Warren Murphy: Death Therapy

"How'd you get her to do it?" Remo asked.

"You might not believe it, Donaldson, but she loved me."

"So you used drugs and post-hypnotic suggestion?"

"To simplify it for you, yes. Plus Lithia's peddling her ass. That helped. Men were just fascinated by her body. A little of her twiff and they'd do anything," Garrand said imperiously. He was lecturing now. "I never could understand it myself. She just wasn't that good."

"I thought you couldn't get someone to act against their will under hypnosis," Remo said.

"A typical piece of comic-book stupidity," Gar-rand said. "First you convince them that what they're doing is the right thing to do. That colonel, for instance. He thought you were a Russian spy. And General Dorfwill. He wasn't bombing St. Louis; he was bombing Peking in retaliation for a sneak attack. And Admiral Crust? Why shouldn't he destroy the Statue of Liberty, particularly since he knew it was the hideout for a band of anarchists about to blow up our country? That's how it's done, Mr. Donaldson."

"And the song?"

"That was my idea, too," Garrand said, smiling, his teeth pearled in the ground coffee brownness of his face. "You've got to be careful when you use trigger words to set a person off. You can't pick a word that someone's liable to hear in conversation. It could set them off before you were ready. When you think about it, not many people are likely to use super-kali-fragil-istic-expi-ali-docious in conversation."

"A lovely plan," Remo said. "I respect you for it. Now I need to know where the bidding will be held."

Garrand smiled and ignored the question. "One thing puzzles me, Donaldson. I had everything worked out. All except you. This government isn't that good that one of our sources shouldn't have a line on you. It's like all of a sudden there was an organization that did not exist. But it existed. And so did you. Now, if you wish to live, if you wish these darts not to enter your eyes or your temples or wherever I wish, you can tell me where you came from."

Remo laughed. "You lose," he said. He saw his laughter grate Dr. Garrand like a rasp and then the two pointy hands flicked and the darts were at him in that flat trajectory, across the eight feet of room, but Remo's head did not move. His eyes, toward which the darts flew, did not blink. Remo's hands flashed up in front of his face and his hands caught the darts by the points, between thumb and index finger; hands receiving the thrust of the killer weights, wrists like spring locks accepting the force and holding short, just short of the eyes.

Garrand's mouth opened. His eyes widened. He looked toward the box of darts on the table and querulously reached forward a hand. But suddenly his hand was pinned to the table as Remo pierced it with one of the darts. "Right thumb," Remo said. He still held the other dart in his right hand.

For the first time in years, Garrand became physical. He ripped his hand loose from the dart, tearing the flesh, and lumbered toward Remo. And for the first time in years, he felt his legs going high above him, above his head, and he was up at the diffused lighting, then at the walls, and than his head was buried in the polar bear rug, and there was that arrogant white face between his barefeet, and Lawrence Garrand was upside down, his head pressed painfully into the rug. He had scarcely seen the man move. And it was becoming hard to breathe.

"Okay, sweetheart," said the leering face between his feet. "Where's the auction?"

Garrand breathed in and tried to breathe out. It was getting more difficult. The blood was pouring into his head and his chocolate skin was taking on a blood-gorged purple colour. He fought to exhale. His chest pressed down into his chin. A strand of polar-bear hair caught in his eye and burned.

"Where's the auction?" that white face insisted, then began to press down on Garrand's legs, forcing them into his waist, and Garrand finally blurted out, "Villebrook Equity Associates. New York. Tomorrow." He was exhausted from the effort.

"Okay, sweetheart," Remo said. "Time to go bye-bye."

"You can't kill me," Garrand insisted. "I'm the foremost authority on atomic waste disposal. I deserve to live."

"Sure. So did Clovis Porter. General Dorfwill. A lot of others."

"Call the police then," Garrand gasped. "You can't kill me. If I were white, you wouldn't kill me."

"I'd kill you in any colour, sweetheart." Remo looked down along Garrand's wet brown body and his eyes met those of the world's foremost authority on atomic waste disposal. Remo extended the remaining dart out over Garrand's face with his right hand. "External jugular," he called, then dropped the dart. It buried itself into the flesh alongside Garrand's throat and a thin purple spurt of blood fountained out of his neck as the blood pressure was momentarily relieved by the pierced vein. Remo dropped Garrand heavily to the floor. Before Remo turned off his breath forever, Garrand managed to gasp something muffled by the fat folds of his cheeks and chin. Later, Remo would think that what he said was "I knew it wouldn't work. You people…"

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

When Remo returned to his room, Chiun was sitting rigidly in the lotus position, staring at the television.

Remo opened his mouth to speak and Chiun raised a hand for silence.

Only seconds later, organ music up and over, Chiun leaned forward and turned off the television.

"Good afternoon, little father," Remo said. "Have you had a pleasant day?"

"Relatively, my son, although I must admit I weary of telling that blighted mass of womanhood that she is indeed loved. And you?"

"Very productive. We must leave now."

"Our work is finished?" Chiun asked.

"Our work here is finished. We have other tasks to perform elsewhere."

"I will be ready to leave in moments," Chiun said.

He was and Remo realized that his uncharacteristic haste was fuelled by his desire to get back to their Washington hotel room and recover his TV taping machine to record the shows he was now missing.

But they stopped at the hotel only long enough to pay their bill and for Remo to slip the bell captain $100 to ship their luggage to a non-existent address in Avon-by-the-Sea on the Jersey shore. And then they were back in their rented convertible on their way to Dulles Airport outside Washington.

Chiun grumbled all the way at the idiocy of leaving a perfectly good television recorder behind and finally extracted a promise from Remo that he could buy another in New York that night.

And later that night, after they checked into a mid-town Manhattan hotel, Chiun insisted upon Remo's giving him $500 so he could buy one, which he did, along with five new robes, a pocket knife and a whistle. The latter two were to protect himself on New York's crime-ridden streets, he explained.

They both rose early the next morning and Chiun worked with Remo on his balance and rhythm, setting out strings of drinking glasses across the floor and having Remo race across the tops of them, barefooted, at increasing speeds.

Remo felt good. He could taste the end of this assignment. After he showered and shaved, he dressed, reluctantly donning the polka dot tie he had brought with him. If he was going to take part in the bidding for America, he should look the part, he told his image in the mirror. He buttoned his new double-breasted dark blue suit.

Before leaving, he entrusted Lithia Forrester's lists with Chiun, telling him: "Until you hear from me guard these with your life."

Chiun was deep in his morning meditation and only grunted, but that meant he understood. The lists lay on the floor in front of Chiun where Remo had placed them as Remo went out of their room.

In a men's store off the lobby, Remo bought a conservative regimental striped tie and dropped the other into an ash-bucket near the desk.