Warren Murphy: Funny Money

He left the head on the floor and stood up, looking down at it.

It was not Remo's head. As he looked at it again, he tried to decide whose head it might be, but he did not know. Never mind; he knew it was not Remo's.

The old yellow-skin had tried to deceive him. He had said that he would not challenge Mr. Gordons's survival but now he was doing that by trying to deceive Mr. Gordons. Now he too must die. High probability Chiun must die along with high probability Remo. Mr. Gordons would see to that.

But there were other things he must do. He must drop money on a city as he said he would.

And he must find a friend.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"If you will be my friend, I will give you a drink. Will you be my friend?"

The pilot of the Pan Am jet looked with amusement at the ordinary-looking man standing in front of him, holding a large cardboard carton in his arms.

Captain Fred Barnswell had a date. The new stew on his flight had made it very clear that she had the hots for him and he had just finished filing his flight reports and was on his way to his Manhattan apartment where she would be joining him for a late dinner.

He had no time for aviation groupies, particularly middle-aged male variety.

"Sure, buddy, sure. Whatever you want. I'll be your friend for life."

The ordinary-looking man smiled with gratitude but he did not move. He still stood in Captain Barnswell's way in the narrow corridor leading from the pilots' offices toward the main terminal at Kennedy Airport outside New York City.

"Okay, buddy?" said Barnswell with a smile. He was in a horny hurry. "Now what do you say, you move along."

"Good," said the man. "Now that you are my friend, you will do a favor for me, correct?"

Here it comes, thought Barnswell. Another bum putting the bite on. Why him all the time? He must have a kind face.

"Sure, buddy," he said reaching into his pocket. "Now much do you need? Quarter? Buck?"

"I need your aircraft."

"What?" said Barnswell, wondering if perhaps he should call airport security right away.

"Your aircraft. It is not too much for a friend to ask."

"Look, buddy, I don't know what your game is, but…"

"You will not give me your aircraft?" The smile vanished from the man's face. "Then you are not my friend. A friend would care about my survival."

"All right, enough's enough. Why don't you get out of here before you get into trouble?"

"Is there another pilot here who will be my friend and who will lend me his aircraft?"

I don't know why I bother, thought Barnswell. Maybe I am kind. Patiently he said, "Look, friend, the planes don't belong to us. They belong to the airlines. We just work for the company. I can't lend you my plane because I don't own a plane."

The smile returned to the man's face. "Then you really are my friend?"

"Yes," said Barnswell.

"Does no one have his own aircraft?"

"Only private pilots. The small planes you see. They're privately owned."

"Will one of them be my friend? Can a person have more than one friend at a time?"

"Sure. All of them will be your friends. Pick any six." What a story Barnswell would have to tell that stew while he was getting her drawers down.

"You are a real friend," said the man, still smiling. "Have a million dollars. See, I will be your friend, too." He put down the cardboard carton and opened the top. It was filled to the brim with hundred-dollar bills. There must be millions in the box, thought Barnswell. Maybe billions. It had to be fake. There wasn't that much cash on hand in a bank, much less in a cardboard box being carried around by some brain-damage case.

"That's all right, buddy," said Barnswell. "I don't need your money to be your friend. Where'd you get all that anyway?"

"I made it."

"Made it like manufactured or made it like earned?"

"Like manufactured, friend," said the man.

"Well, buddy, I think you ought to turn it over to the authorities."

"Why, friend?" asked the smiling man.

"Because it'll go easier with you if you turn yourself in. The government just doesn't like people printing money on their own."

"They will arrest me?"

"Maybe not right off, but they would want to question you."

"And you say I should do this?" asked the smiling man.

"Sure should, pal. Come clean. 'Fess up."

"You are not a true friend," said the smiling-faced man who was suddenly no longer smiling. He swung his right arm through the air and where the side of his hand struck Captain Barnswell's head, the temple bones shattered and Captain Barnswell left instantly for that big stewardess hutch in the sky.

Mr. Gordons looked down at the body with no feeling but puzzlement. Where had their friendship gone wrong?

The next man he met was small and wiry with bad teeth and a faded blue pilot's cap with a fifty-mission crush. He owned an old DC-4 and he was delighted to be Mr. Gordons's friend and he did not suggest that Mr. Gordons turn his money over to the authorities, this most especially after satisfying himself that the box was really full of money, and if it was counterfeit—and he had had some experience in moving fake money—it was the best counterfeit he had ever seen.

Sure he would be glad to take Mr. Gordons for a plane ride. Anything for a friend. Cash in advance. Two thousand dollars.

Airborne, Mr. Gordons asked him where the place of greatest population density was.

"Harlem," said the pilot. "The jungle bunnies there are like rabbits. Every time you turn around, they've bred another one."

"No," said Mr. Gordons. "I mean dense with people, not with bunnies or rabbits. I am sorry I do not make myself so clear."

"You're clear enough, pal," said the pilot to Mr. Gordons, sitting in the co-pilot's seat next to him. "Next stop, 125th Street and Lenox Avenue."

When they were homing in over Harlem, the pilot asked Mr. Gordons why he wanted to see such a dense area from the sky.

"Because I want to give my money away to the people there."

"You can't do that," the pilot said.

"Why not can I?"

"Because those blooches'll just buy more Cadillacs and green shoes with it. Don't waste your dough."

"I must. I promised. Please, friend, fly low over this Harlem rabbit preserve."

"Sure, buddy," said the pilot. He watched as Mr. Gordons lifted the box and went to the right fuselage door of the quarter-century-old plane. If that looney-toon was going to open the door, well, maybe it wouldn't be money dropping on Harlem but looney-toon himself.

Mr. Gordons slid back the door of the plane. The pilot felt the whoosh of wind circulating through the aircraft. He turned the plane slightly to the right, then banked sharply to the left, throwing it into full throttle. The inertial straight-line motion of his body should have thrown Mr. Gordons out of the open door.

Nothing happened. He merely stood there, poised on his two feet in the open doorway. He had the cardboard box jammed up against the plane wall near his feet and he reached in and began to grab handfuls of money and to throw it through the open door. As the pilot watched over his shoulder, the money sucked in alongside the plane, caught in its air currents, then slowly drifted loose and began to float down onto predawn Harlem.

The pilot again tried the right turn and left bank in the hope of dislodging Mr. Gordons. It failed again and the early morning money distribution continued.

Five more times he tried and each time Mr. Gordons just stood there as if nothing had happened and kept throwing out money. Finally, the money box was empty.

Mr. Gordons left the door open and walked back to the cockpit. The pilot looked at him in awe.

"How much did you toss out there?"

"One billion dollars," said Mr. Gordons.

"Hope you saved some for me, old buddy," the pilot said.