Sue Me td-66

by Warren Murphy

  "Do you think America has failed to outlaw unhappiness because it's racist?"

  "I don't know. I know the people of Gupta need our help. And I'm here to see what I'm singin' for. We're gonna save the people. All us rock stars and singers are going to save the people of the world and we're gonna start here for the people of Gupta. Ain't no reason they should suffer and die just 'cause they was born here. They gotta get treated fair, see?"

  "Since when has your new philosphical approach taken over your career?"

  "I always believed this stuff. 'Cept youse guys never asked me about that."

  Debbie left a half-dozen television reporters commenting on how she was showing new and deep spiritual feelings, how she was revealing a political sensibility she never had before. However, she wasn't considered too knowledgeable about international politics because she had failed to blame everything on America.

  Debbie excused herself from her agent, her manager, the reporters, the guides, and the Indian constabulary to walk down the muddy street toward the two men who hadn't even glanced over at her.

  The Oriental, in a gold kimono, was talking in the native language to two old men who were describing something with their hands. The younger white man, the attractive one with a sense of being able to do anything a woman might want, or perhaps anything he wanted for a woman, was listening. Debbie shook the multitude of bangles around her neck to make some noise. She also shook a large part of her amply endowed body. She did not believe in bras or panties.

  Neither the Oriental nor the white looked up. The white man had found two Indian children to whom he gave money.

  "I'm for charity too," said Debbie.

  "Good," said the white man. "Why don't you buy yourself some decent clothes then?"

  "Hey, you know who I am, wise guy?"

  "Somebody who needs a good wash and possibly a simonize. Where did you get that color hair?"

  "Does the Chinaman know who I am?"

  "He's Korean, and I don't think so."

  "If this wasn't so insulting I'd laugh. It's really funny, you know? Really funny. Do you know who you're ignoring, Mr. Nobody? I ain't never heard of you. "

  "What's bothering you?" said Remo.

  "You, wise guy. You," said Debbie, poking him in the chest. The chest muscles seemed to catch at her purple fingernails. She noticed the Korean had even longer fingernails than she did. She wondered how he kept them that way.

  "Well, then leave," said Remo.

  "What'cha doin' here? Whose agent are ya?"

  "If you knew, little girl, I'd have to kill you," said the white man with a friendly smile indicating that perhaps he was joking. But Debbie felt a tingling sense of danger.

  "I'm here helpin' dese people. I don't just throw a coupla bucks at kids. I'm gonna earn 'em millions. Make 'em rich. Show da world how to treat people. You know much about music?"

  "Not much," said Remo.

  "That explains it," said Debbie. "No wonder. I'm a big rock star. Youse guys heard about rock, ain't cha?"

  "Music?" said Remo.

  "Yeah. Music. Maybe you heard my songs but don't know it's me, right?"

  "Could we do this some other time?" said Remo.

  "Hey, I'm the most desired woman in the world. Don't you brush me off, punk. You hear?" said Debbie. She pushed her fingernail into him again. For the last three years since her hit single "Rack Me, Rip Me" shot her to the top of the charts, she had discovered two ways to get anything she wanted, legal or illegal. One was to ask for it and the other was to demand it. Now she was demanding.

  And there was a person actually refusing. He was saying no to Debbie Pattie.

  "Hey, what's your name? You don't have to kill me if you tell me that."

  "It's Remo. Leave me alone or stand downwind."

  "Wise guy. What'cha make, Remo?"

  "I make myself happy."

  "Money, jerk."

  "I don't count it," said Remo.

  On hearing that the Korean sighed but continued his conversation with the old men of the village. Even though she didn't understand the language, Debbie Pattie knew the old men were telling the Korean they didn't know the answers he sought. Their shoulders shrugged and their worn brown faces wrinkled in dismay. She thought they were cute, the way they squatted in the Indian dust. But the wise guy was absolutely beautiful. He seemed to move gracefully even when standing still.

  "You wanna work for me? I'll pay you more than ya gettin' now."

  "Hey, kid. Leave us alone. You don't even know what we do. "

  "I know I can buy you, punk."

  "Well, you're wrong. So good-bye."

  "You know how many guys'd kill demselves just to touch me once? So how come you don't even ask me about myself? Ask me what I sing. Ask me what I do. How about it?"

  Debbie transferred the peach-sized wad of gum to the other side of her mouth. Remo noticed even the gum was off-color.

  "Will you go then?"

  "Yeah. I'll go."

  "All right, what do you sing?"

  And there in a side street of Gupta, India, Debbie sang the first few bars of her new smash hit, "Collapse." The Indians who didn't leave immediately covered their ears instead. Remo stood transfixed. He thought she was having a fit. Chiun glowered at her interruption.

  "Okay. Thank you. Good-bye," said Remo.

  "That song made me three million bucks," said Debbie.

  "Did they bribe you to stop?" asked Remo.

  "You know, you're impossible. You don't know who I am. You don't know who you're talkin' to. You don't know nothin'. That's ignorant. You're ignorant. You and your old friend there. Ignorant. Uneducated. So buzz off, I'm leavin'. "

  In a whirl of off-colored bangles and layers of rags, Debbie Pattie turned to leave.

  "Genaro Rizzuto said there'd be people who hated you just for doin' good," she snorted.

  Remo looked up from the little children. "Is he a lawyer?"

  "A decent one, too. Not just a little money grubber like in show business. A decent human being, part of people helpin' people. Not like you."

  Remo trotted after Debbie in the dusty street of Gupta.

  "Look, I may have made a mistake. I don't know rock music. I don't know how those things work." Debbie waved her hands in the air, signaling she wanted to be left alone.

  "I want to apologize for being rude," said Remo.

  "I don't want to know you because you're ignorant. An idiot. An uneducated idiot. That's what youse guys is."

  "You're right. Rizzuto is part of a law firm, isn't he?"

  "One of the best. Get lost."

  "You don't mean that," said Remo. He was going to work on her sensory system but he wanted to do it from upwind. He didn't know what she bathed herself in, but whatever it was, it was putrid. Now that he was willing to be friendly she wanted no part of him. He glanced back and saw Chiun silently, like the wind, move up the street toward him and the rock star.

  In Korean he told Chiun this girl knew one of their targets was around, but he couldn't get her to talk. He had insulted her in some way.

  "In what way?" Chiun asked in Korean.

  "I told her to get lost," said Remo.

  "Sometimes people can take that in a negative way," said Chiun in Korean, and then in English he called out after Debbie Pattie in what Remo recognized as one of those awful ung poems praising all nature and the power of the universe. Unusually, though, he did so in English translation.

  "O radiance, that renews for all eternity. O shower of glory that blesses the little people beneath her, whose divine countenance radiates eternity and all-consuming power, we bless your eternal breath."

  Debbie Pattie stopped in her tracks. She turned abruptly to Remo and Chiun.

  "Yeah. Now that's a friggin' hello, already. Did you hear that?" she said, pointing to Remo.

  "I heard it."

  "He's a friggin' gentleman. You're a jerk, but a cute jerk."

  "What wisdom," said Chiun with a little bow. Debbie Patt
ie posed in a grotesque parody of a statue, her head cocked to one side and one arm up, the wrist dangling limply. She looked Chiun and Remo up and down, and came to a decision.

  "I like youse guys. You're hired. Go to my manager. He'll get you on the payroll. You, the young one, be in my van with your clothes off in a half hour. I may be there. I may not. Stay ready. Okay?"

  "Excuse me, most gracious maiden," said Chiun, who was not about to endorse any union between his Remo and some painted hussy who might be diseased or, worse, bear a child without Chiun knowing her lineage.

  Remo, Chiun knew, was fond of that slothful and self-indulgent habit even found in the Orient, of copulating for pleasure. This to Chiun was as ridiculous as eating food not for its nourishment but for its taste. In either sense, however, this jangling ragpicker in front of them was totally unsuitable.

  "Excuse me, most gracious maiden, but I have a calling of a different nature. However, if ever there should be a woman in our lives, of course it would be the most glorious, gracious, magnificent apparition we see before us now." Thus spoke Chiun to the famous rock star in the muddy streets of the Indian city of Gupta.

  "I'll pay more," said Debbie. "I'm reasonable."

  "I'm not for sale," said Remo.

  "Why not? You know who you're turning down?"

  "I didn't say I was turning you down. I said I'm not for sale."

  And holding his breath, Remo moved in close to Debbie Pattie.

  "You're all right. What's your name?" she asked.

  "Remo. "

  "What kind of a name's dat?"

  "White," said Chiun.

  "And yours?"

  "I am Chiun, Master of Sinanju."

  "I like dat. You run Sinanju, huh?"

  "No, I merely serve it, as I serve the world, as Sinanju has served the world throughout the ages."

  "Ya see, dat's what I like. Doin' good. I'm into doin' good. Heavy. You know? Heavy into doin' good. You think I ought to give these people a few bars of my latest hit?"

  "No. They're in enough trouble already," said Remo.

  Debbie shot him a dirty look, but Remo quickly turned the subject to her friend Genaro Rizzuto, a decent man who had come to Gupta like all the other stars to help.

  "We want to help too," said Remo. "I'd like to meet him."

  Chapter 7

  Nathan Palmer spotted the full extent of the disaster first. Rizzuto was on the scene in Gupta. Rizzuto could talk sparrows out of trees and he had brilliantly won over the government with well-placed lavish gifts, lined up the victims, and had one of the greatest negligence cases of all time aimed at one of the richest chemical companies of all time. Everything seemed perfect.

  And then the little horrible fact of the paltry value of life in the third world reared its horrifying head, and Palmer was so panicked he canceled a date for the evening and called in Schwartz, who had to pry himself away from his stockbroker.

  It was they, not their mechanical genius Dastrow, who had made the horrible mistake. He had done everything right, as always.

  Schwartz was so furious when he entered their plush Century Park City offices that he almost broke the glass case protecting the Desk.

  "Disaster in Gupta," said Palmer.

  "I should hope so. That's what we make money on. We're going to make a fortune."

  "That's what we're going to go to the cleaners on," said Palmer.

  "You called me away from the one stock-market transaction that can make up for a lifetime of losses to make me listen to your pessimism?"

  "Arnold, I probably saved you from bankrupting yourself for the rest of your natural life. What do you think happened in Gupta?"

  "We started one of the greatest negligence cases of all time. We signed up an entire city as clients. We've got two thousand, two hundred and twenty deaths of heads of families, at least seven thousand children deprived of their lives, twenty-four hundred mothers whose love and support will be denied entire families, to say nothing of a slew of healthy young able-bodied young men and beautiful young women who will never bear children or enjoy the loves and lives of families," said Schwartz. "And I'm not counting the incalculable grief. Rizzuto is going to have those juries attaching every single asset of International Carborundum . It'll be come-and-get-it day."

  Nathan Palmer shook his head sadly.

  "There are two kinds of people in the third world. There are the handful who run things. They're very rich. Each of their lives is worth a fortune. But they don't need lawyers because they are the courts. They are the army. They are the government. And they already take a rakeoff from any industry that has a hope of surviving. These people are the money. Then there are the citizens of their countries, the ones these people attend the pricey conferences about."

  "Yes," said Schwartz, adjusting his cuff because it had accidentally covered his gold Rolex.

  "What do you think the value of a human life is in those countries?"

  "You just can't put a price on a human life," said Schwartz angrily. "You've got to establish his earning power. What he means to a family. A corporation. Lots of things go into determining the value of a human life."

  "In dollars and cents, Arnold," said Palmer. "What do you think we're talking about per head?"

  "That's difficult to figure out. I would estimate . . ."

  "Don't even bother. If we could get seven dollars a head out of the thousands who were killed in Gupta, we'd be lucky. Do you know what their government thinks?"

  Schwartz was afraid to ask.

  "Their government thinks that they want the factory there. The tragedy is of course a tragedy, but there are lots more people in India than there are chemical factories."

  "What about Rizzuto whipping up popular resentment? He could make a bishop want to burn down a church. He's wonderful."

  "And you're brilliant, Arnold. But the fact remains that angry mobs are all over the third world. They're commonplace. Don't mean a damned thing except to American television. If American televison weren't there, the governments would shoot down the people like so many mad dogs. Why do you think you don't have protests in Syria and Bulgaria? Show me a demonstration in Cuba that isn't in support of the government."

  "What are you saying, Nathan?" asked Schwartz. He thought of that horror of horrors for one terrible moment: life without visible wealth, life with people finding out who you really were because there was nothing to throw in their faces before they could ask questions.

  "I'm saying we are in hock up to our eyeballs for the money we paid Dastrow. I'm saying I don't know where we're going to go, or what we're going to do to make it."

  It was at that moment that Arnold Schwartz in all his expensive clothes and jewelry showed Nathan Palmer why he was such a good partner. They were both overlooking one salient fact. Robert Dastrow to the best of their knowledge had never worked for anyone else. Why? He had only worked for them. Why?

  "Because we paid him a friggin' fortune," said Palmer.

  "He could have gotten that sort of money elsewhere. But he stayed with us. I say we reach out for him again."

  "We have no money for him. He loves money."

  "Ah," said Schwartz. "But why does he love it? It's never over till it's over."

  "It's over," said Palmer.

  "No it's not," said Schwartz, and he dialed the access number to Robert Dastrow. Sometimes Dastrow would answer immediately, and sometimes he would take hours or days. They never knew. But Palmer pointed out that every hour they waited cost them thousands in interest on the loans they had taken out to pay their genius.

  Robert Dastrow phoned before evening, and Palmer and Schwartz didn't even know from which continent the call came.

  "Robert," said Schwartz. "We've worked together a long time. We've been always forthcoming with your fees. We have a great deal of respect-"

  "I don't for free," said Dastrow.

  Palmer dropped his head in his hands. Schwartz pressed on. They didn't have much more to lose. They could take out
an even larger loan and let him invest it, but he knew that Palmer and Rizzuto lacked his mathematical genius and didn't trust the immutable laws which ultimately would prevail over the insanity of the U. S. stock market. So an even bigger loan was out of the question.

  "Robert, we're broke. The Gupta thing didn't work out financially."

  "I didn't think it would," said Dastrow.

  "Then why did you do it?"

  "Because it was absolutely safe, for one. You have to admit that. And for two, I wasn't sure. I was never much of a cost engineer. I gave you exactly what you asked for."

  "We're in trouble now."

  "Not really. I've been thinking about this for a couple of days. You're going to get back your money and maybe turn a handsome profit."

  "You're a genius. How?"

  "Your problem is that the life of the average citizen of the third world is worth roughly, as close as I can get it, between five and ten dollars, except in some African countries and Cambodia, where it's worth absolutely nothing. So where's your return? Not there, of course. What you have to do is move the case to America, where a life is worth something. "

  "Yes, but how?"

  "It's already begun. You see, what's working here is an awful lot of public concern in just the place you need it. America. Therefore, get the trial moved to America. "

  "But it happened in India. No court in its right mind, so to speak, is going to accept a claim in America. "

  "Ah, you ought to be a tinkerer like me. You've hit on just the problem, and the solution is already under way. I have eliminated the need for any rationality. You see, you lawyer fellows don't really think things through. You think because something is irrational, you can't pull it off."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "I have eliminated the need for any common sense whatsoever."

  "How on earth did you do that?"

  "I used what was already there. You gentlemen are going to be the beneficiary of a public cause. It needs absolutely no reason whatsoever. Just emotion, and Gupta offers that. I have already told your man Rizzuto to get in on the big charity movement, something he can do well because he appeals to people's emotions. And it worked. Just listen to your own news: there's going to be a massive benefit for Gupta, and you're going to profit from it."