Warren Murphy - Death Sentence

"And?"

"Looks normal."

"Hooray for higher primates," Remo muttered. "Can we resume now, or would you like to take my temperature?"

"I already know your temperature," Naomi said archly. "You're hot. Like me."

"Thank you." Remo started again. He was just getting his concentration back when suddenly Naomi's eyes flew open and her hands clutched his naked chest.

"Oh, my God. You've been in prison!"

Remo stopped. "Is that just dawning on you?"

"You could have AIDS. I forgot all about it."

"What's AIDS?" Remo asked seriously.

Naomi frowned. "Don't tell me you never heard of AIDS."

"Never."

"Get off."

"I was just getting started."

"Get off! We'll finish later," Naomi said in a brisk, businesslike voice. She gathered up her pad and pencil and assumed a seated position on the futon. With a disgusted look on his face, Remo did the same.

"AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease," Naomi said officiously. "It's the biggest news story of the last ten years. And you never heard of it."

"Never," Remo said solemnly. He raised his right hand for effect, hoping to get this over with quickly.

"What if I told you that Ronald Reagan was president?"

"I'd ask of what?"

"The United States of America," Naomi said flatly.

"When did that happen?"

"Ten years ago. He's out of office now."

"Can't be. I know who's president. It's . . ." Remo stopped.

"Never mind. Who is Pee-Wee Herman?"

"A baseball player?"

"What does the phrase 'Made in Japan' mean to you?"

"A joke."

"You are out of touch."

Remo felt his manhood shrink as the questions came on. Finally Naomi looked up from her pad. "You say you've been on death row for twenty years, but you don't know some of the most basic facts of American social life that have occurred over that span of time."

"We don't get to read much on death row," Remo said defensively.

"How much do you remember of your time at Trenton?"

"Stuff. Different people. It all kinda runs together. You live in the same cell most of the time. What's to remember, except the walls?"

"Tell me every concrete memory you can dredge up," Naomi prompted.

Remo sighed. His responses were slow, halting. When he was through, Naomi looked at the fragmentary answers inscribed in her notepad.

"Your memory has been tampered with," she said firmly. "You have some kind of weird amnesia. I'm no psychologist, but you seem to have memories of things that may never have happened, yet at the same time, you don't remember things that you obviously were doing."

"How can that be?"

"I don't know," Naomi Vanderkloot said, looking down at Remo's lap with one eye closed and her thumb and forefinger poised like a pincer.

Remo looked down at himself. "What are you doing?"

"Measuring it. It's called Anthropometry."

"You already did that."

"That was tumescent. This is flaccid."

"This is crap," Remo said, getting to his feet. He drew on his black guard's pants and T-shirt.

"Wait! Where are you going?" Naomi cried.

"To Folcroft. I'm not getting diddly here."

Chapter 21

For the Master of Sinanju, the long journey ended at the closed gates of what was known in the scrolls he maintained as Fortress Folcroft, wrongly believed by some to be a lunatic asylum.

The taxi stopped at the gate under the brooding faces of the stone lion heads that looked down from the wrought-iron gate.

"Why do you stop here?" Chiun, Reigning Master of Sinanju, demanded querulously.

"The freaking guards won't open the gate," the cabby complained.

Chiun lowered his head to see beyond the driver's witless head. He saw that the wrought-iron portcullis was closed. Two guards stood beyond it, their weapons raised.

Chiun's wizened visage pinched up in surprise. These were true guards, not the feeble old men Smith had formerly employed. Had some threat to his emperor reared up in his absence?

"I will speak with them," Chiun told the driver. "Remove my belongings from the trunk."

The Master of Sinanju stepped from the back and strode, his hands tucked into the sleeves of his saffron kimono, to the locked gates.

"I am Chiun," he said sternly to the hard-faced guards. But within his heart he was pleased. Smith had obviously doubled the guards during his absence. It was a tribute to his emperor's regard for the services of the Master of Sinanju.

"Are you a patient?" one of the guards asked.

Chiun drew himself up haughtily. "I serve Harold Smith."

The other guard looked at the one who had asked the impertinent question. They nodded in unison, gazes locked.

Chiun allowed a pleased smile to overtake his wrinkled face. They understood.

The gates opened automatically. It was another new security innovation, another tribute to the esteem in which America held Sinanju.

Chiun turned to the taxi driver, who was heaving his luggage from the taxi trunk with huffing sounds. "Have a care with my property, white," he warned. Then he felt an unmistakable preattack warning. He turned in a swirl of kimono skirts to behold the unbelievable sight of the two guards bearing down on him with hostile intent.

Chiun allowed them to feel the fineness of his kimono for a brief space of time as they attempted-and this was the truly unbelievable part-to take him in their naked, weaponless hands.

"There now-" one of them started to say.

And then he fell silent as he tried to clutch his own offending hand. The other guard's eyes went wide. Pain signals must have become confused in the first guard's tiny brain, for he attempted to grasp his uninjured hand with the other, not realizing-until he lifted to his shocked face the erupting red stump it had become-that he no longer had fingers with which to grasp.

Both guards stumbled off in silent fright. Chiun turned to the driver, who had witnessed none of this.

"Return my luggage to your vehicle," he commanded.

"What? You change your mind?"

"No. The guards did. They have graciously consented to allow your vehicle to enter these walls." Unhappily, the driver restored Chiun's steamer trunks and got behind the wheel. He drove through the gates, unaware that the splintering sounds under his wheel were not branches, but finger bones. Seated in back, Chiun decided that the guards were not a token of esteem after all. The physical presence of the Master of Sinanju was not necessary to deter enemies. Merely the knowledge that Sinanju stood by a kingdom was enough. Chiun would so inform Smith-after he scolded him for the rudeness of his new and unnecessary guards.

The lobby-reception-desk person was also new. He declined to allow the Master of Sinanju to see Dr. Smith.

"Dr. Smith isn't allowed visitors," he said firmly. "Unless you are family, which I can see you are not."

"What! Smith denies me!" Chiun flared. "I, who have been like a father to him." The Master of Sinanju waited for the functionary's reaction. It was a white expression he had heard used to good effect on daytime television dramas in the days when they were worthy of his attention.

"You can't be serious," the functionary said.

The Master of Sinanju had heard that expression on TV as well. It was usually followed by the laughter of unseen people-the same ones who laughed at every bad joke yet sat silent during the truly humorous portions of certain offensive programs called sitcoms.

Chiun decided that this person was unimportant and glided past him to the elevators. The functionary called out the word "Guard!" once and Chiun listened to the yelling of the converging guards as the elevator door closed on his stern visage. Something was amiss at Fortress Folcroft. Smith had much explaining to do.

Emerging on the second floor, Chiun was pleased to see the same woman holding forth at Smith's reception desk. She was known as Smith's secretary, an odd designation, Chiun thought, for she knew none of Smith's secrets.