Warren Murphy - Bottom Line

"Let that bastard go," he told Remo.

"What for?" Remo asked.

"I want him," Douglas Lippincott said.

"All yours," Remo said. He released Beers's ear and stepped back. Lippincott reached back his fist to punch the taller, heavier doctor. But at the last second, Beers scrambled to his feet and ran to the desk. He reached around Ruby for the syringe, but she held it in her hand behind her back. Beers lifted his hand to hit Ruby. She swung the syringe around, buried it deep into Beers's side and depressed the

plunger.

"Ow," Beers yelled. Then he looked down at the syringe in her hand. He looked up at her face, questioning, panic and fear in his eyes. He turned to look around the room. At Remo. At Chiun, who was examining the paintings on the walls, at Douglas Lip-

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pincott. The faces he saw were hard and uncaring. He tried to speak but no words would come, and he felt his heart begin to pound, and his limbs grow leaden, and his eyes start to close, and then it was hard to breathe, and his brain told him to cry out for help, but before he could, the messages stopped coming from the brain and Jesse Beers fell to the floor dead.

Lippincott looked down in shock. He looked up at Ruby who was nonchalantly examining the syringe. Chiun continued to examine the paintings, shaking his head and clucking. Remo spied the putter on the floor and said to Lippincott "This yours?"

"No. My father's," Lippincott said. "Hey, this man is dead. Don't any of you care?"

"No business of mine," Ruby said. Chiun asked Lippincott how much the oil painting on the wall was worth. Remo said, "You're trying to putt this eraser into that cup?" ,

Lippincott nodded.

"It won't roll true," Remo said.

"I found that out," Lippincott said.

"You have to chip it in," Remo said. He dropped the putter head sharply onto the back edge of the eraser. It popped the lump of rubber up into the air and it plopped heavily into the paper cup six feet away.

"See? like that," Remo said. "Actually, I'm a pretty good putter."

Lippincott shook his head. "I don't know who you people are, but I guess I should thank you."

"About time too," Chiun said.

"Now I've got some business to transact," Douglas said.

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"Mind if we come along?" Remo said. "Just to close the books?"

"Be my guest," Lippincott said.

"Good," said Ruby still holding the syringe. "I love family arguments. When they ain't my family."

"If your family's like you," Remo said, stepping over Jesse Beers's corpse, "don't argue with them. They're all prone to violence."

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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"Are you feeling better now, dear?" Ehner Lippincott Sr. paced nervously alongside the bed, where his wife lay under a thin satin sheet.

"Yes, darling," Gloria said. "I'm sorry. Just for a moment there, I was depressed. I thought . . . well, I thought, what if something goes wrong with the baby?"

"Nothing will go wrong," Lippincott said. "That's why we've got Beers here. Where is he anyway?"

"No, Ehner, it's all right. I called him and he examined me and said there was nothing wrong. But, well, he's not you, sweetheart. I needed you. I'm all right now. You can go back to your meeting."

"If you're sure," Lippincott said.

"I'm sure. Go. I'm going to rest and get my strength so I can give you the nicest son."

Lippincott nodded. A voice behind him said, "A son, but why don't you tell Trim whose it is?"

Ehner lippincott wheeled, his face red with anger. Douglas stood in the doorway. Behind him Lippincott saw the man Remo and the old Oriental and a young black woman.

"What the hell do you mean by that, Douglas?"

Douglas Lippincott stepped into the room.

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"You fool," he snapped. "They say there's no fool like an old fool and I guess you prove that. That's not your soa she's carrying, you goddam simp."

"I'll remind you where you are and you're aren't welcome here any longer," Lippincott said. "It'd be better if you left."

"I'll leave when I'm goddam good and ready," Douglas said. "But first I'm going to tell you what happened and how you managed to be the partner in the murder of two of your sons."

"They weren't my sons, if you want to know. Neither are you. Three bastards," Lippincott said.

"You senile, doddering idiot. That was a line they fed you. Dr. Gladstone and Beers, they were working together. First they conned you with that story that you had been sterile all your life and we weren't your sons. Then they steamed you up to punish us and they killed Lern and Randall."

The old man looked confused. He looked past his son at Chiun who nodded. He looked at Remo who said, "What do you want from me? Listen to your kid for a change."

"Why?" asked Lippincott.

"You clown," Douglas said. "So they shoot you up with monkey hormones so you feel like a young goat again and you go sailing off with that cheap piece of trim." He pointed at Gloria who shouted "No, no, no," and sank down in the bed.

"But the joke is on you, dear father," Douglas said. " 'Cause you are sterile now and have been for years, and that baby that sweetie pie there is carrying isn't yours. In three months, you're going to be the proud doting parent of the son of Dr. Jesse Beers."

Lippincott wheeled. "Gloria. Tell him he's lying."

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"Yeah, Gloria, tell me I'm lying," Douglas said.

"I hate you," Gloria hissed at Douglas. The breath came out of her like a deflating innertube. "I hate you."

Lippincott saw. that she refused to deny the charge. He sank down onto the bed.

"But why?" he sobbed. "Why?"

"For your money," Douglas said. "Why else? She was going to give you a little bastard kid and kill us off and then when the kid was born, kill you off and she and Dr. Gladstone and Dr. Beers and all these nice beautiful people were going to live happily ever after. Isn't that right, Gloria?"

Remo turned to Ruby. "Kid's all right," he said.

"Not bad," Ruby agreed. "A little talky maybe, but basically pretty good."

"If you two are talking about an heir for me," Chiun said, "I wish you wouldn't whisper. I want to know about it."

"You'll be the first to know," Ruby said. "When and if."

Elmer Lippincott buried his face in his hands and wept.

Douglas spat the words at him. "And now, you old son of a bitch, I'm leaving this house. I'm going back to my businesses and I'm going to run you out of them. You may control more stock that I do, Daddy dear, but I know what makes them work and I'm going to shove them down your throat. By the time your sweet little son is born. . . ." He left the sentence unfinished.

"You'd destroy our empire?" his father said.

"No. I'm going to make it bigger and better than ever. But I'm going to do it without you. And when

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your concubine foals and then you go on to the great board meeting in the sky, she'll just have to get along on a piece of what she expected. And who knows? Maybe you'll live to be a hundred. You can watch your bastard grow up and watch Gloria turn to fat and wrinkles and worry every day that she's putting rat poison in your pablum. Good luck, Daddy."

Douglas walked back to the door. "Thanks," he said to Remo.

"You're welcome," Remo said.

"Don't thank me," Chiun said. "I did everything and you thank him. Ageist."

"Let's go," Remo said, after Douglas left.

"Just a minute," Ruby said.

"What?" asked Remo.

"This is how it ends? You let it end like this? He kills his two sons, four, five other people are dead, and you just walk off into the sunset?"

Remo said, "It's not our business to hand out punishment to him. It's our job to see that no more Lip-pincotts get killed and that the Lippincott businesses don't go under. We've done it, so we go home."

Chiun nodded toward Elmer Lippincott, who was