Kill or Cure

by Warren Murphy

  “The weather has turned nice,” Polaney said, in what he said would be his campaign’s only press release, “and it’s a great time to go fishing. So I’d like to invite the other candidates to join me on my houseboat for a fishing trip through the bay. That way, without politicians yakking around the city, people can enjoy the nice weather. (The lady candidates can bring chaperones; Mayor Cartwright can bring his keeper.)

  “Sunshine is nicer than politicians anyway and fishing is great for the soul. So what do you say, men and ladies, let’s cast our lines into God’s great blue waters.”

  The other candidates declined to comment.

  Remo put the newspaper back onto the table. “The perfect man for us,” he said. “The first politician I ever heard who had his finger on the people’s pulse.”

  “Now wait,” Farger said. “That’s not all. Last week, he called for the abolition of the police department. He said that if everybody would just promise not to commit any more crimes, we wouldn’t need police. And then we could cut taxes.”

  “Good idea,” Remo said.

  “And before that,” Farger said in growing desperation, “he said we ought to abolish the street-cleaning department. If he was elected mayor, he said, he would assign a different city councilman each day to duty picking up candy wrappers.”

  “Obviously an activist,” Remo said. “Willing to dig in and face up honestly to the problems confronting us.”

  “No,” Farger shouted, startling himself by his loudness. Softly, he said, “No, no, no, no, no. If I get involved with him, my political career is dead.”

  “And if you don’t, Willard, you’re dead. Now make up your mind.”

  There was a millisecond pause in the living room before Farger said:

  “We’ll need a campaign headquarters.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  MAC POLANEY’S HOUSEBOAT WAS tied up to an old tire, nailed to a rickety dock on a small rivulet that muddied its way inland from the bay.

  The next mayor of Miami Beach was wearing green flowered shorts, a red mesh undershirt, black sneakers with no socks and a chartreuse baseball cap. He sat on a folding lawn chair on the deck of the houseboat, stringing gut leader onto fishhooks when Remo drove up, got out of his car and walked to the boat.

  “Mr. Polaney?” Remo said.

  “Won’t do you no good, son,” Polaney said without looking up. He was, Remo gauged, in his early fifties, but he had the strong, melodic voice of a younger man.

  “What won’t do me any good?”

  “I won’t name you Secretary of Defense. No how, no way. I don’t even think Miami Beach needs a Secretary of Defense. Maybe Los Angeles. I mean, anybody who knows Los Angeles knows that they could start a war. But not Miami Beach. Nope. So you ain’t got a chance, son. Might just as well move along.”

  As if to accentuate the point, his shoulders hunched forward and he bent to his work of hook-rigging with increased fervor.

  “But how are we going to deal with the Cuban missile threat?” Remo said. “Only ninety miles away, aimed right down our gullets.”

  “See. That’s what I mean,” Polaney said, standing up and looking at Remo for the first time. He was a tall lean man, tanned to a nut brown, with laugh wrinkles around the eyes that threatened to squeeze them shut. “You militarists are all alike. One bomb, two bombs, four bombs, eight bombs…where does it end?”

  “Sixteen bombs?” Remo suggested.

  “Sixteen bombs, thirty-two bombs, sixty-four bombs, one hundred and twenty-eight bombs, two hundred and fifty-six bombs, five hundred and twelve bombs…what’s after five hundred and twelve?”

  “Five hundred and thirteen?”

  Polaney chuckled. His eyes did shut. Then he snapped them open wide. “Pretty good,” he said. “How would you like to be city treasurer?”

  “Well, I had my heart set on being Secretary of Defense. But I’ll take it. As long as I don’t have to do anything dishonest.”

  “I’d never ask you to,” Polaney said. “Just vote for me. And smile once in a while. Mark my words bub, the Cuban missile threat will take care of itself if we just give it a chance. Most threats and crises do. The only thing you can really do to screw them up is to try to solve them. If you just let things alone, they’ll work out.”

  “You hand out job offers pretty freely,” Remo said.

  “You bet your sweet everloving. You’re the three hundred and seventy first person I’ve offered the treasury to.” He pulled a pad out from under a Coca Cola crate on the deck. “What’s your name? Gotta write it down.”

  “The name’s Remo. But how can you do that? Promise everybody the same job?”

  “Easy, bub. I ain’t gonna win.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a politician talking.”

  “Politician? Me? Heck. All I know about politics is that I can’t win.”

  “Why not?”

  “First of all, I don’t have any support. No one’s gonna vote for no old fisherman. Second, I don’t have any money. Third, I can’t get any money because I won’t make any deals with the people who’ve got money. So I lose. Q.E.D.”

  “Why do you keep running?”

  “I think it’s a man’s duty to contribute to the governmental process.”

  “Most people do it by voting,” Remo said.

  “That’s true, bub. But I don’t vote. At least not in the city. Not for any of those crooks that run. So, if I can’t vote, I’ve got to do something else. So I run. And lose.”

  Remo, overwhelmed by the sheer majesty of the logic, paused momentarily before asking: “How’d you like to win?”

  “Who would I have to kill?”

  “Nobody,” said Remo. “That’s my department. All you’d have to do is be honest. Don’t go on the take. Don’t go shaking down contractors. Don’t make deals with the mob.”

  “Hell, son, that’s easy. All my life, I’ve been not doing those things.”

  “Then you just have to keep doing what comes naturally. You interested?”

  Polaney sat back down on the lawn chair. “You’d better come aboard and tell me what’s on your mind.”

  Remo hopped up onto the deck railing, and then lightly skipped over it. He sat on the Coke case next to Polaney.

  “Just this,” he said. “I think you can win. I’ll put up the money. I’ll get your campaign managers, your workers. I’ll handle the advertising and the commercials.”

  “And what do I do?” Polaney asked.

  “Do what you want. Fish a little. Maybe if you feel like it, campaign a little.” Remo considered that for a moment, then quickly added, “Better yet. We’ll get pros in. See what they say about whether you should campaign or not.”

  “All right, bub. Your moment for truth telling. What do you get out of it?”

  “The knowledge that I’ve helped to clean up a great city by putting an honest man in the mayor’s office.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all.”

  “No sewer contracts?”

  Remo shook his head.

  “You don’t want to build schools with watered-down cement?”

  Remo shook his head.

  “You don’t want to name the next police commissioner?”

  “Not even the next city treasurer,” Remo said.

  “Those are all the right answers, boy. Cause if you said yes to any of them, you were like to go for an unscheduled swim in the river.”

  “I don’t swim,” Remo said.

  “And I don’t play ball.”

  “Good. Then we understand each other.”

  Polaney put down the hooks he held in his gnarled leathered hands and fixed Remo with his pale blue eyes. “If you got all this money you say you got, how come Cartwright let you get away? He watches out for rich fish like you.”

  “I couldn’t support Cartwright,” Remo said. “Not after all this nonsense about League papers and stuff. Not after those cheap attacks on the federal government.”

&nbs
p; Polaney’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Remo, then wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist. “You don’t look like a nut,” he said.

  “I’m not. Just somebody who loves America.”

  Polaney sprang to his feet and slapped his hat over his heart in a civilian salute. Then Remo saw the small nickel-and-dime store flag on the rear of the boat. He wondered if he should chance a laugh. Polaney reached down a strong hand and yanked Remo to his feet. “Salute, boy. It’s good for the soul.”

  Remo put his hand over his heart and stood there, side by side with Polaney. Here we are, he thought, the two biggest lunatics in the Western Hemisphere. One lunatic wants to be mayor, and the other lunatic wants to make the first lunatic get his wish.

  Finally, Polaney clapped his hand to his side, before putting his hat back on.

  “I put my life in your hands,” Polaney said. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Go fishing,” Remo said. “See if you can come up with anything not too greasy. I can’t eat oily fish. And I’ll be in touch.”

  “Son,” Polaney said. “You’re a flake.”

  “Yeah. Ain’t it the truth. Now let’s go win an election. And don’t forget. No oily fish.”

  “How about that for a campaign slogan?”

  “I don’t think it’s got enough crowd appeal,” Remo said. “Anyway, I’ve got an idea for an advertising agency. Let them pick a slogan.”

  He hopped down to the dock and headed back for his car. Halfway there, he turned. “Hey, Mac,” he called. “What made you think I wanted to be Secretary of Defense?”

  Polaney was already back at work on his hooks. Without looking up, he said: “I saw you get out of the car. You look like a man who might start a war.” He turned to Remo. “Right?”

  “I’d rather finish one,” Remo said.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “WALKER, HANDLEMAN AND DASER.”

  “Who’s in charge there?” Remo asked the telephone voice.

  “What does it have reference to?” the female voice answered, over the 1,500 miles of distance between Florida and New York.

  “It has reference to $100,000 for a week’s work,” Remo said, hoping the girl was impressed.

  “Just a moment, sir.” She was.

  So was Mr. Handleman, to whom Remo talked next. Equally impressed was Mr. Daser to whom Remo talked after that. They were so impressed they were going to try to reach Dorothy.

  “Dorothy?”

  “Yes. The Walker of Walker, Handleman and Daser.”

  Remo nodded to himself, remembering the blonde of the New York Times. “Just walk over to her office and tell her you’ve got a fish on a line.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr…er…you didn’t give your name.”

  “That’s right, I didn’t give my name.”

  “She’s on vacation.”

  “Where?” Remo asked.

  “She’s visiting her father in Miami Beach.”

  “That’s where I am,” Remo said. “Where can I reach her?”

  “I’ll have her call you,” Mr. Daser said.

  “Try to do it fast,” Remo said and gave Daser the number where he could be reached. “The name is Remo,” he said.

  Ten minutes later the telephone rang again. “This is Dorothy Walker,” a cultured Manhattan voice said.

  “I’d like you to ran a campaign for me.”

  “Oh? What kind of campaign?”

  “A political campaign.”

  “I’m sorry. We don’t do political campaigns.”

  “Look. I’m talking about $100,000 for a week’s work.”

  “Mr. Remo, I’d like to help, but we don’t do political campaigns.”

  “You can sell air conditioners that don’t work and paper towels with the absorbency of sandpaper and cigarettes that are made out of sawdust and you can’t elect a mayor for Miami Beach?”

  There was a pause. Then, “I didn’t say we couldn’t, Mr. Remo. I said, we don’t. Who is your candidate by the way?”

  “A gentleman named Mac Polaney,” Remo said. Thinking of the gaunt fisherman on his homemade houseboat, Remo said: “A courtly, cultured gentleman. A decorated veteran of World War II, with a reputation for honesty, broad political experience. A PR man’s dream.”

  “You make it sound very inviting, Mr. Remo. Let me call you back. But don’t get your hopes up. We don’t handle political campaigns.”

  “You’ll handle this one,” said Remo, confidently, “particularly if you meet our candidate. To meet him is to love him.”

  “And he’s a politician?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sounds unbelievable.”

  “He’s an unbelievable man,” Remo said.

  “I’m beginning to think so are you. You’ve almost made me interested.”

  “Call me back soon,” Remo said.

  Remo hung up and sprawled out on his couch to await the return call. Less than two miles away, Dorothy Walker hung up the telephone, left her luxurious cabin and walked to the bow of the ship where her father, Marshal Dworshansky, sat in the sun.

  He was very interested in her caller, as she had known he would be. “He offered you one hundred thousand dollars?”

  “Yes. But I stalled him.”

  Marshal Dworshansky clapped his hands in glee. “Take it,” he said. “This is the man we’ve been waiting for, and now he is delivering himself right into our hands. Marvelous,” he chortled. “Marvelous. Take it.”

  “But how will I handle it?” his daughter said. “One week to do a political campaign?”

  “My dear, I know you believe in the power of advertising and public opinion. However, in this case, the only opinion that counts is mine. The campaign is over. Nothing can stop Mayor Cartwright from winning. So do whatever you want for this Mr. Remo.”

  “Why bother if he’s no threat?”

  “Because he is the enemy, and it is good to know what the enemy plans.”

  Minutes later, Dorothy Walker was back in her stateroom calling Remo.

  “We’ve decided…” she began.

  “We?”

  “I’ve decided it’s about time that Walker, Handleman and Daser moved into politics. This will be a great campaign in which to practice our new theories of communication. The idea of maximum message carrying to maximum quanta of people at…”

  “At maximum cost,” Remo interrupted. “Look, you and I have gotten along fine by talking English. Let’s continue that way, all right? You just do whatever it is you people do, and don’t tell me about it.”

  “As you wish,” Dorothy Walker said, and then, because she was interested in her father’s enemy, she added: “Perhaps we could discuss the financial arrangements tonight. At dinner?”

  “Okay,” Remo said. “Pick someplace where you have credit. You’re supposed to wine and dine us wealthy eccentric clients, aren’t you?”

  “De rigueur,” she said.

  Remo had had enough experience with newspaper photos not to expect too much of Dorothy Walker in person. He would not have been shocked if she had shown up looking like Maria Ouspenskaya, fresh off a gypsy wagon.

  But he was not prepared for what showed up at the Ritz Hotel, where he waited in the massive dining room, sipping water.

  First came Dorothy Walker, stunningly blonde and tan, a fortyish beauty who looked twenty. And with her was a twenty-year-old blonde carbon copy who seemed to have the look of having tantalized men for forty years. They wore matching aqua cocktail dresses.

  A sound meter could have charted their progress along the aisle of the dining room, because each table stilled in succession as they walked by, following the maître d’, whose show of attention let it be known that they were very important people indeed.

  “Mister Remo?” the older woman asked when she arrived at his table.

  Remo stood up. “Miss Walker?”

  “Mrs. Walker. And this is my daughter, Teri.”

  The waiter seated them, and Dorothy Walker said, “Well, what do y
ou want us to do for all that money?”

  “If I told you, you’d have me arrested.”

  “One never knows,” she laughed. “One never knows.”

  They ate baked stuffed clams, sizzling in melted butter, and while Remo toyed with a piece of celery, he and Mrs. Walker reached agreement on the deal. One hundred thousand dollars for one week’s work, with Remo to pay all additional costs, including newspaper space, air time, and production costs.

  “Should I have my lawyer draw a contract?” Mrs. Walker asked.

  “I deal in handshakes,” Remo said. “I trust you.”

  “I trust you too, but even though we’ve never done political campaigns, I know something about them,” Dorothy Walker said. “All payment must be in advance because, God forbid, a candidate should lose—they never pay.”

  “That’s called incentive to make sure your candidates never lose,” Remo said. He moved a hand toward his inside jacket pocket “You want the money now?”

  “No hurry. Tomorrow will be fine.”

  The women ate escarole salad with Roquefort dressing, as Remo munched on a radish.

  “Teri will handle the campaign for you,” Dorothy Walker said. “Because of my position, I can’t take it publicly. But having Teri means that you’ll have me.” Her eyes smiled at Remo. He wondered if she had meant anything more than business by that sentence. “You understand?”

  “Of course,” Remo said. “You want to be able to take credit if we win, but you don’t want to be tagged personally with a loser.”

  Mrs. Walker laughed, “That’s right. By the way, I’ve checked around. There is no way your Mr. Mac Polaney can win. He is regarded as the quintessential nut in a town of quintessential nuts.”

  “There are more things happening in heaven and earth than are dreamed of on Madison Avenue,” Remo said.

  The women had veal cordon bleu and Remo had rice, which Mrs. Walker pretended not to notice but which Teri Walker found exciting.

  “Why just rice?” she said.

  “Zen,” Remo said.

  “Wow.”

  “We want total artistic control,” Dorothy Walker said. “We won’t work any other way.”

  “That means you decide on commercials and advertising and slogans?” Remo asked.