Kill or Cure

by Warren Murphy

  She nodded.

  “Well, of course,” Remo said. “Why would I hire you if I wanted to do things myself?”

  “You’d be surprised at how many clients don’t feel that way,” Dorothy Walker said.

  During coffee, Mrs. Walker excused herself for the ladies’ room.

  Remo watched Teri Walker closely as she drank her coffee, her fine, tanned young muscles moving sleekly as she moved slightly in her chair.

  She bubbled at him with conversation about his goals for urban government, the nature of Mac Polaney, and about something which she called “the handle we have to get on this campaign.”

  “Your first campaign?” Remo asked.

  She nodded.

  “Mine too,” he said. “We’ll learn together.”

  She finished the last sip of her coffee and asked Remo, “By the way, why’d you pick us?”

  “Somebody told me you and your mother had great boobs. I figured I might as well enjoy looking at the campaign staff.”

  Teri Walker laughed, loud and full throated.

  “Grandpa will just love you,” she said.

  · · ·

  Willard Farger had rented a suite of six connecting rooms in the Maya Motel. He called it campaign headquarters and staffed it with three girls who looked as if they had last campaigned in a Las Vegas chorus line.

  “They’re secretaries,” Farger insisted to Remo. “Somebody’s got to type and answer phones and things.”

  “I see,” Remo said. “Where are the phones and typewriters and things?”

  Farger snapped his fingers. “I knew there was something I forgot.”

  Remo beckoned Farger with a crooked finger and led him into one of the back rooms. He locked the door behind them. “Sit down,” he growled and tossed Farger into a chair. Remo sat on the bed, facing him.

  “I don’t think we understand each other,” Remo said. “I’m in this campaign to win. Not come close. Not make a good try. But win. And you seem to be approaching it with the idea of take the money and run.”

  The statement was an accusation and Farger answered it.

  “What you don’t understand,” he said gingerly, feeling his way around the edges of Remo’s annoyance, “is that we can’t win.”

  “Why not? Everybody keeps telling me we can’t win. Will somebody please tell me why?”

  “Because we’ve got nothing going for us. Money, candidate, support. We got nothing.”

  “What kind of money do you need for a one-week campaign?”

  “For printing, stunts, election day expenses, sound tracks, gimmicks, we’d need $100,000,” Farger said.

  “All right,” Remo said. “You’ve got $200,000. Cash. And now I don’t want any more crap about you couldn’t do this or you couldn’t afford that, or if you had more money, things would be different. Does that solve your problem?”

  Farger blinked. He was already thinking as a lifetime in politics had trained him to think: how much of that loose campaign money he could skim off for himself. It took a few seconds before he could again focus his mind on the major problem.

  “We need exposure,” he said. “Advertising, commercials, brochures, signs for telephone poles. The whole thing.”

  “You got it,” Remo said. “I hired the best ad agency in the world. Their girl will be here this afternoon. What else?”

  Farger sighed. His native goodness vied with his greed. Finally the goodness won out and he decided to tell the truth, even if Remo did pack up his wallet and call off the whole campaign.

  “No matter what you spend or what we do, we can’t win. There’s three things important in a campaign: the candidate, the candidate and the candidate. And we don’t have one.”

  “Hogwash,” Remo said. “Every campaign I ever saw, there were three important things all right: the money, the money and the money. And we’ve got the money and I’m giving you a blank check to use it. Just use it right.”

  “But recognition…respectability?”

  “We get that the way politicians always do. Buy the news guys.”

  “But we don’t have any support,” Farger protested. “What about people? Workers? Endorsements? We don’t have any. We’ve got you and me and those three chippies out there, and if I didn’t give them their 300 bucks each in advance, they wouldn’t be there either. I’m not even sure we’ve got Mac Polaney, because he’s such a gone job, he’s liable to vote for somebody else himself.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Remo said. “Mac doesn’t vote.”

  Farger groaned.

  “What people do we need?” Remo asked.

  “Leaders. Union people. Politicians.”

  “Give me a list.”

  “It won’t help to talk to them. All of them are with Cartwright.”

  “You just give me a list. I can be very persuasive.” Remo stayed in headquarters long enough to assure himself that Farger was seriously now tracking down phones and typewriters and copying equipment.

  An hour later when Teri Walker arrived, Farger gave Remo the list of names, sent one of the girls to get Mac Polaney, and closeted himself with Teri to discuss the campaign, which now had only six days left to run.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  MARSHAL DWORSHANSKY WATCHED THE ice cubes drift gently in his glass, duplicating the smooth side to side movement of his yacht in the water, as he listened to the whining of Mayor Tim Cartwright.

  “Farger left us,” the mayor had just said. “That ingrate bastard. After all I did for him.”

  “What exactly did you do for him?” Marshal asked, raising his glass to his lips, and his heavy shoulders bunched up into knots of muscle under his lime colored silk shirt.

  “What did I do? I didn’t fire his dumb ass. For years, I’ve left him down there in the elections office, instead of kicking him out in the street.”

  “And you did it, of course, out of the goodness of your heart?” Dworshansky said.

  “Damn near,” Cartwright said. “Although he has been a loyal slob. The perfect guy to give shit jobs to.”

  “Aha,” Dworshansky said. “You gave him a job; he gave you his support. An even trade, I would say. And now he has voided the contract. Perhaps he has gotten a better offer.”

  “Yeah, but campaign manager for Mac Polaney? What kind of offer is that?” He paused, then chuckled to himself. “He probably thinks Polaney’s going to make him city treasurer. Polaney offers that job to everybody.” He chuckled again. “Mac Polaney, running for mayor.” He laughed aloud as if he found the thought unbearably funny. “Mac Polaney.”

  “You find him amusing?” Dworshansky asked.

  “Marshal, there’s an old rule in politics that goes: you can’t beat somebody with nobody. Mac Polaney’s nobody.”

  “He has a very good advertising agency,” the marshal said softly.

  Cartwright laughed some more. “What kind of New York lunatic would take on Polaney’s campaign?” he chortled.

  “My daughter’s advertising agency,” Dworshansky said. “And they are very good. Probably the best in the world.”

  Cartwright found that reason enough to stop laughing.

  “It is about time you have restrained your mirth,” Dworshansky said. “Because this is a very serious matter.”

  He sipped his vodka delicately, and glanced out the cabin window as he began to speak.

  “We have kept you out of jail with a smoke screen. To set it up, we had to dispose of that fool from the bank, and as I remember, you did not laugh then.

  “I warned you that the government would not sit quietly by and allow this to happen; that their secret organization would fight back. We tied Farger to a post as a sacrificial lamb, and you did not laugh then. They frightened Farger as earlier they had frightened Mr. Moskowitz, whom it was necessary to un-frighten.”

  Dworshansky drained his glass in an angry gulp. “Now Farger means nothing to me, but he is the first chip in our defenses. And if our enemies choose to use this Mister Polaney as the
instrument of their retaliation, then I would suggest sincerely that you stop laughing at Mr. Polaney, because it may not be long before he is dancing on your grave.”

  Cartwright looked hurt, and Dworshansky put down the glass, rose, and clapped the mayor on the shoulder.

  “Come,” he said. “Do not despair. We have infiltrated their campaign organization. We will guarantee that Mr. Polaney does not win the election. And mostly we will just sit and wait, to see what our enemies do.”

  Cartwright looked up at Dworshansky and retreated behind his politician’s mask. “You’re a real friend,” he said. “I can’t tell you of the faith I have in you. Yes sir, a real friend.”

  “Well, that and more,” said Dworshansky. “I am a real partner as you will find after you win. Of course, I know you would not forget that, just as you would not forget that I now have Bullingsworth’s notebook.”

  Cartwright looked hurt. “Marshal, I won’t forget your help. Really.”

  “I know you won’t,” Dworshansky said. “Now, in the meantime, I suggest that you campaign hard and leave Mr. Polaney and this Remo friend of his to me. But do not underestimate them. That way lies the boneyard.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE BLACK AND WHITE killer whale swam around the large, kidney-shaped pool, slowly at first, then faster and faster as he built up speed and then, after four rounds of the pool, he jumped straight up, high out of the water, even his tail slapping only air, and with his tooth-lined mouth squeezed the rubber bulb on a horn hung high above the water’s surface.

  It honked. The honk hung in the air for a split second and then was overwhelmed by the crashing splash as the whale’s tonnage slammed down flat against the water.

  As he slid back down into the pool’s depths, children laughed and the sun-baked crowd applauded. Chiun sat with Remo in a front row seat and said, “Barbarians.”

  “What now?” Remo asked.

  “Why is it you white men think it somehow charming to take an animal, a creature of nature, put a ribbon on him and have him beep a horn? Is it cute?”

  “Who’s it hurt?” Remo said. “The whale doesn’t even seem to mind.”

  Chiun turned to him, away from the pool where a pretty blonde was now riding around on the back of the whale. “You are, as usual, wrong. The spectacle hurts the whale because he is no longer free. And it hurts you because—senselessly, without considering the consequences—you have deprived that animal of his freedom. It makes you less a man, because you no longer think and feel as a man.

  “And look at these children. What are they learning here? How they too can one day grow up and imprison nature’s beasts? Barbarians.”

  “As opposed to?”

  “As opposed to anyone who does not tamper with the order of the universe. As opposed to anyone who appreciates the virtues of the free life.”

  “Strange to hear an assassin sing the praises of life.”

  Chiun exploded in a babble of excited Korean, then said, “Death is a part of life. It has always been thus. But it required you white men to discover something worse than death. The cage.”

  “You don’t have zoos in Sinanju?”

  “Yes,” Chiun said evenly. “In them we keep Chinese and white men.”

  “All right,” Remo said, “forget it. I just thought you’d like to see the aquarium. It’s the most famous in the world.”

  “After lunch, may we visit the Black Hole of Calcutta?”

  “Will it improve your disposition?”

  “The Master of Sinanju spreads light wherever he walks.”

  “Right on, Chiun, right on.” Remo was surprised at Chiun’s display of ill humor. Since they had arrived in Miami Beach, the old man had been in great spirits. He talked to wealthy old Jewish ladies about the transgressions of their children. Mrs. Goldberg, he had breathlessly told Remo, had a son who had not visited her in three years. And Mrs. Hirshberg’s son did not even telephone. Mrs. Kantrowitz had three sons, all doctors, and when her cat caught cold, not one of them would take the case, even though she would have insisted upon paying, so as not to be a burden.

  Mrs. Milstein was the woman whose son was the television writer, and Chiun marvelled that she bore up so bravely under the disgrace of a son who wrote Chinese comedies. She did not even acknowledge disgrace, Chiun said, but walked with her head high. A sterling woman, he had said.

  For his part, Chiun must also have talked about his son who would not carry the luggage and who embarrassed him at every turn. What he said, Remo could only guess by the fact that occasionally walking through the halls of their apartment, he was hissed by old ladies entering their own apartments. Chiun talked, too, of his desire to go back to the old country and see the village where he had been born. He would, he said, gladly have retired, but he did not feel that his son was yet able to carry on his work. Your son, my son, her son, their son. Chiun and the ladies talked. If any of them had ever given birth to a daughter, it was not mentioned.

  In just a few days, Chiun seemed to have met half the Jewish Momma population of Miami Beach. He also seemed to be happy and Remo expected him to be happy for the chance to see the aquarium. He had not expected abuse.

  Remo shrugged, took a sheet of yellow lined paper from his shirt pocket, and looked at it again.

  “C’mon, Chiun,” he said. “Our man works at the shark run.”

  The shark run was a half-mile-long oval of shallow water. In a half-dozen places, the narrow channel broadened out into deep pools and jagged rock inlets. The entire run was bordered by a steel fence, over which spectators could lean and look down at the sharks swimming by. There were hundreds of sharks in the run, of all sizes and shapes and types. With the maniacal single-mindedness of the deadly, they ignored the wide spots in the run, they ignored the deep pools. Instead, they just swam continuously around, oval after oval, mile after mile, a ceaseless search for something to kill.

  The only break in their routine was feeding time, when the fishes and the red meat thrown into the water drove them into frenzies that turned the water white and bubbly as they fought for their meals, not with their jaws and teeth, but like basketball players fighting for a rebound, with their bodies and their stealth.

  The first name on Remo’s list was Damiano Meola, head of the county’s government employees union. Meola and the two thousand employees of the union already had backed Mayor Cartwright for re-election.

  Chiun and Remo found him in a sheltered, shaded area in the back of the shark run, a small section sealed off from the public by a locked gate. Meola was a big man, his burly body pulling at the seams of his light blue workman’s uniform. He stood at the rail of the shark run, large buckets of dead fish at his feet, dropping them one at a time into the water, and laughing as the water churned into froth just below him.

  He talked to himself as he fed his charges. “Go get it. That’s right, sweetheart. Take it away from him. Watch out for Mako. Careful. Don’t let that mother get it. Careful. Ahh, what’s the matter? Hungry? Starve, you vicious bastard!”

  He reached down to pick up another fish, and then stopped, as he saw behind him Remo and Chiun’s feet. He turned around quickly, an angry expression on his broad, flat-featured face. “Hey, wotsamatta witcha, this part ain’t open to the public. G’wan, scram.”

  “Mister Meola?” Remo asked politely.

  “Yeah. Watcha want?”

  “We’ve come to talk to you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “We represent Mr. Mac Polaney.”

  “Yeah?”

  “And we want you to support him.”

  Meola laughed in their faces. “Mac Polaney!” he said sputtering. “Hah. That’s a laugh.”

  Remo waited quietly until he had finished laughing. Chiun stood, his hands folded inside the sleeves of his thin yellow robe, his eyes looking skyward.

  Finally, when Meola had quieted down, Remo said, “We’re not joking.”

  “Well, for people who ain’t joking, you sure tell funny s
tories. Mac Polaney. G’wan, get out of here.” He turned away, picked up a dead fish by its tail and held it out over the water.

  Remo stepped to one side of him and Chiun to the other.

  “Mind telling me why you’re against Polaney?” Remo asked.

  “Because my members endorsed Cartwright.”

  “But your members do what you tell them. Why not Polaney?” Remo asked.

  “Because he’s a screwball is why.”

  “Two thousand dollars,” Remo said.

  Meola stopped and shook his head. He dropped the fish into the water and the sharks attacked.

  “Five thousand dollars,” Remo said. Meola shook his head again.

  “Name a price,” Remo said.

  Meola, thinking of his brother-in-law, who was a stockbroker handling all the assets of the employees’ pension fund and splitting his earnings with Meola, said, “No price, never, nothing. Now, get out of here because you’re starting to annoy me.”

  “Ever see a man bitten by a shark?” Remo asked.

  “Watch this,” Meola said. “It drives them crazy.” He took a fish from the bucket and with a knife he carried in a sheath on his side, slit its belly open. He dropped the gutted carcass into the water. Instant explosion as the sharks went berserk.

  “It must be the smell or something,” Meola said. “But gut a fish and they go wild.”

  “How long do you think a man could last in there?”

  Meola dropped in another fish.

  “A man with gutted fish in his pockets and cuffs?” Remo said.

  “Hey. You threatening me? ’Cause if you are, I’m gonna call the cops. ’Cause I don’t like you. You and your dinko friend.”

  He opened his mouth to say something else, but he could not get a word out because a fish was jammed deep into his mouth by Chiun. Meola gagged and tried to spit, but Chiun slapped the fish deeper. Meola reached up to pull it out, and Remo pinched both his wrists. Meola found he could not raise his arms.

  “Time to test your theory, Meola,” said Remo. He slipped the knife from Meola’s sheath, and began to slit the gullets of fish from the bucket. He slipped one into Meola’s right trouser pocket and another into his left. A third he stuck inside Meola’s shirt, and two more went into Meola’s cuffs.