Warren Murphy: Murder Ward

"Come in from there, sir," the intern yelled.

"Never again, kid. Never again."

The intern turned and looked at Remo with a helpless expression on his face. Remo looked around the room. There was another window to the left. He moved up onto the filing cabinets, opened the window and was through it.

A narrow two-inch stone ledge ran along the side of the building outside the fourth-floor window. Remo moved out onto it. He tensed his legs, forcing the thrust of his body inward against the wall, overcoming the incorrect distribution of weight that put most of his force downward, out, off the ledge, over open space. He looked up as he moved. Twenty feet away was the corner of the building. Demmet was ten feet around the corner to the right. One arm up against the wall, Remo moved crablike, foot past foot, turning the corner of the building, using his hand as a claw, turning the weight of his body in against the wall, moving steadily, for if he stopped his forward motion the force of gravity would hurl him down. He reached the corner of the building, twenty feet away, and used both hands while moving smoothly around the corner. Demmet was in front of him, his heels on the ledge, his arms over his head, holding on to a porcelain electric insulator. Demmet saw him.

"What do you want?" Demmet said.

"Let's go inside and I'll tell you about it."

"Who are you?"

"Name's Williams," Remo said.

He kept moving toward Demmet, because to stop moving was to fall.

"I've heard about you," Demmet said thickly and Remo realized he was drunk. "I don't want to talk to you."

"Beats standing out here in the cold," Remo said.

"Cold? What cold?" Demmet asked. He giggled. The convulsions of his laughter shook his body. Remo could see his fingers start to slip from his overhead support. Demmet's hands dropped. He waved his arms for a moment as if trying to retain his balance on the two-inch-wide ledge and then he turned his face toward Remo in a look that was more of sorrow than of fright.

"I don't want to grow old," he said. The last word was drawn out long and loud as the air was pulled from his lungs, for Demmet had lost his balance and was falling forward, down toward the parking lot four stories below. He landed on top of a Fleetwood Brougham with a clapping smack. Remo meanwhile kept moving along the wall and then darted in through the window Demmet had opened.

The intern stood there, shock on his face.

"Sorry, kid," Remo said. "I tried."

The intern nodded numbly and walked past Remo, looking out over the file cabinets and peering down at Demmet's body, sprawled motionless on top of the car in the lot.

The intern swallowed, then looked to his left. For the first time, he noticed the ledge on which Demmet had precariously perched his heels. Only two inches wide. How had that doctor… what was his name, Williams?… been able to move along that to try to get to Demmet?

He turned back to the room. "How did you…" But the room was empty. Remo had gone.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The story of Remo's miraculous walk along the two-inch ledge outside Robler Clinic's fourth floor would surely have been all over the hospital if the first person the intern had told had not been Kathy Hahl.

But Ms. Hahl, the hospital's assistant administrator, had carefully explained to the young intern how important it was that Mr. Williams not be mentioned. How he was planning to make a substantial gift to the hospital's research program, a gift that might very well create a large number of special openings for bright young doctors, but that the gift would be lost if there were publicity.

"After all," she explained, putting her arm around the young man warmly and impressing her breasts against his upper arm, "he really didn't have anything to do with Dr. Demmet's tragic death. I mean, he just tried to save him but couldn't. There's no reason for publicity about that."

The intern impressed equally by her logic and the free feel, agreed.

"I think that's the best course of action," she said. "Why don't you come by my office late tomorrow and we'll discuss it some more?" she said, openly inviting.

Flustered, the young intern agreed and left. When the door closed behind him, Kathy Hahl went back behind her desk to think.

Whatever he was supposed to be, this Mr. Williams was not. He was certainly not some recluse billionaire trying to hide out in a hospital. He was certainly not trying to find a way to escape IRS trouble.

He was a government agent. Of that there was no longer any doubt. He had proved that with his stupid heavy-handed hint and his clumsy snooping around the laboratory.

He was probably dumb, but he was also dangerous. The impossible walk on that un-passable ledge had shown that. Kathy Hahl went to her window, opened it wide and looked at the ledge. Two inches wide. It seemed impossible, or so she had thought when the intern first told her the story. But the young doctor, while nervous, was not hysterical and not in shock. He was simply reporting a fact and Kathy Hahl, who had gone to Demmet's office to make sure that Demmet had not left a note implicating her, was the first person he had spoken to.

The walk was impossible… and yet he had done it. Williams must be quite a man.

At the thought, she smiled slightly to herself.

The operative word was "man." He was a man for all his talent. And she had ways to deal with men.

Dr. Smith, at CURE's Folcroft headquarters in Rye, New York, had already heard of Demmet's death when he talked to Remo that afternoon.

"You responsible for that?" he asked.

"No, dammit," Remo said. "He was my chief suspect."

"So?"

"So now I don't know. Just before he fell, he said something strange about not wanting to get old. It kind of reminded me of Stace and Mrs. Wilberforce."

"I received autopsy reports on Stace and Mrs. Wilberforce," Smith said.

"And?"

"The reports showed extreme aging. Senility. General breakdown of body tissues and bodily function, usually associated with very advanced age. Yet Stace was fifty-five and Mrs. Wilberforce sixty-two."

"Any ideas?" Remo asked.

"None. The computer reports no known chemical agent that can produce that kind of effect."

"I think there is," Remo said. "There's an experimental lab here and I've seen some old-looking animals in it."

"Well, stay with it," Smith said.

"Right. I'm going to sit here and figure it out. No violence."

"Good. No more Scrantons. Don't hesitate to use Chiun, by the way."

"Use Chiun? What do you mean?"

"Well, he seems to be rather good at thinking things through. Use his brain if you need it."

"Are you implying that I'm not smart enough to figure this out myself?"

"Something like that," Smith said agreeably.

"Well, for your information, Smitty, your so-called Korean genius is out right now looking in this hospital for Marcus Welby. How about that?"

"Chiun will probably find him. Use him."

"Right." Remo hung up. It was annoying, having decided to use brains after being chewed out for using muscle, to have Upstairs imply that you weren't any good for using anything but muscle. It was the $25,000 that had put Smith in a snit. Smith guarded CURE's money as if it were his own and Remo's demand for $25,000 to impress the hospital staff and to guarantee his freedom and his privacy had stuck in Smith's throat like an unpeeled grapefruit.

"Bitch, bitch, bitch," Remo said to himself as he lay back on the bed. The door pushed open and he looked toward it, expecting to see Chiun, but the tall bosomy redhead he had seen at Mrs. Wilberforce's bedside walked in instead.

"Mr. Williams," she said, "remember me? I'm Kathy Hahl, the assistant administrator."

"Sure," said Remo.. "Nice place you've got here."

"Thank you, we like it. I just stopped into see if there's anything you'd like." She moved closer to Remo's couch and looked down at him, eyes flashing.