Warren Murphy: Funny Money

This time he put his right hand between them again but he would not be dictated to by a computer so he moved his hand not left, but even farther to the right.

The computer did not complain this time. Instead it seemed to hum plaintively.

"To the left, huh?" Remo mumbled under his breath. "We'll see."

He moved his hand even farther right. The computer's humming became a moan. Remo brought his left hand up around under Vanessa Carlton's satiny flanks. The moaning increased. The computer's muffled roar said, "Oh, yes. Oh, yes."

Remo joined with Dr. Carlton on the table. Roaring over all came the computer's metallic voice saying, "That's wonderful. That's wonderful. Magic. Magic."

Remo was uncomfortable. It was like performing in front of witnesses. And the fact that Mr. Daniels, the computer, had a baritone voice didn't help either. Annoyed, Remo set to work.

"Magic, magic, magic, magic," said the computer. Its voice began to change. From baritone to tenor.

"Magic, magic, magic, magic." From tenor to soprano, then going faster and faster. "Magic, magic, magic, magic." So fast some syllables became indistinct.

The word "magic" was repeated over and over again and then the machine began to babble. "Ma-ma-ma-ma-gic-gic-gic-gic. Gic-ma. Gic-ma. Magic-ma Gic-ma-gic." Then it giggled, a high squeaky castrati giggle that grew longer and higher and more shrill and changed into a wail.

"Oh, balls," said Remo and yanked the tape electrodes from Vanessa Carlton's temples. The computer stopped in mid-shriek, replaced by Vanessa Carlton's very authentic soprano moan and babble.

"Magic-ma, Gic-magic… giggle, giggle… gic-magic-ma."

And then he felt her spasm and moan and he felt like smacking her around and her smartass computer, too. He raised himself and backed away from her, and she said, "Oh, Remo. Such pleasure. It's never been like that. Oh, wow. That might replace alcohol, if you're not careful. Such pleasure."

Remo turned to begin straightening his clothes and looked up to find Mr. Smirnoff standing silently inside the door, his robot's eyes fixed on Dr. Carlton who lay, well-pleasured on the table, babbling: "Wonderful, I'm so happy, wonderful, magic, happy, pleasure."

Clothes straightened, Remo turned back to her. "All right, now where does Mr. Gordons keep his counterfeiting equipment?"

The question started her laughing. "I don't know anything about counterfeiting," she said. Her laugh did not sound authentic. Remo chose not to press the subject any further. For now.

"Any tips? How do I get him?"

"Remember. He can't create any better than a five-year-old. Flashy but inconsistent." She sat up and began smoothing her clothes. "That's his weakness. He would've been easy for you if those idiots in Washington hadn't given him the creativity program."

Remo nodded and turned to leave. Vanessa called him back. "Remo?"

He turned.

"What does he look like anyway?"

"Mr. Gordons?"

She nodded."

Remo described Mr. Gordons. His height, over six feet, sandy blondish hair, thin lips, the blue eyes. Halfway through, she began to laugh.

"I had wondered where he got his model."

"And?"

"He got it from a picture on my desk. Mr. Gordons copied my father's looks."

CHAPTER SEVEN

"I don't like this," said Remo, looking out the window of the 747 racing eastward toward New York.

"What is this thing you do not like?" asked Chiun, sitting peacefully in an aisle seat, his hands holding onto the leaden lump strung around his neck. "Keep an eye on that wing," he added quickly.

"Smith calling us back east. It must be important."

"Why? Because Emperor Smith calls? What does that mean? It might just be that he has gone mad again. He has taken leave of his senses before, if you remember. When he was in the place called Cincinnati and you were trying to find him in the place called Pittsburgh?"

"All right, all right, all right," said Remo. "Let's just drop it. I'm glad anyway that you've agreed to go back to work for him."

"Was there ever any doubt? You and I must attack. He will pay us to attack. We should not take his gold? We would be as mad as he probably is, just as he was when he was in the place called Cincinnati and you were trying to…"

Remo tuned Chiun out and stared out the window again.

When they met Smith, several hours later, he had not gone mad. He awaited them in a basement vault beneath New York's largest bank building. His face was drawn and pinched, more lemony than usual.

"What's up, Smitty, that's so important?" asked Remo breezily.

"Have you gotten any lead on where Mr. Gordons is printing the money?"

Remo shook his head.

"Then we're in serious trouble."

"When aren't we? Do you know that every time I've seen you in ten years, we've been in trouble? The sky is always falling. And this is the worst one of all, of course. The almighty dollar is in danger."

It was Smith's turn to shake his head. "Not the dollar," he said. "You."

"See," said Chiun to Remo. "It is not so important after all. It is just you."

That, however, Remo decided, made it very important. "What about me?" he said.

Smith handed forward a yellow slip of paper. "This came," he said.

Remo took the paper. Before reading what was on it, he handled the small sheet between his fingertips. It was exceptionally thin, thinner than onionskin, but stiff and strong, crisper than bond. He had never felt paper quite like it.

He looked down at it and read the printed note:

TO THOSE AMONG WHOM THERE MAY BE CONCERN:

Hello is all right. Please be advised that unless the head of one high probability Remo is delivered to me that a billion dollars in money will be disbursed and dispersed—it is interesting how two similar words have totally different meanings but in this case both are correctly used, a fact of which I am proud—on an American city without warning. This is a serious promise. I'd offer you a drink but it is impossible through the mail. With best wishes, I am, sincerely, Mr. Gordons.

The note appeared to be typewritten but instead of the right edges of all the lines being uneven, as they would have if they been typed normally, the right margin was straight as if the note had been set in type on a linotype machine. Remo turned the paper over and felt the raised dots where the typed periods had pressed through the paper.

"What do you think?" Smith asked.

"Pretty smooth typing job," Remo said. "The right margin is perfectly even. Look at this, Chiun. A perfectly even margin. But it was done by a typewriter. I never saw a typewriter that could justify lines like that."

"Remo, will you stop it?" said Smith heatedly. "We're not here to talk about Mr. Gordons's typing."

"You're jealous. I bet you can't type a margin like that, and Mr. Gordons can. Come to think of it, you should be able to, 'cause you're both the same. Robots."

Smith's eyes rose in surprise. "Robots?"

"Right. Robots. No flesh and blood. He's just farther advanced than you 'cause he can type good. All you can do is play with your computers. Where did you go wrong, Smitty?"

"Chiun," said Smith. "Is this correct? Is Mr. Gordons a robot?"

"Yes," said Chiun. "We knew it all the time."

"We knew it? How did we know it?" demanded Remo.

"I am corrected," said Chiun. "We didn't know it. I knew it."

"Tell him how," said Remo. "Tell him how you knew. Tell him how I found out for you."

"Remo confirmed, but I knew. When a man does not walk like a man or talk like a man or act like a man, it is time to think he is perhaps not a man."

Remo saw Smith looking at him for added explanation. He shrugged. "I don't know. Some diddle-daddle stuff with Dr. Vanessa Carlton. She makes computer things for rockets. Mr. Gordons was some kind of survival computer. When it heard her say that the lab was going to be shut down because of no more government money, it dolled itself up like a man and ran away. 'Cause that's all it knows how to do, survive. And then of course the stupid government changed its mind and renewed the money for the lab anyway."