Sweet Dreams

by Warren Murphy

  FOURTEEN PEOPLE FELL IN love with Remo as he returned to the hotel.

  Several women on the outskirts of the marathon crowd where it thinned out two blocks from the finish line tried jogging alongside him, gasping as they tried to give him their telephone numbers. He got rid of them by telling them mincingly, “My woommate Bart would never appwove.”

  One woman passenger in a car saw Remo and grabbed her boyfriend so hard he almost drove into the entrance of the Todd Private High School. A cashier and a candy girl in a theater, along with an usher whose sexual preferences were somewhat unclear, followed him with their eyes.

  So did a black airlines reservation clerk who decided she would grow her hair back long and uncurl it from its Afro. She’d move from Dorchester and walk no more in South Boston. She’d gain a little weight and stop being such a tease. She’d meet him one night in the reading room of the library and from that night on be his slave, cook, cleaner, maid, fox, and mammy. Screw the movement. Screw women’s lib. His. Now, then, and forever.

  There were more, and Remo was aware of them, sensing the slight pressure of stares on him, but he couldn’t be bothered now. After all, sex was just another technique—squeeze here for a purr, touch there for a gasp—and he had more important things on his mind than techniques. His techniques were perfect; everything he did was perfect. So why wasn’t he happy? Didn’t perfection include happiness?

  Remo slowed down as he passed an around-the-clock bookstore, and jogged inside.

  The clerk at the front check-out counter looked at Remo and said: “The exercise books are in the back on the right. Jogging on the top shelf.”

  “Where’s your dictionaries?” Remo asked.

  The clerk had a beard that grew up his cheeks, almost to his eye sockets. Now the beard nickered as he winked to the clerk next to him, trying to gift-wrap a copy of The Prophet. “What are you looking up? Jockstrap?” the clerk said.

  “Actually, no,” Remo said. “I was thinking of surly, insolent, asshole, and fatality.” He did not wink.

  “Over there,” the clerk said, pointing a trembling index finger at a low, flat counter.

  Remo found the thickest dictionary and skimmed through it:

  “Per-fek'-shen: 1) the quality or state of being perfect, as a) freedom from fault or defect.”

  He looked through all the definitions, but none of them mentioned happiness. He was disappointed.

  On his way out, the clerk asked Remo: “Find what you wanted?”

  “Yeah. Did you know I can be perfect without being happy?”

  Before the clerk could answer, Remo was back on the street. He did not feel like going straight back to his hotel room, so he decided to carry his perfection caravan into the Roxbury ghetto of Boston.

  The sight of a white man, running down the street after dark, in track shorts, caused much hilarity in Roxbury, but it stopped when nobody could catch him, not even Freddy (Panther) Davis, who last year had set the inner-city record for the fastest 440 ever run in stolen Keds.

  The April night was chilling as Remo headed back toward his bright hotel. He looked up toward the room where he imagined Chiun sat at peace and decided he did not want to go up, not yet. So he jogged along Boylston Street until it intersected with Massachusetts Avenue, the sidewalks bathed by the eerie eyes of the passing cars on both the city streets and the Massachusetts Turnpike which passed under that point.

  Remo stepped up to the guard rail over the turnpike and stared out at the impassive automobiles of the anything-but-impassive men and women who were born, became neurotic, argued, fought, questioned, reasoned, loved, screwed, killed, sought immortality, then died.

  He thought about each one moving toward him and wondered where they were coming from and what they had done. He saw the cars on the other side disappear around a distant bend and wondered where their drivers were going and what they might do.

  And then he had it. It was all clear, why he could be unhappy even though perfect.

  Suddenly Remo knew where he was going and where all those cars were going.

  Remo was going to a hotel.

  Everybody else in the world was going home.

  And Remo would never go home. Home was a wife, kids. But it would only be a matter of time before a wife would tap him on the back when he wasn’t looking and she would wind up with many important internal organs atomized. And kids? By the time his were of school age, they probably would have wiped out half the block, which might be hard to explain to the P.T.A. “You see, friends and neighbors, the children’s father is the world’s most perfect killing machine and they’re just chips off the old block, heh, heh.”

  But there was no reason he couldn’t have a home. A house. A place other than a hotel room. He could do without kids anyway. Bringing them up nowadays was risky, ’cause if they didn’t turn out to be junkies, they stood a good chance of turning out to be freakos like that obnoxious Margie from the School of…

  “Oh, balls,” Remo said aloud.

  As he tore off toward his hotel, an old lady clapped her hands over the ears of the twelve-year-old boy walking with her and shouted after him: “What the fuck’s wrong with you? Can’t you see I got a child with me, for Christ’s sake?”

  Remo hit the hotel steps three at a time, he took six at a time on the second and third floors and made the last seven flights in seven bounds.

  He burst onto his floor, ruining his second door of the day, and jumped to the open entrance to his room.

  Chiun sat in the middle of the floor, facing the door, his eyes closed, his mouth creased in a small smile. In the four corners of the room were four girls, their thumbs in their mouths, their rears pointed skyward.

  Chiun opened his eyes as Remo entered and looked around.

  “Oh, it is the perfect one,” Chiun said, and then cackled. “Heh, heh, heh. All hail the perfect one.”

  “All right, knock it off,” Remo said. “What’d you do to them?”

  “Nothing but what they asked for,” Chiun said. “Barging in here through a door that the perfect one had destroyed, a perfectly good door, and demanding to see wonderful Remo, and all the while, I am sitting here, minding my business, taking a few moments of pleasure from All My Offspring while you are out, gallivanting around…where were you while all this was going on?”

  Remo refused to be sidetracked. “What’d you do to them?” he said, but before Chiun could answer, one of the girls moaned.

  Remo walked over to the sound. Looking closer, he realized the girl was not only alive, but smiling broadly. So were the other three, including Margie who held a copy of The Powerology Guide to Sexual Fulfillment in her dirty fist.

  “Take them out of here,” Chiun said. “In a perfect manner, of course. Heh, heh, heh. Just as I always thought. You are perfect for taking out garbage.”

  Remo, relieved to find that the four bodies weren’t just bodies, did not even argue. He reached down to the hulk of Margie and grabbed her under the stomach. She arched slowly, muttered “Fantastic,” then wrapped her body around Remo’s hand, like a kitten if a kitten could be called sex-crazed. Remo lifted her like the handle of a Samsonite two-suiter and deposited her on her feet outside the suite. She seemed to float down the hall toward the elevator. Remo shot a leering look at Chiun.

  “Dirty old man,” he said.

  “They are reliving their childhoods,” Chiun said, “which all happen to be pleasant ones. Wipe that disgusting look off your lecherous muffin face. The Master of Sinanju is above such things.”

  He turned his back and looked out the window as Remo deposited the other three girls in the hall and pushed them off, like walking dolls sold by sidewalk peddlers, in the direction of the elevators.

  When Remo went back in the room, he brought with him the remnants of the door, which he propped in place.

  “No one came to fix this door?” he asked.

  “They did. But I told them to come back when the Perfect One was here. Heh, heh, heh.”

/>   “What did you do to those girls?” Remo asked.

  “They interrupted me. I put them to sleep and made them feel good. But what did you do today?”

  “I made a decision. I want a house,” Remo said.

  “Good,” said Chiun. “So do I. I will take the one in electrical Washington.”

  “What?” Remo said.

  “It was you who explained it to me. About electricity, the different currents. Electrical Washington.”

  “Washington, D.C. doesn’t have anything to do with electricity,” Remo said. “D.C. doesn’t stand for direct current.”

  “You told me it did,” Chiun said petulantly.

  “Well, it does sometimes. But not this time.”

  “I am glad you are perfect,” Chiun said, “because you will always be able to tell me when it means direct current and when it doesn’t. But I still want that big white house there.”

  “The President lives there,” Remo said.

  “How long will it take him to move?” Chiun asked.

  “He’s not moving.”

  “The President would deny us this?” Chiun asked.

  “I deny us this,” Remo said.

  “I will never forget this, Remo. First you lie to me about electricity and then you will not let me have a house which is little enough to ask, considering all I have done for you,” Chiun said.

  “Why that house, Chiun?” asked Remo, who felt himself sinking into an endless pit of explanation and counter-explanation. “Why is that house so important to you?”

  “I don’t care about the house,” Chiun said. “It is what one can do there. I have seen this maker of automobiles…”

  “Ah, geez, Chiun.”

  “You go back on that explanation, too?”

  Remo remained silent.

  “I have seen this automobile maker beckon merely and I have seen Barbra Streisand come to this big ugly white house in electrical Washington. This I have seen. And I, I could stand in the glorious palaces of noble Sinanju and beckon until my fingers turn to dust and Barbra Streisand would not come.”

  “So, we’re back to Barbra Streisand.”

  “Yes,” said Chiun.

  “Well, let’s forget Barbra Streisand and let’s forget the White House. I just want a plain house. To live in.”

  “It must be a perfect house,” Chiun said. “To match you. Would a beauty wrap herself in rags?”

  “All right. Enough,” Remo said. “I’ve been graumed all day and now I’ve figured out what it is. I want to be like other people.”

  Chiun shook his head in sad bewilderment. “I have heard of the cat who would be king. But I never heard of a king who would be a cat. I have given you Sinanju, and now you want to be like other people? Like you were? Eating meat, sleeping the day away, groveling and miserable? This is what you want?”

  “No, Chiun. I just want a house. Like yours in Sinanju,” Remo lied, because he regarded Chiun’s home in Sinanju as the ugliest thing ever built in the world.

  “I understand,” Chiun said. “It is good to have a beautiful house.”

  Remo nodded. He felt warmed and comforted by Chiun’s understanding of his feelings.

  “And someday we can invite Barbra Streisand to visit,” Chiun said brightly.

  “Right, right, right, right, right,” said Remo in exasperation.

  “Don’t forget it,” Chiun said. “Five rights do not allow a wrong. Heh, heh, heh.”

  The telephone rang an hour later, after Remo and Chiun had dined on rice and fish and Chiun had “done the dishes” by sailing the plates out the open window into the Boston night, where they produced seventeen unconfirmed U.F.O. sightings, and the formation of a new committee, the Boston League for Astronomical Truth whose first act was to print stationery so they could mail a fund-raising letter.

  The caller was Smith.

  “Hello, Doctor Smith,” Remo said politely. “I’m so glad you called.”

  “Remo,” Smith began, then checked himself. “Wait a minute,” he said. “‘Doctor Smith?’”

  “That’s right. The good, wise Doctor Smith,” Remo said.

  “Remo, what do you want?”

  “No, sir, you first. After all, you called and you are my superior…”

  “Everyone is,” Chiun snickered.

  “…you are my superior and I’d like to hear what’s on your mind.”

  “Yes, well, remember I told you about the Mafia meeting in New York?”

  “Of course, sir,” Remo replied. He looked out at the sky and wondered why birds did not fly at night. Sure, they were busy going places in the daytime but didn’t they ever have errands to run at night?

  “Well, we’ve just learned that Arthur Grassione, the head Mafia hit man, and Salvatore Massello, the St. Louis head man, are on their way to Edgewood University outside St. Louis.”

  “Perhaps, sir,” Remo said, “they’ve decided to mend their ways, to enroll as students, and live a new life.” Remo counted seven sets of wing lights in the nighttime sky. The sky was getting as crowded as the earth. Maybe birds only flew on off-hours.

  “No, I don’t think that’s it,” said Smith. “It cost us a man but we’ve learned they’re on their way to try to get some kind of new television invention. There’s a professor there named William Wooley or Wooley Westhead or something like that.”

  Terrific, Remo thought. I want a house and Smith wants to talk about Wooley-headed college professors. He said, “I understand.”

  “Massello is a new kind of Mafia don,” Smith said. “He’s bright and subtle and chances are he’s going to be the next national boss. Now if you can do something to stop him…”

  “Certainly,” Remo said. “Are you done, sir? Is that all?”

  “Yes,” Smith said warily.

  “I want a frigging house,” Remo yelled. “I’m tired of living in these frigging hotels. I want a house. If you don’t give me a house, I’m quitting. Well?”

  “If I give you a house will you promise always to be polite?” Smith asked.

  “No.”

  “Will you promise to always carry out missions faithfully and without questioning my orders?”

  “Of course not. Most of the time your orders are so stupid they’re painful.”

  “If I give you a house, do you promise to take care of Massello and Grassione? And find out what they’re after?”

  “I might,” Remo said.

  “Do it first and then we’ll talk about the house,” Smith said.

  “Will we talk about it yes or will we talk about it no?” Remo asked.

  “We’ll talk about it maybe,” Smith said.

  “Then maybe I’ll take care of Grassello and Massione,” Remo said.

  “Massello and Grassione,” Smith said. “Come on, Remo, this is important.”

  “So’s my house,” said Remo.

  Chiun hissed, “Ask him to increase the tribute to my village.” Remo waved him off.

  “Smitty,” he said. “We’ll meet you in St. Louis and discuss this some more.”

  “I can’t get away,” Smith protested.

  “You have to get away. This all won’t wait. If you don’t go to St. Louis,” he said, “don’t look for us there.”

  Smith paused for a moment, to try to unravel the logic of that sentence, then surrendered to it. “I’ll be there tomorrow,” he said.

  “Good,” said Remo. “Bring enough money for a house.”

  He hung up and told Chiun, “We’re going to St Louis.”

  “Good,” said Chiun. “Let us go now.”

  “Why the hurry?”

  “Soon those four cow-like females will come to their senses and they will be back. What do I need with four servants?”

  Remo nodded.

  “When I have you,” Chiun said.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  DR. HAROLD W. SMITH woke up at 3:45 A.M. He let his wife sleep as he went into the kitchen and prepared one slice of whole wheat toast, light, without butter, one two-a
nd-a-half-minute egg and a four-ounce glass filled with two ounces of lemon juice and two ounces of prune juice, his only concession to the possibility of originality in the kitchen.

  He followed the breakfast with a glass of lukewarm water, then reentered the bedroom where he picked up the two-suiter he had packed the night before, planted a kiss on the cheek of his still-sleeping wife, who tried to swat it away, and then drove to his office.

  Something had been niggling at his mind since he had first gotten the name from an informant of Professor William Westhead Wooley of Edgewood University, and he planned to make one last check.

  He was waved through the gate of Folcroft Sanitarium, which served as headquarters for CURE, the secret organization he had headed since its formation. When he parked his car in his private parking space in the otherwise empty lot, he took a notebook from his pocket and jotted down a reminder to do something about the front gate security which was becoming a little bit too lax, even for an institution masquerading as a sanitarium for the wealthy ill and an educational research center.

  Alone in his office, Smith quickly composed a retrieval memo to be fed into CURE’s computers. He wanted anything on Wooley, Edgewood University, and television inventions.

  The computer returned only a trade journal report that said “word has it that a major breakthrough in television technology has almost been perfected and an announcement is expected soon.”

  That was all.

  Smith crumpled up the report and dropped it into the shredder basket next to his desk. He set a series of locks that would prevent anyone but himself from tapping into the CURE computer system for information, then turned out the lights, locked up behind him, and went back to his car.

  He bought a New York Times at the airport and when he was safely on the T.C.A. 6 A.M. “early bird” to St. Louis, he started to read the paper, thoroughly, story by story.

  And on page 32, he found a story that told him why two major Mafia figures were on their way to the Midwest to meet with an obscure college professor.

  · · ·

  Already in St. Louis, Don Salvatore Massello was reading the same story which told how the television networks were sending representatives to Edgewood University where a conference had been called by Dr. William Westhead Wooley to announce “the greatest technological breakthrough in the history of television.”