Warren Murphy: Created, The Destroyer

"Did he really say that?"

"His exact words." She mimicked her father's voice. "I want to meet him very badly."

An alarm bell rang in Remo's mind. Felton sounded just a bit too eager. He chuckled.

"Why are you laughing?"

"Nothing. It's kind of an inside joke, between myself and me."

"I hate inside jokes when I'm not inside."

"It's not a very nice inside to be on," he said.

They left the cab, Remo escorting Cynthia onto the sidewalk.

The doorman did not recognize her and was startled when she said, "Hi, Charlie."

He blinked and said, "Oh, Miss Cynthia. I thought you were still at school."

"No, I'm not," Cynthia said pleasantly and unnecessarily. The foyer was spacious and striking, with light and free-flowing modern designs interplaying in a harmony of colours and motion.

The foyer rug was soft but not too pliant and Remo felt as if he were walking over densely packed fresh-cut grass. The air was pure, too, as invisible air conditioners pumped in their charcoal-filtered product.

"No, not those elevators," Cynthia said. "We have a special one. It's in back."

"Oh, I should have guessed," Remo said.

"You're mad at something."

"No," he said. "Not at all."

"You are."

"I'm not."

"You didn't think we had this much money and you're mad because you've suddenly found out I'm stinking rich."

"Why should I be mad at that?"

"Because you think it compromises you, makes you look like a fortune-hunter."

Remo would settle for her explanation. "Well..." he said.

"Let's not discuss it," Cynthia said, reaching into her purse for keys. As women often do, she had argued both sides and was angry because one of them had lost.

"Now, listen," Remo said, his voice rising. "You started..."

"See, I told you you were mad."

"I'm not mad, dammit, but I'm going to be," Remo yelled.

Softly Cynthia said, "Then why are you yelling?"

She didn't expect an answer. She fumbled in her purse and came out with a special key on a silver chain. The key, instead of being stamped from flat metal, ended with a round tube which she inserted in a round hole on the side of the highly-burnished steel elevator door. Remo had seen the key before. He had taken one like it among the others from the ignition of a Cadillac in which three men were killed.

Cynthia held the key to the right for about ten seconds, then turned it to the left for another ten, then removed it. The elevator door opened like none Remo had ever seen before. It didn't pull to the side. It lifted up into the wall.

"You're probably thinking there's something strange about this elevator," she said.

"Sort of," Remo admitted.

"Well, Daddy goes to these weird extremes to keep undesirable elements out of the building and especially our apartment. If he's not expecting you, you have to use the key. This elevator goes only to our floor. By using this one, we don't have to wait in the room."

"Room?" Remo asked.

"Yes. A special room you have to wait in while Jimmy, the butler, looks through a one-way mirror to see who you are. I watched him once when I was little."

She placed her ringed finger on Remo's broad chest. He felt the soft, urgent pressure. "Please don't think Daddy eccentric. He's had such a hard time since mother."

"What happened?"

"Well, you'll have to know sooner or later." The elevator door shut behind them and they rose, slowly at first, then quickly, silently, cables and gears immaculately meshing in a smooth concert of action.

"Mother," Cynthia said, "carried on with another man. I was about eight. We were never close, Mother and I. She worried more about how she looked than how she acted. Anyhow, Daddy found her one day with a man. I was in the living room. He told both of them to leave and they left. And we never saw them again. Since then, he hasn't been the same. I think that's why he's so protective where I'm concerned."

"You mean, he installed all these special safety gadgets after that?"

Cynthia paused. "Well, no, not exactly. He had all that as long as I could remember. But, well, he was always sensitive, and that just made him more so. Don't think badly of him. I love him."

"I have the greatest respect for him," Remo said, and then very casually added in an even tone, a very even tone: "Maxwell."

"What?"

"Maxwell."

"What?" Cynthia looked puzzled.

"I thought you said Maxwell," Remo said. "Didn't you say that?"

"No. I thought you said it."

"Said what?" Remo asked.

"Maxwell."

"I never heard of any Maxwell, have you?"

Cynthia shook her head and smiled. "Just a coffee and a car. I don't know how we got started on this."

"Neither do I," said Remo with a shrug of his shoulders. The gambit had worked but it had produced nothing.

In Folcroft classes, an instructor had made him practice dropping a name or a test word at the end of a sentence. Remo had told the instructor it was the stupidest thing he had ever heard of next to asking a man if he were a spy.

And the instructor had answered that he should try asking that very thing sometime, very casually, as if requesting a match and see what happened. "Watch the eyes," the instructor had intoned.

Remo had watched Cynthia's eyes and they had remained blue, clear, beautiful and guileless.

The elevator door opened, this time from the bottom, sinking out of sight. Cynthia gave a "What-can-you-do-with-Daddy?" shrug and walked into a large library, magnificently furnished in fine oak with a view of New York from a large white-tiled patio with a mended palm pot in the corner.

"This is it," Cynthia beamed, "Isn't it beautiful?"

Remo examined the walls, his eyes searching for cracks, a change in shade of paint, a bookcase out of line, a hint, any hint to where the walls moved. Nothing.

"Yes," he said, "very beautiful."

"Daddy," she yelled, "I'm home and he's with me."

Remo walked to the center of the room, keeping his back equi distant from the three walls. He suddenly wished he had brought a revolver.

The elevator door rose silently to the top, sealing off the lift. It blended almost perfectly with the white wall, the only one free of books. If he hadn't known the elevator was there, Remo never would have seen the seam. That's what MacCleary had meant by moving walls. Near the invisible elevator door was a real door, probably the one leading to the main elevator. It was arranged so a man hiding behind that door would be duck soup for someone coming off the hidden elevator.

So the walls moved.

"In the library, Daddy. We used the special elevator," Cynthia called out.

"Coming, dear." The voice was heavy.

Felton came into the room through the obvious door. Remo sized him up. Medium sized, but heavy set, with a massive neck. He wore a gray suit and he was carrying a side arm under the jacket. It was probably one of the finest jobs of concealing a shoulder holster Remo had ever seen. The suit's shoulders were padded heavily to leave a drape over the chest. Concealed under this drape on the left side was a revolver.

Remo was looking so intently for the gun that he didn't see Felton's mouth open in astonishment.

"What?" Felton yelled.

Startled, Remo spun quickly, moving into a defensive position on the balls of his feet. But Felton had not yelled at Remo. He was yelling at Cynthia, his bull neck turning red.

"What have you done to yourself? What have you done?"

"But, Daddy," Cynthia whined, running to the large man and throwing her arms over his powerful shoulders, "I look beautiful this way."

"You look like a street walker. You look beautiful without lipstick."

"I don't look like a street walker. I know what street walkers look like."

"You what?" Felton boomed. He raised an arm.