Warren Murphy: Sue Me

"And every one of them going for improved and better sound, not only for today but also for tomorrow."

"But wasn't this money supposed to go to the poor people of Gupta?"

"Everything after expenses did go to Gupta, we are led to believe. I think they got the very latest in the 'ouchless' gauze bandage."

"Look, to me that's fraud. And maybe you can pull off fraud against most people, but I got a friend, a good friend, and my friend Remo . . ."

As soon as the word was out of her mouth she heard a fast click, and live noncomputer voice got on the phone. She knew it didn't come from a computer because no computer could be so grating on the ears. It twanged like a rusty nail across a piece of concrete.

"Remo as in Remo and Chiun," came the voice.

"Yeah. Them. You know them?"

"Know of them? They're my heroes, little lady. My name is Robert Dastrow, that's D as in Data, A as in Arithmetic, S as in Silicone, T as in Titanium, R as in Robot, O as in Ohm, and W as in Wildebeest; heh, heh, sometimes I throw in an animal. I'm a card, you know."

"Look, is there any way you can return some of that money to the people of Gupta? If you'd seen them suffering, you'd know we should do something."

"Right you are, sweet lips," came the voice. "I think we ought to talk about it. We ought to talk about it some more. I'd love to give everything to Gupta, but I have to know what kind of person you are, not just some fly-by-night who wants a million here and a million there."

"I'm a rock star. I'm rich," said Debbie.

But it wasn't enough for Dastrow, D as in Data, A as in Arithmetic, and so on, and finally Debbie Pattie agreed to meet the man with the rusty voice.

Robert Dastrow looked as he sounded. As though he should be in some hardware store west of Chillicothe. Ohio. He wore a plain starched white shirt with pencils in the pocket, wire-rimmed glasses, and a crew cut. If Debbie wanted to cast the perfect class nerd, she would call on Robert Dastrow.

But if he was so backward, why was the conversation never going where she wanted and always getting strangely back to Remo and Chiun? You would think he had something for them and not her. He wanted to know what they ate, how she felt about their vibrations, how they made love (if she could be supposed to know such information). He wanted to know any strange things they might have talked about.

"Well, it was like a family fight that went on all the time, like. You know what I mean? Like the old man was really his mother, you know? Not his father. His mother. Always telling him he didn't do this right or that right. You know, a mother who's always bitchin'. A normal mother."

"My mother wasn't like that," said Dastrow.

"Well, maybe where you're from they're different. But he was like his mother. And they were always arguing, sometimes in English. Sometimes in Korean."

"Did the older one seem to know more than the younger?"

"The older one didn't like this country, didn't like working here. Thought they ought to go."

"And just what work did they do?"

"I dunno. Those two were as mysterious about that as 'The Twilight Zone.' A weird pair. Bunch of stuck-ups. Who do they think they are, right? Remo thought he was better than everyone."

"You had problems with him?"

"Everyone had problems with him. The nice one was Chiun."

"I'll tell you what I'll do. You seem like a dedicated person and this concert was for charity. There is one way I can make back my investment if I sign over all the equipment funds to the Save committee. And that's if you introduce my new electronic guitar tonight. Because if you use it, and everyone sees how good it is, then golly, I'm off and running."

"All of the money you took goes to Gupta, right?"

"Yessiree, little lady."

"Is the guitar heavy? I can't work heavy. I move a lot. I'm a dancer too."

"I'll make it light. It's got a lot of wires, though. It works sort of on your brainwaves too."

And thus Debbie Pattie in the prime of her career allowed herself to be strapped into the new electronic guitar. Electrodes were set on her scalp and on her wrists and ankles, and when she began to play, this arrangement worked just as well as it did on any other electric chair.

Debbie Pattie got enough volts while singing before her rock crowd to do away with half the capital offenders in New Jersey.

Remo heard about her death on the television show Chiun was watching as he was packing his things, one extra shirt and one extra pair of pants. The problem wasn't packing the shirt and pants, the problem was getting them into Chiun's fourteen steamer trunks.

To squeeze in Remo's clothes, Chiun would have to get rid of a sleeve of one kimono. He carried a hundred and fourteen with him for light travel in the trunks, and each one, Remo suggested, became at one time or another the most important one. Finally Remo pointed out that there was a high unlikelihood of Chiun needing one only for the Campobasso Festival of the Grape in Italy, since the Italians hadn't worshipped Dionysus since A.D. 200 or so.

"Just when you discard a piece of a kimono is when you need it most," said Chiun. "But all right. Mutilate its beautiful wine essence. If you are ready to leave this insane asylum at last, I will endure it." Chiun was watching a soap opera he had loved in the early and mid-seventies but one which now he disliked for its filth and violence. However, on occasion he would tune it in, and this time it was interrupted to announce another rock star was dead as a result of the Concert of Death in which so many had died to save the suffering people of Gupta.

The viewers were warned that the scenes might be too horrible to look at. To avoid the horror, people should not look at the scenes which would be shown now, at the six-o'clock news, and the eleven-o'clock news.

"This is the Debbie Pattie concert," intoned the announcer, and intense noise and a heavy beat followed. Debbie's voice was barely a whisper, a whisper of talk, and then it grew louder, and her multicolored painted face turned a reddish hue and then she was screaming, and thrashing in the wires of the electronic guitar. She rolled on the ground screaming as the audience joined her in ecstatic yells. The drummer picked up pace and the fans were jumping in their seats. Some of them ran hysterically up onto the stage.

When the song was over, Debbie Pattie stopped convulsing and was still as the audience went wild. Unfortuantely she remained just as still when the next number began. Men in white coats ran out, the necessary medical teams that always accompanied rock concerts. Normally they were used for the crowds. One of them placed a stethoscope over her heart.

"It was only then," came the announcer's voice, "that the fans realized, that everyone realized Ms. Pattie was not singing, but had been electrocuted by a malfunction in her guitar."

Within minutes there was another interruption, and Debbie's manager said the song would be released as a single, calling it her best work ever. A writer for Rambling Rock magazine appeared, calling it "the most powerful, sensitive interpretation of a larger scope of the dynamic of the frontiers of rock than Ms. Pattie had ever dared explore before. It was bold, yet in full knowledge of its absolute sensitivity, combined with a tonal daring that went beyond known frontiers of harmonization."

And then there was the report that got Remo's interest. Half her money was going to the victims in Gupta, but with a special proviso: no organization would collect it, but it was to be handed directly to the poor people in cash.

"Ms. Pattie had been investigating the use of the Save concert money at the time of her death," said an announcer.

"She was all right," said Remo. "She was better than I thought. She cared. She really did. She smelled awful but she cared."