The Eleventh Hour td-70

by Warren Murphy

  Smith cleared his throat. "Perhaps you had better fill me in on Chiun's medical status."

  "I got caught in a fire. The house collapsed. I don't remember anything that happened after that. The next I knew I was on the ground and Chiun was standing over me. I think he carried me out while I was unconcious. Then he just fainted or something. One minute he was talking some nonsense, the next he was out cold. They're running tests on him now."

  "When does the doctor expect results?"

  "I don't know. Sounds like they'll be half the night. I'm worried."

  "So am I, Remo. But I'm getting news reports of numerous fires raging all over greater Detroit."

  "Forget the firebugs. We'll get them next year. I'm staying with Chiun."

  "Let me remind you, Remo, that your investigation has turned up the name of the single motivating person behind Devil's Night. And that person, directly or indirectly, is responsible for the fire that caused this accident."

  "Joakley isn't going anywhere."

  "If you don't want to get him for me, or for CURE, or for America, then get him for Chiun. He's the reason Chiun's been hurt."

  Remo's eyes narrowed. "Yeah. Chiun would want me to do that. Smitty, I'll get back to you."

  * * *

  The headlines the next morning read: "RUNAWAY ROBOT MURDERS EX-DETROIT ASSEMBLYMAN."

  The short item was accompanied by a photograph of the victim-a smiling broad-faced man. The caption gave his name as Moe Joakley. There was also a police sketch of the suspect. The suspect, was eight feet tall and had six arms. One of the arms ended in a giant ball-peen hammer, another in a hydraulic vise, and the rest in various other implements of destruction, including a flamethrower. The suspect's body consisted of stainless-steel jointed sections, like a centipede's body. It looked like a cross between an industrial robot and a Hindu statue.

  The article admitted that the sketch was fanciful, but the police artist insisted that the damage done to the late Moe Joakley could only have been inflicted by a phantasm such as he drew.

  Moe Joakley would have disagreed. He had been staring out the plate-glass window of his den, binoculars in hand, at precisely the stroke of midnight. His police scanner roved the band, stopping at every emergency call. To the south, fires burned out of control. A row of apartment houses smoldered on the east side. That was good. It was overdue for urban renewal.

  It had been more than two hours since the last of the trick-or-treaters knocked on Moe Joakley's door looking for the kind of treat only he supplied in the whole city. Usually the last of them showed up before ten o'clock. But the fires often burned till two. Not a bad number this year. But only four deaths. Up one from last year, but down from the all-time high of fifty-five in 1977. Those were the good days.

  Moe Joakley poured himself a drink. Halloween night. It was his favorite time of year. For better than twenty years, Moe Joakley had ruled Detroit on Halloween-an invisible king enthroned in a glass tower.

  Moe Joakley hadn't always been king. Once, he had been a teenager who just liked to set fires. Back in the sixties, there had been an exodus of people and businesses. Detroit, racked by crime and poverty, was turning into a ghost town. No one cared. And because no one cared, Moe Joakley had set fire to a row of warehouses one Halloween night while in the throes of his very first peach-wine drunk.

  It felt good. When he sobered up, Joakley knew he couldn't do that sort of thing every day. It was special. So he counted the days and nights until the next Halloween. And set fire to another group of buildings.

  The third year, he got together a gang. That's when it really started. The press called it Devil's Night. Moe Joakley was proud of that.

  As the years went by, some of Joakley's teenage fellow arsonists grew up and dropped out of the annual ritual. That upset Moe Joakley. Friends shouldn't turn their backs on other friends. The first friend to do that was Harry Chariot. He had gotten married. A dumb excuse, Moe Joakley thought at the time.

  So he had set fire to Harry's house that very next Halloween. Harry died. His wife too. It was the first time Moe Joakley had tasted blood. He liked it.

  But he was also smart enough to know that an adult couldn't continue to get away with the same pranks teenagers did forever. One year, he stopped, too. Not stopped causing fires, just setting them personally. Moe had a reputation to live up to. He had gone into politics, and succeeded in getting himself elected assemblyman of his home district. He was swept into office on a platform of stopping Devil's Night.

  And sure enough, the next year, the fires in his district stopped. They went up in all other districts. That was thanks to the teenagers Joakley had sent out.

  Joakley knew that wisdom was passed from older kids to younger. Once he had started one group setting fires, it was inevitable that younger brothers and sidekicks would be drawn into Devil's Night. And there were always new kids coming up every year.

  Twenty years, and no one ever turned Moe Joakley in.

  So he sat enjoying the pretty red flames in the distance, not noticing the grandfather clock toll the final midnight of his misspent life.

  He didn't expect a knock on the door this late. But Moe went to the door anyway.

  "Who is it, please?"

  "Trick or treat!" an unfamiliar voice said. It sounded adult.

  "Who is it?"

  "Is this Moe Joakley?"

  "That's the name on the brass plate. But it's after midnight. Go away. I'm out of candy."

  "I don't want candy."

  "Then what?"

  "You know."

  "Tell me," Moe Joakiey prompted.

  "I want to burn something."

  Moe Joakley hesitated. Out his window, the fires were dying down. What the hell? Maybe this could go on all night. He opened the door.

  The man at the door was in a funny costume. His chest was bare, and there was a deep bruise around his throat. Must be a new fad, Joakley thought to himself. The punk look must be dead.

  "Come on in. You're older than most of the others."

  "You the guy that hands out the firebug stuff?" Remo Williams asked coolly.

  "Shhh!" said Moe Joakley. "Here, take a bottle."

  "I'm not thirsty," said Remo.

  "It's not to drink. It's full of gasoline."

  "Oh," said Remo.

  "If the cops catch you, offer them the bottle. Usually they'll let you go and keep it, thinking it's booze."

  "What if they open it first?"

  "Then you're on your own. If they question me, I'll do two things. First, I'll admit giving you the bottle, but I'll say you drank the booze and then filled it with gasoline yourself."

  "And the second?" Remo inquired politely.

  "I'll burn your house down and everyone in it."

  "Nice guy."

  "Hey, you want to play, you gotta pay. Be on your way now."

  "Wait a minute. Don't you want to tell me which buildings I should torch?

  "Be creative. Just don't touch the four blocks around this one. These people pay for protection. And no auto companies. They pay for protection too."

  "You do this for the money?" Remo said.

  "What else? Money. And I like to see things burn."

  "I'll try not to disappoint you," Remo said. He twisted off the sealed cap and gasoline fumes rose into the room like a chemical genie. "Gasoline, all right," Remo said.

  "High octane. Only the best. Now be off."

  "Got any matches?"

  "Oh, sure." Joakley dug into the pocket of his purple dressing gown. "Here you are."

  Remo reached for the book and accidentally spilled half the bottle over Moe Joakley's ample tummy.

  "Watch it! This is pure silk!"

  "Sorry," said Remo. "Here, let me help you wipe it off."

  "What are you doing? You can't wipe this stuff off with your bare hands."

  Moe tried to back away but Remo's hands held him. They were rubbing at the front of his dressing gown so fast they blurred. The gown began to fee
l strangely warm. A curt of smoke drifted up.

  "Hey!" Joakley said again. And then went up in flames with a loud Whooosh!

  "Arrgh!" Moe Joakley screamed. "I'm on fire!"

  "Does it hurt?" Remo asked solicitously.

  "Arrgh!" Joakley said again. Remo took that as a yes.

  "Now you know how it feels," Remo said. "The only person who ever cared for me is in a hospital because of you."

  "I'm burning. I'm burning to death. You can't let me burn."

  "Wanna bet?"

  A smell like roast pork filled the roam as Moe Joakley scurried around the room like a flaming pinwheel. And Remo knew that, whatever he did, he couldn't just let Moe Joakley burn. Burning was too easy.

  "Get down on the floor," Remo yelled. "Roll on the rug."

  Moe Joakley rolled on the rug like a dog rolling in something that stank, only he rolled faster. The gas-fed flames refused to die. In fact, they got worse because the rug caught.

  Remo grabbed a heavy blanket from the bedroom and threw it over Moe Joakley's squirming, flaming body, trying to smother the fire.

  Joakley screamed louder.

  Remo suddenly remembered reading somewhere that flames could be extinguished by slapping them hard. He began slapping Moe Joakley's body through the blanket. The screams suddenly stopped and little tendrils of smoke curled up from under the blanket. "Is it out?" Remo asked.

  "I dunno. I still feel hot."

  Remo kept slapping the man. Harder now. The smacking sounds grew louder. So did the screams. "I think you can stop now," Joakley howled.

  But Remo didn't stop. He kept slapping at the wriggling form under the blanket. His hands drummed like pistons. The sounds emerging from under the blanket grew meatier-occasionally punctuated by a mushy crushing of bone.

  Moe Joakley's protests grew mushy too, like the burbling of a baby.

  Gradually, under Remo's drumming hands, the shape under the blanket lost its human outlines. When Remo was done, the blanket was almost flat. He stood up and left the apartment in silence. He did not look under the blanket. He did not need to. The next day, after the body was discovered by a maid, the police looked under the blanket. Their first thought was that they had discovered an alien life form.

  "Looks like an amoeba," suggested the medical examiner. "Or maybe a dead fetus."

  "Too big for an amoeba," said a detective. "Or a fetus."

  When the medical examiner found a human tooth lying on the rug, he realized for the first time the hairless thing under the blanket had once been a man. He got violently sick. Then he went into another line of work.

  They got two morgue attendants to load Moe Joakley's roasted carcass into a body bag. They had to use shovels, and Joakley kept slipping off like a runny omelet.

  The morgue attendants went into new lines of work too.

  And although a thorough investigation was conducted, no trace of the runaway robot murder suspect was ever discovered.

  Chapter 4

  "Mr. Murray. He's asking for you."

  In the waiting room of the hospital, Remo Williams did not look up. He wore fresh clothes that he had picked up at his hotel, where he had quickly showered the soot from his body. A turtleneck jersey helped conceal the livid bruise on his throat.

  "Mr. Murray," the nurse said again, tapping him gently. "You are Remo Murray, aren't you?"

  "Oh, right, yeah, Remo Murray," Remo said. It was the cover name under which he'd registered at the Detroit Plaza Hotel. He had forgotten it.

  "How is he?" Remo asked, following the nurse into the ward.

  "He's comfortable," she said noncommittally.

  Dr. Henrietta Gale was hovering at Chiun's bedside. She frowned when she saw Remo enter. "Normally, I would not allow this, but poor Mr. Chiun insists."

  Remo ignored her. "Little Father, how do you feel?" he asked gently.

  "I am hurt," Chiun said, staring at the ceiling.

  "How bad?"

  "To my very core," Chiun said, refusing to meet Remo's eyes. "I am told while I lie between life and death you deserted my bedside."

  Remo bent to Chiun's ear. "The hit, remember?" he whispered. "I got the guy who caused all those fires. Who hurt you."

  "He could not wait?" Chiun asked.

  "Never mind him. What about you?"

  "My end may be near."

  "Because of some stupid smoke," Remo said loudly. "I don't believe it."

  "I knew this was a mistake," Dr. Gale said. She tried to pull Remo away from the bedside. She took his shoulders in her firm doctor's hands. The shoulders did not budge. They might as well have been set in concrete.

  "Sir. I'll have to ask you to step over here. I must speak with you."

  Remo came erect with a stricken look on his face. "What's wrong with him?" Remo hissed when they were on the other side of the room.

  "I don't know. We performed every kind of test known to medical science. His blood has been analyzed. We put him through a CAT scan. Ultrasound. Everything. We can find nothing wrong with him physically."

  "Then he's going to be okay?"

  "No. I'm sorry to tell you that your friend is dying."

  "You just said he was fine."

  "He's an unbelievable human speciman. Not just for his age, but for any age. My God, do you know that his body is perfectly bisymmetrical?"

  "Is that bad?"

  "It's incredible. Even in normal people one leg is usually longer than the other. Right-handed people usually have weaker musculature in their left arms, and of course vice versa. In women, it's not uncommon for one breast to be larger. But not this man.

  His arms and legs are exactly the same respective lengths. His muscles are perfectly balanced. Even his bone structure is unnaturally symmetrical."

  "But what does it mean?"

  "It means," said Dr. Gale seriously, "that his body is perfectly proportioned. Perfectly."

  Remo nodded. Sinanju. It balanced everything.

  "I looked it up in the medical records., There's never been any recorded example of absolute human bisymmetry. I don't want to be precipitate, but I have here a standard medical donor form. If you would consider willing the body to science, I can assure you that the utmost respect will be paid to the remains."

  Remo took the form and silently folded it into a delta-winged paper airplane. He sailed it past Dr. Gale's ear. It seemed to just tap a wall mirror, but the glass spiderwebbed with a brittle crack!

  "My goodness!" Dr. Gale said.

  "I want some answers, or I'll start folding you next."

  Dr. Gale fingered her shiny new stethoscope and chose her next words carefully.

  "As I told you, sir, we can find nothing organically wrong with the dear sweet man. But his life signs are definitely failing. It's not his heart, and although we suctioned smoke traces from his lungs, they don't appear to be damaged either. But all indications are that he is simply ... expiring."

  "Chiun can't simply die. It doesn't work that way with him. It can't."

  "The finest medical equipment does not lie. We can't explain it. He's obviously healthy, yet he's clearly dying. He is very old. It does happen to some people this way. But usually they go quick. In Mr. Chiun's case, it's as if his soul, his magnificent soul, is outgrowing his frail old body."

  "Well put," said Chiun from his bed.

  "Thank you," Dr. Gale said sweetly. She turned back to Remo. "As you can see, he's fully aware of his condition. He doesn't seem disturbed at all. I think he knows that his time has come, and he's just awaiting the end. Personally, I think it's a beautiful way to go. I hope I'm this lucky."

  "How long?" Remo asked hoarsely. It was just starting to sink in.

  "A few weeks. Possibly a month. He's asking for you to take him home. I think that would be best. There's obviously nothing we can do further. Take him home, and make him comfortable."

  "There's no hope?"

  "None whatsoever. People his age-when they get sick, even from minor ailments-they almost never f
ully recover. He seems to be able to accept that. You should too."

  Remo returned to Chiun's bedside. Chiun seemed smaller somehow, as if his great essence had shriveled within the frail husk that was his body.

  "Little Father, I will take you back to Folcroft with me."

  "Do not be silly, Remo," Chiun said quietly. "That is no place for a Master of Sinanju to spend his last days. We will enjoy them in Sinanju . . . together."

  "Are you sure it's this bad?"

  "Remo, I will not deceive you on this. I am entering my final days on earth. Inform the Emperor Smith to make the necessary arrangements. I wish to leave the sights and smells of this barbaric land for all time."

  "Yes, Little Father," said Remo, and there were tears in his eyes as he left the room.

  Chapter 5

  The chill November dawn shone through the huge picture window overlooking Long Island Sound and found Dr. Harold W. Smith still at his desk. He was a tall man, with thinning hair and rimless glasses. His three-piece suit was gray. Almost everything about the man was gray, washed-out and colorless.

  But Smith, sitting behind the administrator's desk at Folcroft Sanitarium, was anything but colorless. Next to the President of the United States, he was the most powerful man in the U.S. government. Some might say more powerful, because Presidents came and went, but Harold W. Smith, appointed the sole director of CURE, held forth, unelected and unimpeachable.

  Smith tightened his striped Dartmouth tie as he waited for the computer terminal on his desk to process news digests coming from the city of Detroit. Another man, after working through the night, would have long before loosened his tie. But not Smith. He wanted to be presentable when his secretary came to work.

  The information from Detroit was good. There were fewer fires this year, and most were under control. But it was odd that no reports regarding one Moe Joakley had surfaced. Odder still that Remo hadn't checked in.

  Smith saved the Detroit digests as a separate file and went on to other incoming data. His fingers brushed the keyboard with a concert pianist's unselfconscious ease. The tiny terminal was deceiving. It hooked up to a bank of computers in a sealed room in Foicroft's basement. These linked up to virtually every data base in the United States, and a few elsewhere. They scanned all computer traffic automatically, sifting through data transmissions for indications of'criminal or unusual activity. Twenty years of CURE database lay stored in its secret files, a backup data base in another secret computer bank on the island of St. Martin. If Remo was the enforcement arm of CURE, and Smith was its brain, the CURE computers were its heart.