Warren Murphy: Oil Slick

"Fine," said Remo.

Going into the building, Remo was stopped by a fire inspector. But Remo pointed to the police chief, the chief waved back, and the fire inspector said, "You'll need a mask."

"I won't breathe," said Remo.

The inspector blinked in surprise and Remo went into the building. Firemen moved in the jerky manner of those accustomed to having to turn their masked faces to be able to see what was beside them. They wore their rubber coats which protected them from water but couldn't stop the heavy smoke from getting into their clothes. Remo turned into the first room and looked around in the dun gray smoke. He saw a desk at the front of the room and examined it for drawers. It had none.

All he needed was a box or a drawer or a file folder. Any one of those would do, but he couldn't find anything suitable. Nor was there anything in the next room or the next. Schools were not the same as he had remembered them, but as he passed a room marked "men," he knew something had to stay the same. People had to dry their hands, and towels or blowers had boxes.

The University of California at Berkeley, Remo discovered, used towels with the ancient admonition of "rub, don't blot." The box was painted white. Remo ripped it off the wall and chipped paint off it by twisting the metal, until the box was almost shiny. Then he took out the towels, held the empty box in his arms as if it were a baby, and left the building, pushing aside a stumbling nurse who was escorting a burn victim from the scene.

"Excuse me," said Remo.

He went through the crowd, past the fire inspector and the chief of police and the dean of students and the reporter, saying over and over again, "Not a scratch on it. Not a scratch on it. Beautiful. Not a scratch on it."

"Not a scratch on what?" asked the reporter, trying to get a glimpse of the cargo which Remo shielded with his arms. But Remo only winked and hurried across campus to the administration building, where he grandly announced he was going to "stay with it for the night because maybe the next explosion won't leave us all so lucky."

"Lucky?" asked a secretary, amazed to Jaw-gaping disbelief. "Five people were killed, including a tenured professor."

"Yeah. Next time it could be serious," said Remo, and ordered the secretaries to show identification. When a man in a vest with a gold key dangling from it came into the office to ask what was going on, Remo demanded his identification too, and said he didn't like the idea of everyone hanging around this office without clearance and people casually coming in and out. He didn't know what others might do but he was going to stay here all night with it.

"With what?" asked the man with the gold key.

"You're a little bit too nosy for your own good. Out All of you. Out. Goddamned petty bureaucrats. We luck out of this thing and you damned administrators have to go around screwing it up again. Five men are dead. Isn't that enough for you? Isn't five dead enough for you? Get the hell out of this office, all of you."

In a burst of generosity, Remo let the secretaries find their handbags and take them with them. But not their coats. Five persons dead already, you know. It was about time the University of California had some security.

By 5:30 P.M., as the sun began its red descent over the Pacific and Remo sat with the altered towel box in his lap in the administration building, the FBI came to check out what had been removed from the science building. The two men showed their shiny metal badges.

"Ah, Mobley and Philbin," said Remo. "You don't look like FBI men. You're odd-sized. And how come you have badges? The FBI uses ID cards."

"Special branch," said Mobley.

"Is that the thing the radio station was talking about?" asked the one named Philbin.

Remo nodded. "Made it myself," he said.

"You're not a scientist, are you?"

"No. I'm the man who's going to kill you," said Remo pleasantly. Mobley and Philbin quickly unholstered their guns. Philbin pointed the barrel of his at the wise guy's temple and strangely enough the guy watched only Philbin's trigger finger. As if he could dodge a bullet if he saw the finger begin to move. Philbin had never seen anything like that before. He had seen guys so close the brains had gone splooey out of their crushed skulls as the bullets set off little compression explosions until the temple popped, but never had he seen anyone whose eyes focused on the finger. They always looked at the barrel before they died. Not the finger. This close, no one had ever looked at Philbin's finger before.

Mobley searched the adjacent offices. Philbin kept the barrel pressed to the wise guy's temple.

Remo hummed a bar from "Whistle While you Work."

"No one here," said Mobley.

"He's just a wise guy," said Philbin.

"You're not FBI men," said Remo.

"We have the guns. We'll do the talking," said Mobley. "First of all, who are you?"

"I told you. The man who's going to kill you. Now if you're pleasant and polite, you'll have a nice departure. But if you're going to be nasty, it's going to hurt. Truly, I recommend the nice departure. It's like, now you're here and now you're not. Probably better than any death you could manage on your own. Even a fast heart attack isn't any pleasure."

"I find it hard to believe that my partner and I have guns pointed at your head and you're threatening us with death."

"But you've got to believe," said Remo earnestly. The very calmness of his voice had a rhythm that made people feel more at ease. Philbin saw the wise guy's head turn away, and suddenly felt a tearing burn at his trigger finger. He saw the automatic pop out of Mobley's large limp hand and he decided, as he had decided with Dr. Ravelstein, that he was not going to dally with death. He squeezed the trigger finger despite the pain and then he realized in screaming agony that from the joint of his thumb to his middle finger there were only a few dangling strands of flesh and the hand then didn't hurt anymore, and then it was dark. Forever.

Remo held up Mobley's head so he could watch Philbin's eyes roll to the back of his head in death.

"Who sent you?" asked Remo.

"I never saw him."

"Nonsense," said Remo.

"No. We never saw him. He was always in a shadow."

"How could he be in a shadow today? He had to send you back here."

"Yeah, yeah. He sent us. He sent us."

"And you didn't see him?"

"No. Never."

"Pretty dangerous making hits for someone you don't see."

"He paid well."

"Why didn't you rob him, or would that be against the law?"

"On him, no. He was crazy as hell."

"Where are you supposed to meet him next?"

"You're going to think this is crazy, buddy. But he said if anybody asked us that question, we should just tell him that he would have to wait. That's all he told us. That and he made us drink that funny sounding juice."

"Juice?" asked Remo.

"Yeah. It sounded something like tangerine juice."

Remo ignored that puzzle. "Why were you hitting the scientists?"

"I don't know."

"Which oil company were you working for?"

"You gotta ask the man. I don't know."

"Do you know the FBI doesn't use metal badges?" Remo asked.

"I know that. The crazy guy told us to use them."

"He's not so crazy. He told you to use them so I'd know you weren't FBI men. I'll tell you what. Get me to him and I'll give you your life. Your life for his."

Mobley laughed and the laughter became tears and the tears became a sigh and suddenly Mobley was losing body heat. He was dying. Remo felt the life slipping away under his hand.

Mobley's eyes began to glaze over.

Remo watched, then remembered. "That juice?" he said to Mobley. "Tangerine juice?"

"Sounded like that," said Mobley faintly.

"Could he have said 'Sinanju'?" Remo asked.