Feeding Frenzy td-94

by Warren Murphy

  "Not when the body is the owner," a print journalist said.

  Remo winced. "Esterquest?"

  "That is the name over the door."

  "What killed him?" Remo asked.

  "No one knows the what, but the police have a pretty good idea of the who."

  "Who?"

  "Thrush Limburger. He paid the guy a visit less than an hour ago, and now he's croaked."

  "Yeah, and Limburger's missing," added another reporter.

  "Which proves he's guilty," said a third.

  "How does one thing prove another?" asked Remo.

  "It ain't coincidence."

  "Yeah," echoed the first reporter. "The only question is where Limburger went to."

  "My guess is Argentina," yet another reporter ventured.

  "Argentina?"

  "Yeah." The man chuckled. "Argentina has a lot of beef and at three-hundred odd pounds, it's a cinch Limburger isn't about to hide out in a country where he has to eat bugs."

  "Can I quote you on that?" the first reporter wondered.

  The other shrugged. "Sure, just don't use my name."

  The first reporter raised his voice and looked around. "Anyone else hear that Limburger took off for Argentina?"

  A sharp-faced woman perked up and said, "Yeah. Just now."

  The first reporter scribbled something on his notepad. "Good. That gives me two sources. My editor won't squawk."

  "Wait a minute!" Remo said. "He just floated that rumor and now you're going to print it?"

  "Now, it's rumor. After they print it, it will be news. Don't you know how this game works?"

  "I'm getting an education," Remo growled. "Listen, while you're in the rumor-mongering business, I caught Senator Ned Clancy porking Jane Goodwoman in the back of Clancy's limo."

  The reporter made a disgusted face.

  "We can't print that!" he exploded.

  "Why not?" asked Remo.

  "It's unsubstantiated."

  Remo cocked a thumb at Chiun. "My friend here also saw it."

  "Yes, it is true," said Chiun. "The pig Clancy was porking the other pig Goodwoman."

  "That makes two of us," said Remo. "And Clancy's a married man now, isn't he?"

  The reporter made a face. "That's a character thing. We don't do character issue stories. They're no fun anymore."

  "I give up," said Remo. He searched for a pay phone and finally found one. It was an old-fashioned glass booth, which meant he could call Harold Smith with a modicum of privacy.

  "Smitty? Remo. This isn't getting any better. Everywhere Chiun and I go, we meet a face from our past. Remember that coroner I mentioned? He just turned up dead. And get this, before he disappeared, Thrush Limburger dropped in on him too. According to Limburger's assistant, he came out all excited, claiming he'd figured out HELP."

  "It is possible," Smith said slowly.

  "Maybe. But get this: I saw Limburger's van rolling in when I was pulling away from the coroner's place. I thought it was another politician, at the time."

  Smith's voice grew concerned. "Obviously, Limburger spoke with the man just after you did."

  "Yeah, but when I left him, Esterquest didn't have a thing. The way I figure the timing, Limburger couldn't have spent ten minutes with the guy-and he has HELP all figured out?"

  Smith's dry voice grew doubtful. "Odd. For all his showmanship, Limburger has a reputation for telling the truth."

  "Why? Because he calls his network Tell the Truth? Isn't that like a used car salesman calling himself Honest John?"

  "This is very odd," Smith said. "Perhaps Limburger is not what he seems, after all."

  "Well, Limburger's assistant seems to be telling the truth that Limburger was kidnapped, if the press's reputation for missing the real story still holds. But here's another flash: the assistant claims a California Highway Patrol roadblock stopped Limburger's van just before he turned up missing."

  "He suspects them?"

  "According to him, one of the cops had a ponytail tucked up under his uniform cap."

  "California Highway Patrol officers must adhere to a strict grooming code," Smith mused.

  "That's what I figured."

  Across three thousand miles, Smith seemed to lean closer. "Remo, this whole affair is becoming very strange."

  "Yeah. Any minute now I might start believing that Nirvana West is under a hole in the ozone, myself."

  "Unlikely," said Smith. "But there is another thing you should know."

  "What's that?" Remo asked.

  "Before he went off the air, Thrush Limburger pointed out that there is no such thing as a Chinchilla Indian. The tribe is actually called the Chowchillas. Theodore Soars-With-Eagles is a fraud."

  "That part I already figured out," Remo said dryly.

  "Remo, I have looked into his background. His real name is Theodore Magarac."

  "Doesn't sound very Chowchilla to me."

  "It is Latvian. Magarac is Latvian on both sides of his family. It is strange that the press hasn't uncovered this fact, given the intensity with which they are covering this event."

  "Nothing the press does or doesn't do is strange," said Remo, eyeing the reporters filming the departing ambulance. "Chiun and I will deal with Magarac-if we can get close to him."

  "Any who stand in our path will die!" the Master of Sinanju cried in a loud voice.

  "For God's sake, Remo. Do not let Chiun kill any more network anchormen!"

  "I only dispatched two," Chiun cried. "I was referring to certain politically incorrect pretenders to the Eagle Throne."

  "He means Clancy," Remo interjected.

  "Remo, under no circumstances are you to molest Clancy in any way."

  "No problem, there. He's not the molestee type anyway."

  "Stay in close contact, Remo." And Smith disconnected.

  Remo came out of the phone booth and said, "For your information, Clancy is politically correct."

  "He is?"

  "Uh-huh. At all times."

  Chiun's parchment face gathered its wrinkles into a tighter web.

  "If Clancy is a political enemy of Harold Smith, and Harold Smith runs this country, how can Clancy be correct?"

  "Because being politically correct is incorrect and vice versa," explained Remo.

  Chiun's hazel eyes thinned to steely slits. "Is this like cultimulcherism?"

  "Multiculturism," Remo corrected. "And no. But if it will help you understand then I take it back. The answer is yes."

  "Are we then politically correct, you and I?"

  "No. But we are correct."

  "Why is that?"

  "Because we're the good guys and the good guys are always correct."

  They began walking back to the car.

  "I'll explain it on the way," said Remo.

  "And if you cannot?"

  "You can ask Theodore Magarac. I'm sure he'll give you any answer you want-once we promise not to scalp him when the cameras are on."

  Chapter 14

  Theodore Soars-With-Eagles Magarac squatted on his "Made in Japan" Navajo blanket in the center of his Naugahyde faux Chinchilla tepee, which when purchased had been advertised as a Hopi wigwam, and meditated.

  It was happening. It was finally happening. He was on the threshold of the scam of his life. And all because he happened to overhear a restaurant conversation between Brother Karl Sagacious and his earliest adherents. And was quick to jump in the pool.

  At first, Theodore Magarac had been content to grab for a piece of an emerging cult, gather together a few suckers, feed them bugs, fleece them when they least expected it, and blow town.

  But when the first adherents of PAPA began dying of Human Environmental Liability Paradox, Magarac began packing. He had been eating the bugs all along too. Not exclusively, like the others. He couldn't go very long without prime rib and lobster-although the thunderbug was a good cheap lobster substitute.

  In fact, once the PAPA angle had been milked to death, Magarac had envisioned marketin
g the thunderbug as minced lobster salad. He had read somewhere that a fast food chain was able to legally sell octopus and squid as crabmeat, just by adding a small percent of real crab into the meal and paying off a congressman or two to get the legalities squared away.

  And he had written the first chapter of The Authentic Chinchilla Thunderbug Cookbook, which he hoped to sell to a New York publisher.

  But HELP changed all that. At first for the worse. But then as only the members of the Snapper wing of PAPA began dying, he began to see fresh angles to the scam.

  When some blamed HELP on the thunderbug, Theodore Magarac stood up and pronounced it the work of a new hole in the ozone layer. It was the biggest scare in the news that week and inasmuch as some were calling HELP the next AIDS, he knew he would need a bigger scare to offset the AIDS insinuations.

  And it worked. Official Washington stampeded to stick its oar in and the next thing he knew, bug-eating was the top talk show topic and everyone wanted a taste. The more people who dared to eat thunderbugs, especially live on TV, the bigger PAPA was becoming.

  And best of all, Washington had sent an army of bureaucrats to look into everything. Theodore Magarac, through some dummy catering company, had set up the food concession, and was raking it in. The press idiots never dreamed the lobster salad they were wolfing down was actually mashed thunderbug.

  Now it was just a matter of moving to the next phase.

  Theodore Magarac knew how the game was played. Senator Clancy had announced sponsorship of a bill to fund HELP research. He had asked Theodore Soars-With-Eagles for his support, and Theodore had been only too happy to give it, in return for an eight-by-ten of Magarac shaking hands with the senator. That alone would be worth its weight in gold once HELP took him to the next plateau.

  There was only one fly in the ointment.

  "What the hell was killing the Snappers? And why only them?"

  In his mind, Theodore Magarac had assumed it was because they ate the bugs raw. But if that was so, why didn't they all die? Why was it only certain ones?

  "Something's gotta be killing these Snappers," he muttered. "But what?"

  A feminine voice he had never heard before said, "I know the answer to that question, Theodore Soars-With-Eagles."

  "Hello? Who's out there?"

  "Do not come out of your tent, Theodore Soars-With-Eagles. It is not permitted to see me."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I am the Eldress."

  "Eldress?"

  "Had Brother Karl never mentioned me?"

  "He did sometimes babble about someone he called She."

  "I am that She. It was my voice that drew Brother Karl to discover the bug which will nourish the world."

  "Is that so?" said Theodore Soars-With-Eagles.

  Surreptitiously, he crawled to a peephole in the Naugahyde tepee front. He peered out. He saw nothing. No one.

  "So that crafty old Egyptian wasn't lying after all," he said after retreating to his blanket.

  "No," said the female voice. It was thin and reedy, like the wind in the parched grass. "I bestowed the gift of the Miracle Food upon him and yet he proved unworthy of the boon. Thus, I was forced to harvest his soul."

  "Sagacious died of HELP. He got weak, and two days later he was dead as an Egyptian mummy."

  "The gift you call HELP is a tool, by which the Eldress claims her own when their rightful time comes---or punishes them for infractions against her will."

  "You killed Sagacious?"

  "I took what became mine at the moment he knelt in the grass and consumed my bounty."

  "Why toast him-I mean, why claim him?"

  "Because I saw in you greater purity. He claimed to be things he was not, but you possess a pure spirit. I knew with Brother Karl's return to the earth you would lift the thunderbug to greater world consciousness. And I have been proven correct."

  "You got that right," said Theodore Soars-With-Eagles, trying to keep the suspicion out of his voice. If this Eldress is whatever she's claiming to be, how come she doesn't know I'm a Latvian from Pittsburgh? he wondered.

  "Anything I can do for you; Eldress?" he asked, just to test the waters.

  "I have given you the thunderbug and you have done well with it. Now I have something greater to bequeath upon you."

  "Yeah? What's that?"

  "I hold it in my hand in a small box of ivory and rosewood and I give it to you freely, for what is in the box means wealth and power beyond measure."

  "You want me to come out and get it?"

  "No, but I will pass it in to you. But you must close your eyes, for to behold the Eldress is to have one's eyes shrivel as the grass beneath my feet."

  "You're responsible for this drought too?"

  "No. But if it were my wish, the rains would come in plenty."

  "Hey. California is parched. I do a mean rain dance. We could clean up."

  "Are your eyes closed?"

  "Yes," lied Theodore Soars-With-Eagles.

  The flap of the tepee shook and a hand came in. The hand was dark. There was enough light coming in for him to see it clearly. It was a thin woman's hand, with tapering nails. And the fingers clutched a small box, not much bigger than a matchbox, and covered with decorative ivory inlays.

  Theodore took the box. The hand withdrew.

  "Open the box," commanded the thin voice.

  Theodore did. The lid lifted and in the dimness of the tepee he saw a dark shape against the white velvet that lined the box interior. He had a penlight and used it.

  He saw what appeared to be an ant. Rusty red with a weird bulbous head set at the end of a long bristly neck. It reminded him of a wooden match.

  "What is this?" he muttered.

  "A gift to mankind greater than what you call the thunderbug," promised the Eldress.

  And as he watched, the bulbous head of the strange insect split in two from tip to neck. And like matched straight razors, curving black thorns unfolded from each half.

  Chapter 15

  "Basically," Remo was saying as he drove back to Nirvana West, "the people who call themselves politically correct are down on American culture."

  Chiun frowned at the twisting road ahead. "And what is wrong with that? American culture is junk."

  "Not all of it."

  "It's true the so-called soap operas this nation once produced soared to magnificent heights. But in recent years they have sunk to abysmal depths of perversion. Now all your culture is junk."

  "Western culture, I mean. They're down on Western culture."

  "It is not as good as Eastern culture," Chiun allowed, "specifically Korean culture, but it is not as bad as French culture, which celebrates eating snails and imbecilic actors like Larry Jewish."

  "I think you mean Jerry Lewis, Little Father, and for your information, French culture is part of Western culture."

  "It is not. Even their language is debased. It is to Latin what the patois the black people of your magnificent ghettos speak is to English."

  Remo looked doubtful. "Magnificent ghettos?"

  "Show me a Somali who would not give all he owns to live in the worst of them."

  "Show me a Somali who owns anything."

  Chiun beamed. "My point is proven."

  Remo rolled his eyes.

  "Look," he said, "let's table this until after we've talked to Magarac."

  "Not that all Eastern culture is good," Chiun went on as if his pupil had not spoken. "Hindus are considered Eastern by some and they eat with one hand because the other is perpetually unclean. Have I told you why that is, Remo?"

  "Only once, but believe me the memory is going to be hard to shake."

  "Even the women do this. Alluring as they may seem to innocent white eyes, they are no more clean than Hindu men."

  "Leave Nalini out of this. We have a date for tonight."

  Chiun frowned darkly and pretended to rearrange his kimono skirts. "You will need five condoms, then."

  "Five?"

  "
One for each of the fingers of her unclean left hand and one for the unsanitary thumb. This is, if I correctly understand the purpose of this date."

  "Which is?"

  "To hold hands long into the night, so as to judge the suitability of this woman for matrimony."

  "We might hold hands, yeah," said Remo. "On the other hand, we could just skip preliminaries and go all the way."

  Chiun's wrinkled cheeks ballooned in anger. "You would not stoop to kiss a Hindu harlot!" he hissed.

  "No, I would not. I'd stand on my own two feet, and then kiss her."

  "Paughh! I do not wish to think of you touching that daughter of the Ganges."

  "Nalini is very nice."

  "She eats her rice with curry," Chiun spat. "As if rice is not perfect as it is. Heed my words, Remo. A woman who would soil good rice with curry would stoop to anything-including eating bugs."

  "Nalini doesn't strike me as the bug-eater type."

  "Bug-eating is a sickness. I have no doubt that curry is at the root of this plague. Curry and vile hygiene."

  "I guess political correctness isn't limited to the West," muttered Remo.

  And Chiun looked at him with the blank expression of a Buddhist monk who had stumbled upon a voodoo ceremony.

  It was almost noon, so naturally, the lunch buffet had been laid out. Remo noticed a sign that read LOBSTER SALAD and said, "Whoever the caterer is, he has expensive tastes. Lobster isn't cheap."

  He drove past the press enclave and found a spot to pull over. They worked their way in and found that the press had been pretty much congregated around the food.

  Remo grinned. "Great. We get a break at last."

  They slipped into the evergreens.

  Immediately, the ants once again began dropping on Remo.

  He flicked them off and watched the tree branches closely for others. He spotted one. It lifted its rusty hammer of a head and seemed to regard him with flat black eyespots.

  "Watch out, Little Father, that bug is about to jump you."

  "He would not dare," retorted Chiun.

  Chiun passed under the branch. The ant stayed where it was.

  But as Remo approached, it sprang toward him. Seeing it coming, Remo ducked. It shot over his head and landed on the ground. Remo stepped on it, and that was the end of the ant.

  Remo caught up with the Master of Sinanju and asked, "Why the hell don't they jump on you?"