Judgment Day td-14

by Warren Murphy

  Smith hung up and raised the back of his right hand to his forehead.

  He was sweating, he realized. He could not remember having perspired under pressure since the final days of World War II, when he had been captured briefly by the Nazis. They had gotten the ridiculous idea that he was involved somehow with the American OSS, before the American businessman had been able to set them straight.

  Smith returned to the window and kept watch on the Cadillac and its occupant to make sure he got no messages from anyone. The man was still sitting at the wheel of the car when there was a knock on the door a moment later.

  "Who is it?" Smith called.

  "Bellhop," came a young voice.

  Smith opened the door slowly. It was a teenage boy, wearing jeans and a white sweatshirt and dragging behind him one of the large rectangular canvas laundry carts that motels used.

  Smith moved to the side to get out of the line of sigh to the man in the Cadillac, pulled the door open, and said "Bring that cart right in here. Hurry up."

  The boy moved into the room, pulling the cart, and Smith quickly closed the door.

  In the Cadillac across the lot, Patsy Moriarty watched the activity, shrugged and relaxed. Just taking sheets off the bed. Standard procedure for a motel.

  He decided to wait.

  Inside the room, Smith opened his attaché case on the bed and turned to the confused youth.

  He took a twenty-dollar bill from the case, closed the case, and handed the bill to the boy. "This is what I want you to do for that twenty dollars," he said. "Now listen very carefully."

  It made Smith uneasy to have to put his faith in a young man about whom he knew nothing, but without a weapon, he had no alternative, and desperate situations called for desperate measures.

  Across the lot, Moriarty continued to watch the door of the room. The kid was taking long enough to strip the beds, he thought.

  The door opened and the laundry cart appeared, the boy pushing it from behind. Outside the door, the kid turned, called inside the room, "Thanks, Mr. Finlayson," pulled the door closed himself, and then pushed the cart in the direction that led away from the office toward the end of the long one-story motel building.

  Moriarty relaxed again. Just the laundry. Usual thing. Dirty sheets in a laundry cart. He waited some more.

  The boy and the laundry cart disappeared around the corner of the building. Moriarty returned his eyes to the front door of Room 116. Odd. The drapes were slightly apart. He hadn't noticed that before.

  Just then there was a movement toward the end oft he building. It was the kid coming back But he didn't have the laundry cart. Where was it?

  Then Patsy Moriarty realized. Standard procedure at a motel was to pick up the laundry, but you didn't wheel the cart into the room. The cart stayed outside the door. This cart had gone into the room, so Finlayson could sneak out inside it, under a sheet.

  "Goddamn it," Moriarty hissed and jumped from the car, not bothering to conceal his pistol.

  He ran up to the youth, who was sauntering back toward the office, whistling.

  "Where's the cart, kid?" he said, grabbing the youth by the shoulder.

  The youth started to pull away, saw the pistol and froze. He pointed toward the end of the building. "I left it down there."

  "And it had somebody in it," Moriarty said.

  The youth looked blank.

  Moriarty released his shoulder and began to run toward the end of the building. The youth ran in the other direction, toward the office.

  Between the two of them, Dr. Harold Smith carefully opened the door of Room 116 and stuck his head out. He saw Moriarty turn the corner at the end of the building.

  Smith ran to his tan Dodge, unlocked it, got in and started the engine. It caught quickly. He raced it once, slipped it into reverse, and backed out of his parking spot. Then he dropped it into low drive, and turned it toward the end of the building.

  Moriarty, after turning the corner, saw the cart at the end of a long driveway where tall weeds seemed to encroach on motel property. A sheet lay on the ground next to the cart.

  The man had run into the weeds to hide, Moriarty realized. He kept running toward the cart. He'd track him down if it took forever.

  Too late, he heard the whirring behind him.

  He turned, gun in hand, but the tan Dodge was on him. And then he felt the pain as the front of the car, moving at high speed, slammed into his body, and he felt himself crumple, then he was lifted high in the air and it seemed as if somebody else's body was turning those lazy loops. The gun slipped from his hand, and then his body spiraled toward the ground twenty feet away. The last thing he felt was his head slamming against a heavy stone and the last thing he ever thought was to wonder if he had scored the night before or not, and then everything went black for Patsy Moriarty. Forever.

  Smith, who had once commissioned a study on the effects of auto impact on human bodies, knew Moriarty was dead. He had seen the pistol drop from the man's dead hand and he got out of the car now and picked it up. It saved him one errand for the day.

  Now he would casually drive away. He backed the car up, turned it around and drove slowly out the side entrance of the Happy Haven motel, whistling. It had been a long time since he had been operational, almost thirty years. It felt rather good.

  He drove the car until he overtook a bus. He sped up, parked two blocks ahead, then got out and boarded the bus to wherever it went. He would buy another car, and then start making some telephone calls.

  His day was just starting.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Services at the funeral home the night before had been a strain on Holly Brbon. IDC personnel from all over the country, wanting to see and be seen, had shown up. And of course there had been the politicians, bankers, brokers, competitors, and the hustlers on the make. Accordingly, there had been a continuous stream of visitors to the small overwhelmed funeral home in the quiet Connecticut town, and Holly Broon had had to be hostess, bereaved daughter and confidante to all of them, and she was tired. So she slept late.

  She was awakened by her personal maid who tiptoed to the side of her bed and waited silently until Holly Broon awakened just by sensing her presence.

  The young woman opened her eyes, stretched, saw the maid and asked, "What is it?"

  "I'm sorry, Miss Broon," the slender blonde girl said in a delicate British accent, "but there is a man on the phone who insists on talking with you."

  "So? That's something unusual around here? Hang up on him."

  The maid did not move.

  "For Christ's sake, what is it, Jessie?"

  "I'm sorry, Miss Broon, but he said he had something to tell you about your father, and that you would want to know it."

  "Probably that daddy was a great guy."

  "No, miss. He said it was about the way your father died."

  Holly Broon sat up in bed. She had pretended her father's death had been nothing but a heart attack. So the call might mean something. "All right," she said, I'll talk to him."

  "Yes, miss. You're not angry with me?"

  "No, Jessie. Go now. I'll take the call here."

  Holly Broon waited until the blonde girl had left her room before stretching her left hand toward the telephone.

  "Hello," she said.

  "Hello," came a dry crisp voice. There were a lot of ways to say hello. Some people were questioning; some were unsure of themselves; some were brisk and abrupt, trying to cover indecisiveness with the all-business mask. But the greeting she had just heard was the hello of a man totally rational and in control of himself and everything that he dealt with.

  "You don't know me," the voice went on, "but I have some information about the death of your father."

  "Yes?"

  "I noticed in the press that an attempt was made to make your father's death seem natural. But, of course, it wasn't. The death of your father was the work of Blake Corbish."

  Holly Broon laughed. "I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous
." She knew whom she was talking to now. "Corbish wouldn't have the nerve. It would take seven months of committee meetings for him to make such a decision."

  "I don't mean, Miss Broon, that he performed the… er, matter himself. I mean he ordered it done."

  "How do you know that?"

  "Miss Broon, I know a number of things about Mr. Corbish. Is it not so that he is now in line to succeed your father as president of IDC? Wouldn't you think that was motive enough?"

  Holly thought about that for a moment. "Yes, I guess it might. But if Corbish didn't do it himself, who did?"

  The voice hesitated only momentarily. "No doubt he hired someone to do it. Please, Miss Broon, I am giving you this information so that you can act on it, and also so that you can protect yourself."

  "I appreciate it," Holly Broon said, adding playfully, "You sure you won't tell me who you are?"

  "It's not important. Do you know what Corbish is up to?"

  "Yes, I think I do."

  "It is very dangerous; he must be stopped."

  "Do you really think so, Dr. Smith?"

  Speaking his name brought a click to the other end of the connection. Holly Broon laughed.

  It had probably been dumb, but she had not been able to resist. Yet the laughter stopped as abruptly as it started.

  There was little doubt in her mind that Smith had told her the truth. She had begun to suspect it herself after that first day of watching Corbish in operation. He had ordered the killing of her father, presuming that he would immediately become the president of IDC. And she had played right into his hands.

  Now she had a decision to make. Should she stop Corbish? Or should she go along and let him become president of IDC and then extract her revenge later? She thought about it for a moment, but her mind focused on a chilling question: could she stop Corbish? Did he have resources that she knew nothing about that might guarantee him the IDC presidency with or without her?

  Even while wrestling with the question in her mind, Holly Broon knew the answer. She knew what she would do.

  Blake Corbish would be stopped. Anyway she had to.

  Outside a rural phone booth in Pennsylvania, Dr. Harold Smith felt vaguely dissatisfied.

  He had broken the news to the Broon girl about Corbish's implication in her father's death. And she had guessed who he was. That meant she had at least an inkling of what Corbish was up to. She might even have been in on it from the start.

  He doubted it.

  It would be strange to find a woman who would cheerfully go along with the planning of her father's murder. She had probably wised up after the fact.

  He hoped that she would put a little heat on Corbish. That would help.

  But there was something else that was disquieting to Smith.

  Holly Broon might not know much about what Corbish was doing, but she knew something.

  And something was too much. She would have to die also.

  It was a shame, he decided. She sounded like a bright woman.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  "He's nuts, Chiun. Absolutely stark raving nuts."

  Remo stood in their White Plains hotel room, the telephone in his hand, staring at the instrument as if he would find an answer there to the eternal riddle of man's inhumanity to man.

  "You refer to your Mr, Garbage?"

  "Yeah," said Remo, deciding that correcting Chiun's pronunciation was no longer worthwhile. "I just called him. You know what I got?"

  "A headache," Chiun suggested. "Another reason for your interminable kvetching?" Without waiting for an answer, he looked down again at the parchment on which he had been writing.

  Remo decided to be magnanimous and ignore that. "I got a switchboard, for God's sake. Can you picture that? A switchboard. The dopey bastard wants me to talk to him over an open line."

  Remo was outraged. Chiun was mildly amused when he looked up. "It is a difficult thing, is it not, this serving of a new and strange Emperor. When you grow up, you may learn that."

  "Anyway, he's going to call me back here on a private line."

  "I am happy for you, Remo." Chiun did not seem happy.

  Remo put the telephone down. "Why do you say that?"

  "I mean, it is best for you to take your little victories as they come. Having Mr. Garbage call you back. That is wonderful. Not having to wear your silly little plastic badge when you go to see him. That is wonderful. At least you should think those things are wonderful, because Mr. Garbage is going to make sure that nothing else in your life is wonderful."

  "Meaning?"

  "Meaning that you are an assassin who has been given the secrets of Sinanju. But Mr. Garbage does not recognize that this makes you something special, or would if you were a more worthy student. No. To him you are just another person with a pencil and one of those funny yellow writing tablets with blue lines. He sends you out to go looking for people, when looking for people is not what you should do. He will someday, if he sees you are not busy, start asking you to empty wastepaper baskets. He is a fool. And you are a bigger fool for serving him. Thank heaven that I have almost completed my history of Dr. Smith and his insanity. At least, in history, the House of Sinanju will not be regarded as a part of this foolishness."

  The telephone rang and Remo yanked it to his ear.

  "I want you to come and see me. In my office," came Corbish's voice. "And who authorized you to move out of the sanitarium?"

  "I did," Remo said. "I decided it was stupid for me to hang around there. I was too visible."

  "Before you do anything like that again," Corbish said, "you'd better check it with me."

  "Whatever you want."

  "Be here in half an hour," Corbish said.

  Remo snarled and hung up the telephone.

  "Don't forget to wear your little plastic badge," Chiun said.

  When he reached Folcroft, Remo went over the stone wall, up the wall of the building and through a window into Corbish's office.

  Corbish was not alone. Sitting across from him was the bosomy brown-haired girl Remo had seen that night in Broon's house. She was wearing what Remo regarded as a ridiculously wasteful black dress which almost but not quite hid her body, but should nevertheless have been blamed for even trying.

  Remo was through the window, heading for the floor when he saw Corbish's guest. He curled his legs up before he hit, twisted his body, and landed softly, using the long curve of his right leg as a rocker. He rolled quietly to his feet.

  Corbish saw the movement and looked up. The girl saw nothing, heard nothing, but spotted the surprise on Corbish's face and followed his gaze. Remo stood there in front of the open window, looking at both of them, feeling stupid.

  "Hi, folks," he said. "Can I get you something from the bar? Scotch? Vodka? A Spritzer made with Snow White?"

  "Who is this lunatic?" asked Holly Broon, turning back to Corbish.

  "It's all right, Holly. He works for us." He stood and walked toward Remo. "Really, fella," he said. "The office door would have been perfectly adequate."

  "I keep forgetting," Remo said.

  "Holly, this is Remo. Remo, this is Miss Broon. You read about her father's recent death, I take it?"

  It was very subtle, except that it did not fool Holly Broon who knew, as soon as she heard Corbish, that Remo was the man who had killed her father.

  "Yup, I read about it," Remo said. "Sorry, Miss Broon."

  "Kindly omit flowers," she said.

  "Uh, yes," said Corbish. "Come outside, Remo, I have to talk to you a moment."

  He took Remo's elbow and led him into a small room off Smith's main office. The room was decorated with a plastic-topped desk and two metal folding chairs. Corbish closed the door tightly behind them.

  "You've got to take care of Smith. Now," he said.

  "Why?"

  "He killed a man today."

  "Oh? Who?"

  Corbish cleared his throat. "Somebody tracked him down outside Pittsburgh. Smith ran him over with a car."

/>   "Who was this somebody?"

  "Does it matter?"

  "Yes," Remo said.

  "He was, I guess, you'd call him a hoodlum."

  "And why was a hoodlum going after Smith?" Remo's tone was indignant.

  "Well, if you have to know, although I can't see why any of this concerns you, I put some people on his trail."

  "That's swell," Remo said in disgust. "That's just swell. I really need that, right? I really need people cluttering things up? I'll tell you, Corbish. Smith would never have done it this way."

  "What would he have done?" Corbish seemed really interested.

  "He would have told me who the target was. If he knew, he would tell me where he was. And then he would get the hell out of the way and let me do my job."

  "That's what I'm doing now," Corbish said. "Remo, go do your job."

  "Arf, arf," said Remo. "Do you know where Smith is?"

  "No."

  "Corbish, let me tell you something. You're not going to last here."

  Corbish smiled a thin-lipped smile. "I may outlive you."

  "Maybe. But just maybe," Remo said. "But you're definitely going to outlive anybody who gets in my way. I don't want a gang of goons trailing Smith all around the country."

  "I just thought they might be able to find him faster than you could."

  "You leave that to me. No interference," Remo said.

  "Whatever you want," Corbish agreed. "Can you do the job? No emotional attachments?"

  "I do what I have to do," Remo said.

  "Good. You're my kind of man," Corbish said. Remo shuddered. Corbish opened a side door from the small office. "This leads to the outside corridor. If you're shy about seeing the office staff, you can go through here. Do you have your badge for the gate?"

  "Got it right here," said Remo, patting his empty shirt pocket.

  "Good fella. Put it on and the guards won't bother you."

  "That's nice. I'd hate for the guards to bother me."

  Remo started toward the door. Corbish bent down to pick up a piece of newspaper from the floor. He tossed it to Remo. "There's a trash can outside. Dump this in it, will you?"

  Remo took the paper. "Sure thing, bwana. Can this boy go now?"

  "Keep in touch."

  He closed the door behind Remo who began to shred the old newspaper into confetti. Chiun was right. This dizzo would have him emptying wastepaper baskets before long. Remo's hands moved like high-speed knives across the surface of the newspapers. Chips and strips of paper fluttered through the air until the last shred was gone from Remo's hands. The hall looked as if it had been the scene of a confetti convention. So much for recycling.