Hostile Takeover td-81

by Warren Murphy

  He went directly to Douglas Lippincott's office and breezed past his secretary with such feline fluidity of movement that she never noticed him, not even when Lippincott's door opened and closed behind Remo.

  Douglas Lippincott looked up from his hand mirror with a startled expression. He had been caught trimming his nostril hair with a sterling-silver rotary-blade tool.

  "I beg your pardon," he sniffed, shoving the tool-and-mirror set into a drawer. "Are you my eleven o'clock?"

  "More like your high noon," Remo said, coming around the desk.

  Lippincott looked at Remo with sudden recognition. "Do I know you?"

  "Not unless you read the National Enquirer."

  " I should say not."

  "Then you don't know me," Remo said casually, looking at a desktop computer whose plug dangled loose. "I hear you took a big beating in yesterday's stock market."

  "I do not discuss matters of business with persons I do not know socially. Please leave."

  "I will." Remo said. "After you."

  "Why should I leave?" Douglas Lippincott demanded, following Remo with his eyes.

  Remo went to one of the office windows. He attempted to throw the sash up, which made Lippincott smirk to himself. Who was this ruffian? Everyone knew that modern office windows did not open. It was a design element that had come into popularity after the 1929 stock-market crash, when, but for the convenience of an open window, many fewer panicked investors might have committed suicide by defenestration than had happened.

  When Remo realized the sill was locked in place, he blew on his right index fingernail and used it to score a rough oval in the glass. It screeched. He tapped the glass with a knuckle. It popped from its pane. Remo grabbed it before it could fall, and pulled the crystal oval inside.

  He dropped it on Douglas Lippincott's desk, where it broke into triangular pieces.

  "My word," Douglas Lippincott gasped.

  "I hear you took such a big beating in the market that you're beside yourself," Remo went on in a cheerful voice. "Can't cover your margins and all that investor kind of stuff. "

  "I will say it again. That is not your concern." He reached for his intercom. Too late.

  Douglas Lippincott stood up, his face quirking in sudden surprise. He had not given his legs the command to stand. But there he was standing nevertheless. And then he was walking. He felt the tightness at his shirt collar and the thick wad of his full-Windsor necktie knot pressing his Adam's apple, and realized that he was being led to the portholelike window opening by the scruff of his neck.

  "Any last words before you throw yourself into instant and permanent bankruptcy?" Remo asked nonchalantly.

  " I fancy 'God Save the Queen' is appropriate."

  "Not in this country," Remo Williams said, arranging Douglas Lippincott's limbs in preparation for throwing him through the hole.

  Lippincott didn't quite fit. He took most of the remaining glass with him on the way down. It made Remo glad he had checked for passersby first. Falling glass was dangerous.

  DeGoone Slickens wet his lips. His typing fingers-the right index and the left middle finger-were poised over his office computer terminal. There had been no word from P. M. Looncraft since he had rushed off to England. Doug Lippincott had sounded like a broken man over the phone. That meant it was up to DeGoone Slickens to pull it all together.

  If only the danged computer would work. Settling himself, he hit the "On" switch.

  The amber lines were slow to appear, like a TV set warming up.

  Slickens leaned forward, squinting.

  The message read:

  ***WARNING!!!***

  TUBE IMPLOSION IMMINENT!!

  STAND CLEAR!

  ***DANGER***

  "Dang!" Slickens said, ducking to escape the flying glass that never came.

  When he felt it was safe, he lifted his head to read the screen again. He was no computer expert, but when a computer warned that it was about to go berserk, he took the threat seriously.

  But this computer didn't look like it was going to do anything but scream its silent warning.

  Slickens started to pick himself up from the floor when something changed. The warning still glowed in smoldering amber letters, but a shadow had crossed the glareproof screen. It was a face, dark, ghostly, with hollow skull-like eyes and a cruel mouth under high cheekbones.

  Steeling himself, DeGoone Slickens lifted his face to the screen to see the face more clearly. His face kept on going, propelled by a hand he neither saw nor felt, because it was moving faster than his nervous system could react to it.

  The screen accepted his face with unqualified hostility. The tube imploded, swallowing DeGoone Slickens' head. Sparks flew like electric spittle, and something inside the housing buzzed like a dying cicada.

  As DeGoone Slickens' soft organic brain matter mingled with the terminal's hard-wired brain matter, Remo Williams unplugged the device. He didn't want to start a fire.

  An hour later Remo showed up at Faith Davenport's apartment lobby. The blue-blazered security guard was only too happy to fax the joyous news of his arrival.

  Under his arm Remo carried the thick paper-wrapped bundle he had brought from the car to the elevator and up several flights to Faith's door.

  "Remo, lover!" Faith said excitedly. "I was so worried about you."

  Remo stepped in, his face screwed into glum lines. He willed his facial muscles to hold that expression, hoping for the best. This wasn't going to be easy, he knew.

  Faith threw her arms around his neck the moment the door was closed. "I missed you so much!" she exclaimed. Her nose touched his; her eyes were practically mating with his own.

  Gently, with one hand, Remo unlocked her embrace. Faith's hands went to his thick right wrist, and, moving slowly, began to caress his index finger.

  " I can't stay," Remo said seriously, pulling his finger away.

  Faith's face went into shock. "No?"

  "No," Remo echoed. "This is good-bye. I don't know how to tell you this, but we can't see each other anymore. "

  "But . . . but I love you."

  "No," Remo said, paraphrasing Australian soap-opera dialogue he had heard in London. "You don't love me. You only love my index finger. Admit it."

  Faith's expression broke like a mirror. "It's true!" she sobbed. "But we can work it out. I know! We can go into counseling."

  Remo shook his head sadly.

  "Give me one reason," Faith demanded, hurt.

  "Here," Remo said, handing her the paper-wrapped bundle.

  Faith carried it to the sofa, where she began unwrapping it. The rolled-up pelt of Bear-Man came forth.

  She looked at it, at Remo, and at the suit again. "You!..

  "Now you know my secret," Remo said, solemn-voiced. "Now you know why our love can never be. I am needed elsewhere." He took her trembling hand in his. "You're the only person I've told my secret to. Promise me that you'll keep it."

  Faith's lower lip trembled. Her chin joined in. Her eyes began to well up and overflow.

  "Y-yes," she said. "Of course. I'm so . . . honored you told me. I feel just like Kim Basinger."

  "-my life is too dangerous to share it with anyone. You know how financial crime-fighting is."

  "Oh, I know! I know!"

  "Well," Remo said, thankful his facial muscles were holding together. "I gotta go now. Duty calls. Someone has to protect the market from the greedy."

  He gathered up the Bear-Man suit and stuffed it under one arm and started for the door.

  Faith rushed to him. "Before you go," she said. "Do you have any hot market tips?"

  "Yeah. Dump all your faxes. They cause sterility in laboratory rats. The AMA is about to blow the whistle on the whole thing."

  "Oh, I will. I promise."

  At the door, Faith bestowed on his lips a wistful butterfly kiss. He gave her a discolored bear's tooth souvenir in return, then left, feeling her eyes follow him to the elevator.

  His pent-up laug
hter held long enough for the elevator to reach the lobby. He laughed all the way down the street.

  It stopped abruptly when he passed a teenager in a T-shirt that read "I SAW THE BEAR!" Under the legend was a picture of Bear-Man's ferocious head. Two blocks further along, a business type carrying The Wall Street journal under one arm almost bumped into him. He wore a brown baseball cap with a bear's head mounted on top. Remo saw bear-teeth bumper stickers, necklaces, and even a street mime in a shaggy grizzly costume.

  "Oh, no," Remo said. He hailed a cab and raced to the Nostrum Building.

  Remo found the Master of Sinanju fuming in the emptiness of his office. The trading room was still in ruins from the shooting. There were no workers to be seen anywhere.

  Remo stepped over the litter of broken glass and furniture. Chiun caught sight of his worried expression.

  "What is wrong, Remo?" he squeaked.

  "What makes you think something is wrong?" Remo asked innocently.

  "Your face betrays you, as always."

  "Tell me your troubles and I'll tell you mine," Remo countered, joining him in the office.

  "I have just been on the telephone with that deceiver, Smith," Chiun complained.

  "Let me guess. He's taking Nostrum away from you."

  "He would not dare. He says it is mine if I will assume all the debts. Nostrum is overleveraged, whatever that means."

  "Search me," Remo said. " I don't understand business talk."

  "It has something to do with Nostrum having borrowed money from something called the Social Security Trust Fund. They have called in the note. Nostrum must sell all its stocks to accomplish this. I knew nothing about this debt. Did you?"

  "It's news to me," Remo admitted. "So what did you tell Smith?"

  "I asked him who this Social Security Trust Fund was and he told me it belonged to the American government. I then told Smith that if the President wishes to sue Nostrum, I will take this to the Supreme Courtyard. You see, I have learned how these business people think."

  Remo masked a smile. "And what did he say?"

  "He began babbling about the elderly persons who will not be fed if the money is not returned. And then he made me an offer I could not refuse."

  "He did?" Remo said. "Smith? Our Smith? Tightwad Smith? What did he offer?"

  "Something more worthy than all the stock certificates in the world," Chiun replied.

  "Yeah?"

  "Australian beautiful dramas!" Chiun cried triumphantly. "Beamed by satellite to our very home every day. Think of it, Remo. I will once again have beautiful dramas with which to pass my declining years.

  "I'd say that's worth millions of dollars any day," Remo said wryly.

  "I knew that you would agree," Chiun said. "That is why I freely and with clear conscience offered him your share of Nostrum as well."

  Remo's eyebrows shot up. "My share?"

  "Smith threw in British dramas. How could I refuse anything so magnanimous?"

  "Especially when you're not footing the bill," Remo said dryly. "What about Cheeta Ching? I thought she was number one on your wish list."

  "A woman is young for a time," Chiun said loftily, "but art endures forever. And I think that when she learns of my magnificent treasure trove of beautiful dramas, she will beat a path to my very door, begging me to share these riches with her."

  "Could be," Remo said. Chiun's wrinkled features broke into a pleasurable smile. "But I doubt it," Remo added quickly.

  Chiun frowned. "We shall see," he said in a careless voice. "Now, what is it that troubles you?"

  "I see Bear-Man everywhere I go. And he's not me."

  "I know, I know," Chiun said unhappily.

  "You must be cleaning up, huh?" Remo prompted.

  Chiun's frown soured even more. "That lazy woman Faith," he spat. "She is ill-named. Her mother should have named her Faithless. A common shooting happens and she is afraid to come to work. I have fired her. I have fired them all."

  "What happened?" Remo asked.

  "She did not do as I instructed," Chiun explained. "Some bandit has appropriated the Bear-Man merchandising. Faith neglected to secure the proper copyrights or some such white nonsense, and now others are copying what should be only mine to copy."

  "Great," Remo said. "I'm off the hook for personal appearances. The Bear-Man suit's out in the hall. It's yours. I never want to see it again."

  "And you will not," Chiun snapped. "I have lost billions. Billions."

  Chiun looked about him with the air of a Napoleon bidding farewell to Paris before going into exile.

  "Good-bye, Nostrum," he said. "I will miss you."

  "But I won't," Remo said.

  "We will leave now. Let the new owners clean up this place." Chiun went to a file cabinet and began pulling out plastic bags.

  "Come, Remo," he said. "Help me carry these away."

  Remo accepted an armful of the bags. They were very heavy and bore store logos such as HMV and Strawberries.

  "What's all this?" Remo asked, looking into the top bag. He saw only stacks of clear flat plastic boxes.

  "My CDs," Chiun said proudly as he emptied the cabinet. "You see, I have not been completely cheated. On the advice of Smith, I have invested all my Nostrum salary in CD's."

  Remo shifted the package to one arm and pulled out a box.

  The label read "NANA MOUSKOURI IN CONCERT." The box under it featured Barbra Streisand's face.

  "Compact discs?" Remo said, blinking.

  "Now that the stock market is healthy once more," Chiun said "I am going to redeem these for gold."

  "Where?" Remo wanted to know, his face a study in sobriety.

  Chiun closed the final drawer. "Smith said any bank will take them."

  "I have an idea," Remo said as they walked through crunching glass to the elevators. "Why don't you get Smith to handle the transaction? He knows lots of bankers. He can probably get you the best rate."

  "That is an excellent idea, Remo," Chiun said. "It is the least that man can do after the cunning way he has tricked me. Do you mind if we do this tonight? You know these Americans and their gambling manias. Today the markets are up. Tomorrow they may crash anew."

  The elevator arrived, and they stepped aboard.

  "Little Father," Remo said, grinning broadly, " I absolutely insist that we rush back to Folcroft and take advantage of Smith's investment acumen."

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