Warren Murphy: Firing Line

Irving looked at the wrench, at Remo, and at the wrench again.

He dropped the cab in gear.

"Rye, New York, here I come."

"Doctor Harold W. Smith, Folcroft Sanitarium," Remo said.

"I got it." As an afterthought, Irving said, "It's Sunday. Will he be there?"

"He'll be there," Remo said.

He waited at curbside and watched the cab drive off. Then he walked down to city police headquarters. He stood across the street from the building for a long time. It had not changed since he had walked a police beat in this city and gone in and out of the building several times a day. It had not changed, but Remo had. Where once it had just been an old building with wide steps, now it was different to Remo. He could sense the wear of the steps; he knew how much pressure it would take to crack the stone. He could look at the old brick walls and know within a pound how much force it would take to chip the mortar out from between the blocks. He had remembered a heavy wooden door, but now he saw a wooden door and knew immediately how hard he would have to hit the lock with the heel of his hand to make the door snap open.

He was different. The town had not changed; he had. People said you couldn't go home again, but that wasn't true. You could go home again; it's just that when you got there, you realized it was not your home and never really had been. A man carried his home with him, inside his head, in his knowledge of who he was and what he was.

Remo thought these things and then asked him-

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self, but what are you? And before he allowed himself to answer, he walked across the street and into police headquarters.

Patrolman Calicano was working the police property desk. He was a fixture, implanted in the job by a politically connected uncle, and doing it just well enough that he would be too much trouble to transfer or fire.

Remo stood in front of his desk.

Calicano looked up. For a moment, he seemed to recognize Remo, then looked back down unconcernedly at his papers.

"What can I do for you?" he said.

Remo tossed an FBI identification card bearing the name of Richard Quigley onto the desk.

"FBI," Remo said.

Calicano inspected the card, checked to see that the photo matched Remo's face, then handed the card back.

"FBI, huh? Maybe that's where I seen you. You look kind of familiar."

"Probably," Remo agreed.

"What can I do for you?" /

'That fire yesterday. I want to see that medal that was found."

Calicano nodded. He rose heavily from his chair and lumbered to a large wall of pigeonhole boxes. He took a long manila envelope from one of them.

"What's the FBI interested in a fire for?" he asked. •

Remo shrugged. "Something to do with taxes. That it?"

Calicano opened the manila envelope, which was perforated with holes and tied in the back with red string.

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"Yeah." From the envelope, he took a sheet of paper and a smaller white envelope.

"Have to sign here first," he said.

Remo took a pen and as he started to sign his signature, he couldn't remember the name that was on his FBI identification card. Richard. Richard something. He finally wrote Richard Williams.

Without a glance at it, Calicano put the sheet on the desk and opened the white envelope. He dropped the golden medal out on his hand. He handed it to Remo. Remo took the medal in his right hand and the white envelope in his left.

He looked at the medal. He made a show of bouncing it on his palm. He held it up to the light as if inspecting it for microscopic scratches, then nodded, and as Calicano watched, appeared to drop it back into the white envelope, licked the flap of the envelope, and sealed it tight. He handed it back to the policeman.

"Okay," he said. "That's all I need."

He turned away. Calicano dropped the white envelope back into the large manila envelope, then picked up the white sheet Remo had signed.

He looked at it, then called out, "Hey, Williams."

Remo stopped and turned. "Yeah?"

"I thought your name was Quigley. On your ID," the patrolman said.

Remo nodded. "An old card," he explained. He walked away, leaving the policeman scratching his head and wondering why that Williams, that name and that face, seemed familiar somehow. Like somebody he knew once. But the baseball game was coming on, and Calicano turned on the set and forgot Williams and the medal. Until that night, when he woke in bed, his face contorted like a man

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who'd seen a ghost. He sat quietly for a moment, listening to his heart beating in his temple, then told himself he was being foolish, that Remo Williams had died many years ago, and promised himself that he would go easy on the linguine with white clam sauce because it always affected him this way.

He lay back and went to sleep with a smile on his face.

to

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CHAPTER SIX

Dr. Smith handed the golden medal to Chiun. The two men stood facing each other across Smith's desk, and though the CURE director was not inordinately tall, he was a full foot taller than the aged Oriental.

"Recognize this?" Smith asked. Chiun fondled the medal, then quickly slipped it into one of the folds of his voluminous yellow daytime robe.

"It is the symbol of Sinanju," he said. "Remo said that you gave it to Ruby," Smith said.

"Ah, yes. Remo. And where is he now?" Chiun said.

"That medal was found in a fire. Ruby's dead," said Smith.

"Yes," said Chiun, his face impassive, his voice bland and without emotion.

Smith had seen and heard the look and voice hundreds of times, but still they made him uncomfortable. He knew that he was considered emotionless by the few people who knew him. But Chiun, when he chose to be, could be colder and harder than Smith ever dreamed of being. The CURE di-

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rector was also suspicious of Chiun's apparent inability to understand CURE and what it did. He was sure that Chiun understood a lot more than he appeared to.

"I think Remo is trying to find the people who were responsible for the fire," Smith said.

"And were people responsible for it?" Chiun asked.

Smith nodded. "It was arson. Remo sent me some information on someone who might have been involved. When we put it through the computers, it turned out that the man involved was the man whose property was first to burn in this string of fires. Solly Martin. We obtained a picture of him from his family, and now Remo has it."

Chiun nodded. Smith felt uncomfortable standing up, but Chiun made him feel awkward about sitting down unless Chiun sat first.

"These fires? They were set for a fee?" Chiun asked.

"Yes, Master," said Smith. "This Martin and a young boy . . . they have been working their way across the country, setting fires for hire." He was surprised to see concern show itself across Chiun's wrinkled face.

"A young boy?"

"We know very little about him, except that he is thirteen or fourteen years old. Why he should be involved with Martin, we don't know. He's not a relative. We've checked that out."

"These fires," Chiun asked. "Are they started in the conventional way?"

Smith looked at Chiun with narrowed eyes. The vertical frown lines over his nose deepened.

"Well, actually, no," he said. "They are unusual because they start without . . ."

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"Tinder," Chiun supplied. "And fuel."

Smith nodded. "Why?" he asked. "Is this important?"

"It is important to me," Chiun said. "Where is Remo?"

"I don't know. There's been a string of fires in cities headed west. I gave the list to Remo. He's probably following it. Do you want it?"

Chiun shook his head. "All American cities sound alike to me. New something or some Indian or some saint. I will find Remo on my own."

He walked from the office. As Smith watched him go, he sank into his chair. He wished he had been able to find out why the fact that a child was involved in the arson cases was important.