American Obsession td-109

by Warren Murphy

  Chiz made good time on the freeway. As he took the exit nearest to the station house and pulled onto the city streets, he realized that he was going to arrive a few minutes ahead of schedule. Because he was starting to get a bit hungry himself, and he figured that Puma would be famished after her ordeal, he decided to make a brief stop at a minimart to pick up some tasty snacks for the return trip.

  He drove past the double row of gas pumps and parked out front of the SpeeDee Mart. When he walked through the automatic doors in his skinny, blue-tinted, wraparound sunglasses, no one recognized him. The store clerk, a rail-thin Pakistani, was preoccupied. From his station behind the cash register, he was nervously checking the antitheft mirrors along the back wall, trying to keep track of a half-dozen teenage shoppers. The do-rag sporting lowriders, ball caps backward, were gathered over by the dairy case, apparently comparing prices on whipping-cream aerosols. The clerk was trying to see if they were slipping the cans into their enormously baggy clothing.

  A few yards farther down the wall, a trio of overweight Hollywood housewives in tentlike caftans was sucking down sixty-four-ounce, sugar-free, all-you-can-drink sodas while making moon eyes at the icecream case. Their facial expressions as they continued to sip their diet sodas all said the same thing: Well, maybe just one DoveBar, because I've been so good.

  The SpeeDee Mart's only other customer, a salesrep type in a short-sleeved dress shirt, pocket protector and wide tie, was over by the coffee corner, tapping steaming brown fluid from a stainless-steel urn marked Irish Mint Mocha into a very large thermos cup.

  Chiz took a wheeled cart and started down the narrow aisles. He was drawn at once to the hot-food section by its wonderful aroma. Under warming lights was a tray of chicken tidbits, deep-fried to golden perfection. The grease in the bottom of the pan remained liquid from the heat. Chiz dumped the entire tray of Gobs O' Chicken into a pair of foam containers, pouring the grease over the top like it was Sauce Bernaise.

  He left one container open on the cart's little raised shelf and began to eat as he shopped. As he quickly discovered, the snack food contained a special surprise. Every time he crunched down on a gob of chicken, a squirt of warm grease was released from within. There was hardly any meat inside the nuggets-a minuscule speck of flesh surrounded by seasoned batter and fat.

  Delightful.

  He filled his mouth, packing his cheeks with them. SpeeDee Mart's other warm treats were less appealing to him because of their disappointing fat content. Hot dogs on rotisserie spits. Hamburgers overcooked by hours under the warming lights. There was no coating to hold in the succulent grease. And to make matters worse, the display units had screened floors that allowed the dripping fat to fall out of sight, and out of reach, into collectors somewhere below the counter.

  As Chiz started in on the second quart of chicken gobs, he was no longer thinking about Puma wasting away in a jail cell. With a luxuriant glow in his expanding muscles, he was thinking about dessert.

  About rows and rows of half gallons of full-fat ice cream waiting for him in the dairy case.

  "Mister sir," said a reedy voice at his elbow. "No. No. You no can do that...."

  Chiz looked around at the SpeeDee Mart clerk, who was in a most agitated state. The man was literally hopping from one entry-level jogging shoe to the other. The plastic name tag pinned to his red-and-white-striped shirt pocket said Hi! I'm Bapu.

  "I weigh chiggen before you eat," protested Bapu. The movie star tipped his skinny sunglasses down his nose. "Do you know who I am?" he demanded, reaching for another gob.

  Evidently not.

  The clerk blinked at him, then, seeing another golden crusty nugget vanish between the big man's shiny lips, he moaned. "Oh, mercy me. You will stop, please. You will stop now, mister."

  "Where do you keep the butter?" Chiz asked him as he licked the inside of the foam container.

  Bapu answered automatically, "Aisle three, dairy case." Then, snapping out of robot-clerk mode, he clutched his curly mop of hair in both hands and said, "Oh, my, oh, my, you've eaten them all! What am I to do?"

  Chiz rolled his cart toward the back of the store. There was considerable congestion around the wall of glass cases at the rear. The teenagers were huddled around the whipped cream and cottage cheese and had the refrigerator door standing open. The three fat women were jammed elbow to elbow as they comparison-shopped the quart prices of Ben nd Haagen-Dazs. The sales rep was examining the rows of shrink-wrapped, maxi breakfast burritos while sipping at his steaming mug of Irish Mint Mocha.

  Over the infectiously cheery Muzak-"Hey, Little Cobra" as performed by the Vienna Philharmonic-came the sound of angry reptiles.

  A chorus of hissing.

  And the unmistakable smell of aerosolized animal fat.

  If the teenagers had had the price of a huff between them, everything might have turned out differently. Chiz might have filled his cart, paid his bill and left for the police station without incident. But as it was, imminent disaster rode the minimart's air-conditioned air.

  Chiz locked on to the source of the sweet and creamy aroma.

  "What are you doing?" Bapu cried as, peering around Chiz's bulk, he saw the teens huddled around the discharging canisters. Whipped cream was all over their faces, the glass door, the floor. "Oh, please, please, let me by!" he told Chiz.

  The clerk made the mistake of not only touching the movie star, but of trying to get between him and the mounds of delightful white fluff. To all outward appearances, Bapu was trying to beat him to it.

  Without taking his eyes off the huff party, Chiz reached out casually and snatched hold of Bapu's neck. His hand completely encircled it. And when Chiz squeezed, it made the clerk's eyes bug out.

  Seeing what was happening, the sales rep dropped his coffee mug and tried to back away. He bumped into the teenagers and the fat ladies, who completely blocked any path of quick retreat.

  With a seemingly effortless flip of the wrist, Chiz both snapped Bapu's neck and flipped him in an arc over aisles three and four. Out of sight, he landed with a soft thud on the floor.

  The sales rep opened and closed his mouth, but no sound came out. He looked to the other customers for help, but they were all too focused on what they were doing to pay attention.

  On the other side of the teens, one of the fat ladies hefted a quart of Haagen-Dazs and, peering through granny glasses on a beaded cord, said, "Well, the label says the flavor is the same, but how do we know the taste is the same?"

  Another woman held a quart of Ben and was likewise reading the ingredients. She shook her head. "I can't tell them apart from this," she complained.

  The third woman took a quick look over her shoulder. Not seeing the clerk, she turned back to her friends. "There's only one way to find out," she said, grabbing for the lids.

  The fresh scent of fat set Chiz to drooling. Profusely. Great ropy strands of saliva swayed from his chin. His breathing became short and ragged. Whatever the smell was coming from, he wanted it.

  All.

  The movie star reared back his cart, then rammed the front of it into the sales rep's shins, making him fall forward into the basket. Before the guy could cry out, Chiz had him by the throat. He likewise snapped the man's neck and sent him flying, out of sight, over the rows of shelves.

  His muscles popping from the two quarts of gobs he'd just consumed, Chiz rammed the front of his cart hard into the mass of teens.

  "Hey, butt-fuck!" said one in a knit cap and superbaggy plaid shirt. "Watch it! You're messing with our high." He had liquid white stuff all down his shirtfront.

  Chiz backhanded him against the refrigerator case, driving his head and shoulders through the glass door. The teen bounced off the steel racks inside and flopped forward over the side of the cart. Chiz dumped his limp form off onto the floor.

  The other five kids gawked at him, red eyed, foam nosed, propellant brained. As they did so, they lowered their Reddi Wip cans.

  The fragrance was maddening.
Fat without substance.

  It was worthless to Chiz, and that infuriated him.

  The movie star couldn't have stopped himself even if he'd wanted to. He jerked the steel cart over his head and brought it crashing down on the petrified youths. They had nowhere to run. Bellowing his rage, Chiz used the cart like a hammer to pound the huffers into the black-and-white acrylic tile. Brains and blood flew in all directions as the cart crashed into them repeatedly.

  The three ladies, their granny glasses and caftans spattered with gore, just stood there, clutching the opened ice-cream containers to their bosoms. Each of them had an ice-cream finger and mustache.

  Now, there was fat as fat was meant to be. An entire wall of it.

  Like a knacker man in a slaughterhouse, Chiz brought his balled fist down on the closest woman's head. She dropped in the aisle, instantly dead. The other two suddenly found their feet and scooted around the corner, heading for the SpeeDee Mart's front exit.

  Chiz paid them no mind. He filled his arms with half gallons of ice cream and moved out of the spray of carnage to enjoy his little feast.

  When the police found him fifteen minutes later, he was sitting on the floor in the middle of aisle two, surrounded by a litter of empty Haagen-Dazs containers, eating almond-mocha fudge with his left hand and Ding Dongs with his right.

  Chapter 15

  In order to prepare himself for yet another press conference, Jimmy Koch-Roche had retreated to the relative solitude of the Malibu sheriff's substation men's room. Facing the washbasin counter's long mirror, but unable to see his reflection because the top of his head was two feet below its lower edge, he puffed out his chest and recited sotto voce, "The only crime of Senator Lud is that he was too much of a manly stud." Words echoed in a jumble in the tiled room.

  The attorney sighed and shook his head. It wouldn't do. Too many syllables. If you wanted the media to pick up on a quote, it had to be both short and memorable. Once again, he referred to his well-thumbed rhyming dictionary.

  After a moment of reflection, he tried again, this time opting for a slightly different vein. Picking up the tripod-tipped cane, a theatrical prop intended for his client, Koch-Roche gestured forcefully in the air. "Ninety years is too far gone, to hump your sweetie to the great beyond."

  Ugh, Koch-Roche thought as his own doggerel resounded around him. That one wouldn't work, either. Not only was it too long, but it focused attention in a highly dangerous area. An area the attorney wanted at all costs to skirt. It would be much better, he decided, to play down the rough sex and work on the love angle. More words rhymed with love than sex, anyway.

  He returned to his dictionary. He was still puzzling over the problem minutes later when a deputy sheriff stuck his head in the men's-room door. "Your client is being released from custody now, Jimmy," the officer said. "The animals are waiting for you out front."

  Koch-Roche put away his rhyming dictionary. The senator would get no snappy verse at this juncture. As the attorney had learned the hard way, a bit of poorly constructed rhyme could do more damage to a case than a defendant's fingerprint on a murder weapon. Better to present no rhyme at all, even though the media crowd outside would be expecting it. And if Koch-Roche remained stumped for a way to put a poetical spin on the senator's legal position in the days ahead, he knew he could always call in a ghostwriter or two. The coffee-shop counters of Los Angeles were packed with out-of-work hacks.

  Koch-Roche pulled out a small hand mirror and in its reflection smoothed down the sides of his hair. Then he checked his teeth for bits of spinach from his lunchtime salad.

  "Jesus, Jimmy, don't you ever get tired of the goddamned circus?" the deputy asked him.

  "Why would I?"

  "Because it's always the same show."

  "In case you hadn't noticed, Deputy," Koch-Roche explained as he put away his mirror, "I'm not the one shoveling up the shit out there. I'm the fucking elephant."

  With that, the attorney left the bathroom and joined the newly freed Senator Baculum in the sheriff's substation hallway. Even Koch-Roche, who had witnessed the other recent miracles wrought by Family Fing Pharmaceuticals, was still amazed at the change the drug had made in the decrepit old man. Before taking WHE, Lud had been so stooped over that he and his lawyer had been almost the same height. Now he towered above his counsel. Koch-Roche found himself staring at the senator's jawline. Because there were no major muscle groups in the face to expand and fill out the voluminous, loose skin, as had happened all over the rest of his body, his head from the wattle line up still appeared very much ninety-plus years old.

  Bizarre.

  As Koch-Roche had requested, the senator was wearing a pair of blue silk pajamas and matching robe. The loose-fitting garments helped to conceal the enormity of his chest, arms and legs. Also adding to the sick-room atmosphere was the portable oxygen tank on wheels. A white-uniformed male nurse pushed the tank, which was connected by a clear plastic line to Lud's nostrils, and another male nurse carried an emergency medical case with a big red cross on the side.

  "Remember, Lud," Koch-Roche said, "hunch over and wheeze for the cameras. And don't answer any questions. I'll do all the talking."

  "I'm getting hungry again," the old man said. It was a warning, not a request.

  "I have everything waiting for you in the ambulance," the attorney assured him. "We'll be out of here in two shakes, but for the sake of your defense we need some positive coverage to counter the press the prosecution has been getting about the crime scene. This is very important to our case." Koch-Roche handed his client the tripod cane.

  The senator glowered down at the little man in the three-piece suit, but he accepted the walking stick. Then he let his back droop and his shoulders sag. The spring in his step faded, and as he moved, he shuffled along in his slippered feet.

  "The mouth, Lud. Don't forget the mouth...." Senator Baculum let his mouth hang open.

  Two deputies opened the substation's front doors, and the male nurses helped Koch-Roche's client through them. The senator immediately faltered for the cameras and was helped by his attendants into the waiting wheelchair. This was greeted by volleys of exploding flashbulbs and shouted questions from re porters. Raising his little arms for calm and order, Jimmy Koch-Roche stepped forward and faced the press.

  Chapter 16

  "This is deja vu all over again," Remo groused as, from the back of the throng of press types, he watched the shrimpboat lawyer step up to the very low, growing bush of taped-together microphones. Behind Koch-Roche, with a burly nurse at each elbow, Senator Ludlow Baculum sat slumped in a wheelchair, his hands on his knees.

  A very strange looking ninety-plus-year-old, Remo thought. Not the least bit shrunken and frail, even though he was severely bent over in the chair. In particular, Remo was struck by the way Baculum filled out his silk jammies and robe. Even though he was seated, the legs stretching out the pj's were most impressive. Legs were always the first to go with advancing age, yet the senator's apparently hadn't gone anywhere-except huge.

  "He's the same age as you," Remo said to Chiun. "Check the size of the calves on him."

  "He has the stink," the Master announced, crinkling up his nose.

  Then the miniature barrister spoke into the clustered mikes, his amplified voice booming over and hushing the restless crowd.

  "I'm Jimmy Koch-Roche and I'm Senator Baculum's attorney," he began. "I'll be answering any and all questions for him today." The lawyer half turned to his client. "As you can see, the senator is in no condition to respond himself."

  "Why did he kill poor Bambi?" shouted a reporter. His words hung in the air for a second, then the rest of the press took up the cry.

  Koch-Roche waved his little arms. "Wait just a damned minute now! I'm going to set some ground rules. I won't answer stupid questions like that one. Every one of you knows that just because the sheriff arrested my client doesn't mean he did anything criminal."

  Another reporter hollered, "Rumor out here is,
Lud was found by the sheriff naked and covered head to foot in her blood."

  "You should know by now I don't comment on unsubstantiated allegations like that."

  Which only invited a shouted follow-up from the other side of the crowd. "Was rough sex involved in Bambi's death?"

  The attorney pointed at his stoop-shouldered client once more. "For Pete's sake, all of you, stop mouthbreathing and take a look at the poor man. He's nearly a hundred years old. What kind of sex, rough or otherwise, do you think he's capable of?"

  "Does that mean you're going to use the 'hero defense' again?"

  Before the attorney could reply, another reporter restated the question. "Are you claiming that Lud tried to save Bambi from an intruder on their honeymoon?"

  Koch-Roche shook his head. "I can't comment on what my strategy will be. Our time to talk is running out. The senator is clearly exhausted by his ordeal. I'll take one more question."

  It was a doozy.

  "If Lud is cleared of all charges," cried a woman wearing a network blazer, "does he plan to marry again?"

  "As you can see, Senator Baculum is deeply grieved by his sudden and tragic loss. I can assure you he is not thinking about the future at this time. Thank you and have a good day."

  A phalanx of uniformed sheriff's deputies parted the mob so Koch-Roche, his wheelchair-bound client and his attendants could reach the waiting ambulance.

  Because Remo and Chiun stood well back, at the rear of the crowd, they were able to move quickly around its outer fringe and get very close to the ambulance's back doors. Not close enough to strike, but close enough to get a good look at the operation. It took both attendants and two deputies to lift the senator and his wheelchair inside. As they set his chair down, Remo got a glimpse of the ambulance's interior. Bags of burgers, literally dozens and dozens of them, were lined up on the floor. The reek of hot, semirancid animal fat coming from them made Remo's throat constrict and his stomach muscles clench.