Warren Murphy - Sweet Dreams

Smith had slid back into the car and turned from the front seat and looked at the two men.

"What's the matter?" he said.

"Chiun is explaining how he's not a kvetch," Remo said. "He's certainly not complaining or carping."

"It is a minor thing, Emperor," Chiun said. "Drive on."

Before leaving the campus after the Dreamocizer demonstration, Smith had taken the precaution of driving by Wooley's house and now he was able to find the small brick and frame, ivy-covered building, nestled in a back corner of the large sprawling school grounds.

"Smitty," Remo said as they parked the car across a gravel-paved road from the house, "I know this is a put-on, so why don't you just tell us what you want?"

"This is Dr. Wooley's house," Smith said. "Tonight I saw his television invention. So did other people and I suspect he's going to be a target. I want you to make sure he stays alive until I can talk to him."

"Let's just go in and talk to him now," Remo said. "Then we can go home and let him die."

Smith shook his head. "Procedures," he said. "This may wind up costing a great deal of money. I can't do it until Folcroft's computers are opened by phone in the morning."

"All right," Remo said.

The three men crossed the street to Wooley's front door. Chiun paused on the top step, leaned his hands against the door, then turned to Smith and said: "He is not here. There is no one here."

"How can you tell?" Smith said.

"Vibrations," Remo said. "He's not here. Let's go home. To our hotel."

"No. We have to look inside. He may have been taken away by somebody. Or maybe he just isn't home yet."

Remo snapped the front door lock with a twisting push of his wrist.

There was no one in the house and there were no signs of a struggle. The beds had not been slept in.

"There has been no battle here," Chiun said. "Even the dust of the windowsills is at peace."

"Good," Smith said, and directed Remo and Chiun to wait in the house for Dr. Wooley and to protect him and his daughter until Smith could speak to them.

As Smith went out the door, Remo called to him:

"Smitty, when you're checking your computers for money in the morning, make sure they've got enough left over to buy a house."

When Patti Shea had run from the cafeteria and found a telephone, her instructions from the top network brass had been simple:

"Get that machine and get that professor. We don't care how."

She had spent the rest of the night at the house she had commandeered from Norman Belliveau, calling Dr. Wooley's home but there was never an answer.

After midnight, her own phone rang. It was New York calling. She turned the volume down on the television movie she was watching before answering.

Again her instructions from the network brass were simple and did not invite discussion.

"Promise him anything; we're sending somebody out there to help you."

When she hung up, Patti Shea shuddered. She knew what that meant. But why was the network so interested in Dr. Wooley's Dreamocizer?

She looked back at the flickering television picture. Even without sound, she recognized a Canadian who had made a fortune portraying American cowboys extolling the virtues of a dog food he fed his own dog Luke. And then she realized.

Commercial revenues in television were in the billions of dollars a year. And who would spend ten seconds watching a dog food commercial when they could own their own Dreamocizer, and romp in their own fantasy world?

In living color.

With stereophonic sound an optional extra.

Who would be left to watch "Patti Shea Under Cover" when their imagination could put her between the sheets.

She knew whom the network would send "to help" her and now, for the first time since she had been aware that television did those kinds of things, she looked forward to the help.

The cafeteria where the conference had been held was an anthill of scurrying people when Big Vince Marino and Edward Leung returned to the table at which Grassione and Massello sat, and shook their heads.

"He got away," Marino told Grassione.

"Assholes," Grassione snarled. "An old man and a young girl and you can't catch them. What the hell do I pay you for?"

"They vanished," Marino said, "into thin air. Remember… like that quarterback on that Banacek show where he ran around end and…"

Grassione's glare silenced him. "I saw the show. Maybe what I need is a Polack detective and not you two." He started to say more, then remembered Don Salvatore Massello was still at the table, and he shrugged toward the Don who smiled, and then rose to his feet.

"I think I will leave you now," Massello said. "Professor Wooley said he would be at home tomorrow morning. I will meet with him then, and then… well, we will see what we will see."

Grassione rose, waited until the Don extended his hand, then shook Massello's hand warmly.

"I understand, Don Salvatore," he said. "Nothing will be done until you approve."

Massello nodded, turned and left.

Grassione waited until the silver-haired man was out the door before he said to Marino, "Find out where that professor's house is and see if he's there. I'll be back at the room and you let me know."

When they returned to the room with another negative report, Grassione was no longer alone. Two men from St. Louis, who were not part of Massello's crime family, had joined him.

Grassione did not bother to introduce them to Marino and Leung.

"I want you two to go over to this Wooley's house and if you see anybody going in, you call me here and I'll tell you what to do."

He dismissed them with a wave of his hand and turned back to the television set, as if Marino and Leung were not even in the room.

CHAPTER TEN

"A man should not have to live like this." Don Salvatore Massello's voice was concerned and gracious, and the movement of his hand indicating Dr. Wooley's littered living room was the embodiment of all-encompassing pity.

"How did you find me here, Mr. Massello?" Wooley asked.

"I know a great deal about this city. What I do not know, I can find out."

Wooley stared at Massello, then turned to look at Leen Forth who stifled a yawn.

"Excuse me a moment," Wooley said and led Leen Forth into the equally cluttered bedroom.

"Is this your pad, Pop?" she asked.

Wooley nodded. "I've been using it to do research that I was afraid to leave around the house. Why don't you get some sleep?"

"Okay. Hey, we really blew their minds tonight, didn't we?"

Wooley put an arm around the shoulders of the girl who was almost as tall as he was.

"We sure did. Woodward's never going to be the same," he said.

"Yeah, that too," she said.

"And tomorrow we'll be rich."

A small frown crossed Leen Forth's face. "Even when we're rich, Pop, things are going to be the same, aren't they? I mean, it's you and me against the world?"

"It always was."

"Good," she said. "Good night. He looks like a nice man." She nodded her head toward the bedroom door.

"Yes, he does." Wooley kissed her good night, and went back into the living room.

Massello was still standing where Wooley had left him but when the professor returned Massello sank back into his seat on the couch.

"You don't remember me, Professor, do you?" he said.

Wooley looked hopelessly lost.

"We met, perhaps two years ago, at a dinner for Indochina refugees. I wouldn't expect you to remember just another businessman. There were many people there that night."

"Of course. Now I remember," Wooley lied.

"At any rate, I am a businessman and I'll get down to business. I was at the university tonight and I saw the demonstration of your…"

"Dreamocizer," Wooley filled in.

"Yes, of course. I want to buy all rights from you to manufacture and sell it-and of course you would be paid a generous percentage on the sale of each unit."