Warren Murphy: Bottom Line

"It's not just bad backs," she said. "We work the entire range of potential health problems. Hearts,

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blood pressure, chemical deficiencies in the body, arterial problems. Everything."

"And that's all you do?" Remo was obviously unimpressed, she thought.

"And we do some basic research on lab animals. That's more a hobby of mine than one of our main functions," she said. "Mr. Lippincott has been very generous in supporting our work."

Chiun had touched the tips of two pencils together, sharpened tip to sharpened tip. He was holding them together with just his index fingers on the rubber erasers. The two pencils were spread out in front of him, like one long pencil, with two points in the center and an eraser on each end. He seemed intent on the pencils. Remo looked at him and seemed annoyed.

Dr. Gladstone was interested. She had never seen that done before.

"With two of the Lippincott sons dead," Remo said, and she snapped back to attention toward him, "we have to worry about the third son."

"Douglas," she said.

Remo nodded. "Right. Douglas. Does he have any medical problems we should know about?"

"None. He's the youngest son. He exercises regularly and he's in good shape. I'd be very surprised if Douglas should turn up sick somehow."

Chiun was moving his hands in front of him, still holding the pencils, point to point. His hands made large circles in front of him and he was making small sounds under his breath, as if imitating an airplane engine.

"I see," said Remo. He was running out of subtle

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questions. "We're looking for a black woman. Have you see her?"

"A black woman? Here? No. Was she supposed to be here?" Elena Gladstone felt the hazel eyes of the old Korean burning into her face.

"Not really," Remo said. "She's kind of an associate of ours and she said she might be here to meet us."

"Sorry. I haven't seen her yet. Can I give her a message if she comes?"

"No, that's all right," Remo said. He rose. "Chiun," he said.

Chiun turned his right hand palm up and slowly moved his left hand around so that the two palms faced each other, the distance of two pencils apart. As Dr. Gladstone watched, he removed his left hand and the two pencils touching only at their points remained balanced in the air above Chiun's right hand. Then he flipped the index finger on which they rested and the two pencils popped up into the air. Each turned one slow revolution and landed in the small opening of her pencilholder cup.

She clapped her hands in appreciative glee.

"Stop fooling around, Chiun," Remo snarled. "We've got work to do."

Chiun rose slowly to his feet.

"On your way out, I'll show you the rest of our operation," Dr. Gladstone said, also rising. She led them out into the reception room. "My living quarters are upstairs," she said. She turned down the hallway toward the lab. "On the sides here are our examination rooms. Here we do physicals and EKGs and monitor heart rates, stress tests, blood tests and such."

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The doors to all the small offices were open and Ruby was not in any of them, Remo could see.

Remo again smelled the heady flowery scent of Elena Gladstone's perfume as she pushed through a door into a large, light laboratory, lined on both sides with cages of mice and rats and monkeys. The din was earsplitting.

"These are our laboratory animals," she said. "What do you use them for?" "We're trying to develop a new anti-stress drug," she said. "And of course you have to make animal tests. We're years away, I'm afraid."

Remo followed her along the line of cages. Chiun was walking behind him and he could hear Chiun thumping his feet. Remo wondered why.

"And that's it," Dr. Gladstone said. "The whole place."

"Thanks for your time, doctor," Remo said. He looked around the laboratory. His eyes rested on Chiun who had a faint smile on his face.

"What's down there?" Remo said, pointing down a short corridor.

"That's my lab office," Dr. Gladstone said. "Where I keep records of our experiments here. The office up front is for when I play administrator. This one is for when I'm playing researcher."

She smiled broadly at Remo who returned the smile.

"Sometime we'll have to get together to play doctor," he said.

"Yes," Elena Gladstone said, looking directly into his eyes. "Yes." Her body tingled.

She took Remo by the arm and led him back toward the front of the bunding. Chiun followed,

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stomping. Remo was ready to tell him to knock it off. The receptionist smiled at the two men as Dr. Gladstone led them to the front door.

"I hope to see you again," she said as Remo and Chiun stepped outside.

"I hope so," said Remo.

"You shall," said Chiun.

Dr. Gladstone closed the door behind them and when she saw through the peephole that they had walked down the steps of the building, she quietly locked the door.

"Call everyone scheduled today, Hazel, and cancel their appointments. I'm going to be very busy."

"I understand."

Outside, Remo and Chiun made a pretense of walking away from the house, but stopped hi front of the next building. . "What do you think, Little Father?" Remo asked.

"She is lying, of course."

"I know. I recognized that perfume of hers. It was the smell in Randall Lippincott's room at the hopsi-tal. She was the doctor who drugged him."

Chiun nodded. "The lady has a little vein visible in her neck. When you asked her about the black woman, the vein began to throb almost twice as fast as before. She was lying."

"Then Ruby's in there," Remo said.

"Correct."

"Where, I wonder?"

"In the basement," Chiun said.

"That's why you were^ stomping?" Remo said.

"Yes. There is a large room below the laboratory. I imagine that we will find Ruby there," Chiun said.

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"I think we better go back and collect Ruby," Remo said.

"She will like that," said Chiun.

Ruby Gonzalez had gotten her right hand around the scalpel when she heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

With the small amount of freedom allowed her feet and legs, she braced her feet against the counter and pushed as hard as she could. The hospital cot rolled back across the floor to a slow stop. She was three feet shy of where she had started and she hoped Dr. Gladstone wouldn't notice.

Carefully, being sure not to drop it, Ruby turned the scalpel around in her right hand, so that its blade pointed toward her shoulder and slowly she began to saw at the canvas band that pinned down her right arm.

Dr. Gladstone came back into the large bright room.

"Your two friends have just left," she said.

Ruby looked at her but said nothing.

"They said there was no message for you in case you should arrive after they left." She smiled.

"They turkeys," Ruby said.

"Probably true," Dr. Gladstone said. "And now we have to take care of you."

She walked to the counter. Ruby saw her take a disposable hypodermic from a cabinet and root around in the cabinet until she found a vial of clear liquid.

She had her back to Ruby and Ruby sawed furiously with the scalpel at the band on her right wrist. She could feel the canvas weakening, then she felt

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the warm ooze of liquid down her hand. She had cut her wrist with the scalpel. She kept sawing.

Dr. Gladstone spoke with her back to Ruby. "I'd really like for you to go out in style. I could have tried something new and unusual. Perhaps a pathological fear of automobiles. Then put you into the middle of Times Square."

"Ain't nothing wrong with being afraid of cars in this town," Ruby said.

Dr. Gladstone filled the hypodermic with the clear fluid, then replaced the vial in the cabinet.

"No, I guess that's true enough," she said. "But we won't have time for that. It'll have to be something simple and direct, like curare in the bloodstream."