Warren Murphy: Death Check

"Do you have a Frisbee?"

"No, I'm afraid I don't."

"But you said you would play Frisbee with me and if you don't have a Frisbee, how can we play Frisbee together?" Her faint brows furrowed and her mouth turned down. Her blue eyes filled with tears. She stamped a foot. "You said you'd play Frisbee with me and you're not playing Frisbee. You said you'd play and you don't have a Frisbee. And how can we play Frisbee if you don't have one? I don't have a Frisbee."

Then Stephanie Brewster covered her eyes and cried like the six-year-old girl she was. And Remo picked her up and held her and promised her a Frisbee, but she would have to stop rubbing her eyes because that was bad for them.

"I know," sobbed Stephanie Brewster. "The retina is sensitive to pressure."

"Would you like to learn a Korean proverb?"

"What?" asked Stephanie cautiously, clinging to her unhappiness lest the offering fail to match in value the tears she was shedding.

"You should rub your eyes only with your elbows."

"But you can't rub your eyes with your elbows."

Remo smiled. And Stephanie laughed. "I see. I see. You're not supposed to rub your eyes."

"That's right."

"I like you. Come, take me into the office."

Remo walked into an office off the living room. And he was horrified to learn that this was where Nils Brewster did most of his work, that the papers scattered about were the thinking of Brewster Forum, and no doubt contained that little plan for world conquest. No gates, no locks, and a six-year-old girl who said,

"I don't understand that yet, but you can read it. But leave the papers in the same order. Daddy's fussy."

Leave them in the same order. Her father might die for those papers because he was fussy and left them in the same order. Remo felt sick.

But he forced himself to think of millions of people and their lives. He stretched thousands out on roads, smiling, holding hands, every home in America, every family, every crowd. And he knew that if the word came, he would do his duty and kill-even if it was the glorious, brilliant Nils Brewster, and even though his death would shatter this delicious child, Stephanie.

It was Remo's good fortune that he soon met Nils Brewster, and the meeting made his possible assignment a great deal easier.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Nils Brewster was not dressed in chains as he had been for his nude portrait. He wore a short-sleeved blue shirt, chinos and sneakers. His hair flew about his head like tornado-whipped tumbleweed.

Stephanie had gone off to tell her mother about the new director of security, and had left Remo in the only large building in the compound that might have housed a laboratory. It did not. It was an auditorium, now filled with people crowded around tables.

The first thing Doctor Brewster said to Remo was: "Shhhhh."

"I'm Remo Pelham, the new. ..."

"I know, I know. Shhhhhh.'"

He turned and Remo followed. It was a chess tournament Remo would learn later that Brewster Forum had not only a chess tournament, but a chess instructor, a tennis pro, a golf pro, a singing teacher, a karate instructor, a musical conductor, its own little newspaper-published for the twenty-three people who could understand what was going on in the forum, including to Remo's awesome shock, a Russian-and a sky-diving coach.

"We provide what people need or ask for," Brewster told him later.

"No skiing?"

"The weather's not right here. We send our people who want to learn to the Big Boulder Ski School at Lake Harmony. They teach natural techniques, the best method of learning. You learn parallel right away."

"That's nice," Remo would say, wondering for just a moment if Nils Brewster had not devised the most beautiful hustle of the Twentieth Century.

But that afternoon, it was chess. A pudgy man with bulging brown eyes and flicking wrists was in an endgame with a hulk of a white-haired man who hovered over the board like a weightlifter preparing himself for a record hoist. The pudge was Dr. James Ratchett, the homosexual in the cape, versus the Jesuit of the missionary position.

Ratchett spied Remo and pointed a delicate finger. "Who is that?" he asked. It was an obvious ploy to divert Father Boyle's attention away from the board because, on the two buttoned clock, it was Father Boyle's time running out.

"The new security director," whispered Brewster.

"Our new flatfoot," taunted Ratchett.

"Shhhhh," said Brewster to Remo before Remo said anything.

"Are you Irish like our deceased Mister McCarthy?"

Remo said nothing. He just stared at the board.

Remo had been taught chess and did not like it. He had been taught chess, not for the intricacy of the moves nor for the concentration it required. He was taught chess simply to realize that each move changed the board. It was something people tended to forget in life; that every move altered things in some way and that preconceived operations needed flexibility to be worthwhile. Basically, chess taught Remo how to look. He looked now around the room and saw the karate lover, in clothes this time, watching closely. Another interested observer was a man in a dark suit and dark tie, who Remo found out later was the chess instructor.

"I asked you a question, cop," said Ratchett. "Are you Irish like our deceased Mister McCarthy?"

"Shhhhh," said Brewster angrily to Remo who was silent.

"When I speak to you, you will answer me," said Ratchett, huffing himself in his chair. "Answer me."

"I don't think I'm Irish," Remo said. It was a bland tone, one used for getting rid of annoying questions and questioners.

"You don't think you're Irish. You don't think. Don't you know? After all, I thought all Irishmen knew they were Irish. Otherwise, why would the little dears all be policemen and priests? I'm playing against a priest, now, you know."

Father Boyle did not look up, but moved his rook from an inactive corner to the center of the board. Ordinarily, it would not be a bad move. But now it was a bad move because Ratchett had more men attacking the square than the priest had defending. Under those circumstances, the priest would succumb.

Ratchett was suddenly quiet and on the board with all his attention. Father Boyle looked over his shoulder and extended his hand to Remo. "Hi, I'm Bob Boyle. We're all a little bit nuts here. I think it's a function of intelligence."

"I'm Remo Pelham," said Remo, taking the hand. Well, pleasant or not, the priest would go with the rest if the word came down. Remo wasn't a judge, just an operative.

"Shhhh," said Nils Brewster.

"Get off it, Nils," said the priest.

"He's not to disturb anyone," Brewster snapped back. "I don't really like his presence here in the first place. If we didn't need federal funding, I wouldn't allow him on the premises. You know how they are, the whole fascistic mentality."

"You're the biggest fascist I've ever met, Nils. And also the worst snob. Now get off it."

Ratchett, red faced, snapped a piece angrily down on the board, putting more pressure on the imperilled square.

"What is going on here,?" he screamed. "Why must I suffer these indignities from a cop? Every time I move, someone's yelling. Yelling. Yelling," Ratchett's voice rose like a happy hawk. His hands twittered violently. His fat face flushed.

"You Irish bastards are in league to defeat me. That's why you're here. It's a plot-that's all you Irish are good for. Why don't you stop skulking around trying to upset me. and act like a man? Tell Boyle how to move. Go ahead. Go ahead. Make your perfidy complete. Go ahead.

"Look everyone. A cop is going to help Father Boyle play chess. A cop who plays chess." Ratchett laughed out a haughty condemnation and looked around for approval. Finding none in the on-looking faces, he increased his vehemence.