Murder Ward td-15
Page 15
"Empty," he said. "No point in saving an empty container."
"Was that…" she said, pointing.
"Right," he said. "Your aging oil. You know, if it doesn't work the way you wanted it, you could always package it as a sex lubricant."
"But why?" she said.
"Tissues, honey. Absorption. Right now, that juice should be pouring through your bloodstream. You'd better sit down. You don't look any too well."
Remo pulled her roughly toward her desk and lowered her into her seat.
"And you? It's on your tissues, too, you know," she said.
"Sorry, sweetheart. I'm immune."
She put her hands out in front of her on the desk, then clapped them to her head as the pain exploded behind her eyes, inside her temples. It was a blinding flash, and then gone.
"The pain'll get worse before it gets better," Remo said. He took her hands from her head and extended them before her on the desk. "It's a shame," he said. "Look at these hands. A young woman like you with such old woman's hands. You should change your detergent."
As she looked down at her hands, she saw that indeed they were harder looking, dry, almost wrinkled. Before her eyes, she saw in horror small veins on the backs of her hands begin to swell and rise under the skin. She was aging. Growing old. Right at her desk, before her own eyes.
She looked up at Remo with hopeless panic on her face.
He shrugged. "That's the biz, sweetheart," he said, and then left, jamming the door on his way out. It would be hours before anybody could get in. By that time, Kathy Hahl would be out of it. For good.
He felt fine as he walked down the hall toward the corridor to his room.
He whistled "Deck the Halls."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
"For crying out loud, Chiun, what's Smith going to say?"
Chiun sat impassively, watching his television set.
"Don't pull that do-not-disturb business with me," Remo said. "I know you're watching reruns. Just look at this place. Ears on the floor for crying out loud. Bodies, vomit, blood. Don't you ever clean up?"
Chiun listened only to Dr. Lance Ravenel.
"And you know Smith didn't want any violence. No more Scrantons. And now you've run amok. What's wrong with you anyway? If you don't have any Christmas spirit, at least you could be good-humored for the Feast of the Pig."
Dr. Ravenel was talking to Mrs. Claire Wentworth in his office at Brookfield Hospital, about the prognosis for her daughter who was suffering an overdose of Quaalude.
"I think we'll have good news for you tomorrow," Dr. Ravenel said.
On the television screen, the distinguished looking actor rose and came alongside Mrs. Wentworth, whom he had loved twenty years before, back before her marriage to old Josiah Wentworth, the clothing tycoon.
"Yes," Dr. Ravenel said. "I think we'll have a fine Christmas present for you. I think our daughter's going to be all right," he said, exposing to anyone retarded enough not to have guessed it six years earlier, that Mrs. Wentworth's daughter had been fathered by him.
Ravenel put his arm around her. The camera panned back. Dr. Ravenel and Mrs. Wentworth stood silhouetted against a giant Christmas tree.
"A merry Christmas," Mrs. Wentworth said.
"A very merry Christmas," Dr. Ravenel said.
"Your tree is beautiful," Mrs. Wentworth said.
"Yes, it is. The most beautiful Christmas tree I've even seen," said Dr. Ravenel.
"Aaaiieee," said Chiun, reaching forward and slapping off the television set.
He rose. Remo said nothing.
Chiun turned.
"One can trust nothing in this country. Nothing. Those doctors turn out to be fakers. And people in whose judgment you trust turn out to have no taste. Why did he like that tree?"
"It was a beautiful tree, Chiun."
"No. What I gave you was a beautiful tree. Even if it was not appreciated. You are not going to give me the gift I sought?"
Remo shook his head. "I can't."
"All right. In its place, you may clean up this mess."
Remo shook his head.
It was therefore agreed upon by a mutual silence of thirty seconds that they would leave the debris in the room for the sweeper and Smith and his reactions be damned.
They rode the elevator down in silence. In the lobby at the desk was the same guard who had greeted them upon their arrival.
Chiun motioned to Remo to wait and walked to the guard.
"Do you remember me?" he asked.
The guard looked puzzled, then his face brightened. "Sure. Doctor Park, wasn't it?"
"Yes. Tell me, have you looked at this tree?" Chiun asked, waving over his shoulder at the huge tree behind him.
The guard said, "Funny, I never did until you mentioned it. But now I look at it all the time. It's beautiful." He stood up, reached forward and took Chiun's hand. "I wanted to thank you for helping me to see it. It was really clever, how you did it. Thank you, Doctor Park. And a merry Christmas."
Chiun just looked at him, then walked back to Remo.
"It is no wonder he is a hospital guard," he said. "He has taken leave of his senses."
They stepped out into the crisp December cold, Remo going first.
He was halfway down the steps when Chiun halted him.
"Remo," he called.
Remo turned slowly and looked back at Chiun who waited on the top step.
"Merry Christmas," Chiun said.
"Thank you," said Remo, meaning it.
"Even if you do not give me a gift."
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