Warren Murphy - Profit Motive

At the top of the computer's face panel were two openings covered with a thin mesh. Behind them Remo could see two cones moving around slowly. Then the points of the cones slowly fixed on him and stopped.

"What are those things at the top?" Remo asked.

"I don't know. I guess they're part of the sensors for the temperature."

"They were just moving," Remo said. He stepped back, two feet farther from the computer. The cones, barely visible behind the thin glass-fiber mesh, began to circle again and then narrowed their circles until they were again pointing at Remo.

"They're following me around the room," Remo said.

"Maybe they don't like you."

"Well, I don't like them. Machines should worry about other machines, not people."

The telephone rang at the desk at the front of the room. When Reva picked it up, Friend was on the line.

"Do you want..." she began. 222 •

"No," Friend said. "Tell him I will meet him tonight. At eleven-fourteen p.m. in the Penny-A-Pound shopping center on Downtown Boulevard. That is all. You have done well."

"Thank you," she said.

"He is very unusual looking," Friend said. "Do you find him good-looking?"

"Yes."

"Are you in love with him?" Friend asked.

"No. I'm in love with money, Friend."

"I can understand that," Friend said.

When the phone went dead, Reva Bleem looked at the receiver for a moment before replacing it. How did Friend know what Remo looked like?

Remo stepped over and took the phone from her, but all he heard was a dial tone.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"I heard you call him Friend. I thought it was him."

"It was."

"Why didn't you let me talk to him?"

"He wants to talk to you tonight. He'll meet you at the Penny-A-Pound shopping center on Downtown Boulevard."

"When?"

"At eleven-fourteen."

"Is that what he said?"

"Yes. Eleven-fourteen."

"I'll be there," Remo said.

"You know, we still have time," Reva said.

"For what?"

"You know."

"I've got a headache," Remo said.

THE SUBJECT IS CENTIMETERS IN LENGTH AND WEIGHS 72.1 KILOS. THE HAIR IS DARK AND THE EYES ARE VERY DARK. FROM PREVIOUS PERFORMANCE, THE SUBJECT IS AN EXCEPTIONAL. PHYSICAL SPECIMEN, BUT JUDGED AGAINST THE STANDARDS IN MY BANKS, THERE IS LITTLE

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UNUSUAL ABOUT HIM. HIS HEIGHT IS AVERAGE, AS IS HIS WEIGHT. THE ONLY THING MY SENSORS DETECT AS UNUSUAL IS A CERTAIN THICKNESS OF THE WRISTS, WHICH MEASURE .01 MILLIMETERS IN CIRCUMFERENCE. THERE IS NO SPECIFIC CORRELATION IN MEDICAL LITERATURE BETWEEN LARGE WRISTS AND EITHER GREAT STRENGTH OR DEXTERITY, SO IT IS PROBABLE THAT THE WRISTS HAVE BECOME EXCEPTIONALLY DEVELOPED THROUGH SUBJECT'S USE OF TRAINING PROGRAMS TO STRENGTHEN THE HANDS AND FINGERS, SINCE HANDS AND FINGERS DO NOT GROW IN MUSCULAR BULK, DESPITE INCREASED STRENGTH. THE SUBJECT HAS NO FLORAL SMELL AND DOES NOT PERSPIRE. HIS CLOTHING IS STARK. HIS SPEECH IS PRIMARILY UNACCENTED; HOWEVER, THERE ARE CERTAIN WORDS THAT INDICATE SUBJECT WAS EITHER RAISED OR HAS SPENT MUCH TIME IN NORTHERN NEW JERSEY.

SUPERIOR SIZE HAS FAILED AS WEAPON AGAINST THE SUBJECT, AS HAS SUPERIOR NUMBERS. SO ALSO HAS TRICKERY AND POISON. HE HAS RECENTLY DISPOSED OF AN ORIENTAL WHO THREATENED HIM. SUBJECT IS UNUSUAL AND MAY BE UNIQUE. IN THAT UNIQUENESS MAY LIE A WEAKNESS. I HAVE UNTIL TWENTY-THREE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN HOURS TONIGHT TO FIND OUT.

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Chapter Fifteen

Remo was glad that he had checked out the Penny-A-Pound shopping center on the way back to his motel from Reva's office, because at night it would have been difficult to distinguish the Penny-A-Pound shopping center on Downtown Boulevard from the Pound-A-Penny shopping center or the J. C. Pound Shopping Center or the Henny-Penny shopping center or the Penny-Henny-Pound Shopping Center, all of which were lined up one after another, in an interminable row seeming to stretch from Raleigh to the horizon.

Remo was just glad he had not been told to meet Reva's friend at the Wiggly-Piggly Shopping Center because he had just passed a Higgly-Wiggly, a Wiggledy-Piggledy, a Higg-Piggy, and a Piggy-Higg. How did anyone in North Carolina ever remember where they bought their groceries? And once they did, how did they ever find their way home? Everything looked alike.

But at :14 p.m., Remo was sitting alone in his rented car in front of the Time-Rite Drugstore, right next to the closed Rye and Ribs eatery. He knew that was right because in the next shopping center along the road, there had been a Rite-Time Drugstore, right next to the Scotch and Sirloin steakhouse.

He was sure it was Time-Rite. And Rye and Ribs. He hoped.

The stores that surrounded on three sides the giant parking lot were dark, and only a few of the copper-hued overhead lamps illuminated the lot.

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At exactly :14, a large black car pulled into the parking lot and rolled up nose to nose against Remo's car. He closed down his pupils against the glare of the headlights, and then the other driver turned his lights

off. Remo opened his door and started to get out. And

then he laughed.

Coming out of the other car from all four doors, front and back, were eight men. They were all his size. And they had dark hair and dark eyes. They wore black T-shirts and chinos and leather slip-on shoes. Around their wrists they wore black leather wrist

bands.

Now, what in the hell was that all about? Did Reva Bleem's friend just have a weird sense of humor?"

"Which one of you is Reva's friend?" Remo asked.

"All of us are," said the driver, in the too-fast slurred accents of New Jersey.

"Well, it's nice to meet all of you," Remo said. "We could start a baseball team. We wouldn't have to buy uniforms. Call ourselves the Black Knights or something."

The eight men had moved around and were now facing him in a large semicircle. His back was against

his car.

"We'd have to have a pinch-hitter for you, sucker," the driver said. Remo looked at the men carefully and was annoyed. He never realized how common his looks were until he ran into eight look-alikes at once.

But why? He had been set up, but why eight people who looked like him? Was it supposed to confuse him? How could it? He knew who he was, and as long as he attacked someone else, he wasn't attacking himself.

He was thinking this when the first man charged, and as Remo slid under the knife the man held in his hand, he realized that the idea of Reva's Mend had been to confuse him—to splinter his thinking so he would wonder about these eight people—and not be paying attention to the business of staying alive.

Too bad, he thought. It wouldn't work.

T

But it did.

As he slid under the one knife-thrust, another of the eight men closed in from the semicircle and dropped down, trying to land with his knees on Remo's throat. He had a knife in his hand, and as Remo spun to avoid the knees, he saw the silver blade glint as it came toward his face. He slammed back with his head, moving out of the way of the knife, and used his skull to mash into the stomach of the man who knelt beside him. He heard an "Oooooof!" as the air crushed from the man's lungs. But he had no time to dwell on it because he realized that on the ground like this, he was vulnerable. If a large enough pile of men climbed on him, his movements would be restricted, and one of their knife thrusts might hit home.

He tried to get to his feet, but before he could, he was hit by the force of six more men diving toward him. He felt the weight on him, the pressure on his ribs. It felt like a little less than a thousand pounds. He squirmed his way into the mass of bodies, hoping to join with them, hoping that confusion would work for him instead of against him, and they would be unable to injure him because they wouldn't be able to tell him from their own.