Date with Death td-57

by Warren Murphy

Remo felt his skin tightening.

  "In fact, I've rigged the entire town of Bayersville to blow up like a rocket in…" He checked his watch. "Sixty seconds."

  "I don't think so," Remo said. "You don't look like the suicidal type."

  "Oh, I'm not planning to die. It would ruin my plans for the future. You only interrupted them. You haven't really changed a thing."

  Remo could hear his internal clock ticking away the seconds. "Where's Chiun?" he demanded.

  "I'll give him to you. All I ask of you in return is a head start."

  "What about this so-called bomb?"

  "I'll deactivate it as soon as you say yes."

  Remo thought about it. "You're lying," he said.

  "Eleven seconds, Mr. Williams. Ten. Nine. Eight…"

  He couldn't take the chance. "All right."

  "A wise decision," Quantril said. He took a key from his pocket, inserted it in a small box in the wall by the stairway, and turned it. The projected images faded from the walls. The tinkling music stopped. Quantril climbed the stairs.

  "How about your part of the deal?" Remo called.

  "Behold," Quantril said from the darkness of the stairway. A panel in the far wall slid open to reveal the old Oriental, gagged and tied to a chair.

  "Chiun!"

  Above, a helicopter whirred to life.

  The Korean burst out of his bonds in a frenzy. "Fool! You let him go!"

  "He was going to blow the place up, and you with it," Remo explained.

  Chiun shot him a black look. "You are even more ignorant than I thought," he said as he raced toward the stairs. "Do you think a piece of twine can hold the Master of Sinanju?"

  "It sure looked that way," Remo said, following.

  "Idiot. I only let that perfumed fop tie me up so that he would stop that infernal music. We must hurry. Faster, Remo."

  "There's no way we can catch that chopper, Chiun. We'll just have to track Quantril down—"

  "Where? In Paradise?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  Chiun sighed. "Like all criminals, he felt the need to boast. So while I permitted him to tie me up, I listened to his prattle. I wanted to know if there were others. The bomb was not activated when you came in."

  The stairs led upward to a trapdoor. Remo left it open as he climbed onto the roof. "So he's a liar," he said. Quantril's helicopter was beginning to lift off.

  "Yes. It was activated when he turned off the movie pictures."

  "The… oh, God."

  Remo lunged for the helicopter, hooking his arm around the rudders. "Jump!" he yelled as the machine lifted him into the air. "Chiun, jump!"

  Somersaulting upward, Remo kicked open the helicopter door. Miles Quantril's elegance deserted him as Remo pulled him out of the pilot's seat and dangled him from the open door.

  "You can't do this!" he screamed. "I'm Miles Quantril! This is barbaric!"

  "That's the biz, sweetheart," Remo said as he dropped him.

  Quantril made a perfect one-point dive into the open trapdoor on the roof of the saloon. Remo jumped a moment later, twisting as he fell so that he landed in the weeds next to Chiun behind Bayersville's one street.

  The helicopter, now abandoned, careened downward, its engine stalled. It hit the ground with a boom, then exploded into flame.

  "If there really is a bomb, it'll go now," Remo said. "We'd better get as far away as we can."

  The two of them dashed at top speed toward the distant hills. They just made it past the weather-beaten sign announcing Bayersville when the explosion came.

  The very earth seemed to crack open with an earsplitting roar as every building in the deserted village blew apart in a Technicolor spectacle of destruction.

  Something inside Remo hurt more than the wound in his shoulder while he watched the old familiar movie setting collapse and disappear in a sea of flame.

  It never really existed, he told himself. Red Ryder and John Wayne had only been in movies, and their adventures were no more than a harmless way for an orphanage full of lonely kids to pass the time. But part of Remo still remembered the heroes who once rode down the town's single dusty street on their magnificent steeds to set things right and make the world fine again, and that part of him ached.

  "Let's go," he mumbled, feeling old. There was nothing more to be seen in Bayersville. When the fires settled, he knew, nothing would remain of it except a few charred bits of stone and wood, along with the fading, splendid ghosts from its past.

  ?CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Wally Donner staggered out of the bar, leaned against a parked car, and threw up in the gutter. His head was reeling and his stomach churned from the two dozen Scotches he'd consumed in the sleazy Mexico City bar where he'd spent the past five hours. There was a bitter aftertaste in his throat, and his temples throbbed rhythmically, as if a tiny mariachi band were playing inside his head.

  The horrible part of it was that the band was playing Mexican music. It was bad enough to have to listen to strumming guitars and maracas in every comer of this godforsaken place, but now even his own mind was betraying him.

  Donner gritted his teeth and wiped the crust of vomit from his mouth with the back of his hand. He hated Mexican music. He hated Mexican food. He hated sombreros and sandals made out of used tires. But most of all, he hated Mexico, which was where he was going to have to live for the next few years if he wanted to avoid a long stretch in a state penitentiary.

  "Get back to the hotel room," he commanded himself. But it was so damn hard to think with that band playing in his head. He drew a deep breath and staggered out into the street. He could see his shiny new van parked on the other side of it.

  Donner was almost there when the old Ford turned the corner and sent him flying into traffic. In the split second before death took him, he saw the tiny Virgin Mary on the dashboard flanked by two tiny flags.

  "Mexico," he screamed.

  Suddenly the dance band stopped playing.

  Remo, Chiun, and Harold W. Smith sat at a candlelit table in one of Santa Fe's best restaurants.

  "We're here under the name of Hossenfecker," Smith said with his usual paranoia.

  "Ah. Very good, Emperor. It is so much less conspicuous than 'Smith.'"

  Smith rustled the papers in front of him. "It was my mother's name," he mumbled. "At any rate, I have the information you asked for." He cleared his throat. "Wally, a.k.a. José Donner. Recently deceased in Mexico City."

  "What?" Remo asked, incredulous.

  "Automobile accident. He had in his possession a Ruger Blackhawk that matches the bullets found in the bodies scattered over the mesa. Er, good work, both of you."

  "A car accid—"

  "It was nothing," Chiun said hastily, kicking Remo under the table. "When fortune comes your way, accept it," he added in Korean.

  "I beg your pardon?" Smith asked.

  "A little indigestion. Emperor," Chiun said sweetly.

  "Oh. Well, the second person you wanted to know about, this Samuel P. Wolfshy…"

  "Go on," Remo said.

  Smith made a face. "I'm not sure he's the right man. The information on him was very scanty. According to my records, this person has never worked."

  "That's him.."

  Chiun leaned forward eagerly. "Yes. Do tell what has become of our young brave."

  This time Remo kicked Chiun. "Not that we know him, Smitty. He never saw us. After all, we don't leave witnesses."

  "I should hope not," Smith said. "Well, it seems Mr. Wolfshy encountered some good fortune."

  "Hey, great," Remo said.

  Smith slapped down his papers. "He was just a bystander, wasn't he? The statement he gave to the police said that he arrived at the monastery after everything had already been settled, and that he was shot accidentally while picking up an abandoned firearm."

  "Right," Remo said. "Absolutely."

  Smith shot him a suspicious look. "Then why are you so interested in him?"

  "I saw his pictur
e in the paper," Remo said glibly. "He looked like he might be a distant cousin of mine."

  Smith's eyes narrowed, but he let it pass. "Very well," he said. "After this Wolfshy recovered from his wound, he married a woman named Consuela Madera in Las Vegas. Two days after the wedding, he apparently borrowed a quarter from the doorman of a downtown casino, put it in a slot machine, and won approximately one point nine million dollars."

  Remo's face went blank. "What?"

  "Right now he's making inquiries about starting a bank on an Indian reservation. The Kanton Savings and Loan."

  He folded his papers, then carefully burned them in the ashtray. "Anything else?"

  "I'll be damned," Remo said.

  Chiun gasped, jerking his chair backward and clutching at his heart.

  Remo jumped up. "Chiun! Are you—"

  "It is she!" He pointed a trembling finger toward the entrance, where a matronly looking blond woman wearing a fur coat entered. "Mona Madrigal!" He pulled himself to his feet. "Thank you, most kind and gracious Emperor," he said formally.

  Smith stared at the old man above his steel-rimmed spectacles. "Er… think nothing of it," he said.

  When Chiun had wafted away toward the husky woman, Smith turned to Remo. "Who is this Mona Madrigal?"

  "A woman Chiun thinks you gave him."

  Chiun was ecstatic as he bowed to the actress. The fates had decreed their meeting, and thus did it happen. "It is I," he announced in a cheerful singsong.

  "Step aside, shorty," Mona answered in a deep whiskey voice.

  Chiun looked around him. Whoever "shorty" was, he had apparently beat a hasty retreat. "Chiun, Master of Sinanju, offers you the tribute of his adoration."

  "No kiddin'." She waved over his head. "Hey, Walt! Walt!"

  The maitre d' came rushing over. "Yes, madame?"

  She cocked her head toward Chiun. "Do me a favor, hon, and give this bum the rush."

  The tuxedoed gentleman glared at Chiun. "Sir, perhaps you're wanted at your table."

  "Oh, it's quite all right. They'll wait," Chiun said affably. "Miss Madrigal, I gaze at your countenance each day on 'As the Planet Revolves.'"

  She burst into strident laughter. "What? That piece of shit? They wouldn't let me show so much as one tit on that show. It almost wrecked my career."

  Chiun stepped back, his mouth gaping. "I… I…"

  "Amscray, Pops," she said, elbowing her way past him.

  The old Oriental stood where he was for a long moment, his white hair drooping like a melting ice cream cone. Then, taking a deep breath, he came quietly back to the table.

  Remo hurt for him. "I'm sorry. Little Father," he said.

  Chiun shrugged. "It was a disappointment, but the world can be a thoughtless place."

  "That's the spirit," Remo said, patting him on the back.

  "However, I must write to Miss Madrigal immediately."

  "After that? What for?"

  "To tell her that there is in her very city a vile, coarse woman attempting to impersonate her, of course."

  "What?"

  Chiun bent low over the table and whispered, "Obviously that woman is in the service of some foreign power determined to shatter my serenity and sour my disposition."

  Remo stared at him for a moment, blinking. "Obviously," he said at last.

  "It may be a conspiracy. Perhaps you would like to look into the matter yourself, Emperor."

  Harold Smith choked on his water. "Er… yes. That is, I'll see what I can do."

  The old man grinned with satisfaction as he picked up his cup of tea and sipped it. "It is a good feeling," he said, "to associate with reasonable men."

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