Death Check td-2

by Warren Murphy

  "Your move, Stohrs," Remo said, and Stohrs slid a pawn one space forward. "The pawns," he said. "The little men of the chess board. But they can become fighting pieces, the most dangerous in the game."

  "Particularly when, like Nazis, they fight against women and children. They then are truly devastating."

  Stohrs' face was red. He was about to speak when his daughter walked into the room. She wore a short red skirt and a white sweater with no bra. The darkening of her nipples was visible through the material. When she saw Remo, she licked her upper lip and her eyes took on a wild glint as if an interior light had flashed on, and pinpoints were shining through tiny openings in her eye

  "Anna, we have an unexpected guest. Please prepare some refreshment."

  "Of course, father," she said, and looked again at Remo. "What would you like?"

  "Anything you have in the house will do. Baby's blood. Lampshade chips with cyanide dip. A heroin fizz. What you're used to." Confusion painted her face with stupidity. Stohrs said, "Our guest is a very funny man. Just prepare the usual. And hurry."

  "You seem, Mr. Pelham," Stohrs said after his daughter left, "to want to talk about Nazis."

  "I have always been fascinated by insanity," Remo said.

  "Our only insanity was that we lost."

  "I'm glad to see that it's we," Remo said. "You lost because you wasted your energies attacking unnecessary targets. That's a sick toughness. The real toughness comes from Americans who don't go stoking ovens from hatred. That's why we win. The shits like you, the insane haters, always lose."

  "That, my dear Mr. Pelham, is because the winners write history," Stohrs said, and Remo saw him reach his index finger forward to touch a button on, the arm of his chair. Needles, he knew, would shoot up now into Remo's forearm, drugging him, putting him under.

  How many had they done it to? Had they ever done it to a man who could respond quickly enough to pluck flies from the air between thumb and forefinger? It had come down to this: to Remo Williams and his terrible talents, against this evil man, this evil product of monstrous wrongs.

  Stohrs' hand squeezed over the end of the chair. Remo focussed his perception on his right forearm. He felt the pinpricks against his skin. The act seemed frozen in slow motion. First, the three needles touched the skin. The skin bent before them like a marshmallow refusing a stick. The needles insisted. Then the skin collapsed and gave way, surrounding the tips of the needles. The needles should now continue into the arm and give their narcotic juices. Then the victim should react by rubbing his arm.

  That was the script for a victim. But Remo Williams was in the chair and he was no man's victim. His arm rose imperceptibly, then yanked away and he rubbed the inside of the right forearm. He felt slightly woozy and increased the speed of his body rhythms to absorb what could only have been a trace dose. His head sank forward onto his chest.

  "So you will beat me, will you?," he heard Stohrs say. Stohrs' chair slid back from the table. Remo could hear him walking around toward him. He was a doctor. He would look into Remo's eyes. Lids closed tightly, Remo focussed his eyes on a jet plane in the sky of his imagination miles away. He felt the practiced thumb press his eyelid up. The sudden light should have contracted the pupil. But the jet plane in that bright noon sky had already done that and Stohrs let the eyelid drop with a grunt of satisfaction.

  "He's under," Stohrs yelled. "I'm keeping my promise to you."

  "Stand up," he told Remo. It was a command and Remo stood. "Open your eyes and follow me." With confident arrogance, Stohrs turned his back on Remo and walked away. He pulled aside a long velvet drape, exposing a door. He turned the knob and walked in, stepping aside to let Remo pass.

  Remo's eyes were fixed straight ahead, but his peripheral vision swallowed the room in a glance. He had seen the room before. In the sex photos. A metal bed stood against, the left wall, covered with white satin sheets. At the right side of the small room stood a camera on a tripod, and reflector-covered lights. Behind the bed stood Anna. Her chest heaved, disturbing the fabric of her sweater as she looked at Remo. "I've waited for you a long time," she said.

  Stohrs pushed the door shut and locked it. "Take off your clothes," he commanded. "All of them." Remo mechanically removed his clothes, watching straight ahead as Anna pulled her sweater off over her head, her blonde locks splashing through with difficulty. Her pendulous breasts bounced when released from the sweater. She returned Remo's stare as she reached behind her and snapped loose the top button of her skirt, hooked her fingers inside the waistband and slid it slowly down over her hips, until it dropped soundlessly on the floor. She wore no undergarments, only long black stockings, held up with a black garter belt, and black patent leather boots that reached above the knee.

  Remo was naked, his clothes in a pile on the floor in front of him. "Lie on the bed," Stohrs ordered and Remo sprawled across the cot on his back. Anna walked to the bed alongside him, and leaned over him, the nipples of her breasts just touching his bare chest. "I have something special for you," she said. She stepped to a small table alongside the bed, then back into Remo's view. She held a black wig in her hands. She trailed the long strands of hair across Remo's stomach, his genitals, then down his legs. Then she placed it on her head, tucking her blonde hair under it.

  She sat on the bed next to Remo and took a tube of lipstick from the table. She slid the end of the closed lipstick into her mouth, then leaned over Remo and let spittle from her mouth dribble onto his chest. Then she uncased the lipstick and painted deep red lips over her own pale colour. She reached again for the table.

  Now the whip, Remo thought.

  Kill them now? It would be easy. But he wanted them to savour their victory, before he twisted it into death.

  "Father, are you ready? I can no longer wait."

  Stohrs, who had been loading the camera, said "Go ahead. But quickly. We have spent much time."

  The whip now. It flashed expertly across Remo's stomach and snapped a red welt into his skin. Again. This time closer to his maleness. And again. Then she dropped the whip across the bed, and lowered her head over Remo. The dark strands of hair played across his body, and then she was on him, greasy lipstick working on him, moaning with passion.

  Remo allowed himself to respond. He wanted this woman. Not to enjoy her. But to punish her. He had learned the secrets from Chiun. This twisted Nazi beast was infatuated by a husky young policeman, but she was going to be destroyed by the surrogate for an eighty-year old Korean who believed that women were no more compliant than guitars. The wrong strings produced disharmony. It is simply a matter of plucking the right strings.

  The strings for the black-haired woman in boots were pain and suffering and torture. That was her enjoyment. Remo would give her that until she was in ecstasy, and then give her more until the ecstasy turned to pain, and more vet until the soft erotic touch became the bitter rasp of a rawl.

  Her voluntary act of debasement was lighting the fires. "He's ready. Tell him to take me."

  "Take her," Stohrs said.

  "I want rape," yelled the daughter.

  "Rape the woman," Stohrs said.

  And that was all Remo needed, and he banged her down into the bed so hard that her wig flew off and ploughed into her, twisting her body so that her spinal column wrenched.

  She moaned and Stohrs kept snapping pictures. What process had brought him to this, Remo thought, where he could stand taking photos and living out his daughter's perversions? Remo knew. It was like any other horror. It was done imperceptibly, step by step, individual mean actions being built into the habit pattern, demand compliance, until the final act... the final sum... was demanded by the parts. Until there was no way to stop it.

  "Harder." Anna's voice insinuated itself into his mind. Harder. Faster. Deeper. He considered his fingers. Then his toes. While his body forced blood to pump, his mind denied that blood and thought of other parts, other functions. It was Chiun's secret.

  "More," she yelled. "Mo
re."

  He ground into her, pressing with his knees, lifting her and dropping her down. She groaned in ecstasy.

  Remo moved harder. Faster.

  She groaned. Ecstasy again.

  Harder. Faster. Concentrate on kneecaps.

  She groaned continuously now. But ecstasy was giving way. It was surrendering to pain.

  Remo moved on. Harder. Faster. His mind sensed the heavily calloused skin on the tips of his fingers.

  Her groans grew in intensity, raised in pitch. She was in pain now. Suffering. She would soon shout stop and Remo, under drugs, would have to obey.

  He leaned forward heavily onto her body and smashed his heavily muscled shoulder down into her mouth, chipping her front teeth. Hard. Stopping her from calling out the command to stop.

  Her voice was muffled under his shoulder.

  And Remo kept on. Harder. Harder. The toes now. He felt them digging into the wooden floor for a firm footing. She was using her hands now. Trying to push him away. He pressed her harder.

  Stohrs had stopped taking pictures. He was now just a spectator. The Nazis had killed by gang rape. Stohrs was watching that fate overtake his daughter, a death admonished by a one-man gang.

  Then Stohrs called out. "Stop."

  Remo stopped. And the bitch lay semi-conscious, bleeding from the mouth and groin.

  "Are you all right, dear?," Stohrs asked.

  She sat up slowly, hatred in her eyes. "Let us kill this bastard, father. Painfully."

  "We shall. But first, Mr. Pelham and I must finish our game. Develop the film. I will call you."

  Remo was ordered to dress, and then Stohrs led him back to the chess room. He ordered Remo to sit down and then took his seat on the other side of the table.

  He spoke to Remo: "Who are you?"

  "Remo Pelham."

  "Who told you about me?"

  "Deborah Hirshbloom."

  "What did she tell you?"

  "That you were Nazi."

  "Why did you come here?"

  "For money. I could get money from you."

  "All right. We will play a little game. You will wake up and show me how you can win, and then you will go back to sleep. Repeat after me. You will wake up to play the .game and then you will go to sleep."

  "I will wake up to play and then go back to sleep."

  "Back to sleep when I snap my fingers. Wake up when I snap my fingers."

  And Stohrs snapped his fingers.

  "A fast game," he said, smiling.

  "A fast game," Remo said.

  "Still think you can win?," Stohrs asked, confident in his skills, assured of his victory.

  "Yes," Remo said. He picked up the queen from the board. Deborah's queen. "Watch the queen," Remo said.

  "I am watching."

  "It is my move," Remo said, as he lifted the queen, standing it on its green felt base in the palm of his hand. His fingers curled down to hold it by the base, against his palm. Then his deep brown eyes that seemed to have no pupils burned into Stohrs' eyes and Remo said, "It is mate in one." Remo turned the queen over in the palm of his right hand, and then, with a roll of the wrist, moved it forward. His move, the greatest move in the history of chess, put the white point into Stohr's right eye, and then a push through the socket into the brain, and there was Stohrs with a green felt monocle where his right eye should be, and red ribbons beginning to hang from it. Stohrs' body twitched convulsively and his fingers went snap, snap, snap, because that was the last message his brain had sent before Remo had moved, white queen to the bastard's eye.

  Remo looked at him, then smiled with only his lips.

  "Checkmate," he said. And walked away.

  The rest was easy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Anna Stohrs was still naked. She was just placing the negatives of Remo into a metal card file containing the other negatives when Remo walked into the darkroom.

  She looked up, and her eyes opened wide in horror, when she saw him there.

  "He lost," Remo said.

  She tried to kick him but Remo, laughing, ignored the effort, and flipped her left arm up behind her back. Then he whispered into her right ear, "Your father said just before I killed him that the one thing he really enjoyed was seeing you perform. But he never wanted to let on, because you might stop."

  Then he killed her and left her body sprawled over the giant photo dryer. The sweat on her naked body sizzled as he dropped her over the stainless steel drum. Then Remo burned the negatives, and set fire to the house.

  He took a doughnut from the cupboard on his way out, and left a few minutes before the arrival of the first fire company.

  The cool of evening chilled the air, and suddenly it became incredibly cold for August, then hot, then Remo felt nothing and just kept walking.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The roast beef at Henrici's in Dayton was good. It had been good for the last two Wednesday nights and Remo looked out of the windows down on the Miami valley, with blinking lights on the outskirts of Dayton, and far off the small towns surrounding it. The restaurant was on the top of the hotel and for Dayton provided exquisite dining. In New York, it would be just another good meal.

  He cut into the rich red beef, which shivered slightly, emitting a reddish pool which flowed into the mashed potato mountain, making its base pink. Good beef, somehad once said, was like a hearty woman. It must be taken with gusto. Who said it? It obviously had not been Chiun, who while he once allowed that all women are beautiful but not all men are capable of seeing it, also felt that red beef was like a subtle poison. You enjoyed your destruction because it was comfortable and slow.

  Remo enjoyed the beef. In fact, Chiun might be very bright about the poison. Being some place at a certain night regularly, a certain place someone else knew, made you a perfect setup for that someone else. The beef could be poisoned. He could be poisoned without his poisoner ever seeing him. CURE was good at that. In fact, if it wanted to, the poisoner might not even know it was poison. Breaking links wherever you can.

  But he was alive and every day he lived probably meant that he was being kept there to stew. The punishment would be waiting to be killed. If he waited, though, it would also show them that he could be trusted again.

  What had he really done that was so bad? Talked back? That could be attributed to the long peak. What counted was not what he said but what he did. And what he did was to follow orders. He had headed for Deborah's cot and then he went to Dayton.

  How he had gotten to Dayton, he forgot. There was the path, the tiredness, the oppressive heat, and then, what he remembered of it, he was in the Dayton Airport just outside Vandalia, with an incredible sunburn, money from what must have been cashed traveller’s checks and no identification. He had probably gone through the necessary go routine automatically.

  He had noticed how weak he had become, but the rest improved him daily. When he returned to training, he would be well ready for it. But he would never again allow them to keep him at that level. He would explain this if he ever got to Smith again.

  Deborah, of course, had gotten her man. He knew she would, but it was a sloppy job. He had heard about it in a bar. Father-daughter fight. But why would the woman choose suicide by photo-drying? Funny, it sounded like something he might do. The Israelis were supposed to be a bit neater. Yeah, he might do it. No, it just wasn't fast enough. For punishment, it would do. But Remo, however was not in the punishment business.

  Some day, if they should ever meet, he would tell Deborah how sloppy she had been.

  He looked out over the valley, gazing for miles. It was a clear night, yet there were no stars, and for reasons he could not fathom, he felt deeply lost, as if he had found something so necessary to his life, then lost it without knowing what it was.

  It was then that Remo created an original line of sentiment and felt proud of it. He thought of Deborah's freckles and said to himself, waiting to use it publicly to advantage some day, "A girl without freckles is like
a night without stars."

  Remo looked around the restaurant for a woman with freckles. He had to try out his original line. He saw only a man in a suit with a briefcase. The reason he saw only this was that the man was standing three inches from him.

  "Enjoying yourself? Pleasant thoughts?" asked the man. It was a bitter thin voice. Remo looked up. It belonged to a bitter, hateful face.

  "Good evening. Sit down. I wondered why you kept me waiting so long."

  Remo watched Harold W. Smith take the other side of the table. He put his briefcase on his lap.

  Smith ordered a grilled cheese sandwich. The waitress said, "We have something with tomatoes and bacon and...."

  "Just grilled cheese," he said.

  "And make it unpleasant," Remo added. Ah, the waitress had freckles. He would devastate her.

  The waitress hid a smile from all but the corner of her mouth.

  "Be off," Smith said to the girl, and turning to Remo said: "My, you're in fine fettle. Did you enjoy yourself on your last business trip?"

  "Not really."

  "I never knew you liked to freelance."

  "What?" Remo looked confused.

  "You've forgotten little details?"

  "I don't know what you mean."

  Smith leaned over the table and peered intently at Remo's forehead, where his peeled skin was still taut and shiny, and his eyebrows were just growing back.

  "Well, the reports said it was there, so I suppose I'll buy it. And I do have Chiun's explanation."

  "Buy what?" Smith smiled and Remo knew that he was not supposed to ask.

  "When did you recover your memory? I mean fully?"

  "Tell you what," Remo said, "you tell me how I got this sunburn because I'm sure you know and I'll tell you when I recovered my memory."

  "You'll tell me when you recovered your memory."

  "At the Dayton Airport."

  "That's about right," Smith said. He looked around him and said, lest anyone be listening, "You left your wallet in my room this morning." He handed Remo a well-worn wallet containing, as Remo knew, who he would be and where he would go and what he should look for that would tell him where he would meet Smith again.