Warren Murphy - Mob Psychology

He engaged the back-trace program.

To his surprise, he got a non-working number, but a different one than had previously called in answer to the blackmail ad. The locale numbers were the same, however. North Quincy, Massachusetts. It was a significant clue. One Smith would return to later.

As he poked through the LANSCII data base, he came upon a new file being created hundreds of miles to the north.

As he watched, fascinated, duplicate letters were appearing before his eyes. A strange word completed itself:

'TERRAPINS.'

"What on earth?"

Silently, letter by letter, a second word appeared beside it: "SKIM."

"Terrapin skim?" said Smith dully.

He had to look the first word up on his electronic dictionary, and when he did, he knew instantly the next target of the Boston Mafia. And he knew how much money was about to pour into the LANSCII files, not merely from Boston, but from factories as far away as Hong Kong and Melbourne.

The Mafia was about to wrap its tentacles around one of the greatest enterprises of modern times.

Harold Smith reached for the telephone, his agile mind instantly recalling from memory the phone number of the Boston hotel where Remo and Chiun were staying.

There was still time to head off this new move.

Chapter 28

All Jeter Baird ever wanted out of life was to draw comic books.

It was a simple aspiration, a very American one. One which might never have come true for the young artist had an Amherst, Massachusetts, Backgammon pizza shop not been filled to overflowing on the Friday night after finals in late May 1984.

Artist Jeter Baird was balancing a shaky tray containing a provolone-and-sausage pizza and two jumbo Dr. Peppers as he looked about for an empty table. There were no empty tables. Jeter needed an empty table. He was so shy he couldn't stand not to eat alone. What if a girl struck up a conversation? He didn't know how to talk to girls. Jeter also needed the table space to accommodate the sketchpad tucked under his arm.

Since finals at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst were over, Jeter was looking forward to a long sultry summer of fevered sketching. Mostly of girls.

If only he could snag some table space in the tiny pizza shop that was jammed to the counters with his fellow students.

Finally a pair of long-legged blonds evacuated a round corner table.

Jeter Baird lunged for it, his tray held before him like a battering ram carried edge-on.

Simultaneously Devin Western lunged for the identical table, an identical tray slicing the air before him, a sketchpad of his own tucked under his arm.

They landed in their seats together.

"I saw it first," whined Jeter.

"No, I did," insisted Devin.

"Well, I need the whole table for sketching."

"Me too."

The impasse lasted only long enough for each budding young artist to register the fact that he was in the presence of another budding young artist. They glanced warily at one another's work.

"You published?" Jeter asked Devin, getting to the heart of the matter. He knew that no college art student drew comic book superheroes unless he aspired to publication.

"No. You?"

"No."

Silence filled the corner of the noisy room.

"But I'm working on a neat idea," said Devin. "Terrapin-Man."

"What's a terrapin?" asked Jeter.

"Kind of turtle that swims."

"Why not call him Sea Turtle-Man then?"

"Because CD Comics just published Master Turtle."

Jeter nodded in sad sympathy. "Yeah, Wonder Comics got Squirrel Woman into print while I was still designing the costume for Squirrel Girl."

"I like 'Squirrel Girl' better. It rhymes."

"Her true identity was going to be Doreen Green, because that rhymes too."

"Maybe we could collaborate," suggested Devin.

"Great! Can you write?"

"No. Can you?"

"'No."

More silence. Jeter Baird and Devin Western eyed their pizzas with a sad mixture of disappointment and hunger.

Popular culture stood at a crossroads at that moment, although neither artist knew it. Had they fallen to eating their cooling pizza in sullen silence, billions of dollars would never have changed hands, tens of thousands of craftsmen, assembly-line workers, shippers, and truck drivers worldwide would have gone without work, and millions of children across the globe would have grown up with lives somehow emptier and joyless, and no one would ever have known it.

It was then that Devin said, "I know. We'll both write and we'll both draw."

"Great," they said in unison, flipping open their sketchbooks to blank pages.

As their pizzas cooled and congealed, they swapped ideas.

"Terrapin Warrior," suggested Devin. "We'll make him a ninja. Ninjas are hot."

"That was last year. Androids are big this year. Personally, I think androids are too plastic to last. Mutants are good for another five years. We should do mutants."

"Mutants suck. They're always whining and complaining about being mutants. Besides, I don't want to be too commercial. I'm a serious comic-book artist."

"Yeah," said Jeter. "When you're too commercial, no one respects your work."

Marketing philosophies in synch, Jeter Baird and Devin Western brainstormed to closing. The trouble was, they found, all the great superhero character names were taken.

"Cow Princess," Jeter announced, holding up a pencil rough of a voluptuous Amazon with a triple-decker bosom. "She gores her enemies with her forehead horns."

Devin frowned with his mouth and ogled with his eyes.

"My mother would kill me if she caught me drawing a girl with six breasts," he said. "Besides, cows don't have horns."

They went back to work.

"Ira-dah!" Devin shouted. "Giraffe Boy."

"How will he get through doors with that neck?" asked Jeter critically, looking at the hasty sketch. "You know how much trouble Flaming Carrot has."

"Good point. Maybe we should get away from animals and fish. Be original. Go with. . . ."

"Fruit. "

"The Ultimate Pistachio," cried Devin, sketching up a storm. "See, he wears a giant kevlar-titanium pistachio shell over his face to conceal his true identity as a migrant worker. "

"Do pistachios have superpowers?" wondered Jeter.

Devin chewed his pencil eraser. "They're hard and salty," he ventured.

"so's Popeye the Sailor, and he hasn't been big since the fifties. "

"I still like my terrapins," Devin said forlornly, scribbling a quartet of happy reptilian faces.

"Mutant Terrapins!" Jeter shouted in triumph.

"No. We gotta be original. Can't call them mutants."

"Transformed Terrapins," suggested Jeter, adding a row of domino masks to his newfound collaborator's sketch.

"Good start," said Devin, grinning with approval. "How about giving them nunchuks?"

"How about Transformed Tae Kwon Do Teen Terrapins?" blurted out Jeter Baird, inadvertently coining a new industry.

"Yeah, yeah. It's fresh, it's original, and most if all it's not commercial."

"Right. No one will take us seriously if we're too commercial. "

Little did they dream.

By emptying their tuition funds, Jeter and Devin printed five hundred thousand copies of the first issue of Transformed Tae Kwon Do Teen Terrapins, and when the first shipment arrived at their dorm, they ripped open the boxes and reveled in the thrill of being published comic-book artists at last.

Then harsh reality sank in.

"This isn't as funny as I remember," said Devin.

"Maybe we should have hired a writer," muttered Jeter.

They looked at one another, going as slack-jawed as their creations.

"Will anyone buy these?" wondered Devin.

"Will we ever finish our education?" worried Jeter.

Their eyes widened in alarm as they realized that their mothers were going to kill them when they found out.