Warren Murphy: Death Check

Still, he felt a little desire to read the note again, just once more. But it had gone up in flames and just as well. He would relax, go out of his head in Dayton, fornicate a bit, and maybe start slow in a week or two. Perhaps they would move Chiun out to him for one of the training programs. He would probably need that.

An ambulance moved toward him from the other side of the circle. It couldn't be Ratchett. His house was in the other direction.

Then there was the body.

The ambulance slowed and a patrolman riding in front called out: "You must be Pelham."

"Yes," said Remo.

"You're the security officer. You want to meet me at the morgue?"

"Well, I'm sort of busy," Remo said, and seeing the young policeman's face contort in shock, he felt somewhat stupid. "I'm clearing up some things here. I'll be with you later. I've had a hard day."

"So has she," said the patrolman, nodding back to the receiving section of the ambulance. "Another OD. Your second in a month. I thought you people up here were brains, not junkies. Look. You've got to make it to the morgue because we're checking out stuff with the FBI. Hey, what happened to your face?"

"I got too close to a stove."

"Oh. Just a second." And to the driver he said, "Wait a minute."

The policeman left the seat and sidled up to Remo and in confidential tones that the driver could not hear said, "Look, no matter what they say, the FBI goes out of its way to grab credit. You know what I'm talking about."

Remo nodded.

"They told us that if anyone saw you to tell you to meet them at the morgue. I know what they're doing. They want to get you away from the photographers over on the thirteenth green. That's where we found the body. Fuck 'em. You're the security officer. If you make it there fast, you can still get to see a reporter. Know what I mean. I mean they come in here to make a pinch or something that we can do just as good and they act so goddam nicey-nicey like they don't want the credit. Know what I mean?"

Remo understood.

"How does that make us look, right? And you. You're security officer. Both of us together don't make what those bastards make. Right? All we got is our respect. Right?"

Remo nodded. "I'd like to see the body."

"She's a shrink. Would you believe it? A shrink OD'ing on horse? What a bunch of dingalings. Hey, watch it with those stoves, fella. You look awful."

"The body."

"Sure. But she's wrapped."

"Just a look?"

"Sure. Hey, don't start up yet."

The driver shook his head. "Where do you think I'm rushing to, man?"

When they got to the rear, the patrolman confided that the driver's entire race was lazy. He opened the doors and with the effected cynicism of young policemen, said: "That's it."

Remo saw the sheet covering the being on the folding stretcher. He knew it was Deborah. He reached into the ambulance and carefully, very carefully, folded back the sheet, controlling every nerve lest his hands break away. He could feel the tremble of energy course through him, and he channelled it into the precision he knew he need and he felt something rise in him, something trained and yet beyond training.

And he saw the still face and the closed eyes and the freckles which had lit his night of loneliness and the lips which were now still and the arms that would never move again. He reached in and held her hand. In the light from the overhead bulb he saw on her arm something that was being surrendered, either by the chemicals he knew were in her or by the life that was no longer in her. The faint blue rectangle which looked as though drawn by a robin's egg crayon. They had been neat little numbers once that the master race used to catalogue the human beings they considered sub-human, even precious children who, for a brief moment, would light up a life, and having lit it, could set in motion that which would settle an old, old score.

He squeezed her hand. It was hard, unyielding. Tenderly he opened the fingers and removed the object that she clutched. He looked at it, then put in his shirt pocket. Deborah was supposed to lead our agents to the killer. Now, in death, she would lead Remo to the master race who thought they were supermen.

Well, then, he would let them know what one was. One who was not sure of where he had come from because he was left at a Catholic orphanage, one who, for all he knew, contained the seeds of all races. He might even be a pureblood German. If that should be, thought Remo, should they hold some special lien on viciousness, let that enjoy itself within him now. Chiun's ancient scripture flashed through his mind: "I am created Shiva, the destroyer, death, the shatterer of worlds." They would come to know the destroyer.

And then Remo covered the stars for the last time and could have sworn that he gently shut the ambulance doors. He had been very precise about it, doing it very slowly to appear casual.

But the bang and the crack of the door and the caved-in red cross, and the ambulance settling on its wheels brought the driver running from the cab. The patrolman yelled and Remo shrugged his shoulders.

"These fuckin' nuts they got here," the patrolman yelled to the driver, while he stared at Remo angrily. "They're all screwballs. Even the cop. What'd you do that for, huh?"

But he made no move toward Remo. And Remo again apologized, and walked away. He hoped he would arrive before the FBI. He had nothing against the FBI.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The man once known as Dr. Hans Frichtmann sat at his chessboard, staring at an endgame whose outcome was a foregone conclusion. Chess was a balm for the mind, the mind that could appreciate it.

He had donned his smoking jacket and wore slippers, befitting a man who had done a hard day's work. Who could have expected that the little Jewess worked for that vengeful gang that did not know World War Two was over? They were insane. And now that she was dead, another would be coming for him. But he would be gone. The pictures would enable the Russians to control the scientists at the Forum, and that had been his mission. He had done his job. Naturally, it would not be adequately appreciated, but appreciation was for the days as a young man.

He looked at the board again. Only a king left, against his black king, queen, two knights, a rook, and a bishop. But before the drug took effect the Jewess had said that no matter how bad things looked, there was a way. There was no way, of course.

He was about to reset the pieces for a new game when the door to his study was pushed open. It swung back on noiseless hinges, then the knob cracked into the wall.

It was the Brewster Forum security officer, looking as though he had climbed out of an oven.

"Hello, Stohrs," Remo said to the man who was Brewster's Forum's chess instructor. "I've come for my game."

"Well, not right now," Stohrs said.

"Oh, yes. Now is fine." He walked in and closed the door behind him.

"What do you want?," the chess instructor asked. "This is nonsense at such a late hour. You look terrible."

"I want to play chess."

"Well," said Stohrs with a sigh, "if you insist. Let me take your jacket."

Remo took it off himself and as he did, the frail fibres separated and a sleeve was torn. He noticed that his arms were red and swollen.

In the center of the room was the chess board on a metal stand on a bare parquet floor. Two heavy-armed oak chairs were attached to the table.

"Sit down, Mr. Pelham, I will set the board."

"No, this end game is fine. I will take white."

"You cannot win with only a king."

Remo reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew the white queen that Deborah's hand had surrendered to him in death. "I have a queen," he said. "That will be enough."

Remo rested his arms on the chair arms. Under his right forearm, he could feel the chill of metal conducting heat from his arm into the chair. He picked up his king to examine the piece and as he did, looked down at the chair arm. He saw three small metal rings buried in the wood, with small holes, the diameter of needles, in the centers. That was it, Remo thought. A knockout injection.