Warren Murphy: The Eleventh Hour

"Screw the code. I'm at the hospital."

"You were supposed to eliminate your target, not hospitalize him," Smith said.

"Forget him. This is more serious. Chiun has just been admitted. He's sick."

"Oh no," said Smith. He paused, "This is another one of his schemes to extort more gold for his village, isn't it? We just negotiated another contract. The submarine is about to leave for his village. No," Smith corrected, "tell Chiun that the sub has already left with the gold. It's too late to renegotiate."

"Will you forget your budget and listen to what I'm saying? Chiun is really sick. This is serious. The doctors can't figure out what's wrong with him."

"Come, come, Remo. Chiun is a Master of Sinanju. One of the most powerful creatures to ever walk upright. He can't be sick. Masters of Sinanju never get sick-do they?"

"They die, Smith. You know that. They don't live forever."

"You have a point," said Smith, his voice mixing worry and doubt. "But this had better not be malingering on your part. I don't want you thinking that because we now see the light at the end of the tunnel for CURE that you can start slacking off."

"Smitty, it's a good thing you're not standing in front of me right now," Remo said softly.

Smith cleared his throat. "Perhaps you had better fill me in on Chiun's medical status."

"I got caught in a fire. The house collapsed. I don't remember anything that happened after that. The next I knew I was on the ground and Chiun was standing over me. I think he carried me out while I was unconcious. Then he just fainted or something. One minute he was talking some nonsense, the next he was out cold. They're running tests on him now."

"When does the doctor expect results?"

"I don't know. Sounds like they'll be half the night. I'm worried."

"So am I, Remo. But I'm getting news reports of numerous fires raging all over greater Detroit."

"Forget the firebugs. We'll get them next year. I'm staying with Chiun."

"Let me remind you, Remo, that your investigation has turned up the name of the single motivating person behind Devil's Night. And that person, directly or indirectly, is responsible for the fire that caused this accident."

"Joakley isn't going anywhere."

"If you don't want to get him for me, or for CURE, or for America, then get him for Chiun. He's the reason Chiun's been hurt."

Remo's eyes narrowed. "Yeah. Chiun would want me to do that. Smitty, I'll get back to you."

* * *

The headlines the next morning read: "RUNAWAY ROBOT MURDERS EX-DETROIT ASSEMBLYMAN."

The short item was accompanied by a photograph of the victim-a smiling broad-faced man. The caption gave his name as Moe Joakley. There was also a police sketch of the suspect. The suspect, was eight feet tall and had six arms. One of the arms ended in a giant ball-peen hammer, another in a hydraulic vise, and the rest in various other implements of destruction, including a flamethrower. The suspect's body consisted of stainless-steel jointed sections, like a centipede's body. It looked like a cross between an industrial robot and a Hindu statue.

The article admitted that the sketch was fanciful, but the police artist insisted that the damage done to the late Moe Joakley could only have been inflicted by a phantasm such as he drew.

Moe Joakley would have disagreed. He had been staring out the plate-glass window of his den, binoculars in hand, at precisely the stroke of midnight. His police scanner roved the band, stopping at every emergency call. To the south, fires burned out of control. A row of apartment houses smoldered on the east side. That was good. It was overdue for urban renewal.

It had been more than two hours since the last of the trick-or-treaters knocked on Moe Joakley's door looking for the kind of treat only he supplied in the whole city. Usually the last of them showed up before ten o'clock. But the fires often burned till two. Not a bad number this year. But only four deaths. Up one from last year, but down from the all-time high of fifty-five in 1977. Those were the good days.

Moe Joakley poured himself a drink. Halloween night. It was his favorite time of year. For better than twenty years, Moe Joakley had ruled Detroit on Halloween-an invisible king enthroned in a glass tower.

Moe Joakley hadn't always been king. Once, he had been a teenager who just liked to set fires. Back in the sixties, there had been an exodus of people and businesses. Detroit, racked by crime and poverty, was turning into a ghost town. No one cared. And because no one cared, Moe Joakley had set fire to a row of warehouses one Halloween night while in the throes of his very first peach-wine drunk.

It felt good. When he sobered up, Joakley knew he couldn't do that sort of thing every day. It was special. So he counted the days and nights until the next Halloween. And set fire to another group of buildings.

The third year, he got together a gang. That's when it really started. The press called it Devil's Night. Moe Joakley was proud of that.

As the years went by, some of Joakley's teenage fellow arsonists grew up and dropped out of the annual ritual. That upset Moe Joakley. Friends shouldn't turn their backs on other friends. The first friend to do that was Harry Chariot. He had gotten married. A dumb excuse, Moe Joakley thought at the time.

So he had set fire to Harry's house that very next Halloween. Harry died. His wife too. It was the first time Moe Joakley had tasted blood. He liked it.

But he was also smart enough to know that an adult couldn't continue to get away with the same pranks teenagers did forever. One year, he stopped, too. Not stopped causing fires, just setting them personally. Moe had a reputation to live up to. He had gone into politics, and succeeded in getting himself elected assemblyman of his home district. He was swept into office on a platform of stopping Devil's Night.

And sure enough, the next year, the fires in his district stopped. They went up in all other districts. That was thanks to the teenagers Joakley had sent out.

Joakley knew that wisdom was passed from older kids to younger. Once he had started one group setting fires, it was inevitable that younger brothers and sidekicks would be drawn into Devil's Night. And there were always new kids coming up every year.

Twenty years, and no one ever turned Moe Joakley in.

So he sat enjoying the pretty red flames in the distance, not noticing the grandfather clock toll the final midnight of his misspent life.

He didn't expect a knock on the door this late. But Moe went to the door anyway.

"Who is it, please?"

"Trick or treat!" an unfamiliar voice said. It sounded adult.

"Who is it?"

"Is this Moe Joakley?"

"That's the name on the brass plate. But it's after midnight. Go away. I'm out of candy."

"I don't want candy."

"Then what?"

"You know."

"Tell me," Moe Joakiey prompted.

"I want to burn something."

Moe Joakley hesitated. Out his window, the fires were dying down. What the hell? Maybe this could go on all night. He opened the door.

The man at the door was in a funny costume. His chest was bare, and there was a deep bruise around his throat. Must be a new fad, Joakley thought to himself. The punk look must be dead.

"Come on in. You're older than most of the others."

"You the guy that hands out the firebug stuff?" Remo Williams asked coolly.

"Shhh!" said Moe Joakley. "Here, take a bottle."

"I'm not thirsty," said Remo.

"It's not to drink. It's full of gasoline."

"Oh," said Remo.

"If the cops catch you, offer them the bottle. Usually they'll let you go and keep it, thinking it's booze."

"What if they open it first?"

"Then you're on your own. If they question me, I'll do two things. First, I'll admit giving you the bottle, but I'll say you drank the booze and then filled it with gasoline yourself."