lippincott. One moment I was speaking to that . . . bear. The next I was . . . stuck. I don't remember any intervening action."
"I see," Lippincott said. "I suppose we shall have to get you out of this."
"I can't move my arms or legs."
"I'm afraid a blowtorch may be the only solution," Lippincott said. "Wait here."
"Where else would I wait?" Peabody said without a hint of humor or irony. His eyes still stared anxiously. He had never been filed bodily before.
DeGoone Slickens had made his money in Texas oil. With a two-hundred-dollar stake he had started an oil company in partnership with two other wildcatters. Slickens waited until the company started to get into debt-as all new companies invariably did-before he announced that he had been diagnosed as suffering from liver cancer.
"The doc gives me three years," Slickens had informed his ashen-faced partners that day in the Amarillo office. "Three and a half, tops."
"What you gonna do, De?" one of them asked.
"Make the best of my remaining days," he told them sincerely. "I want out of the company. My buy-out price is a quarter-million."
The other two swallowed and looked at one another with expressions even sicker than those that had greeted the news of Slickens' impending demise.
"You know we can't carry that kind of debt, De. We're in hock as it is."
"Those Hidalgo wells will pay off in time," Slickens assured them in his aw-shucks voice. "You can haul the debt fine. I'll tell you what sign a two-year note, and if it gets sticky here and there, I'll let you slide on a few payments."
The men signed eagerly. But when problems with a dry hole made it necessary to ask for an extension, DeGoone Slickens didn't return their calls. Instead, he issued a demand letter calling for the whole note, adding at the bottom how his condition had worsened and his three years were now only two.
His partners defaulted an
d DeGoone Slickens ended up owning the entire company. Out of the profits, he paid his doctor a six-figure hush-money payment. For DeGoone Slickens had never had cancer of the liver. His true medical condition was his lack of a heart.
DeGoone Slickens made so much money in oil during the 1970's that he started buying up other companies. Whether they were for sale or not. The maneuver was called risk arbitrage, and DeGoone Slickens was its apostle.
By the time the Texas oil boom went bust, he was known across the nation as a corporate raider, operating out of Manhattan, where his country-boy twang made other CEO's dismiss him for some kind of cowboy idiot. Which was exactly what DeGoone Slickens wanted. He had built his career on being underestimated by business adversaries.
More than one of these CEO's ended up on the street with DeGoone Slickens sitting in their saddles.
Nobody liked DeGoone Slickens, which was why he had two bodyguards sitting outside his office at all times. They were former Dallas Cowboys whom Slickens had hired because, in addition to being a two-man Berlin Wall, they were nice status symbols. And when he was stuck sitting with them in traffic, they regaled him with football yarns.
DeGoone Slickens considered them an excellent investment.
Until one of them came charging into his office unannounced. He slammed the door behind him, putting his broad back to it, huffing and puffing for all the world like he'd just been sacked at the ten-yard line.
"What's the matter?" DeGoone said, seeing the look of horror on the former linebacker's flat face.
"Bear!" he cried, struggling to catch his breath.
"What?"
"There's a bear out there. It got Tomaski."
"What're you handing me?"
"Really, Mr. Slickens. It's a bear. Big as life."
"You have a gun," Slickens pointed out in a no-nonsense voice. "Go out there and shoot the varmint."
"Can't. It took my gun from me."
"A bear?"
"A talking bear."
"Are you drunk?"
"I know it sounds crazy, but it was asking for you."
"Me?" said Slickens, startle-faced. "What would a talking bear want with me? I'm a coon hunter."
"I don't know, but I wouldn't recommend letting him in. He pulverized Tomaski."
Then there was a loud knocking on the door.
"Open up," a rumbling voice warned, "or I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow this door down."
"What should I do, boss?" the ex-linebacker asked.
"Get ready," Slickens said, taking a Winchester off the wall. He jacked a shell into the breech and pointed it at his linebacker bodyguard.
"Open it," Slickens said. "And jump out of the way."
The linebacker unlocked the door and flung himself to one side.
The bear came through the door, claws raised high.
DeGoone Slickens fired.
The bear kept coming, its matted fur untouched.
Slickens whacked another shell into the chamber and fired again.
The bear bounced to one side, unhit.
"Dung it!" Slickens roared. "I can't draw a bead on him. You, Barker. You played football. Tackle him."
"Not me!" the ex-linebacker said, diving out the open door. "I quit."
"Looks like it's just you and me," the bear said casually.
DeGoone blinked. His jaw dropped. He looked at the bear carefully.
"Wait a minute," he said. "You're not a real bear. You're just a guy in a mangy suit."
"Obviously you're smarter than the average bodyguard. They thought I was a real bear."
"They're ex-football players."
"Too much steroids, I guess. Now, let's get down to business. And put that thing down. I can get pretty rough when my fur is rubbed the wrong way."
DeGoone hesitated. He brought his Winchester up to eye level again and squinted down the barrel. He did it quickly, but with the practiced care of a backwoods hunter.
In the time it took him to shut one eye, one of the pseudo-bear's paws swiped out and relieved him of his rifle.
DeGoone Slickens stood behind his desk holding empty air. His trigger finger tightened on nothing. That's when he realized he had been disarmed. It had happened that fast.
As DeGoone watched, the bear took his rifle in both paws and bent it double against his chest. Then he threw the horseshoe-shaped rifle at a moosehead, scoring a ringer on its antlers.
"I'm Bear-Man," the bear said, jerking a thumb at his chest. "I'm the spirit of Wall Street. Every time there's a crash, I come out of hibernation. And my message this time is: it had better not happen again."
"Why tell me?"
"Someone's screwing around with Global stock. You bought a carload of it. If you're responsible, Bear-Man comes back and shreds your face. Rowwrr!"
Bear-Man's claws lifted in the air in warning. DeGoone Slickens backed away until he fell into his chair.
"I don't know what you're talkin' about," he said. "And if you know I bought Global stock yesterday, you should also know that I trade in blocks of stock like that every damn day of the week."
"Just remember my warning. Here," the bear added, ripping something off his chest and tossing it onto the desk.
DeGoone caught it. It was a bear's tooth.
"What's this for?" he demanded.
"It's a magic bear tooth. Put it under your pillow. And if you're pure of heart, I won't visit you again."
And with that the bear lumbered out of DeGoone Slickens' office. Slickens waited until he heard the hum of the descending elevator clearly before picking up the telephone. He started to dial 911. He never dialed the second 1.
"Shoot, what am I doin'?" he muttered. "Who's gonna believe a walkin' tall tale like that?"
He put the phone down and walked to the corner of the room, where a computer sat draped under a plastic cover. He removed the cover and fired it up. When he got a bulletin-board logo that read "MAYFLOWER DESCENDANTS," he attacked the keyboard with two stubby fingers.
Wall Street runs on rumor and speculation. After the first two sightings of the so-called Wall Street Bear, phone lines and faxes hummed with further news of the grizzly apparition as it made its way along New York's financial district. Wall Street, ever sensitive to its image of fiscal sobriety, circled the wagons at every media attempt to obtain a printable quote. But among themselves, Wall Street's movers and shakers buzzed about the phenomenon known as Bear-Man.
They also took precautions, under the guise of preparing for possible investor backlash over the near-meltdown that Business Week had christened "Dark Friday."
So it was that when Remo Williams approached the Looncraft, Dymstar d Building, he could see the sentinel security guards stationed throughout the lobby.
He shifted the formaldehyde-scented paper-covered bundle under his arm and changed plans. The phone booth outside the building was out. It was one of those alcove-style stations. Remo had no stomach for changing in a glass booth anyway. He had never understood how Clark Kent avoided getting hauled off to the can for public exposure.
Remo found a narrow alley between two buildings and undid the package. He stepped into the bear suit like a boy climbing into his Dr. Denton's through the seat trap. His loafers fitted snugly into the attached bear feet. His fingers slid into the dangling bear paws. That left only the hard part.
Remo reached back to the flap of bear hide that was supposed to go over his head. The weight of the hard bear's head mounted on top pulled it halfway down his scratchy back. The bear paws didn't make grabbing it any easier.
"Damn Chiun and his wild hairs," Remo grumbled.
Finally he snagged the bear's head by its black nose. He pulled the whole rig up and over his head, positioning the ragged eye holes so he could see clearly. Or as clearly as it was possible to see with stiff bear hairs sticking into his field of vision.
Now garbed as the ferocious Bear-Man, Remo jumped out of the alley and padded for the Looncraft Tower. Startled passersby fled. One offered him five h
undred dollars for his autograph. Remo ignored him.
Remo went up the side of the building like a bear after a honeycomb. But the honey Bear-Man wanted was on the thirty-fourth floor.
Remo clung to the thirty-fourth floor and slipped along the tiny ornamental ledge with extra care. Not only were the attached claws getting in his way, but the thought of taking a thirty-four-floor nosedive to his death while dressed as a bear created vivid images in his mind.
He found the trading floor on the north side of the building.
Getting in presented a problem. Not only was the window glass fixed, but a crowd was gathering inside. Laughing traders gaped at him like they were at a zoo. One separated a honey-and-peanut-butter sandwich and slapped one slice, honey-side-out, against the glass in front of Remo's snout.
That did it. Bear-Man reared back with one paw and punched the glass.
It cracked like so much ice. Remo leaned in. He took the pane in with him in one crunchy shatterproof section.
As Remo got off the floor and brushed himself off; the LD shrank back, their laughter turning nervous and gaspy.
"Oh, my God!"
"It's true!"
"He's for real."
One trader approached cautiously. "Are you a bull or a bear?"
"Are you blind or just stupid?" Remo snapped back.
"It's true!" a woman gasped. "It does talk!"
"I meant are you bullish or bearish?" the trader pressed.
"Definitely bearish," Remo growled. "And I'm looking for your boss, Looncraft."
"Oh, he just stepped out," someone said. "Why do you want to see him?"
"Bear business," Remo said, lumbering forward.
The knot of traders separated before him like water beading on a hot skillet. Remo stumbled around the trading room, his clumsy bulk knocking over phones and Rolodexes, and once, a computer terminal.
Every eye followed him. A few pointed out that when the bear passed certain computer screens, the phosphorescent letters swam like water disturbed by a stick.
P. M. Looncraft's office was clearly labeled. It was also constructed of glass-walls and door. Remo put his big black nose to the glass because his vision was obscured by hair.
The desk was unoccupied. P. M. Looncraft was definitely not in.
"Okay," Remo said, facing his wide-eyed audience. "When's he due back?"
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