Funny Money td-18

by Warren Murphy

  She stretched up, placed her lips on his, kissed hard, and then fell backward onto the table, pulling Remo down with her.

  "I don't know what it is about you," she said. "It's sure not your brain, but something turns me on. Make love to me." Her wired wrists pulled open the front buttons of her blouse, then slid her skirt up the few inches necessary for it to clear her hips.

  "I turn most women on. But you got enough wires on you to turn yourself on and off like a lamp."

  "That's your civilian review board. For when you fail like every other man. Get on with it."

  Remo reached a hand between them, began working it gently, and then jumped from the table when a voice boomed: "A little to the left." The booming sound reverberated throughout the room. Remo looked around. The room was empty.

  "What the hell was that?"

  "Our computer, Mr. Daniels. He's going to keep you posted on how you're doing."

  "Oh, crap," said Remo.

  "Get back up here," said Dr. Carlton.

  "Your soft compliant ways are really the way to a man's heart," Remo said.

  "Do your duty. Who do you work for anyway?"

  "The government. The Secret Service," Remo lied. "We're after Gordons's counterfeiting operation."

  This time he put his right hand between them again but he would not be dictated to by a computer so he moved his hand not left, but even farther to the right.

  The computer did not complain this time. Instead it seemed to hum plaintively.

  "To the left, huh?" Remo mumbled under his breath. "We'll see."

  He moved his hand even farther right. The computer's humming became a moan. Remo brought his left hand up around under Vanessa Carlton's satiny flanks. The moaning increased. The computer's muffled roar said, "Oh, yes. Oh, yes."

  Remo joined with Dr. Carlton on the table. Roaring over all came the computer's metallic voice saying, "That's wonderful. That's wonderful. Magic. Magic."

  Remo was uncomfortable. It was like performing in front of witnesses. And the fact that Mr. Daniels, the computer, had a baritone voice didn't help either. Annoyed, Remo set to work.

  "Magic, magic, magic, magic," said the computer. Its voice began to change. From baritone to tenor.

  "Magic, magic, magic, magic." From tenor to soprano, then going faster and faster. "Magic, magic, magic, magic." So fast some syllables became indistinct.

  The word "magic" was repeated over and over again and then the machine began to babble. "Ma-ma-ma-ma-gic-gic-gic-gic. Gic-ma. Gic-ma. Magic-ma Gic-ma-gic." Then it giggled, a high squeaky castrati giggle that grew longer and higher and more shrill and changed into a wail.

  "Oh, balls," said Remo and yanked the tape electrodes from Vanessa Carlton's temples. The computer stopped in mid-shriek, replaced by Vanessa Carlton's very authentic soprano moan and babble.

  "Magic-ma, Gic-magic… giggle, giggle… gic-magic-ma."

  And then he felt her spasm and moan and he felt like smacking her around and her smartass computer, too. He raised himself and backed away from her, and she said, "Oh, Remo. Such pleasure. It's never been like that. Oh, wow. That might replace alcohol, if you're not careful. Such pleasure."

  Remo turned to begin straightening his clothes and looked up to find Mr. Smirnoff standing silently inside the door, his robot's eyes fixed on Dr. Carlton who lay, well-pleasured on the table, babbling: "Wonderful, I'm so happy, wonderful, magic, happy, pleasure."

  Clothes straightened, Remo turned back to her. "All right, now where does Mr. Gordons keep his counterfeiting equipment?"

  The question started her laughing. "I don't know anything about counterfeiting," she said. Her laugh did not sound authentic. Remo chose not to press the subject any further. For now.

  "Any tips? How do I get him?"

  "Remember. He can't create any better than a five-year-old. Flashy but inconsistent." She sat up and began smoothing her clothes. "That's his weakness. He would've been easy for you if those idiots in Washington hadn't given him the creativity program."

  Remo nodded and turned to leave. Vanessa called him back. "Remo?"

  He turned.

  "What does he look like anyway?"

  "Mr. Gordons?"

  She nodded."

  Remo described Mr. Gordons. His height, over six feet, sandy blondish hair, thin lips, the blue eyes. Halfway through, she began to laugh.

  "I had wondered where he got his model."

  "And?"

  "He got it from a picture on my desk. Mr. Gordons copied my father's looks."

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  "I don't like this," said Remo, looking out the window of the 747 racing eastward toward New York.

  "What is this thing you do not like?" asked Chiun, sitting peacefully in an aisle seat, his hands holding onto the leaden lump strung around his neck. "Keep an eye on that wing," he added quickly.

  "Smith calling us back east. It must be important."

  "Why? Because Emperor Smith calls? What does that mean? It might just be that he has gone mad again. He has taken leave of his senses before, if you remember. When he was in the place called Cincinnati and you were trying to find him in the place called Pittsburgh?"

  "All right, all right, all right," said Remo. "Let's just drop it. I'm glad anyway that you've agreed to go back to work for him."

  "Was there ever any doubt? You and I must attack. He will pay us to attack. We should not take his gold? We would be as mad as he probably is, just as he was when he was in the place called Cincinnati and you were trying to…"

  Remo tuned Chiun out and stared out the window again.

  When they met Smith, several hours later, he had not gone mad. He awaited them in a basement vault beneath New York's largest bank building. His face was drawn and pinched, more lemony than usual.

  "What's up, Smitty, that's so important?" asked Remo breezily.

  "Have you gotten any lead on where Mr. Gordons is printing the money?"

  Remo shook his head.

  "Then we're in serious trouble."

  "When aren't we? Do you know that every time I've seen you in ten years, we've been in trouble? The sky is always falling. And this is the worst one of all, of course. The almighty dollar is in danger."

  It was Smith's turn to shake his head. "Not the dollar," he said. "You."

  "See," said Chiun to Remo. "It is not so important after all. It is just you."

  That, however, Remo decided, made it very important. "What about me?" he said.

  Smith handed forward a yellow slip of paper. "This came," he said.

  Remo took the paper. Before reading what was on it, he handled the small sheet between his fingertips. It was exceptionally thin, thinner than onionskin, but stiff and strong, crisper than bond. He had never felt paper quite like it.

  He looked down at it and read the printed note:

  TO THOSE AMONG WHOM THERE MAY BE CONCERN:

  Hello is all right. Please be advised that unless the head of one high probability Remo is delivered to me that a billion dollars in money will be disbursed and dispersed—it is interesting how two similar words have totally different meanings but in this case both are correctly used, a fact of which I am proud—on an American city without warning. This is a serious promise. I'd offer you a drink but it is impossible through the mail. With best wishes, I am, sincerely, Mr. Gordons.

  The note appeared to be typewritten but instead of the right edges of all the lines being uneven, as they would have if they been typed normally, the right margin was straight as if the note had been set in type on a linotype machine. Remo turned the paper over and felt the raised dots where the typed periods had pressed through the paper.

  "What do you think?" Smith asked.

  "Pretty smooth typing job," Remo said. "The right margin is perfectly even. Look at this, Chiun. A perfectly even margin. But it was done by a typewriter. I never saw a typewriter that could justify lines like that."

  "Remo, will you stop it?" said Smith heatedly. "We're not here to talk abou
t Mr. Gordons's typing."

  "You're jealous. I bet you can't type a margin like that, and Mr. Gordons can. Come to think of it, you should be able to, 'cause you're both the same. Robots."

  Smith's eyes rose in surprise. "Robots?"

  "Right. Robots. No flesh and blood. He's just farther advanced than you 'cause he can type good. All you can do is play with your computers. Where did you go wrong, Smitty?"

  "Chiun," said Smith. "Is this correct? Is Mr. Gordons a robot?"

  "Yes," said Chiun. "We knew it all the time."

  "We knew it? How did we know it?" demanded Remo.

  "I am corrected," said Chiun. "We didn't know it. I knew it."

  "Tell him how," said Remo. "Tell him how you knew. Tell him how I found out for you."

  "Remo confirmed, but I knew. When a man does not walk like a man or talk like a man or act like a man, it is time to think he is perhaps not a man."

  Remo saw Smith looking at him for added explanation. He shrugged. "I don't know. Some diddle-daddle stuff with Dr. Vanessa Carlton. She makes computer things for rockets. Mr. Gordons was some kind of survival computer. When it heard her say that the lab was going to be shut down because of no more government money, it dolled itself up like a man and ran away. 'Cause that's all it knows how to do, survive. And then of course the stupid government changed its mind and renewed the money for the lab anyway."

  "The government never did change its mind," Smith said. "It stopped funding Dr. Carlton two months ago."

  "Oh, who cares?" Remo said. "Anyway, that robot's running around loose now wondering what it has to do to survive. It thinks it's got it tough; it should try being a housewife with these prices."

  "Technically, I guess, he is an android," Smith said.

  "No. He's a robot," said Remo.

  "A robot is a recognizable machine. An android is humanoid, that is, a robot that looks and acts human."

  "All right, have it your own way. An android. Does that solve your problem?"

  "The problem is still you. No one except me of course knows exactly who you are and what you do. But some of the people at Treasury who have met you think we should give Mr. Gordons what he wants. That opinion might carry some weight with the President."

  "Forsythe, right?" said Remo. Smith nodded.

  Chiun played with the three-way switch on a lamp, changing it from dim to bright to brightest to off, dim to bright to brightest to off, rhythmically plunging the room into darkness.

  "Suppose the President says do it?" asked Remo.

  Smith shrugged. Chiun broke the small switch off the lamp.

  "Where's my head supposed to be delivered?" Remo asked.

  "It's supposed to be left in a litter basket at the Eastern Airlines desk at Dulles Airport, any night after 3 A.M. Gordons called Forsythe with the message. If you could only find the printing operation."

  Chiun rose with the light switch in his hand. "Remo, let us leave Emperor Smith to his thoughts now." He put a hand on Remo's elbow and guided him from the room. "Do not talk anymore to him," Chiun warned. "He is crazy again."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Chiun insisted that he must see Forsythe immediately. Remo said that he did not care if he never saw Forsythe again. Chiun said that this showed only that Remo was stupid and knew nothing about nothing, but what could one expect of a white who was just like all other whites, even to his pasty complexion and stupid big feet and hands and thick wrists and no brains.

  "The inferior always act alike. They think it will give them strength. But many fools, even together, are still fools."

  "Enough, already," said Remo. He would talk no more and he sulked when they got into the taxicab, vowing not to tell Chiun where Forsythe's office was.

  Chiun told the cabdriver, "Take us to Mr. Forsythe's office."

  "Wha?" said the driver.

  "Mr. Forsythe's office. He is a very important man. You must know him." He leaned forward and whispered confidentially, "He is white like you."

  "Buddy, I don't know no Forsythe."

  "I will describe him for you. He is ugly and stupid. A typical specimen."

  The driver looked to Remo for help. Remo said nothing. Chiun said, "What is the ugliest building in this ugly city?"

  "That's easy. They got this building for the Treasury that looks like a tomb."

  "Take us there," said Chiun, sitting back comfortably on the seat. To Remo he said, "Where else would Forsythe be?"

  The Treasury Building looked like a tomb because it was designed after a tomb—the tomb of Mausolus who had given his name through the ages to the type of building known as a mausoleum.

  Chiun waited while Remo paid his countryman. Inside the building, a uniformed guard sat at a desk.

  Chiun approached him. "We look for Mr. Forsythe."

  "This is ridiculous," Remo said.

  The guard said, "Do you have an appointment? Is he expecting you?"

  Chiun said, "The Master of Sinanju needs no appointment."

  "The what?"

  "Tell him that the Master of Sinanju and his servant are here," Chiun said.

  "I'm the servant," said Remo.

  "I am the Master of Sinanju," said Chiun.

  "And I'm the white queen. Go away."

  Chiun reasoned with the guard with a thumb in his clavicle and the guard realized it made great good sense to call Mr. Forsythe's office.

  "Yes," he said into the phone with pain, "There's a man… a person here called the Master of Sinanju to see Mr. Forsythe. Ew-scray all-bay. Yes, I'll wait."

  "What did that mean?" Chiun asked Remo.

  "What?"

  "What was that he said?"

  "He said you were a screwball."

  Chiun glared down at the guard who said into the phone, "Mr. Forsythe doesn't know any Master of Sinanju?" He looked up in helplessness. "Tell him Remo's here, too," suggested Remo.

  "Someone named Remo's here, too," said the guard. "Please check." He waited a moment, then a smile relaxed his features. "Okay," he said and hung up the phone, gently because any quick movements hurt not just his shoulder but every muscle down to his waist. "He'll see you."

  "Let go of him, Chiun," said Remo.

  Chiun squeezed once hard, then released the guard who clapped his left hand to his right shoulder to try to massage away the pain.

  "There is no hope for a country in which the name of Remo is a passport while the name of the Master goes unknown," Chiun said.

  "You know how us whites are," said Remo. "Thick as thieves."

  "Hear, hear," said Chiun with an evil cackle. "Hear, hear."

  Forsythe awaited them in his office on the fifth floor of the building. He remained seated behind his desk in a large infield-sized room as Chiun and Remo entered and Remo forgave the lack of manners as a sacrifice made to good taste because while seated, only Forsythe's shirt could be seen and it was pink with purple flowers, but later when he stood, Remo saw he was wearing matching pants which made him look like a Bahamian shell peddler. He needed a straw hat to complete the getup, decided Remo, who later saw a straw hat on a table in the corner.

  "Good to see you again, Mister Master," Forsythe said to Chiun. "And you too, what is it, Remo?"

  And Remo knew that Forsythe knew very well what it was and that it was Remo and that it was Remo's head that Mr. Gordons wanted or else he would paper an entire city with bogus money.

  Chiun nodded. Remo did nothing.

  "What can I do for you?" asked Forsythe. Remo looked at Chiun, who stood motionless in front of Forsythe's desk, saying nothing.

  To fill the vacuum of silence, Remo said, "We wondered how you were doing with Mr. Gordons."

  Forsythe lied. "Oh, we're still trying to track him down. After you got those plates from him at the airport, we haven't heard anything from him. Nothing at all. Have you had any luck?"

  One good lie deserved another. "We did a little research into his background," Remo said. Chiun shot him a warning glance. Remo blithely went on. "He's
from a small town in Missouri. His father, now dead, was a printer. His mother took in washing. He went to local schools, somehow avoided service in Korea, and was a schoolteacher. His hobbies are making models, watching baseball games on television, and needlepoint. He does not drink or smoke but is a member of no organized church."

  "That's very good," Forsythe said with enthusiasm. "It's really fine how you two have found out so much in such a short period of time. Impressed, fella. Really impressed I am."

  Remo smiled foolishly in response to Forsythe's foolish smile. Chiun continued staring at the man behind the desk.

  "Maybe if we work together, fellas, we can get this Mr. Gordons," Forsythe said hopefully.

  "Maybe, fella," Remo said. "Full speed ahead. We could really do it. Working together, both pulling one oar and all."

  "Absotively," said Forsythe. "Precisely my exact sentiments. You have a place to stay in town?"

  Remo shook his head.

  Forsythe said, "Just a minute," and picked up the phone. He dialed a number and asked for the manager. "Hello, Frederick. Forsythe here. Some very important people…" he winked at Remo "… have just come to town and I want you to put them up tonight. Some kind of a special room. Second floor. Near the center elevators. That sounds fine. Make the reservation in the name of Mister Master of… never mind, make it for Mr. Remo. See you, Frederick."

  He hung up with a satisfied smile on his face. "That's the Carol Arms. He's saving room 226 for you. Nice digs, fellas. Why don't you get some sleep there and we'll talk tonight after you rest. I'll call you. Maybe we'll hear something from Mr. Gordons." He smiled hopefully at Remo. Chiun still stared at Forsythe.

  Remo nodded.

  Forsythe stood and Remo saw his flowered trousers. Forsythe reached forward a hand to Remo who shook it. He extended his hand toward Chiun but Chiun pretended not to see it, still staring into Forsythe's eyes. The proffered hand hung momentarily in the air, like a yo-yo at the top of its climb, before it dropped quickly to his side.

  "Well, we'll talk tonight, fellas," said Forsythe. "It's really been good to see you. I'd been wondering if we would meet again. Kind of hoping we would. After our first meeting."