Warren Murphy: Sweet Dreams

"You're losing your scientific dispassion," Remo said.

"Don't tell me that. I can see rape in your eyes."

"That's because your glasses are dirty," Remo said.

"Look, fella, I'll knock up… I mean, off the fifty-cent service charge."

"Not now."

"This is my last offer. I knock off the service charge, throw in a Powerology book of massage and pay for dinner afterwards. What more could you want?"

"Your sudden and complete disappearance," Remo said.

"Too bad. I could have helped you find yourself," Margie said.

Remo felt sorry for her because she wasn't perfect like him. He set the time as 10:27. Chiun's daily ration of soap operas would begin at noon sharp.

"Look," Remo said. "Come back in two hours and go up to Suite 1014. You'll recognize it 'cause it doesn't have a door. Just go in and make yourself at home until I get back." He turned her around and patted her behind. "Run along now. Remember. About two hours. Bring your friends. Bring all your friends."

Margie giggled and took off toward Kenmore Square like a rocket.

Remo wandered down across the Christian Science Center and toward the Prudential Building, the second tallest skyscraper in Boston, It used to be the first until another insurance company had built a solid glass monstrosity designed to reflect the sky and hundreds of birds killed themselves every day by flying into it.

Hundreds of people were milling about in the Prudential Mall. Remo really did not notice them because he was watching his legs move almost perfectly. He was so intent on his feet he almost walked into a middle-aged man bouncing up and down.

"Hey. Watch what you're doing," the man said.

Remo looked up and saw the crowd milling around him, then looked back to the graying man in his white shorts with red racing stripes, gray sweat shirt, and Adidas sneakers.

"What are you doing?" asked Remo.

"Getting set," the man said.

"For what?"

"For what? Are you kidding? Where have you been, man?"

"Well, I was in Korea for a while."

"Oh, yeah. I was in Korea too," the man said. "What were you doing?"

"Wiping out most of the standing army," said Remo, looking out over all the bobbing heads. "What is all this?"

"It's the Boston Marathon," said the man who had been to Korea himself for awhile. "We run to Brickton, Massachusetts, and back."

"What for?"

The graying man looked at Remo as if he were crazy. The towel probably helped, although, among all the shorts, it looked just like an eccentric kilt.

"How far is Brickton?" asked Remo.

"Thirteen miles," the man said.

"I'll be right back," Remo said. Fifteen minutes later, Remo stepped out of a men's shop dressed like the man he had been speaking to-in white shorts with red stripes, a gray sweatshirt, and Adidas running shoes, all charged to his hotel room and verified by the store clerk with a call to the hotel which informed the clerk frostily that the gentleman from Room 1014 had infinite credit, whether he was wearing a towel or not.

Remo joined all the runners in the sun of downtown Boston as they gathered around the entrance to the Prudential Building from Boylston Avenue.

A heavy, red-haired man was waving the starting gun and shouting, "Five minutes. Five minutes."

Suddenly, hundreds of people started leaping, breathing deep, stretching, and running in place all around Remo. He felt like laughing. Warm-up exercises were a joke.

Early on in his training, Chiun had told him: "One must always be ready. We do not practice eating before meals. Why practice running before running?"

"Hey," came a voice from behind Remo, who turned into the already perspiring face of the gray-haired man he had met before.

"Going to race, huh? That's great. Just great. My name's Merrick, by the way. James Merrick. No offense or anything, but no one's going to beat me today. Hey, you better get a number. See you at the finish. If you finish."

The best Remo could do was to find a red magic marker and to scrawl "remo" on the back of a parking ticket he lifted from a windshield. And then the gun sounded and Remo was off like a speeding bullet. James Merrick saw him pulling away and smiled to himself. Marathons were filled with people like that-people with no serious thought of completing the race, who broke like sprinters, ran a mile as fast as they could, then dropped out and spent the rest of their lives bragging about how they had led the Boston Marathon for awhile.

That had been at the race's start, but now Remo had passed Merrick for the second time, twenty miles later, and to add insult to injury he had just stolen Merrick's big number six.

Merrick tried to cling mentally to the slim thick-wristed figure but Remo soon disappeared over a hill.

Merrick plugged on, no longer sure whether he was winning or losing the race, his mind growing as fatigued as his body, and as he crossed the Charlestown line, he saw Remo again, this time passing him with a bright blue six on his shirt.

Merrick tried to scream, come back with my number, you frigging maniac who isn't even sweating, running circles around me with your frigging red Remo. But the exertion would have been too much.

Crossing into Danvers, he started to cry tears of frustration when the broadly-smiling Remo passed him for the fourth time. James Merrick wanted to beg, please, please, crazy person, don't you know how much this means to me? Win the race if you want to, but leave me alone. Please?

Finally Merrick crossed into Boston. He felt renewed. Only two hours had passed. He had pushed himself and his time was better than had ever been seen in the Boston Marathon. This he knew. He swept forward with new vitality. His second wind had arrived.

And left as Remo passed him for the fifth time a second later.

James Merrick collapsed with an anguished gasp. He later didn't remember how long he huddled, head in his arms on the side of the road into Boston with his dirty sneakers and ripped sweat shirt, but when he looked up it seemed darker. He didn't see people pass him. He didn't care. Instead he stumbled to a bus stop, caught a bus, and got off three blocks from home.

What would he say? Should he stay in a hotel? No, he hadn't any wallet with him. What the hell. Probably no one had even noticed he was gone. Carol had still been asleep when Merrick left that morning and David had been watching Speed Racer and hadn't even turned when his father said "So long."

James Merrick slowly plodded up the steps, fighting tears. It wasn't his loss of the race that got him: it was his own failure. He walked into the house.

"Jim, is that you?"

"Yes," he croaked.

"What are you doing here?" his wife cried, running down from upstairs, "Everybody's been looking for you. I've been getting calls since two o'clock."

"I don't want any calls," Merrick said miserably.

Carol's face became stern. "Now I know you're tired but you go right back to Copley Square and accept your trophy." Merrick managed "Wha?"

"They've been looking all over for you. Nobody ever ran that fast. Like a sprinter they said. Going so fast all they could see was your number six." She looked down at his sweatshirt.

"Oh, you poor thing. It must have gotten ripped off. You go up and lie down. I'll call the athletic committee and tell them you're here."

"Where's David?" Merrick asked. "Out telling all his friends that you won. Now, go lie down, will you?"

Merrick heard and obeyed. He didn't care how long his nirvana lasted. If it only lasted a moment, it was still one moment of perfection, more than most men had.

A moment before he reached his personal cloud nine, he thanked all his lucky stars for a gray-dressed, non-perspiring figment of his imagination named Remo.

At that moment, Remo was rejecting an assignment and, because he was perfect, trying to do it in a nice way.