Warren Murphy: Power Play

"Who hired you?" asked Remo. He had gotten into her room by showing an old card he carried, one of many, which announced that Remo McElaney was an investigator for the United States Senate Select Subcommittee on Grain Purchases and Natural Resources. He could just as easily have shown her a card listing himself as an FBI agent, a CIA man, a Treasury man, a Jersey City cop, or a field representative for the International Fish and Game Commission. But Grain Purchases and Natural Resources was the first one that had come out of his pocket. Flamma was so nervous she hadn't bothered to look at it closely. People never did.

"Will Bobbin," she answered. "Well, he didn't exactly hire me but he paid my way out here and he promised me a screen test."

"If you run now, you'll blow the screen test," said Remo.

"It's all right. I'm getting two pages in the National Star . That'll get me all the screen tests I want," Flamma said. "Anyway, where the hell is Bobbin when I need him? I need protection," she said.

"Why?" asked Remo. "Somebody after you?"

"Who the fuck knows?" she said. Without any seeming regard for Remo's presence, she took off her red satin top and, barebreasted, began to root in a drawer for a thin halter top that she began to put on.

"Who the hell was after Muckley, that twerp?" she asked. "If Wesley's involved, I don't know. That man just may go crazy. He may want us all killed and that dyke with him is just the bitch to do it."

"Theodosia?" asked Remo.

"Right. Theodore," said Flamma.

She had her top on and now she peeled off her red satin G-string. Bottomless and blase, she rooted around in the drawer for slacks to wear.

She found a pair and began to slip them on.

Remo said, "Maybe Bobbin. But why would Bobbin want to have Muckley killed?"

She pulled her trousers up. "Beats me," she said. "Bobbin put me on to Muckley though. I kind of thought they were working together." She shrugged, an ample movement that earthquaked the mountains of her breasts and let them drop. "Some kind of falling out?" she suggested.

"Maybe." Remo got up from the bed. He stood behind Flamma who was tossing her makeup from a dresser drawer into the small bag.

He touched her on the shoulders, then let his fingers move over to one of the long tendons in her neck and began slowly rotating around the skin at the joint of her neck and shoulder.

She lolled her head to one side, like a child being tickled. "Ummmmmm," she said contentedly.

"Where's Will Bobbin now?" Remo asked.

"I don't know. Don't stop that. It feels good. Do all you government men do this?"

"When'd you see him last?" Remo changed his attention to a spot in the center of Flamma's bare back. She arched like a kitten.

"Bobbin? After the press conference," she said.

"Where?"

"A cocktail lounge in town. I was with a reporter and Bobbin was in the bar and he made me promise not to tell the guy who he was. Make bigger circles. I asked him where he was going."

Remo made bigger circles. Flamma reached behind her and pulled Remo's hips closer to her.

"What'd he say?" Remo asked.

"He said he was going to hang around town until Wesley left. He wanted to be sure." She turned and ground her body against Remo.

"You really have to go?" she asked.

"Yeah. Did you forget your plane?"

"I wouldn't mind missing it if you're going to hang around," Flamma said.

"Did you ever see Bobbin with a small Oriental?" Remo asked.

She shook her head and then narrowed her eyes, looking at Remo suspiciously. "What has all this got to do with you?" she asked. "With natural resources?"

"Flamma," said Remo, "you're one of our country's greatest natural resources."

"You're right. Even better than oil, 'cause I don't run dry."

She lifted her mouth to be kissed. Remo pressed his lips against her neck and felt her shudder.

He waited until she was finished packing and put her in a taxicab for the airport. As he watched her drive away, he realized he was no closer to the assassin, and who hired him, than he had been before. But there was a feeling, too, in his stomach that that problem would soon be resolved.

Chiun was in Wesley Pruiss's room. Pruiss had his face buried in the pillow as if to stifle some heartrending personal agony and to prevent the world from seeing his tears. Chiun was reciting the same Ung epic. Remo could tell that, as he came into the room, because Chiun was still making the same hand motions to depict a bee and a flower.

Chiun silenced Remo with an index finger upraised in warning. He had just gotten to the big dramatic part of the epic where the flower opens to greet the morning sun and the bee swoops in.

Remo waited in the doorway but Pruiss saw him and his face grew alive and animated.

"Hey, you," he called.

Chiun kept talking. Remo stood as if rooted.

"Come here, will you?" Pruiss said.

Chiun looked at Pruiss, then at Remo, then nodded toward Remo who came forward. As he passed Chiun, the old Korean shook his head sadly: "I think I've lost him somehow."

"You know what they say about casting pearls before swine, Little Father," said Remo.

Chiun went to the window and looked out as Remo stood at Pruiss's bedside. The publisher whispered to him, agonizedly, "Doesn't he ever stop?" He nodded toward Chiun.

"The only way to stop him to is make him mad at you. Tell him you like Chinese poetry better or something. That might work. It's got one drawback though."

"What's that?" Pruiss asked.

"If you make him too mad, he might just fillet you like a flounder. Where's Theodosia?"

"I don't know. I told her to reorder all those solar energy supplies. I heard about Muckley. Was it the same guy who got me?"

Remo nodded. " And the three bodyguards," he said.

"The oil companies are bastards," Pruiss said. "I never knew I was getting into this."

"Theo finally convinced you," Remo said.

"Yeah, Well, if they think they're going to frighten me, they got another thing coming. I got them by the short hairs," Pruiss said.

"How?"

"I signed some papers a little while ago. If I die, everything goes over to Theodosia. And I told her to tell the press that. That'll let the bastards know we're not going to be scared off. And if that sucker with the knives gets me, then Theo takes over and the energy project goes on anyway. That should make them think twice before coming after me again, right?"

"Dope," Reno said. He shook his head.

"What do you mean?"

"They killed all this many people," Remo said. "What makes you think they're going to worry about just one more? All you've done is add Theo to the target list. Where the hell is she?"

The impact of what he had done finally sank in on Pruiss. His beefy face looked strained and there were tension lines around his mouth. "It was her idea," he sputtered.

"Swell," said Remo in disgust. He wheeled away from Pruiss and went down the hall to look for Theodosia. But her room and Baya Barn's were empty. He searched the woman's room; his motel room key was gone.

"Chiun, I'm going to look for Theo. I think she might be next."

"I will stay here," Chiun said. "This one has not yet heard the ending of my poem."

"Go," Pruiss said in desperation. "Save Theo," he told Chiun.

"A loving heart is the mark of all good men," Chiun said. "But I will stay here nevertheless. You go, Remo. My place is here."

The only vehicle parked downstairs was the Pruiss ambulance and Remo hopped into it and sped from the driveway.

From a vantage point in the trees across from the house, the assassin watched him go. And hoped he would return soon.

Remo pulled the ambulance into the motel parking lot and ran toward the two rooms he and Chiun had shared when they first reached town.