Warren Murphy: Death Check

"Stuff it in."

"I will not."

"All right. Goodbye."

"All right."

"Five dollars."

"Five. Now see here...."

"Five."

"All right. Five. You just love to spend money."

Smith crinkled a five-dollar bill in his hands, and with a get-it-over-fast speed leaned down to the woman who came up to meet his money with her bosom. He did not see his companion also reach forward with money, and under the cover of this motion slip a hand behind the jewelled breast cups and snap the metal holding band, flipping the bra, cups and all around Smith's hand.

The breasts ballooned out. Smith gasped. The crowd cheered. The woman swung at Smith's head, reaching for her bra.

"We could lose our license, you dumb fuck," she screamed, scoring again on the forehead of one of the most powerful men in the country, who desperately tried to hold on his glasses while trying to leave the table.

And the man known as Remo Pelham floated to the door, telling everyone he passed, "You never know by the looks. You never know. Shocking what these degenerates will do."

CHAPTER FIVE

The package bearer might very well have lived out the afternoon. He might even have saved his colleague's lives. Certainly there was no danger from the man who mentioned his love for photography and New York City sky.

But the man with the gray package said something. With a sneer, he said: "We know what's in the water package. And we know we can't open it. So you're going to open it for us. Do you know why you're going to open it for us?"

"No," said Remo, lying. He had seen the two big men, one black and the other white, pretending to lounge on the seats behind them. "Beautiful skyline, don't you think?" He breathed deeply of the almost breathable air between Staten Island and New York City.

"You are going to open the package because you want to save your life. Look behind you."

"And leave the beauty of the gulls and the twin towers of the trade center, the Empire State Building? My little island in the sun?"

Remo did a little semi-pushup against the second deck railing of the ferry and watched the white churning swirls bubble out back toward Manhattan. Then he felt two strong arms on each of his arms. He looked again at the man with the gray package and the sneer and said:

"You're not going to believe this. But I'll give you all a chance to live."

The man did not believe this. The man believed he was talking to a prankster.

So the man who cared about photography went with the large men and the man with the package to a paint store on Staten Island. The store was closed that day, but it was opened for them by a fat man. With a gun.

The man who loved photography tried. He said: "Look. You're just a messenger. You give the package to me, I'm just a messenger. I give it to someone else. Why should we fight over it?"

The man with the package sneered again. "You're wrong all around. I'm not just your messenger. He met with an accident. You are not just a messenger. I was informed otherwise. It seems you lose."

"Last chance to reconsider," Remo said.

"Sorry," said the other. "We'll have to risk it."

Remo registered the moves of his four adversaries. The two big men were obviously in condition; he had felt how light they were on their feet when they walked him off the ferry. The man with the package had been in condition once. The short man who had opened the door was very fat and had never been in condition. But he made up for it. He carried a snub-nosed revolver. A snub-nosed revolver is good for one thing. Close work. What it loses in action it gains in compactness. It's not easy to reach out, grab the barrel and the cylinder, and smother the falling hammer, all in one motion.

The two big men stayed behind Remo as the man put the gray package down on the counter. The fat man stayed near the shuttered door.

"Well," said the man who had held the package.

"This is the package and not an imitation?"

"This is the package."

"If it's an imitation, I can get hurt."

"It is the package."

"These things tend to explode."

"Open it."

Remo carefully removed the clear tape from the tips of the gray package. Through the holes in the corners protruded four knots of thin red string. The knots were symmetrical. As Remo looked at them, deeply, with his mind free, he could almost feel the inner harmony of the man who had tied them. It was the real package. Chiun had tied the knots.

"Something wrong, Pelham?"

"How did you know my name was Pelham?"

"Untie the package."

"How did you know my name was Pelham?"

"Untie the package and I'll tell you."

"I think you intend to kill me."

The man sneered again. "That's right. But we can kill you quickly. Decently. Or we can kill you slowly and painfully. Like your messenger. Like this."

He nodded and the two big men grabbed Remo's head in their hands and began to squeeze. The fat man with the snub-nosed gun giggled. The man with the package watched, waiting to see pain and surrender in the victims' eyes.

But there was no surrender. Only a flash of contempt and anger. The man dropped to his hands, fast before he could be held up. Into the close kneecap of the black man went an elbow, driving the kneecap through the joint, spinning the body upside down so the Afro went crashing into the counter with a crack. Up into the white man's groin went a single hard finger, crushing a testicle and driving the man into the air and then back against a pyramid of red paint cans which caught the shocked body and surrendered, splaying cans across the floor.

The fat man tried to squeeze the trigger. He was still trying when his muscles stopped receiving signals. They stopped receiving signals because there was something wrong with the remnants of his spinal column. A whole vertebra was in his throat.

The two big men were retching on the floor. The man who had held the package just gasped. When he saw the now-hard brown eyes stare into his mind and feed upon his fear, when he suddenly smelled his own death upon him, he urinated.

"How did you know my name was Pelham?"

"I was told."

"By someone at Folcroft?"

"I never heard of Folcroft."

"Who told you?"

The man had edged away from the package along behind the paint store counter. Now he said calmly, "There's a man behind you with a gun."

The man was a pro. He could suffer a setback, regain his composure, then try a very old trick that almost always worked. The trick assumed that the person it was used on was so engrossed in the tension of the conversation that he had shut off his perception of other things.

This was true of most people. But most people had not stood for hours in empty gymnasiums, dodging three swinging knives, suspended by ropes from the ceiling, while being expected to yell out how many doors behind them opened and closed when they opened and closed. When practiced, enough, this indelibly trained the perception so that it took a conscious act of will to turn it off. It did not turn off during tension. But how was the man behind the counter to know it?

He was so terribly involved with the gun he was bringing up from behind the counter that he just assumed the trick would work. He knew it would not when his wrist ceased to function and he lost consciousness.

Remo permanently ended the convulsions of the two athletes. Then he placed the fat man behind the counter where he belonged. He lifted all three of their wallets. He was taking the wallet from the pocket of the man with the package when the man stirred. Remo had another question: "What happened to the messenger?"

The man was no longer afraid of death since it had, he knew, become inevitable. "I killed him. I shot his eyes out. I enjoyed it." He sneered.

Remo reached down and squeezed his broken wrist, hard enough to feel one broken bone skid against another. With a shriek, the man passed out again.