Warren Murphy - Bottom Line

"What is this tilt?" he asked.

"That means the game's over," said Remo.

"How did that happen?" asked Chiun.

"Sometimes it just happens," Remo said.

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"Yeah," said one of the young men. "So let us go, will you, please, sir?"

Chiun nodded and released the two youths. They began trying to rub the pain from their fingers.

"The next time some gentle soul comes in seeking a moment's diversion from the cares of his Ufe, I advise you to leave him alone," Chiun said.

"Yes, sir."

"We will, sir."

Chiun walked away. Remo followed him. At the door, Chiun said "I saw you tilt that machine by hitting it with your hip."

"Sorry about that, Chiun," Remo said.

"It is all right. I might have been there for days finishing that game, and it is a singularly stupid way to spend one's time, if you cannot win money."

When he returned from the Upper East Side Clinic where his son Randall still lay unconscious, Elmer Lippincott walked heavily up the steps to his bedroom. He didn't relish what he was about to do, but he had lived his entire life doing what he had to do. It was his code of conduct.

He wondered. How do you tell a woman you love something that might destroy her love for you?

"You just tell her," he mumbled half-aloud to himself as he walked leadenly down the upstairs hallway. It was a hall undistinguished by paintings. Others as rich as Lippincott might have had a hallway lined with oil portraits of their ancestors but Elmer Lippincott's ancestors had been dirt farmers and cowpunchers and once in jest he had said that while they weren't exactly the scum of the earth, they weren't exactly the salt either.

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He heard laughter from inside his bedroom as he reached the door so he knocked lightly once, before walking inside.

His wife, Gloria, was sitting up in her bed wearing a satin gown, a sheet tucked demurely around her body. On the little stool at the dressing table sat Dr. Jesse Beers. They had obviously been sharing a joke because they looked a little startled and if Lippincott's mind had been working more clearly, he might have thought they even looked a little guilty as he walked in.

Dr. Beers blew his nose in a handkerchief and seemed to take the occasion to wipe his face thoroughly. Gloria was not as immaculate as she usually was. One strap of her nightgown was off her shoulder and the rising swell of her left breast was visible. Her lipstick seemed slightly smeared. Lippincott noticed none of these things.

Beers finished wiping his face and stood as Lippincott came in. The doctor was a tall broad-shouldered, young man.

"How's the patient, Doctor?" asked Lippincott.

"Fine, sir. Top notch."

"Good." Lippincott smiled at his wife and without looking back said, "Doctor, would you excuse us?"

"Of course. Goodnight, Mrs. Lippincott. Sir."

After he closed the door behind him, Lippincott said to his wife: "Nice fella."

"If you like the type," Gloria said. She opened her arms wide and extended them toward her husband in an invitation to join her on the bed.

Lippincott tossed his jacket over a chair as he walked toward her. God, he loved her. And soon she'd be the mother of his child. Hopefully, a son. A

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real son. As he sat on the bed, her arms and eyes were so inviting, her look so loving, that he again felt a shudder at what he had to do. He closed his big rawboned hand around one of hers.

"What's the matter, Ebner?" she asked.

"You see right through me, don't you?"

"I don't know about that," Gloria said. "But I can see when something's on your mind. You come in here all sour and Walter Brennan looking and I know something's wrong."

He smiled despite himself, but the smile was just a flash across his face and then there was nothing there except hurt and pain.

"You'd better tell me about it," Gloria said. "It can't be as bad as your face makes it look."

"It is," Lippincott said. "It is."

He waited for her to say something. When she didn't answer, the silence seemed tö fill the room like a pressure. He turned away and faced the hall door as he spoke.

"I want you to know, first of all, that I love you and our baby," he said.

"I know that," Gloria said. She touched her fingers to the back of his head, swirling them through his thick white hair.

"I used to love my . . . my boys that same way," Lippincott said. "Until I found out, thanks to Dr. Gladstone, that they weren't mine. Three sons my wife gave me. Sons of some other man. Or men." His voice broke.

"Ebner, this is all old ground we've covered before," Gloria said. "Why do we have to do it again? You can't do anything about the past, about some

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woman who treated you badly and is dead now anyway. Forgive and forget."

He turned back to her. There was a tear in the corner of his right eye. "I wish I had done that," he said. "But I couldn't. My pride was hurt too much. And then I was angry and vengeful. You know those experiments Dr. Gladstone does up at the laboratory?"

"Not really," Gloria said. "Science doesn't interest me."

"Well, she works with animals to produce substances that can be used in people to affect their behavior. It's how she cured my impotence. Well, I asked her to ... to use some of those formulas on Lem and Randall and Douglas."

Gloria's eyes opened wide. Lippincott shook his head sadly.

"I didn't really want to hurt them," he said. "I just wanted to ... to pay them back ... to show them how much they owed to the Lippincott name."

"It wasn't their fault, Ebner. They didn't have anything to do with how their mother acted."

"I know that now. But too late. I wanted to embarrass them. But the medicine was too much for Lem and now he's dead. And tonight . . . well, Randall's in a hospital, almost dead. My fault. I just came from there."

Gloria moved forward on the bed and put her arms around Lippincott, cradling him to her shoulder.

"Oh, honey," she said. "I'm so sorry. But you mustn't feel guilty. That won't solve anything."

"But Lem is dead," he said.

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"That's right. He's dead and there's nothing anybody can do about it. Except grieve."

"And feel guilty," Lippincott said. Tears were rolling fully down his face now, coursing through the crags and folds of his dry weathered skin.

"No," Gloria said firmly. "Guilt does nothing for anyone. What you can do is try your best to see that Randall gets well. And, even though it sounds cruel, you can just forget Lem. You will, you know, in time. Try to do it now. Spare yourself the anguish. Forget him. Do it for me. For our new son. Your son."

"You think I can?"

"I know you can," Gloria said. Lippincott took her in his arms for a moment, then settled her back onto her pillow. He reached for the telephone.

"I've told Dr. Gladstone to stop," he said. "Enough is enough."

"I'm glad," she said.

He spoke into the telephone. "Dr. Beers, would you come in here please?"

Beers arrived a few seconds later. He was still wearing his tweed slacks and quiana shirt.

"Yes, sir," he said.

"Dr. Beers, my son Randall is in the Upper East Side Clinic in Manhattan. I want you to go down there, and to consult with your associate Dr. Gladstone, and do what is necessary to make sure that Randall recovers."

"What's wrong with him, sir?" Beers asked. He looked, as if in confusion, from Lippincott to the young and beautiful Gloria.

"Dr. Gladstone will know," Lippincott said. "So please go now."

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"And Mrs. Lippincott?" Beers asked. "I'll be here. She'll be all right. If there's anything wrong, I'll call you immediately."

'Til leave right away," Beers said. He left the room.

"And now everything will be all right," Gloria told her husband. "So you just take those clothes off and come to bed. I'm going to the bathroom."