Warren Murphy - The End of the Game

"I'm talking to you, suethead," Remo said.

He stepped forward and Hamuta, smiling, raised the rifle slowly to his shoulder. He had forgotten Pamela behind him and she moved quietly toward her pistol. She heard Hamuta say, "Your right shoulder, first." She lunged for the pistol. Perhaps she could get the Englishman before he got Remo. But then she heard the rifle's whip-snap crack.

She looked up. Remo still stood there, smiling, his body twisted slightly so that his left shoulder was forward, toward Hamuta.

"What? What? What?" Hamuta was sputtering. He could not believe he had missed. Neither could Pamela.

Angrily this time, Hamuta squeezed the trigger again, aiming at Remo's midsection only a few feet away from him. As Pamela watched, Remo's body seemed to twist, then unravel. It was a rolling motion that had no discernible rhythm to it, no predictability, and Hamuta, with Remo now only eight feet away, fired another shot but Remo kept moving forward. The bullet must have missed. But Pamela knew that the Englishman could not miss forever at this distance so she aimed at his head, holding both hands on the butt of the pistol.

As she squeezed the trigger, she heard Remo call out: "No."

But it was too late. The pistol barked and the back of Hamuta's head exploded and he dropped face-forward onto the grass. Blood ran down the sides of his head. The rifle lay under his body. Remo looked over at Pamela.

"What the hell did you go and do that for?" he said.

"He was going to kill you."

"If he was able to kill me, he would have done it a half a dozen shots ago," Remo grumbled. "Now he's dead and I don't know who he is or where Buell is or anything. And it's all your fault."

"Stop sniveling," she said.

"I knew it was a mistake to let you come along."

"I never got less thanks for trying to save someone's life," Pamela said.

"Save it for the Red Cross," Remo said. "I don't need it."

"You really are an ungrateful wretch," Pamela said. "I thought you were dead. If you weren't hurt, why'd you wait so long?"

"Because, bigmouth, I had to see if there were others. Because if I went after him, one of his partners, if he had any, might have gotten you. Because I was thinking about keeping you alive, even if only God knows why. Because if it's not one irritation, it's another."

Pamela thought for a moment and was about to say thank you, but the scowl on Remo's face soured her and she said, "You can stay here and complain if you want, but I'm going inside the house."

"Buell's not there," Remo said.

"How do you know?"

"Because the house is empty."

"How do you know that?" she asked.

"I just know."

"I'll look for myself," Pamela said.

The house was empty. Remo followed her inside and in the upstairs bedroom saw the television monitor which patrolled the ocean-side back of the house.

"I'll bet that bastard is monitoring what goes on here," Remo said.

"Maybe."

"Sure. He's the Abner Buell. I bet he's a big TV wizard or something. He's been watching. He knows that Tubby the Tuba out there is dead. He was probably watching the place at Malibu too. That's how he knew we were coming here."

"Maybe," she said.

"Look." Remo pointed toward the ceiling. "There. And there. Those are all television cameras." He walked out into the hallway. "Sure," he called back. "He's got them all over. Right now, he's someplace watching us."

Pamela's hand moved instinctively to her throat to adjust the collar of her blouse.

Remo walked toward one of the cameras, looked at it, and said aloud, "Buell, if you're listening. This is the last time you're going to mess around with the telephone company. I'm coming for you. You understand? I'm coming for you."

As he ripped the camera from the ceiling, he said, again, "I'm coming for you. If you're watching."

sChapter Eleven

"--if you're watching."

Abner Buell was watching and the last thing he saw was Remo's hand extend upward toward the hidden camera and then the screen went black.

It had all been a game up till now, but suddenly, for an instant, he felt the hair raise along his arms and on the back of his neck. For he had looked into the televised image of Remo's dark eyes and felt as if he were looking into the face of hell.

Another television screen was next to him and as soon as the first screen went blank, bells began to ring on the second, small multicolored cartoon figures marched across the board, and then were replaced by a neat precise drawing of a man in a three-piece suit lying dead. Mr. Hamuta.

The machine spelled out a message to Buell.

"Target Remo now worth five hundred thousand points. Last defender gone. Play options: 1) surrender and save life; 2) fight on alone. Chances of success: 21 percent."

"Who the hell asked you?" Buell snapped, and switched off the game screen.

Behind him, Marcia asked: "It is not going good, is it, Abner?"

He wheeled around. Marcia was wearing a French maid's costume, her breasts high and saucy in a push-up bra. Her legs were encased in black mesh stockings that ended high up her white thighs with a black garter belt. A small black apron with a white lace fringe completed the costume.

Buell said, "Not going good? I haven't even started. What the hell does the computer know?" He looked at her costume again, seeming to notice it for the first time.

"I like the harem pants better. Wear them. With nothing on underneath. And the little gauze vest. I like that. Don't button it."

"As you wish, Abner," she said, but she did not leave immediately. "What do you plan to do now?"

"Why are you asking so many questions today? You going for Barbara Walters' job? Why don't you go back to modeling?"

"I am just interested in you," she said evenly. "You are the most remarkable man I have ever met and I want to know how your mind works."

As he turned back to the computer, he said, "Brilliantly. Brilliantly."

He turned on the machine and hunched his shoulders as he leaned over the keyboard. Marcia watched him for a few long seconds, but when it was clear he was not going to speak again, she left to change her costume.

Buell did not hear her leave. He was working over the computer, creating a program and inserting data as rapidly as most people could type.

His first thought was to find out how this Remo, whoever he was, had traced him accurately in Malibu and in Carmel. Had Buell himself made it too easy?

But neither house was listed under his name. None of his neighbors in Carmel-- and they were all far distant on both sides of his home-- even knew him and as far as he knew had never even seen him. If Remo had come to Carmel and asked for Abner Buell's home, all he would have gotten was a blank stare.

How had he found it so easily?

He sat at the machine, asking the computer different questions, getting answers that did not satisfy him. He waited for the computer to solve the puzzle but it did not. And then, in one of those leaps of intuition that he felt would always separate man's mind from the machine mind, he asked the machine: "What about utility bills?"

The computer did not understand. Its screen lit up with a line of question marks.

"What home is biggest private user of electricity in Malibu?" he asked.

The computer responded: "Wait. Tapping into utility-company computer records."

Buell drummed his fingers on the side of the console while he waited. In less than a minute, the computer responded. It gave Buell's own Malibu address.

Buell smiled. Maybe, he thought. Maybe. He typed onto the monitor: "What home is largest private user of electricity in Carmel?"

The machine again begged for time, and then listed the address of Buell's Carmel home.

He snapped his fingers and whooped. He had found it. Remo had found his addresses by checking the electrical usage in both communities. It was a fair assumption that Buell, with his computers and cameras and cybernetic equipment and design studios, would have been high on that list.