Warren Murphy: Murder's Shield

Remo picked up the gun, looked at it, then tossed it on the table. He turned again to the policemen who sat in their seats as if cemented there, trying to absorb the incredible events of the last few minutes.

"Men," Remo said, "go home. Forget McGurk and forget me and forget the Men of the Shield. Just remember, when you get to thinking that your job is tough, that, of course, it is. That's why America picked its best men to be cops. That's why so many people are proud of you. Go home."

He started to speak again, but Chiun had stepped quietly inside the door and now raised an index finger to his mouth, as if to shush Remo.

Softly, Remo said again, his voice slowly trailing off, "Go home."

And then he jumped from the stage and strode purposefully up the aisle, past the rows of men on each side. He paused with Chiun at the door and looked back.

From the audience, men were tossing badges toward the stage, where they hit, or bounced near, McGurk's body.

Remo turned and walked through the doors.

"You did well, my son," Chiun said.

"Yeah. And I make me sick."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

When Remo telephoned in, he gave Smith the full report. O'Toole's death. The cops who had been sent to ambush Remo and had died. McGurk's suicide.

"How the hell are we going to explain all that?" Smith asked.

"Look," Remo said angrily. "You wanted this thing broken up. It's broken up. How you pick up the loose ends is your business. Send a special team from the Attorney General's office to investigate and later bring in a whitewash of the whole thing."

"And what about the members of the Men of the Shield? The assassination teams?"

"Forget them," Remo said. "They're just cops who made a mistake."

"I want their names," Smith said. "They're killers."

"So am I. You can have them the day after you come for me."

"That day may come," Smith said.

"Que sera, sera," Remo said and hung up.

End of report.

But he still had not told Smith everything, and an hour later he was on a plane to Miami, to see if there was one last loose end he had personally failed to tie up.

Smith had triggered it when he had talked about the computer efficiency of a nationwide killing operation manned by only forty people. O'Toole had mentioned it when he talked of his reasons for launching the Men of the Shield. McGurk had lent weight to it once when he described Janet O'Toole as "the brains of the operation."

Remo had to find out if it was true. Had Janet O'Toole, the computer expert, been part and parcel of the plan to kill, because of her insane hatred of all men? He had to find out because if she was, neatness demanded that she be taken care of.

He found her at the Inca Motel, a dismaying straggle of buildings and pools with varying pollution counts. She was sipping a tall drink at midnight near an outside pool when Remo arrived.

He stood outside the glare of the ring of lights and watched her, sprawled languorously in a beach chair.

The busboy brought a drink up to her and while he stood there with it in his hand, she stretched like a cat, arching her back, thrusting her breasts upward toward the boy.

Finally, she took the drink, but as the boy was walking away, she froze him in midstride by calling imperiously:

"Boy!"

"Yes, ma'm?"

"Come here," she said. The boy was in his early twenties, blond and tan and good-looking. He stopped at her feet looking down at her, and she pulled up her knees, spreading her legs slightly, and asked him softly, "Why have you been staring at me?"

She wore a tiny two-piece bikini and the youth stammered and said, "Well… I… I didn't… I…"

"Don't lie," she said. "You did. Is there something I have that other women don't have?" Before he could answer, she said, "I'm tired of your insolence. I'm going to my room. I want you there in five minutes and you'd better be prepared to explain your behaviour."

She set her glass on the pool deck, stood up and walked away gracefully on high spiked heels.

Remo waved the boy to him.

"What's with her?" he asked.

The youth grinned. "She's a sex fiend, Mister. It's how she gets her kicks. She's been here only a couple of hours and she's balled half the staff. First she chews them out, and then drags us to the room and… well, you know."

"Yeah, I know," Remo said, then leaned forward and gave the youth a hundred-dollar bill.

Janet O'Toole was naked when the knock on the door came a few minutes later. She turned off her light and pulled the door open slightly.

A male figure stood there. He said softly, "I've come to apologize."

"Come in, you evil-minded child, you. I'm going to have to punish you, you know."

She took the man's hand and pulled him into the room. A moment later, their bodies were locked together.

But in her brief career as courtesan, it had never been like this. The man brought her to heights, higher and higher, until she felt like skin-covered jelly.

She reached a peak and the voice whispered in her ear, "Your father's dead."

"Who cares? Don't stop."

"So's McGurk."

"Keep going. The hell with McGurk."

"The Men of the Shield are disbanded."

"So what? Just another bullshit organization anyway. Keep it coming."

He did.

When Remo got up later, she was sleeping, her mouth opened slightly, her breath still coming fast and shallow.

He flipped on the dresser light and looked at her. No, he decided, she wasn't a killer, just a computer operator. The only way she'd ever try to kill a man was in bed, in a fashion allowed by law.

Remo stood at the small dresser, took paper and pen from the center drawer, and wrote a quick note.

"Dear Janet.

"Sorry, but you're too much woman for me.

"Remo."

He left the note on her bare breasts, and went out into the Miami heat.