Warren Murphy: Sweet Dreams

"Aaaah, I don't want to hear your bullshit," Grassione said. "I shoulda left you in that gook carnival where I found you." He rose and walked to the window where he shouldered Marino out of the way. Looking down across the campus, he saw a thin man running. He had dark hair and even at this distance, Grassione could see his thick wrists. Something about him looked familiar. He must have seen him run before. But he had no time to puzzle about it because the telephone rang.

Don Salvatore Massello wished to speak to him.

"Were you responsible for what happened today in the lecture hall?" Massello asked.

"What? What happened?"

"Professor Wooley was murdered. And he had already agreed to our terms."

"Murdered?" said Grassione. ''I didn't know anything about it. Who did it?"

"I don't know. I am told it was a barbarian act," Massello said, "so I assumed it was one of your people."

The insult flew so high above Grassione's head that he did not even hear its wings flap. "Not my men," he said. "We were staying away from Wooley until we heard from you. What about the machine?"

"I have been in contact with the professor's daughter. She is bringing me the machine. So all will work out all right," said Massello.

"Good. That's good," said Grassione with a heartiness he did not feel.

"Yes, it is," said Massello and without even the usual courtesies he hung up.

Grassione moved quickly to the door. "Let's go. Vince. You goddam Chink. Let's move it."

"Where are we going, boss?" Marino asked.

"We got to get over to Wooley's house. See if the girl's still there and try to get that machine. And then we've got a date with Don Salvatore Massello."

Twenty-one Edgewood University students who wore Army field jackets and steel-rimmed glasses were in their rooms all over the campus dormitory area when they were visited by a dark-eyed man with thick wrists who put an index finger, like a railroad spike, into their shoulder muscles and growled:

"Did you kill Wooley?"

None of them had and they were all glad because the momentary pain was so excruciating that they would have admitted the murder, they would have confessed to the slaying of Archduke Ferdinand at Sarajevo, even to the ultimate sin of having voted Republican, if that's what it took to make the pain stop.

But the pain stopped as quickly as it had come and before they could react the thick-wristed man was out the door.

Remo was out of leads and he was about to return to Wooley's cottage where Chiun was waiting, when he ran across a man walking back and forth on the sidewalk, wringing his hands together as if they contained an invisible dishcloth.

"Oh, my god," he said. "Oh, my god. What will people think of us? Who'll ever enroll again at Edgewood? What are we going to do?"

Norman Belliveau looked skyward as if demanding an immediate reply from God and shouted: "What are we going to do?"

"Stop acting silly," Remo said.

Belliveau postponed his confrontation with God long enough to look down and see Remo.

"I'm looking for a man in an Army field jacket," Remo said. "A young man. Steel-rimmed glasses. You see anybody like that?"

"Dozens of them. Hundreds of them. All over the campus. Making us a laughing-stock. Not caring about the sanctity of the educational process."

"I don't think this one's a student," Remo said.

"No. Wait. I saw somebody like that this morning. He asked me for directions to my place to see Patti Shea. He couldn't be a student if he didn't know where I lived."

"Good thinking," said Remo. "Where do you live?"

"Over there," Norman Belliveau said, pointing. "You're not a student, are you?"

"No," said Remo and he moved away, leaving Norman Belliveau to worry about why all these non-students were on campus.

The door was unlocked and open and Remo walked right in. The back bedroom door was locked and as Remo pushed against it, he heard a woman's voice from inside.

"You've come to kill me, haven't you?"

"What?" Remo said.

"Come in. Come in. I've been waiting for you." Patti Shea pulled open the door and stood before Remo. She was dressed in a one-piece black leather swimsuit cut down to her belly button and fastened by black leather thongs tied across the V-front, shoelace style. Her long curved legs were fully visible because the sides of the suit were cut up almost to the waist.

"Who are you?" she said.

"Where is he?" Remo said.

"You look like you'd punish me," she said. She moved back into the room and plopped down on the couch which was covered with wide leather belts, handcuffs, and pieces of rope. She hit herself lightly on the wrist with a black whip, waiting.

"Well? Wouldn't you punish me?" she said.

Remo stared at the rest of the room. It looked like a museum of sado-masochism. Shackles and manacles of all kinds lined the bed and furniture. Stockings and ripped pieces of cloth hung out of half-opened drawers. Silk ties were draped over the doorknob of the closet. Feathers and red rubber balls were strewn on the top of the dresser.

Remo imagined there were rose thorns lining the shower stall and metal studs on the inside of the closet.

"I'm looking for a man," Remo said. "Army jacket, steel-rimmed glasses."

"I won't tell you," she said. "I won't. You can just try to beat it out of me."

She closed her eyes and threw herself back across the couch with one arm flung out toward the floor, the other, palm up, on her forehead. Her long legs stretched out full-length on the sofa, exposing her entire body to whatever cruel, painful thing this stranger might plan to inflict on her.

"Listen, freakie," Remo said. "I don't have time to play in your dirty little sandbox, so where is he? The one who was here this morning for you."

Patti Shea opened one eye and looked at Remo. There was a look in his eyes that ruled out lying.

"Oh, crap," she said and sat up. "You're not going to do anything, are you?" She shook her head, agreeing with herself. Her breasts kept time with her head movements. "You're looking for T.B. I set this up for him. It relaxes him after a job."

"So where is he?"

"He'll be here. He'll be here," she said. "But we wouldn't have to waste the time, you know."

"Sorry. The Good Ship Lollipop will have to sail without me."

"Come on," she said in exasperation.

"No."

"Please?"

Remo shook his head.

"I know. There's something missing, right? I knew it."

She ran to the closet and pulled it open. Remo was right. There was a blanket of studs covering the wall. She leaned down and with her rear aimed directly to Remo's face, started pulling out whips.

"Just tell me what you need," she yelled, as whips and chains flew out of the closet and landed on the floor behind her.

"Just my hands," Remo said. "Just my hands."

He turned as he heard the front door open, and T.B. Donleavy walked in, his Army field jacket coated with blood, dried specks of brown dotting his glasses and face.

Patti followed Remo into the living room as Donleavy said, "Who are you?"

"T.B., this is… what'd you say your name was?" Patti Shea asked Remo.

"I didn't say."

"This is T.B. Donleavy, thirty-fifth greatest assassin in the world," Patti said.

"Thirty-third," said Donleavy.

"My name's Remo. I'm the second greatest, and you're dead."

"Hold on, pal," Donleavy said. He felt a twinge of fear in his stomach. And the voices were sounding up again. But they were saying something different. What was it?

Remo turned to Patti. "You people hired him to kill Wooley so his Dreamocizer wouldn't put you all out of business, right?"

"You got it," Patti said. "Now let's get it on."

"Too late," Remo said. "Too late for both of you."

Donleavy could understand the voices now. They weren't saying "Kill for us." They were saying "Come to us."