Warren Murphy: Death Check

Her voluntary act of debasement was lighting the fires. "He's ready. Tell him to take me."

"Take her," Stohrs said.

"I want rape," yelled the daughter.

"Rape the woman," Stohrs said.

And that was all Remo needed, and he banged her down into the bed so hard that her wig flew off and ploughed into her, twisting her body so that her spinal column wrenched.

She moaned and Stohrs kept snapping pictures. What process had brought him to this, Remo thought, where he could stand taking photos and living out his daughter's perversions? Remo knew. It was like any other horror. It was done imperceptibly, step by step, individual mean actions being built into the habit pattern, demand compliance, until the final act... the final sum... was demanded by the parts. Until there was no way to stop it.

"Harder." Anna's voice insinuated itself into his mind. Harder. Faster. Deeper. He considered his fingers. Then his toes. While his body forced blood to pump, his mind denied that blood and thought of other parts, other functions. It was Chiun's secret.

"More," she yelled. "More."

He ground into her, pressing with his knees, lifting her and dropping her down. She groaned in ecstasy.

Remo moved harder. Faster.

She groaned. Ecstasy again.

Harder. Faster. Concentrate on kneecaps.

She groaned continuously now. But ecstasy was giving way. It was surrendering to pain.

Remo moved on. Harder. Faster. His mind sensed the heavily calloused skin on the tips of his fingers.

Her groans grew in intensity, raised in pitch. She was in pain now. Suffering. She would soon shout stop and Remo, under drugs, would have to obey.

He leaned forward heavily onto her body and smashed his heavily muscled shoulder down into her mouth, chipping her front teeth. Hard. Stopping her from calling out the command to stop.

Her voice was muffled under his shoulder.

And Remo kept on. Harder. Harder. The toes now. He felt them digging into the wooden floor for a firm footing. She was using her hands now. Trying to push him away. He pressed her harder.

Stohrs had stopped taking pictures. He was now just a spectator. The Nazis had killed by gang rape. Stohrs was watching that fate overtake his daughter, a death admonished by a one-man gang.

Then Stohrs called out. "Stop."

Remo stopped. And the bitch lay semi-conscious, bleeding from the mouth and groin.

"Are you all right, dear?," Stohrs asked.

She sat up slowly, hatred in her eyes. "Let us kill this bastard, father. Painfully."

"We shall. But first, Mr. Pelham and I must finish our game. Develop the film. I will call you."

Remo was ordered to dress, and then Stohrs led him back to the chess room. He ordered Remo to sit down and then took his seat on the other side of the table.

He spoke to Remo: "Who are you?"

"Remo Pelham."

"Who told you about me?"

"Deborah Hirshbloom."

"What did she tell you?"

"That you were Nazi."

"Why did you come here?"

"For money. I could get money from you."

"All right. We will play a little game. You will wake up and show me how you can win, and then you will go back to sleep. Repeat after me. You will wake up to play the .game and then you will go to sleep."

"I will wake up to play and then go back to sleep."

"Back to sleep when I snap my fingers. Wake up when I snap my fingers."

And Stohrs snapped his fingers.

"A fast game," he said, smiling.

"A fast game," Remo said.

"Still think you can win?," Stohrs asked, confident in his skills, assured of his victory.

"Yes," Remo said. He picked up the queen from the board. Deborah's queen. "Watch the queen," Remo said.

"I am watching."

"It is my move," Remo said, as he lifted the queen, standing it on its green felt base in the palm of his hand. His fingers curled down to hold it by the base, against his palm. Then his deep brown eyes that seemed to have no pupils burned into Stohrs' eyes and Remo said, "It is mate in one." Remo turned the queen over in the palm of his right hand, and then, with a roll of the wrist, moved it forward. His move, the greatest move in the history of chess, put the white point into Stohr's right eye, and then a push through the socket into the brain, and there was Stohrs with a green felt monocle where his right eye should be, and red ribbons beginning to hang from it. Stohrs' body twitched convulsively and his fingers went snap, snap, snap, because that was the last message his brain had sent before Remo had moved, white queen to the bastard's eye.

Remo looked at him, then smiled with only his lips.

"Checkmate," he said. And walked away.

The rest was easy.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Anna Stohrs was still naked. She was just placing the negatives of Remo into a metal card file containing the other negatives when Remo walked into the darkroom.

She looked up, and her eyes opened wide in horror, when she saw him there.

"He lost," Remo said.

She tried to kick him but Remo, laughing, ignored the effort, and flipped her left arm up behind her back. Then he whispered into her right ear, "Your father said just before I killed him that the one thing he really enjoyed was seeing you perform. But he never wanted to let on, because you might stop."

Then he killed her and left her body sprawled over the giant photo dryer. The sweat on her naked body sizzled as he dropped her over the stainless steel drum. Then Remo burned the negatives, and set fire to the house.

He took a doughnut from the cupboard on his way out, and left a few minutes before the arrival of the first fire company.

The cool of evening chilled the air, and suddenly it became incredibly cold for August, then hot, then Remo felt nothing and just kept walking.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The roast beef at Henrici's in Dayton was good. It had been good for the last two Wednesday nights and Remo looked out of the windows down on the Miami valley, with blinking lights on the outskirts of Dayton, and far off the small towns surrounding it. The restaurant was on the top of the hotel and for Dayton provided exquisite dining. In New York, it would be just another good meal.

He cut into the rich red beef, which shivered slightly, emitting a reddish pool which flowed into the mashed potato mountain, making its base pink. Good beef, somehad once said, was like a hearty woman. It must be taken with gusto. Who said it? It obviously had not been Chiun, who while he once allowed that all women are beautiful but not all men are capable of seeing it, also felt that red beef was like a subtle poison. You enjoyed your destruction because it was comfortable and slow.

Remo enjoyed the beef. In fact, Chiun might be very bright about the poison. Being some place at a certain night regularly, a certain place someone else knew, made you a perfect setup for that someone else. The beef could be poisoned. He could be poisoned without his poisoner ever seeing him. CURE was good at that. In fact, if it wanted to, the poisoner might not even know it was poison. Breaking links wherever you can.

But he was alive and every day he lived probably meant that he was being kept there to stew. The punishment would be waiting to be killed. If he waited, though, it would also show them that he could be trusted again.

What had he really done that was so bad? Talked back? That could be attributed to the long peak. What counted was not what he said but what he did. And what he did was to follow orders. He had headed for Deborah's cot and then he went to Dayton.

How he had gotten to Dayton, he forgot. There was the path, the tiredness, the oppressive heat, and then, what he remembered of it, he was in the Dayton Airport just outside Vandalia, with an incredible sunburn, money from what must have been cashed traveller’s checks and no identification. He had probably gone through the necessary go routine automatically.