Warren Murphy: Power Play

"You heard me," Remo said. "Now I've got a lot of things to do tonight and not much time to waste, so just tell me, please, where is the Red Regiment?"

Winstler leaned forward to hear him better. He thought the man had asked him where the Red Regiment was.

"What?"

"Are you going to keep answering my questions with questions?" Remo said. He mouthed the words carefully and slowly. "The... Red... Regiment... Where?"

Winstler heard him clearly this time and turned around, looking for a waiter to throw the man out.

"That's all right," Remo said. "I don't want any thing. Well, maybe a glass of water. No, never mind. In this place, water would curdle."

Winstler ignored him and kept looking for a waiter. Remo sighed. He slid his chair around next to Winstler's. Winstler saw the waiter in the back of the room. He was about to wave to him, when he felt a bitter pain in his right knee, a pain so intense that it felt as if his knee were being cut into by a dull and rusty saw. He turned away, the waiter forgotten, and clapped his hand to his right knee. His hand landed on Remo's hand. Remo's face was close to his now and Remo was smiling.

"See," Remo said. "That's pain. Now if you don't want pain, we're going to talk nicey-nice. I told you already, I don't have a lot of time."

Winstler had no trouble hearing the thin young man now. The pain in his knee subsided briefly.

"Where's the Red Regiment holed up?" asked Remo.

"Did you say before you were going to kill me?" Winstler asked.

"See. There you go again. Asking questions instead of just answering." The pain returned to the knee. Winstler grimaced. He would have screamed except Remo's left hand had come around his back and was resting on his left shoulder and one finger was touching something in Winstler's throat and no sound came out.

"Yes, of course I'm going to kill you," Remo said.

"Why?" gasped Winstler.

"Now, you might reasonably think," Remo said, "that it's because you always answer a question with a question. But that's not the reason. I'm going to kill you because that's what I do. And do. And do. No one cares how much I work. No unions for me. If I ever get in a deal like this again, I'm getting me a lawyer, a fancy lawyer like you. Now, come on, the Red Regiment, where are they?"

Winstler hesitated and there was the pain again in the knee. He tried to scream and there was the finger again alongside the throat. The throat pressure lessened.

"I don't know," he gasped.

"Aww, come on," Remo said in annoyance. "What do you lawyers say, that's not responsive. You know and I know that you know and I've got to find out so I can go there and get that businessman they're holding free and now will you please tell me 'cause it's getting late and I've got a lot of things to do."

"What makes you think I know?" Winstler tried again.

"Because they're loonies and you defend all the loonies and besides your secretary's been dropping a dime on you all the while and letting Upstairs know who you talk to on the phone. And you been talking to the Red Regiment, so come on."

And then there was the pain again, but this time it was pointed, shafting pain. Winstler felt tears come to his eyes. It felt as if his kneecap had rusted onto his leg and this man was wrenching it free.

"See, real pain is like that," Remo said.

"You're really going to kill me." This time it was not a question. For the first time, Winstler believed that perhaps this man might mean what he had said. "Here? In this disco?"

"Why not? For supporting music like this, you deserve death. Where are they?"

"If I tell you, you let me live."

"No," Remo said.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm going to kill you whether you tell me or not," Remo said.

"Then why should I tell you?"

"Why not out of an overriding commitment to the truth, above all things?" Remo said. Winstler shook his head. "All right," Remo said. "Because of this. There are lots of ways to die. There are quick and painless ways and there are slow and painful ways and they only make you want the quick and painless ways. Now it's up to you. I only have five more minutes."

"Let me live," Winstler said.

The waiter appeared alongside the table. Winstler felt the slight thumb pressure on his throat again and his voice vanished.

"Would you care for something?" the waiter asked, looking at Winstler and ignoring the man in the black T-shirt.

"Yes, some privacy," Remo said. "Can't you see we're talking? Get out of here."

The waiter sniffed and walked away.

The pressure softened on the throat.

"Let me live," Winstler said.

"No. Absolutely not," Remo said.

"Let me live and I'll give you the Red Regiment. And I'll give you those saloon bombers in New York and the Pan-Palestinian skyjackers."

"I don't want them," Remo said.

"Why not?"

"Because I've got enough to do. I'm not volunteering for anything. The Red Regiment."

There was the pain again in the knee, this time even sharper than before and Winstler quickly blurted out an address in the east seventies. Lights from the disco Strobe-n-Globe flashed across his face and Remo saw panic in his eyes.

"And the guy they kidnaped is there too?" Remo asked. He had to speak up to be heard over the screech of the music.

"Right, right."

"Good," Remo said.

"You're still going to kill me?"

"Of course."

"But why? Who are you anyway? To come in here and talk about killing?"

"Just another overworked wage slave," Remo said.

"But who?" Winstler asked again.

"It's a long story," Remo said.

"I've got time," Winstler said. If he could get his knee free, he could bolt from the table. In the crush of bodies on the dance floor he'd be safe.

"No, you haven't," Remo said. "All right, three minutes. See, there was this cop in Newark, New Jersey. His name was Remo Williams. That was me. He got framed for a murder he didn't do and got sent to an electric chair that didn't work and then he woke up after everybody thought he was dead and they put him to work for a secret government organization. It's called CURE."

"What do they do?" Winstler asked. The grip was still a vise on his right knee.

"What do they do? They give a guy more work than he can possibly handle. Next thing they'll be handing me a broom for my butt so I can sweep the streets on my way."

"Besides overworking you," Winstler said.

"Yeah. Well, this organization works outside the Constitution to take care of people that hide behind the Constitution. Criminals. Troublemakers. Like that. People like you. We preserve the Constitution by violating it, in a way."

"And what do you do?" Winstler asked. "Remo Williams?"

"Right. Remo Williams. I'm the assassin. The only one. Of course, there's Chiun and he's an assassin too.

"That's fascistic," Winstler said.

"Sounds about right," Remo said agreeably. "Anyway, it shouldn't surprise you. You've been saying that for years. Even when I was a cop, I read about you. You were always calling America a fascist state."

"That didn't mean I believed it," the lawyer said. He was hoping. If he could keep this Remo talking, he might just stay alive. He remembered an old story about a court magician who fell out of favor with his king and was sentenced to death.

"Too bad," the magician told the king. "I was just going to teach your horse to fly."

Upon hearing that, the king lifted the death penalty and gave the magician a year to teach the horse to fly.

That night, a friend asked the magician why he had said that to the king. "A horse can't fly," he said. "Why'd you do it?"

"A lot of things can happen in a year," the magician said. "I might die. The king might die. Or, who knows. I might just teach that goddamn horse how to fly."