"At eight o'clock at night?" asked Remo.
"She's an early sleeper and lately a late riser."
"Oh," said Remo. In all his years in the organization, he had never met Dr. Smith's wife, Maude. He had only once seen that picture of her on Smith's desk. She had the face of frozen biscuit dough. Remo did not see any pictures of Mrs. Corbish in the office or in Corbish's home.
"Our problem," said Corbish, "is that our organization's initial miscalculated thrusts have called for a redeeming support action along similar lines."
"What?"
"As you know, the termination to the extreme of certain IDC employees was wrong."
Remo understood that.
"But now we have the problem of IDC as a corporate counterforce, so to speak."
Remo did not understand that
"We've created an enemy."
"I got you. Get to the point."
"We're got to eliminate T. L. Broon, president and chairman of the board."
"Sure," said Remo. "Why all the nonsense?"
"I thought you'd like to know."
"I couldn't care less," said Remo. "Are you sure I should be staying at Folcroft? You know Smith was pretty good about this secrecy thing."
"When you reorganize you always centralize."
"Why?"
"Because it gives you great coordinated concentration."
"If you're offering that as an explanation, you've failed. Heard from Smith? Anyone find him yet?"
Corbish's face was somber. No, no one had heard from Smith, and his freedom represented a danger to security. If they could find him, then they could have him institutionalized.
"If the position were reversed," said Remo in a remark he would dearly regret later, "Smith would have you killed."
Corbish registered the statement and expressed his gratitude for administrative help in his new job. But there were more important and dangerous things at hand.
The Broon estate in Darien, Connecticut, was also a shooting range for the Broon family, who were excellent marksmen. While the estate was surrounded by rolling lawns, it was quite deceptive, for the lawns were really open lanes of fire. Broon himself was the 1935 national skeet shooting champion.
"You mean they sit around at home with their rifles?" asked Remo incredulously.
"No, no," said Corbish. "It's a family policy, I guess even a corporate policy, that it should be protected. The old man did this after the big kidnapping flurry when the Lindberg baby was taken."
"So what are you telling me?" asked Remo. At least Smith made himself clear.
"I authorize you to enlist any help you might need."
"Chiun doesn't want to go out tonight," said Remo. "There's something good on television."
"I mean fighting men," said Corbish.
"You mean people to start fights in bars? Why would I need them? I don't understand."
"Military-type help," said Corbish. "The excellent resources at Folcroft have provided us with highly reliable names. We can get them to you in a week and then you can prepare for, let's say, two or three weeks, and then do your job."
Remo screwed his face in bewilderment.
"You want to turn me into a trainer, right?"
"No, no," said Corbish, feeling his temper fray. "I want you to kill T.L. Broon at his Darien estate."
"Good," said Remo, somewhat puzzled. "Tonight?"
"Well, within a few weeks."
"You want me to delay a few weeks. All right," said Remo.
"No. You'll need a few weeks to do this properly. You just can't go up to the Broon estate and luck into some actions like the other day at the sanitarium."
"Oh, you don't think I can do it. I see," said Remo and chuckled.
"Correct," said Corbish, wondering briefly where his wife's librium was. "Now by this Friday, if it isn't too much of a rush. I'd like you to submit your plans to me for your assignment and we'll get input to flex out the approach."
Remo leaned across the desk. "Wouldn't it be a lot easier to just do the thing? How far is Darien from here, thirty miles?"
"Are you mad?" said Corbish. "What if you should fall into his hands? You jeopardize our whole operation. I'm ordering you to bring me something that would indicate a likelihood of success. I know we have the resources and the capability to do this thing. I've seen the results of your work and I know that you must have many people you can call on and a fine equipment profile. I'd like to see it."
"Sure," said Remo. "You'll get the whole thing by morning."
"Good," said Corbish, smiling with great effort. He ushered Remo to the door. Upstairs he heard his wife stirring. She often awoke late in the evening to take another pill and wash it down with another drink. This evening, she would have to fix her own extra martini. He had more work at the office.
He would have to create his own killer arm. His special forces training told him that this man he had to use for a while was unreliable.
Outside in the soft spring night, Remo was unaware that he was unreliable. He didn't have time to be unreliable. He had a job to do.
He stopped briefly at Folcroft to share his strange experience. Chiun was scribbling something with a goose quill on a piece of thick parchment
"You know," said Remo, "Smith ended up bananas, but I think this new guy is starting that way."
"All emperors are mad," said Chiun. "They suffer from the illusion of their superiority. Smith was the maddest of all. He was able to hide that illusion by the absence of servants and concubines."
"Funny," said Remo. "I couldn't for the life of me visualize Smith with a concubine."
"That is why even Sinanju couldn't help him. The maddest of all emperors."
"What are you writing?"
"An entry for the journal of Sinanju, explaining to future generations how this master valiantly attempted against massive obstacles to give sense to an emperor in the West, but was rebuffed, and how the master stayed in the land of daily dramas in an attempt to salvage a white pupil who had showed some moderate promise."
"What are you calling it?"
"'Chiun's Mad Emperor.'"
"So that's where you get your tales of past masters serving in Islamabad and Loniland and Russia."
"Correct. Future generations must know the truth for history in the hands of a man who constantly needs to justify himself becomes like a garment that changes for the needs of the weather. Here I set down truth. Just as I have been taught that Czar Ivan was not terrible, so too will future generations be taught about the mad emperor Smith, lest someone write that he was a good and a competent man and thus tarnish the name of Sinanju."
Remo felt his stomach tighten. "Smitty was okay. It was a tough job."
"It was an easy job if he were sane. But what can one expect from a country discovered only twelve years ago?"
"America was discovered almost five hundred years ago."
"By whom?"
"Christopher Columbus."
"Not by Sinanju. For Sinanju, Chiun discovered America. I wonder if future generations will celebrate my birthday with parades."
"Now that he's gone," said Remo, "I think I liked Smitty. At least I could understand him."
Remo left the sanitarium and rented a car in town and drove to Darien, where just before dawn in the intensity of the last night, he strolled across the wide-open lawns of the Broon estate, past a guard who for a moment thought he saw an even deeper darkness move through the blackness into the Broon mansion.'
It was an axiom in his business that lords aways sleep high, so Remo did not bother with the ground floor. With the delicate quiet of a stalking cat, he moved up a large stairway. One did not jar door locks, one froze them with the hands.
In the first large bedroom, Remo paused. An exquisite young woman, with features of marble perfection, slept, a bedlamp lighting her face. Soft brown hair flowed down the large pink pillows, and delicately flowered sheets were thrown aside, revealing breasts rising with the freshness of youth. Ah, thought Re
mo, business before pleasure. He shut the door.
Remo went down the hall, listening for breathing on the other side of the doors. Actually if one was very still, felt the floor with one's feet, and the body was motionless to a point near death, one could feel the breathing.
At the heavy oaken door one did not need to feel.
The snoring rattled out of it like gravel in a tin garbage can. Remo went inside and saw covers pulled up to a very strong chin. He shut the door behind him and went quietly to the bed.
He shook the man's shoulder.
"T. L. Broon?"
"What?" said Broon coming out of his deep sleep and seeing a figure beside his bed.
"T. L. Broon, something terrible has happened," said Remo. One did not ask a person to identify himself to a stranger when awakened from deep sleep. The reaction might be panic and then denial.
"What's happened?" said Broon, giving Remo all the identification he needed.
"They won't be serving you breakfast in the morning."
"What? What is this? You woke me up to tell me about breakfast? Who the hell are you, sonny?"
"Sorry. Go back to sleep," said Remo, and he put Broon back to sleep so he would no longer snore. Ever.
He looked around the darkened room for some object of Broon's that Corbish might recognize. A briefcase was by the bed. Remo took it.
Outside, the west wing guard thought he saw that deeper darkness again but when he looked at his post's scanner, a new IDC invention for the armed forces, he saw nothing. He would have to get his eyes checked in the morning.
The first person to discover Broon was his valet. He gasped and fainted. The second was the upstairs maid. She shrieked. When his daughter, the chestnut-haired Holly Broon, heard the screaming, she threw a bathrobe over her nude body and ran to her father's room. The valet was ashen-faced, getting to his knees, the maid was shrieking, and no one was attending to her father.
She saw the open mouth, the stilllness of his chest. She felt his forehead. Like a slab of liver, she thought.
"He must have had a heart attack," said the valet.
"A heart attack with his temple crushed," said Holly Broon.
"We've already called a doctor," said the valet "At least someone has."
Holly Broon, who of all the Broons had old Josiah's fierce eyes, ignored the valet's remark. It didn't matter who called the doctors. She phoned the family and corporate lawyers. She had one question.
"Who's next in line at IDC?"
"The picture isn't quite clear on that, Miss Broon. There's got to be a state of mourning first and I'm sure all of us grieve…"
"Bullshit. Who's senior vice president for policy planning?'
"Young man, Corbish. Fine outstanding work, a superior…"
"Never heard of him. How long's he been senior v.p.?"
"Just a few days, maybe a week, but…"
"Give me his telephone number."
The lawyer had it written down somewhere. Holly told a maid to get her something from her wardrobe, in black.
"Something with an open neck. I've got boobs, you know." When she heard the telephone number, she hung up and dialed again.
"Hello, Mr, Corbish. I'm sorry to waken you," said Holly whose voice now floated like doves upon a silken lake. "I have bad news. T. L. Broon passed away last night and while I know you, like all of us, wish a suitable waiting period, the affairs of IDC must continue. I'm Holly Broon and I'd like to meet you as soon as possible. I think you are the kind of man who can carry on his work."
"Yes, Miss Broon. Of course. Certainly."
"Where can we meet?"
"I have an office just about thirty minutes from you in Rye, New York, on Long Island Sound. It's at Folcroft Sanitarium."
"That's strange," said Holly.
"Well, corporate business. It's a little bit complicated."
"I'm sure you're handling it very well," said Holly and she took directions to Folcroft from her Darien estate.
When her black dress was brought to her, she had one comment "More cleavage."
"I don't think you have more cleavage in black, Miss Broon."
"Then fucking make it," said Holly, her voice slate hard. "Use scissors."
"On a St. Laurent dress, Miss Broon?"
"No, on your asshole. Of course, on the dress, knuckle-head."
The estate guards, Holly found out just before she left, had seen nothing the night before, She ran her check on Corbish from the back seat of her limousine. He was a Williams graduate and a special forces captain. He had joined IDC where he had worked steadily, rising rapidly to vice president, and then jumping to senior vice president almost overnight.
"We have more vice presidents than we have computers," Holly said into the telephone in the back of her car. "How did he become someone?"
"Your father appointed him, Miss Broon."
"Is he married?"
"Nine years, Miss Broon."
"The wife attractive?"
"It doesn't say in his personnel record."
"Try the blue file."
"Oh, you know about that."
"Since I could walk."
"Well, I hate to give blue file information over the phone, but I imagine it's important, Miss Broon. Yes, his wife is attractive, but she is a very heavy drinker, takes depressants from time to time, and has had, perhaps, one extramarital affair. She graduated from a somewhat second-rate school in Ohio, her father…"
"Has Corbish had any extramarital affairs?"
"No, Miss Broon."
"I see. Keep this conversation to yourself."
"Certainly, Miss Broon."
As she hung up she noticed the chauffeur stealing looks at her bosom. He became embarrassed when he saw that he'd been observed. Good, thought Holly Broon. If you've got it, use it. This Corbish son of a bitch I'm going to fold, spindle and mutilate.
"Did you say something, Miss Broon?" asked the chauffeur.
"I said it's a great tragedy I know you must share with us."
"Yes, Miss Broon."
CHAPTER NINE
When he was informed about T. L. Broon's death, Blake Corbish did not give vent to the shriek of joy that was in his heart. It is the mark of a man who engages in massive spying on other people that even in his own home he behaves as if people were watching him.
With great self-control, Corbish let the receiver sit on the phone cradle a moment, then he nudged his wife, Teri, who had gone to sleep in her sweater and skirt. She had been dozing off like that lately. At first it was a joke, but it had become a habit.
"Dear," said Corbish. "I have good news for you."
"Hmmmmm," said Teri Corbish.
"Open your eyes. I have fantastic news. Good news."
Teri Corbish turned over in bed to face her husband. She felt chilly shakes in her arms and she noticed she had once again succumbed to her habit of sleeping in her clothes.
"You know I waited so long for you to come up that I must have fallen asleep in my clothes again."
"Darling," said Corbish. "T. L. Broon is dead. Just found out. Say hello to the new president of IDC."
"That's fantastic, dear."
"Home free," said Corbish.
"Home free," said his wife. "Let's drink to that. I don't ordinarily drink in the morning but for this, I'm going to."
"President and maybe chairman of the board."
"A double," said Teri.
She stumbled out of bed, then she realized it was not that her feet were unsteady but that a briefcase was in her way on the floor.
"You left your briefcase right in my way."
"It's the martinis, Teri."
"It's the briefcase. Look."
Corbish blinked. Teri was holding T.L.'s briefcase. Was it possible? Yes, it was possible. Williams just might be a fantastic corporate resource. Yet now that he had done his job, he represented a link to tie Corbish to murder.
Corbish steadied himself as he had every morning since taking over the Folcroft opera
tion. Wait. You must have more sock with the courts than the supreme court has, he told himself. You're outside the law. The whole system at Folcroft was set up that way.
Every morning he had constantly had to remind himself of that. In his office at Folcroft, he found himself insulated, strangely free from those worries and this made him wonder why old Dr. Smith had failed to make himself a very, very rich man.
"How did this get in here?" asked Teri.
"Oh, uh, nothing. Just a night delivery, dear."
"The deliveryman could have seen something."
"Between us, Teri?"
"We didn't do it last night?"
"Look at your clothes."
"People do it with their clothes on," she said, then added glumly, "but not us. We don't even do it with our clothes off."
"You've been a fine corporate wife."
"I mean, I'd settle for you right now, instead of the martini."
"Have your martini, dear," said Corbish.
Meanwhile, in a Minneapolis bank, a man who walked with a cane and had portions of his face bandaged, asked to see one of the vice presidents, anyone.
He waited patiently. His clothes hung loosely, like throwaways. His blue shirt had a frayed collar; his shoes, while they had soles and were free of holes, were cracked to submission at the instep. Dr. Harold Smith had picked them up at a Salvation Army chapel on Mission Street in San Francisco. He had hitchhiked across the Rockies, across the Plains states and then north to Minneapolis, where he walked from the small suburb where his ride had let him off to this small bank. Now his right leg throbbed in agony.
"May I ask what your business is about," said the secretary.
"Yes," said Dr. Smith. "A special account."
"You wish to open one?" asked the secretary, trying to hide the suspicion in her voice.
"I have one. Under Densen. William Cudahy Densen. A special account. A savings account."
"If you want to make a deposit or a withdrawal, the tellers will be glad to help you."
"I want to talk to one of the vice presidents."
"Certainly, sir," said the secretary, in the tone of voice one used to humor infants. She excused herself and went into the most junior vice president's office. She told him about the derelict outside.
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