Warren Murphy: Created, The Destroyer

"Cinthy Felton." The girl laughed. "The curve-breaker, the grind."

"That's not nice," said another student.

"Well, it's true," the other said defensively.

"And she's where?" Remo asked.

"In her room, where else?"

"I think her opinion is worth hearing, too. If you'll excuse me, girls. What's her room?"

"Second floor, first right," a chorus responded. "But you can't go up. Rules."

Remo smiled politely. "But I have permission. Thank you."

He mounted the steps, polished with a half-century of shine, rubbed by thousands of feet of wives of presidents and ambassadors, glowing in a dusky half-light from cheap old lamps. You could bottle the tradition surrounding Fayerweather Hall, it was that strong.

It was a smell, a feeling. Traditions? Remo smiled. Someone had to start somewhere, had to start a tradition somehow, and if enough years passed between the original stupidity and its ultimate worthlessness, that, sir, was tradition. Where had he heard that definition of tradition? Had he made it up?

The first door on the right was open. He saw a desk, a light splashing on it, and a rather coarse leg sticking from beneath it. An arm, at the end of which were five stubby nail-bitten fingers, moved from behind the high-shelf portion of the desk which concealed its user.

"Hello," Remo said. "I'm doing a magazine article." It was a hell of an introduction to a woman he would have to convince to take him home to daddy.

"What are you doing here?" Her voice was a composite of adolescent squeak and matron rasp.

"I'm writing an article."

"Oh."

She pushed her chair over so she could see Remo. What she saw was a big, handsome man silhouetted in the doorway. He saw another of the generation of moral crusaders: a girl with a blue skirt and a brown sweater, wearing white tennis shoes. Her face was pleasant, or could have been pleasant if she had worn makeup. But she wore none. Her hair was wildly frizzled, like a wheat field in the wind. She chewed on the point of her pencil. On her sweater was a button, "Freedom Now."

"I'm interviewing students."

"Uh-uh."

"I'd like to interview you."

"Yes."

Remo fidgeted. His feet somehow needed shuffling. He attempted to concentrate on her essence, to project his manhood as Chiun had taught, but somehow his mind was up against something not quite a woman. She had breasts, hips, eyes, mouth, ears, nose, but the essence of woman, womanliness, had somehow been bled out of her.

"May I interview you?"

"Certainly. Sit down on the bed." Coming from any other woman, this might have had the overtones of invitation. Coming from the girl before him, it was a logical suggestion to sit down on the bed because there was only one chair in the room and she was in it.

"What's your name?" Remo asked, displaying the pad.

"Cynthia Felton."

"Age?"

"Twenty."

"Home?"

"East Hudson, New Jersey. A gritty town, but Daddy likes it. Sit down."

"Oh, yes," Remo said, lowering himself to a bluish blanket. "And let's see, what do you think is the woman's relation to the cosmos?"

"Metaphysically?"

"Of course."

"Essentially woman is the child bearer in an anthropoidal society, bounded on one hand by the society per se, that is empirically correct, rather to say... are you taking all this down?"

"Of course, of course," Remo said increasing the pace of his scribbling to keep up with the incomprehensible academic imbecilities of his subject. At the end of the interview, he conceded he did not understand all that he had been told, but would like a further explanation of some of the finer points.

Cynthia was sorry, but she had a full day the next day.

The writer pleaded that only she could help unravel this metaphysical knot.

"No," was the answer, "definitely not."

Perhaps then, asked the writer, she would have breakfast with him.

No, was the answer again, she had a full schedule.

Then, perhaps, asked the writer, she would give him a picture of her blue, blue eyes.

Why, was the question, did he want a picture of her blue, blue eyes?

Because, was the answer, they were the bluest, blue eyes the writer had ever seen.

"Nonsense," was the retort.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Cynthia was to have been at the restaurant at 9:15. With any other woman tardiness wouldn't have been unusual. But with these social purpose types, they lived almost like men. Punctual, efficient.

If MacCleary couldn't penetrate, the penthouse must have traps. What the hell would he be getting into?

Remo fingered the glass of water before him. Somehow Vietnam was different. You could always return to your own outfit. At night, you knew someone else was on guard if you weren't. There was protection.

Remo sipped the water that tasted too much of chemicals. There was no protection in this racket. No retreat. No group. For the rest of his life he would always be attacking or retreating. He put down the glass and stared at the door. He could walk out now, just leave the restaurant, and get lost forever.

Remo forced his eyes away from the door. I will read the paper, he told himself. I will read the paper from the first page to the last and when I am done I will leave this restaurant, drive to New Jersey, find Mr. Felton and see what Maxwell's man can do.

Remo read words that meant nothing. He kept losing his place, forgetting which paragraph he had read. Before he finished the lead story, someone snatched the paper from his hands.

"How long does it take you to read a paper?" It was Cynthia, in a blouse, a skirt and a big clean smile, wrinkling the paper as she stood by the table. She dropped the bundled paper on a passing tray, startling the waiter who never got a chance to give her a dirty look because she didn't bother to glance at him for a reaction.

She sat down and plopped two thick volumes on the table.

"I'm famished," she announced.

"Eat," Remo said.

Cynthia tilted her head in mock wonder. "I've never seen anyone so glad to see me. You've got a grin on your face as if I'd just promised you a hundred years of healthy living."

Remo nodded and leaned back in the seat. He flipped her a menu.

The dainty little Briarcliff junior, whose mind was created only for aesthetic pleasures, downed an orange juice, steak and waffles, chocolate sundae, two glasses of milk, and a cup of coffee with two cinnamon buns.

Remo ordered fried rice.

"How quaint," Cynthia exclaimed. "Are you into Zen?"

"No. Just a light eater."

"How fascinating." At the last cinnamon bun, she began to talk. "I think your story should be about sex," she said.

"Why?"

"Because sex is vital. Sex is real. It's honest."

"Oh," Remo said.

"It's what life's about." She leaned forward waving the cinnamon bun like a bomb. "That's why they destroy sex. Give it meanings it was never supposed to have."

"Who are 'they'?"

"The structure. The power structure. All this nonsense about love and sex. Love has nothing to do with sex. Sex has nothing to do with love. Marriage is farce perpetrated on the masses by the power structure."

"Them?"

"Right. They."

She bit viciously into the bun. "They've even gone so far as to say that sex is for reproduction. That, thank God, is dying out now. Sex is sex," she said, spraying crumbs. "It's nothing else." She wiped her mouth. "It's the most fundamental experience a human can participate in, right?"

Remo nodded. This was going to be too easy. "And in marriage, it gets most fundamental of all," he said.

"Crap."

"What?"

"Crap," Cynthia said casually. "Marriage is crap."

"Don't you want to get married?"

"What for?"

"For fundamental experience."

"It only clouds the issue."

"But your father. Don't you want to make your father happy?"