Warren Murphy: Mugger Blood

Pleskoff kept Remo and Chiun covered with two machine guns set up on desks surrounding the front door.

Remo showed his identification.

"You probably don't know that the CIA is handling that thing on Walton Avenue," Pleskoff said.

"I'm not here about the thing on Walton Avenue. I'm here about the woman who was killed. The old woman. She was white."

"You have your nerve," said Pleskoff angrily. "You come in here and expect a New York City police precinct to be open at night, just like that, in this kind of neighborhood, and then you ask about the death of some old white lady. Which old white lady?"

"The old white lady who was tied to her bed and tortured to death."

"Which old white lady who was tied to her bed and tortured to death? You think I'm some kind of genius that remembers every white person killed in my precinct? We have computers to do that. We're not some old-fashioned police force that loses its cool just because someone gets mangled to death."

Pleskoff lit a cigarette with a gold lighter.

"Can I ask a question? I used to know a lot of cops," said Remo, "and I never used to hear talk like this. What do you do?"

"Establish a police presence in the community which relates to the needs and aspirations of the inhabitants. And, I guarantee, every officer in this precinct has been sensitized to Third World aspirations and how… don't walk in front of the peephole so much… sometimes they'll come up and put a shot in the peephole…"

"There's no one outside," said Remo.

"How do you know?"

"I know," said Remo.

"That's amazing. There are so many things in the world that amaze one. The other day I saw some squiggles on a piece of paper and do you know what they were made from? The human finger pads have oil on them and when you touch something, it makes a pattern, much like a linear Renoir interpretation of Sudanese sculpture. It's oval," said Pleskoff.

"It's called a fingerprint," Remo said.

"I don't read mystery fiction," Pleskoff said. "It's racist."

"I heard you people here know who killed an old white woman, Mrs. Gerd Mueller, on Walton Avenue."

"Walton Avenue, that would be either the Saxon Lords or the Stone Shieks of Allah. We have a wonderful Third World program that relates to indigenous community peoples whereby we are the extension of their aspirations. We have an excellent program that teaches how the white world exploits and oppresses the black world. But we had to postpone it because of the Downstate Medical Center."

"What did they do?" asked Remo.

"With typical white insensitivity, they announced that they were buying human eyes for an eyebank. Did they realize, did they even care about the effect that would have on young indigenous Third World peoples who live here? No. They just let the word out that they would pay for eyes donated. They carelessly didn't specify that the donations should be from dead people. And we lost our program for awhile."

"I don't understand," said Remo.

"Well, the police lieutenant who gave the lecture on how the black person is always robbed by the whites, he came in here with a pair of eyes thrown right in his face by a Third World youth who had been promised so much by the Downstate Medical Center. It destroyed our good rapport with the community."

"What did?" asked Remo.

"The Medical Center ripped off the Third World again by refusing to pay for the eyes. The proud young Afro-American Third World black man, foolishly trusting the whites, brought in a pair of fresh eyes that he had obtained, and the medical center ripped him off by refusing to buy them. Said they wouldn't take a pair of fresh eyes in a Ripple bottle. Can you imagine anything so racist as that? No wonder the community is outraged."

Sergeant Pleskoff went on about the oppression of the Third World as he showed Remo the computer system that made this precinct twenty percent more effective than other New York City police precincts.

"We are an anticrime impact area. This is where the federal government has poured extra money into fighting crime."

"Like what?" asked Remo. He couldn't perceive any crime being fought.

"For one thing, with the extra money we sent sound trucks into the areas reconfirming the identity of Third World youth as oppressed victims of whites."

"You're white, aren't you?" asked Remo.

"Absolutely," said Pleskoff, "and ashamed of it." He seemed proud to be ashamed.

"Why? You had no more say in your becoming white than somebody else does in his becoming black," Remo said.

"Or any other similar lesser race," said Chiun, lest racist Americans confuse their lesser races with the better one which was yellow.

"I'm ashamed because of the great debt we owe to the great black race. Look," said Pleskoff confidentially. "I don't know the answers. I'm just a cop. I follow orders. There are people who are smarter than me. If I give the cockamamie answers, I get promoted. If, God forbid, I should ever let on that a black family moving onto your block isn't a blessing from Allah, I'd be cashiered. I live in Aspen, Colorado myself."

"Why Aspen? Why so far away?"

"Because I couldn't get to the pre-Civil War South," said Pleskoff. "Between you and me I used to root for the Rebels in those Civil War movies. Aren't you sorry we won now?"

"I want to know who killed the old woman, Mrs. Gerd Mueller of Walton Avenue," said Remo.

"I didn't know the FBI dealt in murder. What's federal about a killing?"

"It is a federal case. It's the most important case in the last two hundred years. It is very basic, as basic as the cave. The old and the weak are to be protected by their young men. Until recently, that's been the general mark of civilization. Maybe I've been paid to protect that old lady. Maybe the money she turned out of her pocketbook to pay my salary, your salary, maybe that just owes her that her killer doesn't waltz away to some psychiatric interview, if by some incredible accident he gets caught. Maybe, just maybe now with one little old white lady, the American people say 'enough.' "

"Gee, that's stirring," said Pleskoff. "To be honest, sometimes I want to help protect old people. But when you're a New York City cop, you can't do everything you want."

Pleskoff showed Remo the pride of the precinct, the main battle weapon in the new seventeen-million mass-impact, high-priority, anticrime battle. It was a $4.5 million computer.

"What does it do?"

"What does it do?" said Pleskoff proudly. "You say you want to know about a Mrs. Mueller, Gerd, homicide?" Pleskoff pressed a keyboard. He hummed. The machine spat out a stack of white cards into a metal tray. They fell there quietly, those twenty cards representing twenty deaths.

"Don't look so distraught, sir," said Pleskoff.

"Are those the elderly deaths for the city?" asked Remo.

"Oh, no," said Pleskoff. "Those are the Muellers. You ought to see the Schwartzes and the Sweeneys. You could play contract bridge with them."

Remo found cards for Mrs. Mueller and her husband.

"Homicide? Why is he in the homicide file?" Remo asked.

Pleskoff shrugged and looked at the card. "Okay, I see now. Sometimes you'll have some old-timer who still believes in the old-fashioned direct limited link of victim-crime-killer. You know, the old way, criminal commits the crime, get the criminal? The mindless visceral irresponsible reaction that often leads to such atrocities as a police riot."

"Which means?" asked Remo.

"Which means, this officer, this reactionary racist as an act of defiance against the department and his precinct mislabeled Gerd Mueller's death a murder. It was a heart attack."

"That's what I was told," said Remo. "I thought so."

"So did everyone except that racist. It was a heart attack, brought on by a knife injected into it. But you know how backward your traditional Irish cop is. Fortunately, they've got a union now and it helps enlighten them. You won't find them flying off the handle anymore. Except if it's union business."