Warren Murphy: Sue Me

"Money is in there," said Palmer.

"Right," said Dastrow. "Do it."

Palmer called in the best secretary in the office, the one who could spell. Palmer knew she was the one who could spell because a client once commented that this was the first letter he had ever received without a spelling error. None of the partners knew that because they couldn't spell either. No one ever got rich by spelling.

The secretary was a bit mistrustful at first but when she saw the new dollar bills, she grabbed a handful with thanks.

"All right, now what?" asked Palmer.

"First, don't any of you dare touch that money."

"All right," said Palmer, looking at the stacks of dollar bills. If they were his he just wanted to pocket a handful. Rizzuto thought of how they would look stacked in front of him at a poker table. Schwartz knew he could leverage that little box of money into a prime inwestment on margin.

"If you got that out in the street, would you refuse to take it?"

"Of course not," said Palmer icily.

"Now go out into your outer office and say hello to your secretary."

"What's going on here? I'm not going to a secretary. She's going to come in here."

"Won't work that way," said Dastrow.

"Don't tell me how my office works."

"Suit yourself," said Dastrow, and all three heard him whistle away the time while Palmer buzzed for the secretary who could spell. But she didn't come. Another one burst into the room.

"Mr. Palmer, she can't move. She says her hands feel numb and she's nauseous."

"I told you so," came the voice from the box.

"Who's that?"

"Never mind," Palmer told the secretary who had just entered.

When she had gone, Dastrow told Schwartz to take away the woman's pocketbook but be sure to wear gloves. He assured all of them their secretary would get better.

"But if she kept those dollar bills longer than a few moments, if she actually fingered them awhile, the damage would be permanent. She would lose her ability to perform good work, possibly even the ability to recognize loved ones, and she would never have a decent night's sleep again in her life. She's been poisoned."

On those words, Palmer, Rizzuto, and Schwartz began to understand the magnitude of their salvation. "The United States government, through its carelessness, has printed money that is toxic. You've got the United States government as your target. It's got all the money in the world. You've got everyone who handles money as your client. You're rich."

And then the laughter began. Dastrow even explained how it worked.

"At certain times during its destruction, paper money is naturally toxic. I just made sure that certain people readjusted the formula for the ink so that it would be toxic right away. The new ink isn't in place quite yet. But now is the time to get yourself on the ground floor. Now is the time for you to start accusing the Treasury of sloppy practices, perhaps even hint at the poisoning of innocent victims, everyone who trusts the American dollar."

Harold W. Smith could not miss the signs coming from Palmer, Rizzuto They were not only going to do it again, they were going to do it to America. But this time they made their biggest mistake.

At Grand Booree they had advertised they were coming. But in the new attack on the government money supply, Palmer, Rizzuto had made the fatal slip. Previously there had always been some form of protection on certain calls. Smith could tell when the blockages came up. But now these very calls from that source that had to be the source of all the accidents was open. And they had made the mistake of communicating with the government printing plant in Nevada, the one just outside the atomic testing range.

It was to this one that Harold W. Smith had ordered Remo, praying that it was not another trap like the Grand Booree. He really had no choice. If money could be made toxic, then there would be more than a negligence case. A whole nation would be crippled.

And Remo knew this. He knew the dangers as much as Smith. But someone, he said, had taught him a lesson about courage. Someone, he said, who had surprised him with her courage.

"We are not going down without a fight," he had said.

Smith felt relieved until his computers started picking up trouble at the atomic range site. It seemed that there was going to be an accident.

Robert Dastrow sat in his fixit shop, the perspiration pouring from his forehead. He wiped his hands several times on his slacks, and to take his mind off his worrying he played with his personal cyclotron for half an hour. But even that didn't help. He had finally come up against something he couldn't understand. This time he didn't know how things worked.

He had seen the reactions of Remo and Chiun, so he knew these were no ordinary men. But he realized they weren't mystical either. These two had perfected optimal use of the human body. Normally, less than ten percent of human physical potential was used in lifting and running. These two had somehow learned to use it all and maximize their power.

Everything Dastrow had done was done right. You examined something and then you fiddled a bit and then you knew how it worked. He had examined Remo and Chiun on the stage at the Save benefit performance. He had readouts that would have shamed an internist. Physically he knew exactly what they could do. They could do almost anything.

Then he did the fiddling. He tried them with guns, knives, and explosives, and that didn't work. So instead of fiddling some more he used what couldn't be dodged. A massive amount of water pressure, and the trap baited by triggering the patriotic urge of one of them.

It had worked perfectly even though it hadn't worked at all. They were better than he had thought. It was then that Robert Dastrow panicked and used a full court press.

He not only drew one of them to the atomic site, but he worked on what he had found out from Debbie Pattie. It was merely a tinkerer's kick at a machine. He was trying several things at once.

And so he waited, watching the clock and waiting for his machines to tell him that at least one of the enemy was dead. But the word didn't come. He made himself a peach milkshake with sweet marshmallow sauce and fruit sprinkles. He drank down the sweet goo, licking the faint pink mustache delicately from his lips. He had two more while waiting for Nevada to blow up. Instead of explosions he saw his machine answering someone, and then a red light when the machine indicated that it had a question from a caller it couldn't answer.

Robert picked up the phone, pressing a button for a fast review of the conversation. It was Chiun, the Oriental part of the two-part team.

"Here," said Dastrow. He tasted the residue of peach and marshmallow sticking to his teeth. He sucked it down his throat and rubbed a hand over his lip to gather the last traces of sweetness.

"Are you the voice that spoke to me from the walls of my motel in Booree?" came the high squeaky voice of the Oriental.

Dastrow checked his machines. The Oriental was no longer in Booree, but in Lockwood, Nebraska, less than an hour's drive away. That was a good sign.

"I have come to where you suggested. We have come for our payment. But I am afraid I am going to need more money."

"I don't know where you come from, sir, but when I make a deal, it's a deal."

"We too make a deal that is a deal. We have four thousand, five hundred years of deals that are deals. We have a tradition that I have told you to examine. "

"Yeah, well, I have found you mentioned."

"Found us mentioned? Found us? Before your little bud of a country was born, we were. When Angles and Jutes scrambled over the barren cliffs of England, we were. When czars were just a future dream of some barbaric animal-skinned tribes, we were. We were before Rome set one stone to another, and you in this town of Lockwood which has barely cut the first layer of its earth dare tell me you found us mentioned."