Total Recall td-58

by Warren Murphy

  For a brief moment Remo thought he must be in heaven, but the face peering into his own disabused him of any otherworldly notions. It was Harold W. Smith's face, a pinched, lemony face spanned by a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles and a permanent scowl. Dr. Smith was, as always, wearing a three-piece gray suit and carrying an attaché case. He never asked Remo how he felt about coming back from the dead. He didn't have to. Dr. Harold W. Smith had engineered everything, from the false arrest on.

  Remo complained that since he was officially dead, he had no identity. Dr. Harold W. Smith seemed pleased. At least, he had shuffled his papers with a little more gusto than before. It was as close as Smith got to acting pleased.

  He took Remo to the gymnasium to meet Chiun. The eighty-year-old Oriental would, he explained, make a new man of Remo. And he did: Remo became, through the years, a man who could live under water for hours at a time. Who could catch arrows in his bare hands. Who could climb up the sheer faces of buildings without the aid of ropes or ladders. Who could count the legs on a caterpillar as it inched across his finger. Who could walk with no sound and yet hear the heartbeat of a man a hundred yards away. For what Chiun taught him was not a technique or a trick, but the very sun source of the martial arts.

  The old Korean was the Master of Sinanju, and possibly the most dangerous man alive. Harold Smith had hired him to train a man for a mission so secret that even Chiun himself could not be told about it. The mission was to work as the enforcer arm of an organization so illegal that its discovery could well mean the end of the United States. CURE belonged to America, but America could not claim the organization because CURE worked completely outside the Constitution. CURE blackmailed. And kidnaped. And killed. Because sometimes those methods were necessary in fighting crime.

  Remo Williams was trained to kill. Silently, quickly, invisibly, as only a master of Sinanju could kill. Harold W. Smith directed Remo to the targets, and Remo eliminated them.

  The target this time was Duncan Dinnard, whose mansion loomed now in front of Remo and Chiun. The house was surrounded by guards, obviously armed.

  "Okay, everybody up. Rise and shine," Remo shouted, clapping his hands and whistling.

  "Who goes?" one of the guards called out, holding his handgun in firing position.

  "White garbage," Chiun said under his breath.

  'What did he say?" the guard demanded.

  "He said we're here to collect the garbage," Remo answered.

  "He's a garbage man?" the second guard asked, looking at Chiun suspiciously.

  "Civil service," Remo said, as if that explained everything.

  "He don't look like no garbage man I ever saw," the first guard said.

  "Besides, we don't have any garbage left. It was picked up yesterday."

  "That's where you're wrong," Remo said.

  "Whadaya mean?" the first guard asked.

  "You do have some garbage left."

  "Like what?" the second guard asked.

  "Like you," Remo said.

  The bars on the gate were very close together, much too close for a human body to fit between them under ordinary circumstances.

  Remo's hands sped between the bars, took hold of each man by the throat, and pulled. By the time the two men had been squeezed between the bars, they were dead, crushed to death or electrocuted, whichever came first.

  "Sloppy," Chiun said, shaking his head in disgust.

  "It worked, didn't it? I'm going over." Remo opened his hands and let both men slump to the ground.

  He vaulted the twelve-foot high fence from a standing position, and when he landed on the other side, Chiun was standing there waiting for him.

  "Between the bars," Chiun said, smirking. "Some of us are above cheap and flamboyant displays."

  "Cheap—"

  "Let us get this over with," the old Oriental interrupted. "I'll go to the boat. You try the house."

  "First one to find Dinnard gets to do the dirty deed," Remo said.

  Chiun closed his eyes and said, "One does not refer to one's profession as a 'dirty deed.' "

  "Come on, Little Father. Do you think I'm a complete idiot? Wait, don't answer that."

  "A wise decision," Chiun said, and headed for the dock where Chief Dinnard's yacht was moored.

  Remo started for the mansion, came across ferocious guard dogs twice, reasoned with them, and left them unconscious but unhurt. There was no reason in the world to kill a dumb animal.

  Remo approached the house, having passed by countless TV security cameras without being seen by one. Thinking invisible, as he had been taught to do by the Master of Sinanju, could work wonders for a body.

  His next decision was whether to simply force the door and enter or ring the doorbell. He decided that it would be more interesting to ring the bell.

  "Whadaya want?" the man who answered the door asked.

  "Do all you fellas have the same manners?"

  "What?"

  "Never mind. Is Chief Dinnard in?"

  "Who wants to know?"

  Remo looked left, right, behind him, then back at the big man and said, "I guess I do."

  "Funny man," the guy said, and started to close the door.

  Remo put one finger on the door and it stopped cold. No matter how hard the other man tried to push, it wouldn't budge.

  "Hey," he said, staring at Remo's finger. "How're you doing that?"

  "Leverage. Is the chief at home?"

  Still impressed, the man replied, "Yeah, he's home. Hey, could you teach me that?"

  "What?"

  "That," the man said, pointing to Remo's finger. "Leverage."

  "You want to learn leverage?"

  "Sure."

  "Watch," Remo said. He took his finger from the door and held it up in front of the man's face, catching and holding his eyes. In one quick motion the finger flicked forward, the man's eyes rolled up into his head, and he slumped to the floor.

  "Well, if you're not going to pay attention…" Remo said, stepping over the prone body of the sleeping man. "Don't worry, I'll find him myself."

  The house was huge, but Remo's instincts were operating one hundred percent, and he felt as if he could smell Dinnard's presence in the house. He smelled something else too. Perfume. A woman— there was a woman in the house with Dinnard, which could be a complication.

  Following his nose through the huge house, Remo finally came to an opulently furnished bedroom, with mirrors and pillows and a huge bed. On the bed was an equally huge man, being ministered to by a lovely blond woman with big, smooth, pink-nippled breasts, delicate hands, and a full-lipped mouth, all of which were in use at the moment.

  Neither the woman nor the chief noticed Remo as he entered the room and approached the bed. She was grunting and moaning with effort, while Dinnard was grunting and moaning with pleasure.

  "Excuse me, miss," Remo said, looking over the woman's bare shoulder.

  "Huh?" she said, staring at him in surprise. He placed his hand on her smooth back and exerted pressure on her fifth vertebra. A blank look came over her face as she experienced more pleasure than she had ever before felt in her life. Slowly the corners of her generous mouth curved up, and then she keeled over on the bed, oblivious to what was going on around her. She would remain that way for some time.

  Dinnard, who moments before had been languishing in sensations of his own, slowly became aware that the blonde had stopped working on him.

  "Hey, Sally," he said, his eyes slowly beginning to focus again. "What's the matter?"

  "Sally's taken the rest of the afternoon off, Dinnard," Remo said. "I'm her replacement."

  "What? Who the hell are you? How'd you get in here?"

  "Which question do you want answered first?"

  "Who the hell are you?" Dinnard snapped, trying to push himself up into a seated position. Remo placed one hand on his chest and exerted just enough pressure to keep him on his back.

  "I'm the garbage collector," he said.

  "What the hell
are you talking about?" Dinnard demanded, his face turning red from the effort he was expending in trying to sit up. "Do you know who I am?"

  "I know, Chief," Remo said. "You're a fat piece of slime who's had this little town under his thumb long enough. I'm here to take out the garbage for good."

  "What garbage?"

  "You."

  "You're crazy. Leo!"

  "Is that the man who answers your door?"

  "Leo!"

  "He can't answer you. He's taking a nap."

  "I've got guards at the gate."

  "They're taking a permanent nap."

  "I've got dogs. Did you kill them?"

  "Of course not," Remo said, looking hurt. "Do I look like the kind of man who would hurt a dumb animal?"

  "What do you want? You want money? I can give you a lot of money."

  "You know, there was a time in my life when I might have said yes to an offer like that."

  "For a split second, Remo thought back to that time, the time before Smith and CURE and Chiun, but then he shook his head and decided that he was better off now.

  "I've got an awful lot of money," Dinnard said.

  "I'm afraid I don't like the way you made your money, Chief."

  "Look, I'll do anything you want, anything…"

  "Be quiet, then. Take the end like a man."

  "The end?" Dinnard screeched like a woman. "What do you mean the end?"

  "I mean that your time has come, Duncan Dinnard. This is your death!" Remo said in his best game-show voice. At least, he hoped it was his best. He hadn't seen a game show in a long time.

  "Glug—" Dinnard started to say, but he couldn't speak after that because Remo's hand had tightened on his chest, just over the heart, and suddenly the chief's heart was beating very rapidly, picking up speed until the fragile organ couldn't take it anymore and just exploded.

  Remo found Chiun seated on the dock next to Dinnard's yacht, staring out at the water. "Composing some more Dung— oops— Ung poetry?" he asked.

  "Do not be insolent with me."

  "I'm sorry, Little Father."

  "It took you all this time to accomplish our purpose here?"

  "Well, I had to give some lessons in leverage, and—"

  "I do not wish to hear your excuses. On top of everything else, your technique was faulty."

  "You were down here and I was up there," Remo said, then asked, knowing that he was going to be sorry; "How do you know my technique was faulty?"

  "I know," Chiun said cryptically. He looked at his student and sniffed once. "Also, you have the scent of a woman on you, and a white woman, at that. No doubt you were indulging in pleasures of the flesh while you were supposed to be working."

  "Who, me? How can you say such a thing?"

  "Because you are an ungrateful lout who has allowed the Master of Sinanju to sit out here alone, waiting, while you rutted about…."

  "I did not! As a matter of fact—"

  He was drowned out by the din of an explosion coming from Dinnard's house.

  "You took care of the yacht?" Remo asked Chiun.

  "Yes, you took care of the house, I see."

  "Gas line."

  Chiun stood up and said, "We can go, then? Have you finished wasting my vaulable time?"

  "Smith won't think it was a waste," Remo said.

  "Perhaps. But I am concerned with technique, with execution, with the poetry of the movement. Your Philistine Emperor Smith is concerned only with results," he sniffed.

  "I'm satisfied with the results," Dr. Harold W. Smith said, leaning back in his chair behind his desk at Folcroft Sanitarium.

  "See?" Chiun said to Remo.

  "Excuse me?" Smith asked. "Did I miss something?"

  "He knew you were going to say that," Remo said.

  "Say what?"

  "That you were satisfied."

  "Why shouldn't I be?" Smith asked, looking at Chiun, but it was Remo who answered.

  "My technique was faulty."

  "Oh," Smith said. "Er— you'd better work on that, Remo." Chiun tittered. "At any rate," Smith continued, "the assignment was relatively minor. I've got something else for you."

  "Something that does not require good technique," Chiun said.

  Smith ignored him. "A fifteen-year-old boy was murdered in Detroit three days ago. A William— Billy— Martin. He was stabbed to death by at least three people with knives."

  Remo shook his head. "That's too bad. But it's a case for the police, not us."

  "A child has been killed," Chiun said indignantly, as if that explained it all, Remo was afraid that Chiun was going to go off on one of his diatribes concerning the holiness of children, but Smith cut him off.

  "Let me explain. This is just the most recent in a rash of juvenile murders around the country."

  "What's the spread?"

  "It's happened more often in Detroit, but we've also had reports from New York, Los Angeles, and New Orleans."

  "What was this last kid's claim to fame?"

  "He murdered his parents, most likely, although he was killed before his trial."

  "Sweet kid."

  "He beat them to death with a baseball bat or something while they were asleep."

  "What was he doing on the street?"

  "He was out on bail."

  "What the hell kind of laws do they have in Detroit?" Remo asked.

  "Everybody was surprised," Smith said, "especially considering the judge who was on the bench for the arraignment. No explanation. The kid was just out on bail."

  "How long?"

  "How long what?"

  "How long was he out on bail before he was killed?"

  "Less than an hour."

  "So somebody set him up. They went his bail to get him out so they could kill him."

  There was silence for a moment, then Remo asked, "What about the others? Were they killers too, or just hubcap snatchers?"

  "Some of them had records, but none had been arrested for murder."

  "So what do you want us to do? Find out who killed the killer? I mean, if the kid killed his own parents, who cares who killed him, anyway?"

  "He was a child," Chiun said, and Remo knew it was just a matter of time now.

  "Whatever," Smith said in exasperation. "Go to Detroit, since that's where the most recent incident was."

  "Incident?" Chiun shrieked, and Remo knew that zero hour was finally upon them. "You call the murder of a child an incident?"

  Smith looked at Remo, who shrugged and prepared for the verbal onslaught that was about to take place.

  "Children are promises of greatness…"

  "I know," Remo said.

  "…in all manners possible."

  Remo gave Smith an I've-heard-it-all-before look and said, "I know, Chiun."

  "They have all been made holy in our eyes."

  "Chiun—"

  "They are the hope of the future…."

  "Chiun—"

  "You cannot kill hope. It is unthinkable. It is against the laws of Sinanju."

  Remo gave up and said to Smith, "Do you have our tickets?"

  "Yes," Smith said. "You're on a flight to Detroit tonight." He handed Remo the tickets.

  "No matter what the child did, no one had the right to kill him."

  "We know, Chiun, we know," Remo said, getting to his feet. "Come on, we have some packing to do."

  "It is unthinkable," Chiun said, standing up. "It is our responsibility to find out who is committing this most despicable of crimes."

  "I agree, Chiun," Remo said. "It's our responsibility."

  "Good luck," Smith said.

  "We will not need luck," Chiun assured him. "This is something that must be done, and it will be done. I so swear."

  And with that Chiun strode purposefully from the room. Remo shrugged at Smith and said, "He'll walk all the way to Detroit if I don't stop him. We'll keep in touch."

  CHAPTER THREE

  Remo and Chiun stopped at their hotel just long enough to drop off
their luggage and then proceeded immediately to a car rental agency. They did not go to the number-one company but to one of the others because Chiun always said that he had respect for anyone who was constantly trying harder.

  Remo would have liked to take a few moments to breathe, but it was Chiun who pushed him to rent a car hurriedly so that they could drive over to the police station where Billy Martin had been arrested and bailed out.

  "These child killers must not be allowed to roam the streets any longer than is absolutely necessary," was the way he put it.

  "I know how you feel—" Remo started, but Chiun took exception to the remark and made a disgusted noise, cutting his student off.

  "Of course you do not know how I feel. You have never seen a child drowned because of famine, as I have. You have never known the sorrow of Sinanju—"

  "All right, Chiun," Remo said, "all right." He'd been forced to listen to Chiun's pontification on the same subject on the plane all the way to Detroit. "You're right, I don't know how you feel, I admit it, but I just can't seem to get all worked up over the murder of some little snot who killed his own parents."

  Chiun gave Remo a withering stare and said, "I cannot find the proper words to describe how I feel toward you at this moment."

  "I'm sure you'll come up with something."

  "To think that I have struggled all these years to impart to you the knowledge of a master of Sinanju, and you cannot even respond to the murder of a child."

  "Listen, Chiun," Remo said from behind the wheel of the car, "I cried when Old Yeller died, really I did—"

  "Old who?"

  "It was a dog in a movie I saw when I was a kid—"

  "You liken the death of a child to the death of a… an animal? A dog?"

  Remo decided that he had better keep his mouth shut because when he did open it, he was just making things worse.

  He continued to drive, trying to block out the sound of Chiun's recriminations, a tall order, even for him. The old Oriental had not run out of them by the time they reached the police station, but he apparently decided to save what he had left until after they got the information they were after.

  It took them a little while to locate the detective who had arrested Billy Martin. When they did, he wasn't all that anxious to talk to them.

  "What's your interest?" Detective William Palmer asked, frowning at Chiun as if he couldn't figure him out.