Kill or Cure

by Warren Murphy

  “I will wait here and if you so much as move,” Remo said, “I will kill you.” And then, with the quiet of a lynx on a fur blanket, Remo was out of the power station with the engineer still believing that the monster was with him.

  The El Diablo and the Columbia Hotels are the largest on the strip, separated only by an alley. Their gambling rooms stay open until 4 a.m., but now in the pre-dawn darkness, the gambling stopped, and men reached for candles and flashlights. Remo was into the El Diablo by the front door as bellboys and managers searched for lights. The night manager of the hotel knew exactly what to do in a power blackout. When the lights went out, he slammed shut the safe, according to regulatory precautions.

  He stood by it with a pistol, according to regulatory precautions.

  What was not to the regulations was the incredibly severe pain at the base of his spinal column. He was told how he could end the pain and since he wanted that more than anything else in the world, he did what he was told. He opened the safe by the light of a candle, and when it was opened, and Remo saw where the bundles and bags of gambling money were, he blew out the candle. From his jacket pocket, he removed the full rubber head mask and stuffed the face with money. He filled the chest cavity of the suit with money, and moving his arm into the empty arm of the one-piece jumpsuit, held the chest money which supported the head money, and for all practical purposes, it looked as if he held a dummy at the end of his arm.

  Except in the darkness, it did not look like a dummy, but a man who was holding on to Remo for support. Remo moved through the bustling confusion and vagrant flashing lights, saying, “Man injured. Man injured.”

  But no one could be bothered with an injured man. After all, was that not the night manager yelling about a robbery?

  “Injured man,” yelled Remo as he crossed the alley to the Columbia Hotel, but he was ignored, for men’s jobs were at stake and these jobs depended on the most important thing at a casino. Money.

  “Injured man,” yelled Remo, moving to the manager’s office of the Columbia.

  “Get that sonofabitch out of here,” yelled the manager of the Columbia, thinking that if there ever was a negligence suit, he could deny what he had said in court, and it would be his word against the word of the two guests.

  Then he no longer cared about his word or anyone else’s word. He cared only about the incredible pain in his stomach. He too was told how he could make the pain stop, and he did, so Remo put him to sleep and filled out the rest of the dummy suit with more money.

  Into the lobby went Remo, only now, for the police, he was a drunk with a drunken buddy, trying to tell them how to do their job.

  “You get the hell out of here,” ordered a police captain, “or you’re under arrest.”

  Chastened the two drunks moved off, out of the lobby, into the night. Remo felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see a policeman, high-peaked island hat and all.

  “Okay, buddy,” the cop said, “I know your game. Something big is happening, and you want to get arrested, so that later you can brag about how you were arrested on the big night. Well, we’re not stupid mainland gringos here. So get moving.”

  And roughly, the police officer pushed Remo and his friend past the squad cars, down the street, and the officer waited until the two drunks had left.

  “Damned gringo and their emotional problems,” said the officer, who had just taken a course in psychology for a promotion he hoped someday to get.

  The packing house was closed when Remo broke a window lock, made his way to the freezer, found the boxes marked with the red X, and replaced much of the dry ice with money. He kept two handfuls of one hundred dollar bills, and then left through the window. He shredded the suit and mask in a nearby trash can and waited for the manager to arrive.

  “Punctual,” Remo said, as the manager arrived with the first rays of dawn. “I like that.” Remo paid the remainder of the charges in cash and promised an order five times as big if this delivery was really as prompt as the manager promised. He made this promise as sincerely as possible, because he was entering politics and one had to be sincere in politics when one told lies.

  The manager personally drove his new customer to the airport. On the trip, Remo mentioned several names he had read in a CURE report, men whose Mafia connections Stateside were immaculate. The manager caught the drift of the conversation and assured Remo of his fidelity.

  “Fidelity is a very healthy thing,” said Remo.

  The manager understood completely.

  Remo gave him a little present for himself. A half-inch of money.

  “You are too generous,” said the manager, wondering exactly what Remo’s mob connections were.

  “Spend it in good health,” Remo said. “Be sure to spend it in good health.”

  On the plane, Remo read in the San Juan paper the reports of the robbery. Brilliant, cunning, masterfully executed, well planned. The paper reported that a team of men—one injured—simultaneously robbed the two largest hotels. The cash loss was estimated at $2.5 million.

  Remo would have to check that out against his fish which were due to arrive in Miami an hour after he did. He didn’t think he had gotten that much. Probably employees had filched some. Maybe even the police. These things happened sometimes during big robberies. He felt angry that there were so many crooks in the world.

  He went to the New York Times, feeling self-righteous and self-satisfied. Nothing there about the robbery. It had happened too late for the early edition of the Times which was flown to the island.

  In the back sections of the paper was a picture of a stunning, knockout blonde in an evening gown. She was, the caption said, the Madison Avenue genius, Dorothy Walker of Walker, Handleman and Daser. An accompanying story said that her firm had never lost an account, and never failed to sell the client’s product. Remo looked at the face that stared at him off the page. Smart, cultured, professional, and she looked as if she had great boobs, to boot.

  Done. Decided. Walker, Handleman and Daser, which had never lost, would run the campaign for Remo’s candidate for mayor. All he needed was a candidate for mayor, and that would be no problem for a man who was, as the San Juan robbery reports had it, “brilliant, cunning, a masterful planner.”

  “Brilliant,” he mumbled to himself, reading again about the robbery. Perhaps if he had been running CURE instead of Smith, there never would have been the foulup and the leak in Miami Beach. Well, he would plug up the leaks and get Smith out of his little jam, try to give him some advice on proper security.

  Chiun was wrong when he advised Remo to know what he could do and what he could not do. He was wrong in limiting his vision to doing what his father had done before him. That was the Oriental mind. Remo was American. There were new horizons, especially for brilliant and cunning people. How Chiun was afraid for people who thought they were brilliant.

  “When you think you are brilliant, my son,” he had said, “that is the beginning of stupidity, for you shut out all those senses that tell you of your weaknesses. And he who does not know his weaknesses cannot feed the babies of Sinanju.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  HURRICANE MEGAN HAD PASSED and Miami Beach basked again in tropical mellowness. The Master of Sinanju sat on his balcony, warming himself in the dying sun, contemplating the disaster of someone with skills, Sinanju skills, lowering himself to politics. It was not a pleasant contemplation.

  In his life, he had had two pupils. One, although Korean, a relative, and a villager of Sinanju, had been a complete loss. The other had proved to be a pleasant surprise, a white man, an American white man who had learned with exceeding swiftness the teachings of Sinanju.

  And Chiun had taught him thus. He had taken a white man and made him almost worthy to assume the role of Master of Sinanju. With a Japanese, it would have been almost impossible, but with a white man, it was unthinkable, yet Chiun had done this thing, teaching his pupil to know the forces of man and nature, and to assume the responsibility for fee
ding Sinanju when the time came for its current master to return his body to the waters of time.

  Now this pupil was to become a salesman of peoples. The thought made Chiun very unhappy. It was as if a beautiful swan were to try to burrow through the mud like a worm. He would have to tell Remo that, but Remo still had a way of not listening.

  The doorbell buzzer interrupted the thoughts of the Master of Sinanju and he left his balcony to answer it. It was Mrs. Ethel Hirshberg with her friends. They had come to keep him company.

  Chiun liked these women, especially Mrs. Hirshberg, who had come to his rescue at the baggage rack at the airport. They knew how to understand tragedy and mourning. They appreciated what it was like to have children who did not appreciate what their parents had done for them. They appreciated the great daytime television dramas, the finest art form of the western world. And they played Mah Jongg.

  That the women did not know they were in the presence of the deadliest single killer in the world was not due to a lack of perception. People only understand what they already know, and seeing this frail old man with such sensitive features, hearing him talk of the babies of Sinanju, they naturally believed he raised money for babies, because they, in their lives, had spent much time raising money for such causes. They did not know that the babies of Sinanju were fed by deaths, performed for salary by the Master.

  Such was their concern and affection for Chiun that when a mugger was reported in the building the night before, they all ran out with pots and pans to save Chiun, because they knew he was taking his evening stroll at the time. Fortunately, the mugger was found in a stairwell. Police theorized that he had been hit with a sledgehammer in the chest, although no sledgehammer was found and although the coroner privately pointed out that to inflict so much damage, the sledgehammer would have had to be dropped from a height of four miles. But the coroner said nothing publicly, since a mugger was a mugger was a mugger, and however they were gotten rid of was a benefit to mankind, in his opinion.

  In the opinion of the ladies of the apartment building, it was goodness coming to goodness that Chiun had been spared.

  Now they had a surprise for him. One of the ladies’ sons was a writer for the most successful adventure show of the season. And wouldn’t Chiun be happy to know it was about an Oriental?

  “It’s coming on now,” squealed Mrs. Hirshberg.

  Chiun sat on the large sofa between Mrs. Hirshberg and Mrs. Levy. He watched the opening credits tolerantly, as the hero of the series trudged across the desert sand. But he moved forward on the couch to watch an opening flashback when the hero relived his childhood in the Orient and his training in the arts of combat.

  He sat that way, shaking his head, through the entire show, and as soon as it was over, he bade the women good night because he was tired.

  He still sat on the sofa when Remo came home.

  “There was a very evil thing on the television tonight,” he said as Remo came through the door.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, an evil thing.”

  “Oh. Am I allowed to know what this evil thing was?”

  “A program told of the Shaolin priests, as if they were wise and good men.” Chiun said this in a voice that reached for outrage, then looked to Remo as if for solace.

  “So?” Remo said.

  “The Shaolin were chicken thieves, who took refuge from the police in a monastery. And because it was better to have them in a monastery than in the countryside stealing chickens, they were allowed to live there and to masquerade as priests.”

  “I see,” Remo said, although he did not see at all.

  “You do not see at all,” Chiun said. “It is evil to deceive people into believing well of people of whom only ill should be thought.”

  “It’s only a show, for crying out loud,” Remo said.

  “But think of the people it can mislead.”

  “Well, then, write a letter to the producer and complain.”

  “Do you think that will do any good?”

  “No,” Remo said, “but it’ll make you feel better.”

  “Then I will not do that. I will do something else.”

  Remo showered. When he came out, Chiun was seated at the table in the kitchen, pencil in hand, paper in front of him.

  He looked up at Remo.

  “How do you spell Howard Cosell?” he asked.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  OF COURSE, WILLARD FARGER remembered Remo. How could he ever forget such a good interviewer? No, no, no, he wasn’t nervous; he always sweated in the spring heat of Dade County. Certainly. Even in his air-conditioned home.

  “That’s good,” Remo said. “A little sweat is good for a man who’s going to be the next mayor of Miami Beach.”

  Farger looked at Remo closely to see if he were joking, then thought it over for a full tenth of a second and smiled because the thought gave him pleasure, then shook his head in resigned sadness. “Maybe someday, but not this year.”

  “Why not?” Remo said.

  “It’s too late. The election’s next week. There’s no way to get on the ballot this year.”

  “No way?”

  “No way,” Farger said. “I made my move too late.” He was beginning to relax just a little, as each passing second made his assurance grow that Remo was not, for the moment, going to bury him in a swamp or bury an ice pick in his head.

  “Could you replace a candidate if one, say, dies?” Remo asked coldly, and Farger stopped relaxing. He sat up straight in his chair.

  “No. I’m the fourth deputy assistant commissioner of elections. I know the law. There’s no way.”

  Remo leaned back on Farger’s living room couch and propped his feet up on a plastic tile coffee table.

  “Okay, then. If you can’t be mayor, you’ll make a great campaign manager. Who do we support?”

  Farger took a deep breath. Without even thinking, he started off, “That’s where I draw the line, Mr. Remo. I have supported Mayor Cartwright since he first sought public office; I have no intention now of deserting his leadership, doubly so since it is now under attack by an insidious encroachment of the federal....”

  “Do you want to join your car?” Remo interrupted.

  Farger shook his head.

  “All right. Then you’re the campaign manager. Now who is our candidate? Besides Cartwright.”

  “But…I’ll lose my job.”

  “There are worse things to lose.”

  “And my pension rights.”

  “You have to live to spend it.”

  “And my family. How will they live?”

  “How much do you make a year?” Remo asked.

  “Ten-five,” Farger said.

  Remo reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out two sheaves of bills. He tossed them on the coffee table. “There’s two years pay. Now who do we support?”

  Farger looked at the money, at Remo, then at the money again, as his brain made calculations behind his narrowed eyes. “You can’t support Cartwright?”

  “No,” Remo said. “Anyone who’d lie about the federal government the way he did…who’d deceive an honest, decent man like you into lying, can’t be returned to office. Who else is running?”

  “That’s the problem,” Farger said. “Nobody’s running.”

  “Come on,” Remo said. “What is Cartwright, a king or something? Of course, someone else is running.”

  “Well, there are some people,” said Farger, with an inflection of distaste that, if recorded, would have ended forever his dreams of the presidency.

  “Who are?”

  “One is Mrs. Ertle McBargle. She’s head of Abortion Now. Then there’s Gladys Tweedy. She’s with the SPCA and wants to turn the town into an animal compound.”

  “Forget them,” Remo interrupted. “No women.”

  Farger shrugged and sighed. “And then there’s Mac Polaney.”

  “Yeah?”

  “This is the 47th time he’s run for public office. The last time he
ran for President. When he didn’t win, he said the country wasn’t ready for him. He’s not wrapped too tight.”

  “What does he do?”

  “A disabled veteran. Lives on a pension. He lives on a houseboat down along the bay.”

  “How old?”

  Farger shrugged. “Fiftyish?”

  “Honest?”

  “So honest he makes people sick. When he came back from service, everybody was trying to do something for veterans, so somebody got the bright idea to give him a job with the county. Fanfare, newspaper publicity and all.”

  “What happened?”

  “He quit the job three weeks later. He said that nobody gave him any work to do. If I remember right, he said that wasn’t unusual because no one seemed to know anything about work, most of all their own. And in like vein.”

  “Sounds like our man,” Remo said. “An honest, decorated war hero with vast political experience.”

  “A poetry-spouting ninny who won’t get a thousand votes.”

  “How many will vote next week?”

  “Forty thousand or so.”

  “Then all we got to do is get 20,000 more for…what’s his name?”

  “Mac Polaney.”

  “Yeah. Mac Polaney, Mayor Polaney. Mayor Mac Polaney. The people’s choice.”

  “The world’s choice…nitwit.”

  “That’s no way for his campaign manager to talk,” Remo reminded Farger. “Now what are his special issues? What horses are we going to ride to victory at the polls?” He had heard a campaign manager once who sounded just like that.

  Farger allowed himself a sneak’s smile. “Just a minute,” he said. “See for yourself. I’ve got it right here.” He handed Remo a copy of the Miami Beach Journal, already turned to an inside page.

  Remo took it and read:

  CANDIDATE CALLS FOR BLACKOUT OF POLITICAL CAMPAIGN ACTIVITY

  It was a little headline, accompanied by a little story which read:

  Mac Polaney, making his 48th try for public office in next week’s mayoral race, today called upon all the other mayoral candidates to join him in halting all campaign activity.