Warren Murphy: Feeding Frenzy

He pulled both lips into line and turned.

He began, "Who-?"

"-Me," Remo shot back.

"Leave!" said Hardy Bricker, testing his tough voice.

"No," said Remo.

"Don't make me call the guards."

"Don't think you have the lungs to wake them," Remo said casually.

"They dead?"

"Asleep, and so will you be if you don't listen to me."

"Listen to what?"

"I've got this idea for a movie," Remo said.

Bricker groaned. "Everybody's got an idea for a movie," he moaned. "What's yours? Little green men in a spaceship who captured you one night in Iowa? Or a tender love story about a sixteen-year-old and an eighty-year-old checkout clerk at the local Acme? Or maybe a ghost story about a guy who comes back to save his sweetheart's life from killers? I've heard them all. What's yours?"

"Naaaah, nothing like that. I've got this story about a big government conspiracy. To wipe out whole races of people. To promote fascism. Racism. The whole military-industrial conspiracy-stuff like that."

Hardy Bricker's soft features quirked into attentiveness. "Conspiracy?"

"A conspiracy with fifteen thousand people in on the secret," Remo said.

The tension went out of Hardy Bricker's overfed body. "That sounds like something more up my alley," he said, sitting down suddenly. He waved Remo to a chair.

"Alley's the right word," Remo mumbled, adding in an audible voice, "I thought you might like it." He took the other chair. Remo leaned over and whispered conspiratorially, "You know how your movies are always about government conspiracies?"

Hardy Bricker learned forward too. He looked Remo in the eye. "Yeah?" he said, his tone equally conspiratorial.

"Well, I've got the biggest one." Remo pretended to look to see that the door was closed and then that there were no strange faces or shotgun microphones at the only window. "There's a secret government agency, see, and it hires contract killers and they go around knocking off everybody who pisses them off."

"Sounds about right. Who are the killers?"

"Well, one of them is this misunderstood American guy. He grew up in an orphanage in Newark and used to be a cop until they conned him into working for the Feds."

"And he's a racist, right?"

"No, no," Remo said. "He loves everybody. He's really kind of sweet. Thoughtful. Gentle, even."

"Screw all that sweet and gentle. I want some racists. That's what I make movies about. Racist evil Americans. Who's the other guy?"

"You'd like him. He is a racist. He hates everybody."

"Good. Now we're getting somewhere," Bricker said, his puffy face relaxing like a sponge absorbing water.

"Okay," said Remo. "He's about a hundred years old, see? Although he'll only own up to eighty. And he's from this small village and his family have been supporting the village by being professional assassins for a couple of thousand years. See, he gets into it because this secret agency hired him to train the young American and make him into a great assassin too."

"Right. Got it. Where's the village? Upstate New York?"

"No, actually it's called Sinanju. That's in North Korea."

Hardy Bricker's interested expression soured. "You mean this eighty-year-old great assassin is some dinky North Korean?"

"Right," said Remo.

"That's ridiculous! I don't want a Korean racist. I want an American racist. Somebody put you up to this, didn't they? One of the major studios, right? They're trying to con me with this cock-and-bull story about two secret assassins. All right fella, tell me. Who are you?"

"I came on my own," Remo said truthfully.

"Good. Then leave on your own. Interview ended. Good-bye."

Hardy Bricker started to rise, but a hand he couldn't see coming pushed him back down into his chair. The hand stayed there. It was firm. It wasn't clutching or pinching or squeezing, but a numbness filled Hardy Bricker's soft shoulder like Novocaine invading a healthy tooth.

Hardy Bricker noticed then that the hand was attached to its forearm by a very thick wrist. He looked at the man's face again, as if seeing it for the first time. It was a strong face, dominated by deepset dark brown eyes and very pronounced cheekbones. The man's hair was as dark as his eyes and his mouth was a thin twist that suggested cruelty.

"Not until I finish pitching my story," the thickwristed man said casually. "So these two work for this secret government agency called CURE, and their job is to kill America's enemies."

"And they get away with it?"

"Of course," the man said, as if it was no big deal.

"Well, that's the part I like. But as for the rest of it, sorry, pal, it just won't fly."

The man said, "I haven't told you the best part."

"What's that?"

"You know how you always say that there's a secret government that really runs America and goes around killing people?"

"Yes. "

"You were right."

"I knew that."

"No, you were really right. In fact, it's bigger than you dreamed." The thick-wristed man made his voice conspiratorial again. "The President is in on it."

"Which President? Give me names."

"All of them."

"Since when?"

"Since CURE started. Back in the 1960's."

"You don't look old enough to go back that far."

"Macrosymbiotic diet," said the other. "Keeps me young. Besides, I didn't come in until later."

Hardy Bricker was trying to process the information coming into his barely wrinkled brain. Every President since the sixties. Mostly they were Republicans. Hardy was pretty sure about this, because in his forty-odd years of life only twice had he ever voted for a winner.

"Your story has a tinge of truth to it," he allowed.

"I thought you'd think so."

"But tell me this-if every President for the last four decades has known, how come none of them have talked-or shut you down?"

"They haven't talked because they can't."

"You kill them? Is that it?"

The thick-wristed man looked insulted. "No, no. We just erase their memories after they leave office, so that they think they remember everything about their term in office, but they don't."

"That must be an incredible machine that does it," Hardy Bricker said.

The guy blew on his wriggling fingers and said, "It is."

Hardy Bricker started to scoff but then remembered how numb his shoulder had gotten after the skinny guy had touched it.

"That part doesn't sound so plausible," he said.

"Sure it is. All over the human body are nerve centers. Sensitive nerve centers. It's just a matter of putting negative pressure on those nerve centers while reminding the subject of what he shouldn't remember."

"Reminding him of what he shouldn't remember? That sounds awfully Zen."

"The Zen guys overheard something they shouldn't have and that's how they got where they are today-which is to say playing with themselves."

"You're losing me."

"It's like this. I just the other day had a nice chat with the last President."

"Oh, him."

"Yeah, that one. I reminded him that he was supposed to forget all about us when he left office, and he let me pressure the nerve that sort of blocks the bad thoughts."

"This nerve-is it in the shoulder?"

"On some people."

"What kind?"

"Ones without a working brain." Hardy Bricker blinked his watery eyes rapidly, and Remo could tell by his expression that last part hadn't quite sunk in.

"If this is true, why are you telling me?" Bricker wanted to know.

"Because I got to thinking if we make every President we work for forget that there is a secret government agency that really runs America, even though we know they'll keep their mouths shut, we really shouldn't leave a blabbermouth like you out."

"Out of what?" said Hardy Bricker as the hand he couldn't see move came back to his shoulder and squeezed so hard he thought he heard his rotator cup pop.