Warren Murphy: Judgment Day

Remo stopped in front of a jewelry store. It was 11:05. He had ten minutes. At 11:15 there would be the weekly line open at Folcroft. The daily line had not yet answered. While Remo had never faced this problem before, he was sure that the weekly open line had to work. He believed it was much more secure because it was routed through Kansas City, up to Canada, and back down to Folcroft.

A frowsy blonde with a droopy print dress and perfume that would make a sewer snake retch asked Remo if he wanted honey for twenty dollars.

"No thanks," said Remo.

"Ten dollars. C'mon. It's a slow day. I'll clean your pipes."

"My pipes are clean."

"Five. I haven't done it for five since high school."

Remo shook his head. It was 11:12.

" I ain't doin' it for two. Five is the best price you can get."

"For what?"

"Me."

"Why would I want you?"

"You're queer, ain't you?"

"No," said Remo matter-of-factly and went off to a street telephone booth. The blonde followed.

"Look. I need the fast cash. Four. Four dollars, you should see a price like that again never."

"It's a good price," said Remo.

"A deal?"

"Sure," said Remo, reaching the phone booth. He slipped her a five. "I'll meet you around the corner in ten minutes. Don't run out on me."

She took the money, assuring him she wouldn't run out on such a handsome fellow. Which corner did he say?

"That one," said Remo, waving his left hand vaguely.

"You sure got big wrists."

"Runs in the family," said Remo.

"I don't have change."

"When I see you again, you give it to me."

It was 11:14. At the half-minute, Remo dialed. He heard the relays click, whine and gurgle, and then he heard the ringing.

The phone was answered mid-ring. Remo was surprised at how happy he was to hear even Smitty's voice. But it wasn't Dr. Harold Smith. Remo must have gotten the wrong number. He hung up quickly in hopes that he could still get in on the 11:15 line before it was closed down. He dialed again, heard the clicking and waited. Three seconds, five seconds, seven seconds. Then the ring. And it was again answered mid-ring, but it was not Smith's voice.

"Who am I talking to?" asked Remo.

"New man in the office." The voice had that plastic California quality.

"Which office?"

"I believe the recipient of the phone call is supposed to do the asking. Who are you?"

"Is this Folcroft Sanitarium?"

"Yes."

"I must have a wrong line, I'm looking for Doctor Smith."

"He's on vacation. Can I help you?"

"No," said Remo.

"Look, fella, this is sort of a strange new job to me and you're coming in on a special line I have here. I gather you're sort of important. Now I think we're going to work together fine as soon as I get this project functioning along more effective directional lines. But you're going to have to work with me. I can tell you, I'm looking people over rather carefully."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm asking who you are and what you do for us."

"Where's Dr. Smith?"

"I told you he's on vacation."

"Where?"

"There's a high-priority restriction on his place frame."

"Are you a person?" asked Remo, who had known what every one of the words meant, but could make no sense out of the sentence.

"I think you ought to come up to Folcroft and we'll have a little meeting, if you tell me who you are."

"You got a pen?" asked Remo.

"Yes."

"It's a long name."

"All right. Shoot."

Remo glanced across the street at a sign over a rug shop.

"Velspar Rombough Plekostian," he said, reading the sign. Remo spelled out the name two times, starting with V as in vasectomy and ending with V as in nut-nut.

"I don't see you listed in the personnel wrap-up."

"I'm there. You'll find me. Who are you?"

"Blake Corbish, I'm the new director here at the sanitarium."

"You've taken over all of Smith's duties?"

"All of them see," said Remo and hung up. There was something very wrong. No one but Smith was supposed to answer the weekly number. If something had happened to Smith, Remo was supposed to get a tape-recorded message from the computer on the line which would tell Remo what to do and how to contact Smith again, if ever. It was obvious that the computers had already been tampered with. But then only Smith knew the computers and that was probably because the cold-blooded unemotional Smith was related to them. One of them might have been his mother.

Remo did not know what to do. This would be important to Chiun, also, but Remo did not know whether or not to tell him that the House of Sinanju might have to seek a new employer.

It was possible that Smitty was dead. Perhaps a heart attack or an auto accident. Remo visualized a bloody Dr. Harold Smith in a mass of twisted auto wreckage. But to bleed, a man had to have blood in his veins. To have a heart attack required, first of all, a heart.

Smith wouldn't die. He wasn't that human.

Whatever happened, Remo intended to keep it from Chiun for a few days. The Master of Sinanju might be the master of many mysteries, but he was also somewhat unattuned to the Western world. His understanding of the West came only from television soap operas, and he sometimes had trouble telling the difference between a jet and a helicopter. He had often confused whole centuries and cultures, thinking of the Russians as good because their czars paid well and overestimating the importance of a small African tribe because the House of Sinanju had rendered services to them before the time of Christ.

Remo planned to return to the hotel suite, perhaps read a magazine and think in peace, and figure out their next moves.

A frowsy blonde waved at him from the corner. It was the hooker.

"Hi, I've been waiting."

"I thought you were supposed to walk with the money. All hookers do."

"For you, I'd wait."

"There's a rug merchant down the block who could use you. Pays good too. His name's Velspar Rombough Plekostian. Twenty bucks, guaranted."

The hooker's face brightened and she followed Remo's finger.

Well, though Remo, into each life some rain must fall. Because this rug merchant had a sign outside his shop with his name, he would soon be under investigation by a secret agency and plagued by the overperfumed attentions of a hooker.

But then life was never fair, and if Remo hadn't been an orphan and had not been seen in Vietnam by one of Smith's operatives, and if, and if, and if… Life as not fair for Remo Williams, nor was it fair for Velspar Rombough Plekostian, although Remo thought, he liked Velspar's name better.

When Remo entered the suite, he heard the low, whiney conversation of the daytime soaps. Remo was careful not to walk in front of Dr. Ranee Remerow who was talking to Mrs. Jeri Tredmore about Mrs. Tredmore's daughter who was dying of leukemia while about to give birth to a baby everyone believed sired by someone other than her husband, perhaps by Brace Wilson, the noted black nuclear physicist who was torn between working for science or for Black Revolution.

Remo remembered one scene in passing because Dr. Bruce Wilson, the noted nuclear physicist, had been referring to "bofe nuchrons" when he meant "both neutrons." This was somewhat better that Dr. Remerow who referred to netrones and Mrs. Tredmore who twice referred to neuters.

Chiun watched all of this in rapture, and Remo for the first time felt grateful that these shows absorbed Chiun's attention, while Remo thought.

When the last commercial faded into the afternoon movies, Remo strolled casually through the parlor of the suite, looking for the phone to call room service for rice and fish, no sauces, no spices, no butter. Boiled rice and only slightly warmed fish.

"We must talk about your deep troubles," said Chiun.