Death Check td-2

by Warren Murphy

  "Would degenerate scum animals refresh your memory?

  "Yes. That's right. That is what he called them."

  "Well, then, what is the greatest atrocity on earth for Conn MacCleary?"

  "The murder of children?"

  "That's a tragedy, Remo. I'm talking about MacCleary. An atrocity."

  "An atrocity? Degenerate scum animals?" He paused, then asked almost as a question, but it was not a question. He knew.

  "They got his still?"

  Deborah reached her hand to Remo's shoulder. "The Egyptian Air Force blasted it to smithereens. It was inhuman. They saw the sandbags, I mean it was obvious from the air. The still had changed their colours and the damned thing glowed at night. They hit it with everything they had. Spitfires. The whole thing. But as you know, if you're bombing stills you're not bombing fortifications or towns. He must have saved the village. But the still was wiped out."

  And both Deborah and Remo said in unison: "The degenerate scum animals."

  "Remo, you should have seen him. That was all he talked about for days. Degenerate scum animals. He volunteered for the Negev front but he was not accepted. Then he left and I guess your conflict with the Russians started heating up. Espionage war. And he returned to your service. Where I am sure you met him."

  "Hush, hush," Remo said.

  "And I know now why you are here and I am not afraid. Friend." She extended her hand and Remo took it.

  "Friend," he said. And he leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. And she kissed him.

  Softly, she said, "Not tonight." Which can never really be said without hurting someone who wants you.

  "Okay," Remo said, "not tonight."

  "You will see me tomorrow?"

  "I think I can make it."

  "You're full of shit. You'll make it."

  "Maybe," Remo said. And he reached an arm behind her back and pulled her to him standing up. They both stood and kept their lips together and Remo moved a hand to her blouse and then over a breast which he pressed with warmth.

  "You bastard," she whispered. "I really did not want to tonight."

  "Why?"

  "Because I do not want it that way. Not you coming in and then... not that way. Tomorrow night."

  "You do not want me?"

  "I wanted you from the moment you said Conn's name. Your face then was beautiful. You showed goodness and I am so alone here. And for a moment we were not alone anymore."

  "I almost got killed out in the circle, looking at you."

  "You're a stupid man. Looks. Like every man. I'm just looks to you."

  "You began as looks."

  "Remo. I want you tonight. Very much. But please, I do not want you coming in and taking me. I do not want you thinking you can just walk in and take me."

  "Was that what you were frightened of?"

  "No. Of course not. I told you. Tomorrow night."

  "I could take you now."

  "Yes."

  "And you would not like it?"

  "I would love it. But please."

  Suddenly the phone rang. It was a jarring, persistent ring and Remo reached to rip the cord out of the wall, but Deborah got to the phone first and out of his arms. She played shield with the phone while she talked.

  "Yes," she said. "Yes. Yes. Dammit. Are you sure? Does it have to be that way? Yes. I'm sorry. Yes, yes. Of course. Of course."

  She hung up the phone and cocked her head. "There is nothing like a telephone to protect chastity. Tomorrow, Remo."

  And Remo acquiesced like a gentleman. Gently he took the phone in the palm of his left hand and with an un-gentlemanly right hand brought the palm edge down and through, cracking the receiver and the carriage. Then he split the fucking insides in a screeching gaggle of coloured wires.

  "Tomorrow," he said sweetly and dropped the two halves of the great American technology on the floor.

  Deborah smiled. "Oh, you big frightening man. You're so terrifying." And she went to him and kissed him and tugged him, like a little boy to the door. "Oh, you're such a terror. Cracking telephones and beating up motorcycle people. Oh, you're so terrible." She gave him a playful punch in the stomach, kissed him with finality on the lips, spun him around out the door, where the insects were still trying to gather a quorum, and shut the door, disposing of the most perfect human weapon in a nation's arsenal like a little toy top.

  And Remo loved it. He told himself he would not think about the first time he had really met MacCleary, who had posed as a priest in Remo's death cell and offered the pill of life on the end of a cross, MacCleary, who had engineered his supposed death only to bring him to what the world thought was a sanatorium to begin training that would never end, MacCleary who had made the incredibly stupid mistake of becoming vulnerable, MacCleary, who being vulnerable, had to be killed.

  MacCleary. Remo Williams' first assignment and the only one he was unable to complete. MacCleary who had wound up doing Remo's job by using his hooked arm to rip tubings from his own throat in a hospital bed. MacCleary the stupid bastard who believed that it was right to die for a tomorrow where his type would not be needed. MacCleary, who by his death, had sealed Remo Williams into his new life just as surely as if the bandages covering his fatal wounds now bound Remo.

  Remo Williams who had not missed an assignment since. Remo Williams. Who if Dial-a-Prayer in Chicago should have said something from Deuteronomy that noon, would have visited that night with Deborah, taken her on a quiet walk. And killed her.

  But the good Reverend had not read from Deuteronomy and Smith had given him a day off, a day from peak. And it was the good warm August of Virginia. He would spend tomorrow with Deborah, and he would make a beautiful day. It was more than many people had.

  But then Dr. Nils Brewster found the body of Dr. James Ratchett.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Dr. James Ratchett had always imagined his death would be a dramatic affair.

  In his youth, he had visions of stark white hospital beds where he forgave people. Dying, he forgave his parents, then his sister. Sometimes he would fantasize dying with a curse, ripping out the tubing from his swollen arm and refusing life.

  His mother would promptly slash her wrists, his sister would carry an indelible wound for life. And his father? Damn his father. Even in fantasies, he could not imagine his father being very interested in anything James did. Even in fantasy, his father would be telephoned at his Wall Street office, the message taken by his trim, attractive secretary. She would tell him at 6:30 that night over cocktails before retiring to their apartment.

  "Ripped it out of his arm, you say?," his father would ask. "Cursed me on his death bed? Hmmm. Never knew little James had it in him."

  James was nine when he had these fantasies. When he was fourteen, he had different fantasies. It was his father in a hospital bed, and James was ripping the tubing from his father's arm, because he had just realized what a filthy, hairy, grotesque pig he was.

  At fourteen, James had made concoctions. He would give them to friends. He once gave a concoction to a neighbour’s boy, five years younger than he. The boy was in a coma for three days and James was sent where people made sure you didn't brew poisons for younger boys to drink.

  They sent him to the Bilsey School, Dorchester, England where proper young English gentlemen went through a homosexual phase. For James, it was not a phase. Denied chemical equipment and chemicals, he denied himself to theorizing about them. He continued this at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York where he had all the equipment he needed, but remained addicted to theory, it being so much cleaner and neater.

  He received a science degree from Harvard and a doctorate in theoretical chemistry from M.I.T. His senior thesis won him international fame and his evening activities earned him three suspended sentences for contributing to the delinquency of minors. To get the last two sentences suspended was extremely expensive, exhausting his inheritance. This meant he could not continue toward his doctorate in mathematics. He
would have to teach. Teaching meant constantly dealing with people, perhaps as much as five hours a week.

  Then came Brewster Forum. He could design his own cottage. Of course, Dr. Brewster understood how people's tastes varied and why not be sensible? And Dr. James Ratchett found a home, and sometimes even an audience for his hypnotism which he had learned as a child under the mistaken impression that it would guarantee him endless lovers.

  But the hypnotism of the night before had left a malignant gnawing remembrance of something just about to be remembered, but reluctant to come forward. It was a cry of ready or not, here I come, and then nothing came.

  So. He would wrestle it away from his memory. To do so, one must be prepared. You do not grab a thought like a little boy's neck. You tease it, coax it. Ignore it. You make yourself very comfortable without it and then it jumps forward to join the party.

  Dr. James Ratchett undressed and left his clothes outside his very special room. It was a masterpiece of engineering that room, a white bowl shape, upholstered all around with white vinyl, over a layer of water that cushioned the floors and the rounded walls as high up as a man could reach. Ratchett's acquaintances called it his womb-room but he thought of it as his den.

  Into the room, he had brought his pipe with a sliver of hashish. The pipe lit when he pressed a button, and Ratchett brought the smoke deep down into his lungs and held his breath. He became aware of his limbs: how distant they were and how he was holding his breath. He was holding his breath forever and his head felt nothing. Nothing was what he felt in his head and he just let the air out because he felt like it. But he didn't have to. He could have held the air in for hours. Yes. And deep in again. My, so cool it was. He listened to the coolness of the room and felt the vinyl on the ceiling with his eyes and suddenly his white womb was very funny. Here he was in a water mish-mesh.

  "Mish-mesh," he said and laughed hysterically. "Mish-mesh," he said again, wishing he had someone in the room who could appreciate the humour of the joke.

  And the vinyl covered door opened. And that was a woman. Yes. Really a woman. Perhaps she had come for a drag. Perhaps he would offer her some. But he would not talk to her at all. No talking.

  Oh, she was undressed too, and she carried a whip and where he had a thing, she just had a brownish-blond blotch. He would show her. He would not get an erection. He never could. But then she was doing something and he had something. And then he took another drag, and then.... Cut. A scream. Rip.

  Dr. James Ratchett grabbed at his stinging numb groin and nothing was there but warm wet blood, gushing wet blood, splattering around him on the white vinyl, making standing slippery, and he fell, and grabbed desperately looking for something to stop the blood.

  "Oooh, oooh," the cries came out of his lungs, as he slithered around his room, toward the door. Reach it. Out. Help. But it was locked, and Dr. James Ratchett slid back toward the center of the room and found he could not even bite his way out, as he chewed into the vinyl harder and harder, and then his teeth tore a hole in the vinyl, and water spilled in, mixing with his blood, and he sloshed around in the pink puddle, in the agony of red death.

  And then he remembered where he saw her and who had taken the pictures and why she had now killed him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Nils Brewster was in a sweat. His tumbleweed hair was matted with moisture. His arms flailed and his mouth moved violently as it shrieked out sounds at Remo. He had stopped Remo on the gravel driveway near Deborah's cottage just as the sun moved overhead into noon. It was Remo's day off peak.

  "Oooh. Oooh. Oho," said the world's foremost authority on the dynamics of hostility, the man who had written what many considered to be the definitive work on mass murder. "Uh... uh... uh," he added, and then collapsed at Remo's feet.

  It was panic all right. Remo knelt down and let Brewster recover. There was no danger of shock.

  Soon Brewster opened his eyes. "Ratchett. Oooh. Ahhh. Oho."

  It would be no use to tell Brewster to calm down. Only idiots offered that sort of advice to panicky people. To tell someone to calm down when he was panicked was to tell him that you were not aware of the seriousness of the situation. That the situation could not be improved by panic was of little import. The person had something so awesome to convey that he was unable to convey it. To keep your head while he lost his only let him know that he was not getting through to you, and made him try even harder with less success.

  So Remo did what he knew was right, even though he did not wish Deborah to see it from her window if she was standing there.

  He repeated Brewster's desperate yell. "Ooooh. Ahhhh. Oho," he shouted, looking directly into Brewster's eyes.

  Remo joined Brewster in his hysteria, in order to bring

  Brewster back with him to coherency.

  "Ratchett," Remo gasped.

  "Ratchett," Brewster gasped. "Dead."

  "Ratchett is dead," Remo moaned.

  "Ratchett murdered. Blood."

  "Ratchett has been murdered. There's lots of blood."

  And Brewster nodded and said: "I went to his place just now. His special place. He was dead. Blood and water. He was dead. You."

  "Me."

  "Yes. Do something."

  "Good. I'll do something."

  "Walls. Fences. Machine guns. Help us."

  "Yes, yes. Of course. Help you. Machine guns. Fences. Walls."

  "Yes. Get the killers. Get them. Kill them. Destroy them. Bomb them."

  "Yes."

  "But don't let the police know."

  "No, no. Of course not."

  "Good," said Nils Brewster. His eyes wide, he rose to his feet. "We'll go now."

  He was still unsteady as they crossed the small bridge over the brook and Remo gently guided him by applying light pressure to an elbow.

  "Is that his house?," Remo asked, looking at the large white egg with windows.

  Brewster nodded. "I didn't see him this morning. We had a 9 o'clock appointment and he's always punctual. I just wanted to explain to him that I thought his hypnotism had gone far enough and that we should look for some other form of his artistic expression. But he didn't show up, and he didn't answer the phone. So I came here. He has a special room, an obvious imitation of his concept of womb. And he was there, and the door was jammed from the outside."

  The sun played over the house, as they approached it, as if boiling it for an egg salad lunch.

  "I like it," Remo said.

  "Nobody likes it."

  "I like it. I think it's a hell of an idea for a home."

  "It's grotesque," Brewster said.

  "That's your opinion."

  "That's the opinion of everyone in Brewster Forum."

  "No, it's not."

  "No? Who likes it?"

  "I like it."

  "Oh, you. Well, I'm talking about everyone."

  "I'm someone."

  "You're our security officer."

  "But I'm a someone."

  "Yes. All right. If you want to look at it that way. He's in there. I touched nothing." Brewster stood at the entrance. The door was ajar.

  Remo nodded. "It's really hard to refrain from panic in a situation like this," Brewster said. "You may not have noticed, but I was on the verge of panic. Fortunately, I have incredible self-control. But this pushed me to my limit."

  "Okay," Remo said softly. Like most panic victims, Brewster had no recollection of his actions. He would not even remember fainting. "Stay here, Nils."

  "Call me Dr. Brewster." He leaned against the door frame, still shaking. "We'd be in an awful fix if I were the type to lose my head," he said.

  "Yes, Dr. Brewster, we would," Remo said.

  "Call me Nils," Brewster said. Remo smiled reassuringly and went into the living room. He spotted the fireplace opening to Ratchett's special retreat. There was Ratchett, nude, his body half covered in a pink puddle of water and blood. His face was a final set mask of horror. Remo reached in, careful not to slosh around in the l
iquid, and flipped Ratchett over. So much for how they did it. Now they had attacked the scientists, and to save them it might be necessary to kill them. If he called the police now, the next passage from Dial-a-Prayer might well be Deuteronomy. Remo stepped back carefully and picked up Ratchett's phone. It was a vulnerable phone. But he was not doing business.

  He dialled information, got the number of Dr. Deborah Hirshbloom, and dialled it. The phone rang. And rang. And rang. Remo looked to the ceiling without seeing, looked to the floor without seeing and whistled impatiently. And the phone rang.

  "Shit," he said and hung up.

  He went outside.

  "Shocking, wasn't it?" said Brewster.

  "What?" said Remo, his mind still on the phone call.

  "You look upset."

  "Oh. Yes. Shocking scene. Awful."

  "If you were as familiar with violence and its dynamics as a human form of expression, if you were as familiar with it as I am, it might have been easier for you, son."

  "I suppose so," Remo said. Dammit, she wasn't home. This was his day off peak. And he planned to spend it with her. All day and all night. And now she wasn't home.

  Dr. Brewster reached for something in his pocket, and brought out a pipe and a ripped bag of tobacco. "How the hell did this happen?" he said, looking at the ripped pouch as if it had betrayed him. "My pants are dirty too. I must have brushed against something." He lit his pipe.

  "Violence is a strange thing," Dr. Brewster said, musing on the smoke. "Many people never learn to accept it as a part of life."

  She was supposed to be home. All right, maybe she had just gone out for something. Maybe she was just being funny. Playing a game. Or maybe she had changed her mind. The bitch. The little Israeli bitch had changed her mind.

  The two men went back to the forum center, the scientists talking, musing, explaining, pontificating, placing the elements of life and death in intellectual perspective. Remo Williams was planning. If she was just trying to make him wait, he would be very casual. Say that he wasn't sure of the time. Was she late? Oh. Or maybe he'd disappear for a while and be late himself. No. He'd see her and tell her she was immature.