Death Check

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 liquid, 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.

"You see," Brewster explained. "Even though you are a policeman, you have not fully accepted the fact of violence as an integral part of man's life. You have not come to terms with the very obvious fact that man is a killer. And his greatest game is man himself. A predator. Only late in development did he become herbivorous. The overreaction against violence in more backward American communities is an eruption of the sublimation of violence. Which is really not sick. Violence is healthy, human. Vital."

Maybe he would call her a kike and just walk away. But what if she laughed when he said that? Worse, what if she were hurt? He would apologize and hold her. But if she were really hurt, she wouldn't let him. No. Not Deborah. She would laugh. Right at him. In his face. Then he would laugh. Then it would be all right.

"I know it's difficult, son, but as I was explaining to some general or other, no, a congressman, I believe-well, in any case, one of those things. I told him that perhaps policemen like yourself are the ones who are least able to handle violence and therefore are drawn toward it as a profession. You know that's how we get funding?"

"What?" said Remo.

"How we get funding, son," Dr. Brewster explained. "You exploit their little dreams or fears. Whatever."

"What are you talking about?" Remo asked. He would take care of Deborah later. "I was finding it hard to follow."

"Our funding, son. The way to get funding is to decide what you want, then throw in something the government may want. As an afterthought. Like our study on the community life of combat."

"Yes?"

"Well, that paid for Schulter's animal experiments and Boyle's ethnic studies."

"I see," said Remo. "And your little plan to conquer the world?" He dropped the reference casually.

"That bought the golf course, the auditorium and about five more years of just about anything we want. I don't know why I trust you like this. I just do. I'm a good judge of men."

He was, thought Remo, like most people who do not work at it, a very bad judge of himself. He trusted now because he felt safe. Apparently, he had taken Remo's preoccupation with Deborah as shock over the Ratchett killing and no longer felt threatened by someone who might possibly be above panic.

"Is there a plan to conquer the world?"

"Yes, of course. You could conquer the world with 50,000 men. Provided, the rest of the world wanted to be conquered. Hah. You see, it takes the cooperation of the losers. But we're not going to include that in any study for at least three years though, not until we have another funding source. Your job is safe with us for another three years."

So it was just a hustle, after all. All the federal funds, the secrecy, the work of CURE, the deaths of McCarthy and Hawkins and Ratchett, all of it was only to allow these harmless nits to go on figuring up days and down days, drugging rhinoceroses and lowering heartbeats. A goddam hustle.

"I imagine Deborah was working on that plan."

"Don't call her Deborah. She's Dr. Hirshbloom. I personally don't mind, but you know how some of these medical doctors get. No, as a matter of fact, she wasn't the least bit interested. Recently, I've been getting the impression she is interested in nothing but chess. A fine mind. But very unproductive, I'm afraid."

"Uh, uh," said Remo, who noticed suddenly that he had been walking in his old manner, the natural walk of his youth and early manhood. His peak was falling rapidly now. Several times a day now, he was forced to go back mentally to his little room, where Chiun waited. But the effect was wearing off more and more rapidly. His vitality was ebbing.

Brewster was rambling on about his plan to conquer the world. Of course, it could be pulled off if each soldier in the Army could be brought up to twenty percent capacity. Did it shock Remo that the average man used less than ten per cent? But no one yet, Brewster said, had reached twenty per cent. He wasn't even sure if a human being could survive using twenty per cent of his capabilities. So, in a way, the forum was really giving the government its money's worth. A brilliant plan that was impossible. Generals like those sort of things.

Remo tried to concentrate on the room, but the sidewalk still thumped hard against his heels. He pulled oxygen deep into his groin, but still felt winded. He thought of Deborah and for a moment was exhilarated. He realized. She was uninterested in the work of Brewster Forum because she did not come to work for Brewster Forum.

She was an agent, all right. Her control proved that, even when she was afraid of him. And she was beginning to fall in love with him. The alienation of their lives had been broken and both shared the first flushes of knowing someone. That was why things had moved so well the night before.

And Conn MacCleary was the key. The Israelis wouldn't let Conn fight his holy war against the Arabs after they had desecrated the sanctity of his still because, quite simply, Conn MacCleary was not in Israel to fight Arabs or even to train people to fight Arabs.

Conn MacCleary, master of the personal attack, was training people to seek a different enemy. And it would also explain why he volunteered and why Deborah had not listed the real name of her village, and why, if it was so secret, the presence of Arabs would in no way commit.

This little village was the first training ground for the agents who would follow those who had processed people in ovens, stripped human flesh for lampshades, tore off genitals with pliers, experimented on babies and women and men to see how long it took shock to set in when an organ was ripped off or when you tied a woman's legs together during labour. The village was a training site for people to track down Nazis and Deborah was on the trail of one.

And that one must be the killer, the one who had brought , about the deaths of McCarthy and Now Ratchett. Because they had somehow gotten in the way of his plan to get the compromising photos of the Forum's staff. But why did he want the pictures? Probably to blackmail the staff into giving him the little plan to conquer the world. Well, the joke was on him. The plan to conquer the world was a hoax, only Brewster's way of getting more federal funds.

Remo would have a good day off peak. And if Deborah asked him to, he would help set up a snatch or a kill on the one she was after. He would show her how good he was. And then they would make love.

"You know," Remo said to Dr. Brewster, "it's a beautiful day." They were at the phone booth on the corner. I'll be right out."

"You're not going to phone the police or something. I mean, what are you going to do?"

"I'll take care of it," Remo said assuringly.

"You're sure you're all right now? You were pretty shocked before, son. And I wouldn't want you to do anything that would embarrass you or anything. Not many people can accept the violence we saw today, and I want you to know that I don't hold it against you."

"Thank you," said Remo. "But I think I can handle it."

Brewster put a fatherly hand on Remo's arm. "I'm sure you can, son. I'm sure you can. And if the police need more information, I'll be right here."

"Oh, I think I've got most of the information they need," Remo said. "Somebody cut off Dr. Ratchett's penis and he died from shock caused by loss of blood, while flailing around in a pink puddle of gore. They'll find out for sure when they take his lungs out in the autopsy."

Dr. Nils Brewster nodded sagely and collapsed on the gravel before the booth in a dead faint. Remo removed the pipe from where it had fallen near Brewster's head. It was still lit and could have set the tumbleweed hair afire.

And that afternoon, the good Reverend gave Remo some delightful news. He was not only off peak, but he was to leave. Immediately. Remo spoke the number into the tape recording and waited. Dr. Brewster was blissfully in the land of out.

A car passed and the driver offered to help. It was Anna Stohrs, the blonde with the hard face. Remo waved her away, angrily, and with a hard glint in her eyes she gunned the gas pedal and sped off.

Remo whistled softly to himself as he kept the cradle down with his elbow. Some day he might set the record for holding down a receiver without moving. Guinness Book of Records: Remo Williams, three hours and fifty-two minutes. Let's hear it for clean living and expensive training. But how could somebody pose people in sex photos without their knowing? Hypnotism? Too hard. Too hard. It must be drugs.

The bing of the first ring and Remo released the cradle.

"What is it now?" Smith sounded angry. That meant he was happy.

"I'd like to stay a day. Here."

"No."

"I've got something I'm working on."

"No," said Smith. "Just do what you're supposed to do."

"One of the people here has met with an accident."

"That's all right. Doesn't matter."

"I know about the little plan."

"Forget it."

"Aren't you interested?"

"If I see you in a year or so, you can tell me all about it."

"Well, why the sudden go?"

There was silence. And then Smith said in a calm but pained voice: "You're asking me a why?"

"I'm sorry. I really am."

"So am I. I'll attribute it to the inordinately long peak."

"Well, screw you," Remo said. "You ding-dongs set the peak, not me."

"Look. Rest."

"I'm not getting off till I get the reason. I want to stay another day."

"If you must know, another agency had moved into it. Remember the paint shop? Well, it's become an international and they're working with an ally. In twenty-four hours that place is going to be crawling with agents. We're not needed now. So if you suddenly feel some need to perform some public service that is not your job, why don't you help with the garbage collection?"

"I want that extra day."

"Why?" Smith was getting annoyed.

"Would it surprise you if I told you I want to get laid." Remo used hard terms, lest Smith suspect affection.

"Anyone special?"

"One of the scientists."

"Not that fairy?"

"No. Doctor Hirshbloom."

"Remo." Smith's voice was suddenly harsh and imperious. "Stay away from her. She's an ally and she'll be working with our people to clear up this mess. She'll finger the targets."

"She'll work better if she's well-laid."

"Leave her alone."

"What about the sex photographer?"

"All part of the same thing. Blackmail against the government. I tell you, it's in good hands. Now get out of there before you get arrested for loitering. We're closing this number. We'll reach you. You get lost until we do. That's an order."

Remo hung up. Screw Smith and screw CURE. He was staying and he was having his day with Deborah. That was it. Insubordination. He had peaked too long. If he hung around, they would be after him to set him up. But a setup is not a follow-through and he was not a part to be replaced easily. Or was he?

Well, if it came to that, he couldn't think of a better reason to go. Conrad MacCleary chose patriotism. Remo Williams chose a woman. Maybe another day, he would feel differently. But today was today and it was August and he was going to stick it to Deborah, and then go to Henrici's Restaurant in Dayton, Ohio, for a Wednesday night meal, and keep going to Wednesday night meals until they found him.

On impulse, he dialled Dial-a-Prayer again. A tape retold him "The number you have reached is not a working number."

Fast.

Outside, Brewster was coming to. The first words he said to Remo as soon as he regained his balance were "Are you all right, son?"

"Yes, Nils. Thank you." .

"Do you need help?"

"I...." Remo paused. "Couldn't make the phone call to the police."

"That's all right. I understand. You've been through hell. It's a very difficult job to be security officer."

"I don't know if I can, can continue in the job. Not now."

"Yes, you can," Brewster said firmly. "Because we're doubling your salary. You're the first policeman good enough for the job. And that's that. Don't say no. I know men. You're the first one good enough for Brewster Forum. I'll make the phone call to the police."

Remo thanked Dr. Brewster who fumbled a dime into the telephone and dialled the emergency number listed on the board above the coin slots. He winked at Remo, made an okay sign with his right hand, and began to babble incoherently into the receiver.

Remo waved at Brewster, who was gesticulating wildly with his free hand, as he shouted into the phone: "Dead. Aaah. Dead. Ooooh. Help. Dead. Brewster Forum. Blood."

And Remo sauntered off, flatfooted, off balance and laughing at himself. The flush of relaxation might have explained why he was about to enter the first black-out period of his life.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The man once known as Dr. Hans Frichtmann examined the new negatives. The lighting was not as good as on the others, but it would do. And the set was complete. He would take pains that no illiterate cop would steal these as McCarthy must have done with the first set. An insignificant Irish life for a brilliant plan. Funny how a flea could clog a great engine.

"Well, no matter. The Jewess had been the last. One could almost develop a fondness for the animals if they were not so annoying.

The average German had not understood. They had reaped the benefits, but they did not want to know about the dirty work. They had almost made the world Jew-free, and did the world appreciate it? How did they expect them to get rid of Jews if not by gassing them and burning them?

Oh, certainly everyone at home cheered when you were on top and they did not have to get their sweet little hands dirty. But when you lost, the shock. No one was political. Not when you lost. But they had cheered you when you were winning. Did they expect the Jews to disappear without mass killing? Just by wishing? Of course, it was unpleasant. That was the price one must pay. There were even some Jews he would have saved if he could. Some he respected more than Germans. But if you started making an exception here and an exception there, then where were you? Jews. All over.

He didn't ask for the Jews to be in the world. He hadn't put them there. Hadn't made them like they were. He was building a better world. And if it took some unpleasantness, then certain brave people would do it. Nobody had seen the Germany he had seen or lived in the Germany he had lived in. Chaos. Disorder. Der Fuhrer had ended it and given Germany back its soul.

But the Germans had failed the party and the nation. Because they were not worthy of their heritage. A little trouble and they collapsed, and then every one of the little hypocrites ran around saying he didn't know, he was sorry. Well, they were not strong enough to know, only to reap the benefits. They could have known. The evidence was there.

Where did they think all the Jews went that disappeared in box cars? To Grossinger's?

He had to laugh at that. Even the generals in their cars and with their fancy servants. Turning their heads, going through convulsions not to see the blood that he had to live through daily. And he was a doctor. But he was a German and a Nazi.

Their clean hands. The swine. Looking down on him. How dare they, those generals? He remembered a night at Horcher's in Berlin. It had been furlough from the camp in Poland. He had sent a drink to the young staff officer, sitting with his lady friend at the next table. The drink had come back untouched.

"What? An officer from the Afrika Corps refusing a drink? I've never heard of such a thing."

He said this with as much warmth as possible. They were all Germans after all, especially under the new order. He had gone through medical school, the son of a carpenter. So the officer obviously was aristocracy. But what did that mean now? In the new Germany, they were all one. One race. The master race.

"Will you not share a drink with a fellow officer?" he had asked. And the arrogant swine had answered:

"With a fellow officer I would."

That had done it. "You think you are so fine in here, eating the best of foods, drinking the best of wines. Why do you live so well? Because of me."

The officer had tried to ignore him. But one could not ignore a man who refused to be ignored.

"I see your lady friend eats delicately. In our camps we do not have the luxury of delicacy. We must have the gold teeth pulled out of the heads of Jews because Germany needs the money. To pay you and put wine on your table. The fatherland needs the hair of Jew children and the clothes of the processed people.

"Who do you think is putting the food on that table? I am. By killing the inferior races so that you can live in your delicate comfort. Do you know what it is like to rip out someone's testicles? But I must, so we will know more about reproduction for your comfort.

"Hey, high-class lady! Have you ever seen so many people in a ditch, that the blood seeps up through the earth that covers it? Does that go well with your chocolate mousse? Eh? How does that go?"

They had left, of course. Run away, leaving the dirty work for men strong enough to do it. Naturally, he had been arrested that night for disorderly conduct and given a stern rebuke for his loose tongue. But doctors were scarce. And the SS understood, despite what was said of them after the war.

He put the negatives back in the envelope. With these, he had just the wedge to give his new employers who, as coincidence would have it, were also building a great new world. With these, one could easily begin to work effectively. Oh, not to get anything major all at once, but to force a scientist to take a visit to a city in another country and just talk about things. These photos could enslave America's greatest brains for their entire lifetimes.

A perfect plan. Almost ruined by that Irish cop, but salvaged. The new policeman? Well, he was something more. Luckier than McCarthy and better. But still only a policeman and it was too late for him to do anything anyway. Dr. Hans Frichtmann allowed himself a touch of regret that he would not be around long enough to teach a final permanent lesson to Remo Pelham.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

First there was the note.

Deborah was not home. The door was unlocked, her cottage empty of her, and a note on the desk, sealed in an envelope with Remo's name on it. The bitch. The little Jew bitch. That little whore Remo had been willing to die for, just to screw. She probably gave it away for shekels.

Smith had been right. He had been descending so fast that he was incapable of correct judgment. She had given him a feel and sidestepped him. Quick and neat.

Well, he would find her. He would find Miss Quick and Neat and break her arm. Just to let you know, baby, you ain't that good. No. Never mind. He would read the note and leave. And if he ever saw her again, he would kill her, because she would recognize him.

He ripped open the envelope, not bothering to turn on the light but reading from the late afternoon sun coming vaguely through the windows.

"Darling Remo."

Oh, what a little bull-shitter she was. Cunt.

"I never told you why I especially loved Conn MacCleary."

Because he screwed you when you were three. "I was an ugly child, with many freckles. Youngsters as you know can be cruel." As opposed to women.

"The other children tormented me because of my freckles. My nickname was the Hebrew children's equivalent of shit-face."

Even then they knew.

"One day, Conn heard the remark. And he looked surprised. 'Do you know,' he said, 'that a woman without freckles is like a night without stars?' And of course the other children said, but what about a girl? And he told them that a girl with freckles is like the dawn of life, the beauty of a new day, and she is so beautiful that like the shining sun, some people could not see the beauty right away. I guess that started it. I just always believed I would be beautiful and there is nothing like that to end the reality of it. That started my swelled head, of course. Conn probably had a bag on, I don't remember. But that sort of talk is easy to take. In any case, Remo, I grew up in a house where every so often my father would leave. And although they did not want that life for me, I followed it. I guess I had to follow it. Maybe I wanted to follow it. You see enough numbers tattooed on people's arms and hear enough stories and you know what you must do.

"That is what has brought me here. One of them. Have you ever heard of Hans Frichtmann? The butcher of Treblinka? Here at the Forum.

"I should not tell you this, but it is of no matter. I have already made so many mistakes since meeting you, telling you this in print probably will not matter. I love you, Remo. And if I saw you again, I would be hopelessly in love. And because you are who you are and I am who I am, this could not be. Maybe I am deluding myself into believing that you were not deluding me. If you were, I salute you. But this delusion, then, of your love, I will cherish until the last long night without stars.

"I guess all of us carry our histories like crosses and our destinies like fools. But occasionally, we must succumb to logic. And the logic of our situation is that our love would destroy us. If we could only shake our duties like old dust. But we cannot. Mad dogs yet roam the world and for those we love, we must search them out, fighting all the time to keep our humanity despite the pressures to fight dogs like dogs.

"We gave each other only an hour and a promise. Let us cherish that hour in the small places which keep us kind. You are kind and good and really very gentle. Do not let your enemies ever destroy that, darling. For as surely as the Jordan flows, we shall, if we maintain that goodness, meet again in that morning that never ends. This is our promise that we will keep. I love you, Remo.

"Deborah."

Well, shit. That's a woman for you. Of course, she loved him. How else could she call him kind and good and gentle? The utter silliness of it all. Remo read the letter again and felt very good. Then he tore it up, because preventions were precautions, and lit the pieces with a match. She was obviously finishing her assignment, and Remo would, as he painfully knew, only be in the way of it. So the simple thing was to go to Dayton, and then buy a ticket to Chicago, and there find someone who vaguely looks like you and who has a passport. Then kindly, good and gentle Remo Williams would work something on the poor bastard, and be out of the country and headed toward Israel and that town in the Negev.

He would go there, find her parents, and wait. He would tell her parents to mention some phrase from the note. And she would come running home. CURE would find him though. Well, he'd work something out. All this think and counter-think had been a bother anyway. Hell, maybe he'd just find her now and they would both go somewhere.

Remo watched the last scrap of paper burn and, leaving the cottage, accidentally bumped into the door. To hell with it. Everyone bumped into doors.

He was tired now, very tired. The sun drained him and the walking drained him. He stumbled on the walk. He had pressed too hard too long and now he was running down. He was sweating now, for real. Real sweat from the afternoon heat. He stumbled again.

He looked up and saw Brewster's office. He would rest there awhile and then leave. Stephanie was at the door, but he didn't feel like talking. He tried to pat her on the head. But inexplicably his hand missed and he fell full-length on the polar bear rug. He crawled to the couch, and pulled himself up onto it. In the cool of the air conditioner he drifted off. Out.

Then there was the sleep. It was a deep, unconscious leaving. And there were dreams.

Chiun, his aged Korean instructor, saying: "Do not pass this point. Do not pass this point. Do not pass this point."

And other voices, Oriental voices. And Chiun was telling the other voices that he had not passed the point yet, so they must stand back. And Chiun wore black robes and a black headband and he was motioning that Remo should go to his special room and stay there. He should stay there until everything was all right. Chiun would sit with him. Remo had just worked too hard and too long. Remo should go into the room and Chiun would sit with him and talk to him.

And since he wasn't doing anything important at the moment other than dying, Remo decided to go into the room where Chiun was waiting. He could always die. That was Chiun talking. Funny, he thought he had been saying that. But it was Chiun saying that. Remo could die later if he wished. He could die any time he wanted. Promise? Yes. Chiun promised.

So Remo went. It was very cold in the room and Chiun looked very mean and stern. He was not here to punish Remo but to save him. But you promised I could die?

You cannot die.

I want to die.

You may not. There are things you must do because your life is precious.

Leave me alone. I want to die. You promised.

But you are in the room now, Remo, and here you are

not permitted to die.

You're a liar.

Yes, I lied to you. I hurt you.

Yes, you do.

I will hurt you more. For I am in this room with you and I am going to hurt you more. You will feel great pain.

I do not want to hurt.

Listen. You are dying. But I will not let you die, Remo. I prepared this room so that you should not die. That is why together we prepared this room. Your room, Remo. It holds your youth. Without the miracle of rest, you have lived a lifetime in three months. You are an old man, Remo. All that you took by your will and your effort has been taken back because you used it too long. But watch. We will do a trick. Come with me and do the trick. See the fire. It is hot. Hot. We will run through the fire. The trick is the fire. Come. Yes, it hurts, but come. I will go with you. Now. Into the fire.

And he was roasting alive, in incredible, flashing pain, that seared his flesh. The flames burned his feet and licked at his legs, then engulfed his entire body in a whooshing roar.

And Remo Williams was standing, yelling in the air-conditioned office and little Stephanie Brewster was beside him. The room smelled faintly of jasmine and the chill made Remo shake. Was it his imagination, the residue of the dream, or did he smell burning flesh?

Remo rubbed his forehead, and felt something crumble over his eyes. It was charred hair on his eyebrows, curled white ashes that powdered in his fingers.

Stephanie lost her terror and began clapping. "Oh, do that again. Do it again. Wonderful."

"What?," asked Remo.

"I didn't know you did magic."

"What magic?"

"You just lay down and shut your eyes and then you lit up almost like a light bulb. Oh, it was stellar. Stellar. Very unusual. That's redundant. Something isn't very unusual. It's unusual."

"How long was I here?"

"Well, I didn't have my stop watch. But I would guess two or three minutes. You looked very tired when you came in, and then you fell, and your hands were cold, and I thought you were having a coronary. But I didn't know you did magic."

"Yeah, kid. That's the biz. Look. I'm late for an appointment. Tell your dad that I'm going on vacation and I may not be back because the forum is too rough for me. Okay?"

"I'll write it down," said Stephanie. With her awkward six-year-old hands, she manoeuvred a pencil over several pieces of note paper, in a handwriting reminiscent of someone designing a rope.

"I paraphrased," she explained, starting on the first page which contained half a word. "Feelings of inadequacy impel Remo Pelham's resignation."

"You've got it, sweets."

"Well?"

"Well, what?"

"Aren't you going to kiss me goodbye?" And Remo Williams kissed Stephanie Brewster goodbye and she crinkled her nose, explaining that his face was hot.

"That's the biz, kid," Remo said with lightness of heart, and he left with his very dry clothes crackling around him toward his appointment hi Dayton. Wait hi Israel for an agent to come home? Remo chuckled. He never would have made it out of Chicago. Well, senility is senility.

His body hurt, like a very bad sunburn, but it was a good hurt. He was breathing well and moving well and relaxed and alive. He wished Deborah all the best and assumed she would be well because, after all, she was very lucky. She would have died on Deuteronomy. That's the biz.

Still, he felt a little desire to read the note again, just once more. But it had gone up in flames and just as well. He would relax, go out of his head in Dayton, fornicate a bit, and maybe start slow in a week or two. Perhaps they would move Chiun out to him for one of the training programs. He would probably need that.

An ambulance moved toward him from the other side of the circle. It couldn't be Ratchett. His house was in the other direction.

Then there was the body.

The ambulance slowed and a patrolman riding in front called out: "You must be Pelham."

"Yes," said Remo.

"You're the security officer. You want to meet me at the morgue?"

"Well, I'm sort of busy," Remo said, and seeing the young policeman's face contort in shock, he felt somewhat stupid. "I'm clearing up some things here. I'll be with you later. I've had a hard day."

"So has she," said the patrolman, nodding back to the receiving section of the ambulance. "Another OD. Your second in a month. I thought you people up here were brains, not junkies. Look. You've got to make it to the morgue because we're checking out stuff with the FBI. Hey, what happened to your face?"

"I got too close to a stove."

"Oh. Just a second." And to the driver he said, "Wait a minute."

The policeman left the seat and sidled up to Remo and in confidential tones that the driver could not hear said, "Look, no matter what they say, the FBI goes out of its way to grab credit. You know what I'm talking about."

Remo nodded.

"They told us that if anyone saw you to tell you to meet them at the morgue. I know what they're doing. They want to get you away from the photographers over on the thirteenth green. That's where we found the body. Fuck 'em. You're the security officer. If you make it there fast, you can still get to see a reporter. Know what I mean. I mean they come in here to make a pinch or something that we can do just as good and they act so goddam nicey-nicey like they don't want the credit. Know what I mean?"

Remo understood.

"How does that make us look, right? And you. You're security officer. Both of us together don't make what those bastards make. Right? All we got is our respect. Right?"

Remo nodded. "I'd like to see the body."

"She's a shrink. Would you believe it? A shrink OD'ing on horse? What a bunch of dingalings. Hey, watch it with those stoves, fella. You look awful."

"The body."

"Sure. But she's wrapped."

"Just a look?"

"Sure. Hey, don't start up yet."

The driver shook his head. "Where do you think I'm rushing to, man?"

When they got to the rear, the patrolman confided that the driver's entire race was lazy. He opened the doors and with the effected cynicism of young policemen, said: "That's it."

Remo saw the sheet covering the being on the folding stretcher. He knew it was Deborah. He reached into the ambulance and carefully, very carefully, folded back the sheet, controlling every nerve lest his hands break away. He could feel the tremble of energy course through him, and he channelled it into the precision he knew he need and he felt something rise in him, something trained and yet beyond training.

And he saw the still face and the closed eyes and the freckles which had lit his night of loneliness and the lips which were now still and the arms that would never move again. He reached in and held her hand. In the light from the overhead bulb he saw on her arm something that was being surrendered, either by the chemicals he knew were in her or by the life that was no longer in her. The faint blue rectangle which looked as though drawn by a robin's egg crayon. They had been neat little numbers once that the master race used to catalogue the human beings they considered sub-human, even precious children who, for a brief moment, would light up a life, and having lit it, could set in motion that which would settle an old, old score.

He squeezed her hand. It was hard, unyielding. Tenderly he opened the fingers and removed the object that she clutched. He looked at it, then put in his shirt pocket. Deborah was supposed to lead our agents to the killer. Now, in death, she would lead Remo to the master race who thought they were supermen.

Well, then, he would let them know what one was. One who was not sure of where he had come from because he was left at a Catholic orphanage, one who, for all he knew, contained the seeds of all races. He might even be a pureblood German. If that should be, thought Remo, should they hold some special lien on viciousness, let that enjoy itself within him now. Chiun's ancient scripture flashed through his mind: "I am created Shiva, the destroyer, death, the shatterer of worlds." They would come to know the destroyer.

And then Remo covered the stars for the last time and could have sworn that he gently shut the ambulance doors. He had been very precise about it, doing it very slowly to appear casual.

But the bang and the crack of the door and the caved-in red cross, and the ambulance settling on its wheels brought the driver running from the cab. The patrolman yelled and Remo shrugged his shoulders.

"These fuckin' nuts they got here," the patrolman yelled to the driver, while he stared at Remo angrily. "They're all screwballs. Even the cop. What'd you do that for, huh?"

But he made no move toward Remo. And Remo again apologized, and walked away. He hoped he would arrive before the FBI. He had nothing against the FBI.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The man once known as Dr. Hans Frichtmann sat at his chessboard, staring at an endgame whose outcome was a foregone conclusion. Chess was a balm for the mind, the mind that could appreciate it.

He had donned his smoking jacket and wore slippers, befitting a man who had done a hard day's work. Who could have expected that the little Jewess worked for that vengeful gang that did not know World War Two was over? They were insane. And now that she was dead, another would be coming for him. But he would be gone. The pictures would enable the Russians to control the scientists at the Forum, and that had been his mission. He had done his job. Naturally, it would not be adequately appreciated, but appreciation was for the days as a young man.

He looked at the board again. Only a king left, against his black king, queen, two knights, a rook, and a bishop. But before the drug took effect the Jewess had said that no matter how bad things looked, there was a way. There was no way, of course.

He was about to reset the pieces for a new game when the door to his study was pushed open. It swung back on noiseless hinges, then the knob cracked into the wall.

It was the Brewster Forum security officer, looking as though he had climbed out of an oven.

"Hello, Stohrs," Remo said to the man who was Brewster's Forum's chess instructor. "I've come for my game."

"Well, not right now," Stohrs said.

"Oh, yes. Now is fine." He walked in and closed the door behind him.

"What do you want?," the chess instructor asked. "This is nonsense at such a late hour. You look terrible."

"I want to play chess."

"Well," said Stohrs with a sigh, "if you insist. Let me take your jacket."

Remo took it off himself and as he did, the frail fibres separated and a sleeve was torn. He noticed that his arms were red and swollen.

In the center of the room was the chess board on a metal stand on a bare parquet floor. Two heavy-armed oak chairs were attached to the table.

"Sit down, Mr. Pelham, I will set the board."

"No, this end game is fine. I will take white."

"You cannot win with only a king."

Remo reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew the white queen that Deborah's hand had surrendered to him in death. "I have a queen," he said. "That will be enough."

Remo rested his arms on the chair arms. Under his right forearm, he could feel the chill of metal conducting heat from his arm into the chair. He picked up his king to examine the piece and as he did, looked down at the chair arm. He saw three small metal rings buried in the wood, with small holes, the diameter of needles, in the centers. That was it, Remo thought. A knockout injection.

Stohrs had taken his seat opposite Remo. "An interesting conclusion," he said. "It was reached through the Silician opening. Are you familiar with the Sicilian?"

"Yes, of course. He fought on the side of the Nazis. It was his responsibility to count the number of baby rapes committed by Hitler's thugs."

Remo smiled, and resisted the impulse to reach forward and to crush Stohr's adam's apple between his fingers. Time for that. Deborah had been here. She had sat in this chair, and looked in Stohrs' eyes, loathing him and what he stood for, but there because duty demanded it. She had lost the game. And then her life. The life was gone. But Remo could salvage the game. And he could give her life and her death at least that much meaning.

"Your move, Stohrs," Remo said, and Stohrs slid a pawn one space forward. "The pawns," he said. "The little men of the chess board. But they can become fighting pieces, the most dangerous in the game."

"Particularly when, like Nazis, they fight against women and children. They then are truly devastating."

Stohrs' face was red. He was about to speak when his daughter walked into the room. She wore a short red skirt and a white sweater with no bra. The darkening of her nipples was visible through the material. When she saw Remo, she licked her upper lip and her eyes took on a wild glint as if an interior light had flashed on, and pinpoints were shining through tiny openings in her eye

"Anna, we have an unexpected guest. Please prepare some refreshment."

"Of course, father," she said, and looked again at Remo. "What would you like?"

"Anything you have in the house will do. Baby's blood. Lampshade chips with cyanide dip. A heroin fizz. What you're used to." Confusion painted her face with stupidity. Stohrs said, "Our guest is a very funny man. Just prepare the usual. And hurry."

"You seem, Mr. Pelham," Stohrs said after his daughter left, "to want to talk about Nazis."

"I have always been fascinated by insanity," Remo said.

"Our only insanity was that we lost."

"I'm glad to see that it's we," Remo said. "You lost because you wasted your energies attacking unnecessary targets. That's a sick toughness. The real toughness comes from Americans who don't go stoking ovens from hatred. That's why we win. The shits like you, the insane haters, always lose."

"That, my dear Mr. Pelham, is because the winners write history," Stohrs said, and Remo saw him reach his index finger forward to touch a button on, the arm of his chair. Needles, he knew, would shoot up now into Remo's forearm, drugging him, putting him under.

How many had they done it to? Had they ever done it to a man who could respond quickly enough to pluck flies from the air between thumb and forefinger? It had come down to this: to Remo Williams and his terrible talents, against this evil man, this evil product of monstrous wrongs.

Stohrs' hand squeezed over the end of the chair. Remo focussed his perception on his right forearm. He felt the pinpricks against his skin. The act seemed frozen in slow motion. First, the three needles touched the skin. The skin bent before them like a marshmallow refusing a stick. The needles insisted. Then the skin collapsed and gave way, surrounding the tips of the needles. The needles should now continue into the arm and give their narcotic juices. Then the victim should react by rubbing his arm.

That was the script for a victim. But Remo Williams was in the chair and he was no man's victim. His arm rose imperceptibly, then yanked away and he rubbed the inside of the right forearm. He felt slightly woozy and increased the speed of his body rhythms to absorb what could only have been a trace dose. His head sank forward onto his chest.

"So you will beat me, will you?," he heard Stohrs say. Stohrs' chair slid back from the table. Remo could hear him walking around toward him. He was a doctor. He would look into Remo's eyes. Lids closed tightly, Remo focussed his eyes on a jet plane in the sky of his imagination miles away. He felt the practiced thumb press his eyelid up. The sudden light should have contracted the pupil. But the jet plane in that bright noon sky had already done that and Stohrs let the eyelid drop with a grunt of satisfaction.

"He's under," Stohrs yelled. "I'm keeping my promise to you."

"Stand up," he told Remo. It was a command and Remo stood. "Open your eyes and follow me." With confident arrogance, Stohrs turned his back on Remo and walked away. He pulled aside a long velvet drape, exposing a door. He turned the knob and walked in, stepping aside to let Remo pass.

Remo's eyes were fixed straight ahead, but his peripheral vision swallowed the room in a glance. He had seen the room before. In the sex photos. A metal bed stood against, the left wall, covered with white satin sheets. At the right side of the small room stood a camera on a tripod, and reflector-covered lights. Behind the bed stood Anna. Her chest heaved, disturbing the fabric of her sweater as she looked at Remo. "I've waited for you a long time," she said.

Stohrs pushed the door shut and locked it. "Take off your clothes," he commanded. "All of them." Remo mechanically removed his clothes, watching straight ahead as Anna pulled her sweater off over her head, her blonde locks splashing through with difficulty. Her pendulous breasts bounced when released from the sweater. She returned Remo's stare as she reached behind her and snapped loose the top button of her skirt, hooked her fingers inside the waistband and slid it slowly down over her hips, until it dropped soundlessly on the floor. She wore no undergarments, only long black stockings, held up with a black garter belt, and black patent leather boots that reached above the knee.

Remo was naked, his clothes in a pile on the floor in front of him. "Lie on the bed," Stohrs ordered and Remo sprawled across the cot on his back. Anna walked to the bed alongside him, and leaned over him, the nipples of her breasts just touching his bare chest. "I have something special for you," she said. She stepped to a small table alongside the bed, then back into Remo's view. She held a black wig in her hands. She trailed the long strands of hair across Remo's stomach, his genitals, then down his legs. Then she placed it on her head, tucking her blonde hair under it.

She sat on the bed next to Remo and took a tube of lipstick from the table. She slid the end of the closed lipstick into her mouth, then leaned over Remo and let spittle from her mouth dribble onto his chest. Then she uncased the lipstick and painted deep red lips over her own pale colour. She reached again for the table.

Now the whip, Remo thought.

Kill them now? It would be easy. But he wanted them to savour their victory, before he twisted it into death.

"Father, are you ready? I can no longer wait."

Stohrs, who had been loading the camera, said "Go ahead. But quickly. We have spent much time."

The whip now. It flashed expertly across Remo's stomach and snapped a red welt into his skin. Again. This time closer to his maleness. And again. Then she dropped the whip across the bed, and lowered her head over Remo. The dark strands of hair played across his body, and then she was on him, greasy lipstick working on him, moaning with passion.

Remo allowed himself to respond. He wanted this woman. Not to enjoy her. But to punish her. He had learned the secrets from Chiun. This twisted Nazi beast was infatuated by a husky young policeman, but she was going to be destroyed by the surrogate for an eighty-year old Korean who believed that women were no more compliant than guitars. The wrong strings produced disharmony. It is simply a matter of plucking the right strings.

The strings for the black-haired woman in boots were pain and suffering and torture. That was her enjoyment. Remo would give her that until she was in ecstasy, and then give her more until the ecstasy turned to pain, and more vet until the soft erotic touch became the bitter rasp of a rawl.

Her voluntary act of debasement was lighting the fires. "He's ready. Tell him to take me."

"Take her," Stohrs said.

"I want rape," yelled the daughter.

"Rape the woman," Stohrs said.

And that was all Remo needed, and he banged her down into the bed so hard that her wig flew off and ploughed into her, twisting her body so that her spinal column wrenched.

She moaned and Stohrs kept snapping pictures. What process had brought him to this, Remo thought, where he could stand taking photos and living out his daughter's perversions? Remo knew. It was like any other horror. It was done imperceptibly, step by step, individual mean actions being built into the habit pattern, demand compliance, until the final act... the final sum... was demanded by the parts. Until there was no way to stop it.

"Harder." Anna's voice insinuated itself into his mind. Harder. Faster. Deeper. He considered his fingers. Then his toes. While his body forced blood to pump, his mind denied that blood and thought of other parts, other functions. It was Chiun's secret.

"More," she yelled. "More."

He ground into her, pressing with his knees, lifting her and dropping her down. She groaned in ecstasy.

Remo moved harder. Faster.

She groaned. Ecstasy again.

Harder. Faster. Concentrate on kneecaps.

She groaned continuously now. But ecstasy was giving way. It was surrendering to pain.

Remo moved on. Harder. Faster. His mind sensed the heavily calloused skin on the tips of his fingers.

Her groans grew in intensity, raised in pitch. She was in pain now. Suffering. She would soon shout stop and Remo, under drugs, would have to obey.

He leaned forward heavily onto her body and smashed his heavily muscled shoulder down into her mouth, chipping her front teeth. Hard. Stopping her from calling out the command to stop.

Her voice was muffled under his shoulder.

And Remo kept on. Harder. Harder. The toes now. He felt them digging into the wooden floor for a firm footing. She was using her hands now. Trying to push him away. He pressed her harder.

Stohrs had stopped taking pictures. He was now just a spectator. The Nazis had killed by gang rape. Stohrs was watching that fate overtake his daughter, a death admonished by a one-man gang.

Then Stohrs called out. "Stop."

Remo stopped. And the bitch lay semi-conscious, bleeding from the mouth and groin.

"Are you all right, dear?," Stohrs asked.

She sat up slowly, hatred in her eyes. "Let us kill this bastard, father. Painfully."

"We shall. But first, Mr. Pelham and I must finish our game. Develop the film. I will call you."

Remo was ordered to dress, and then Stohrs led him back to the chess room. He ordered Remo to sit down and then took his seat on the other side of the table.

He spoke to Remo: "Who are you?"

"Remo Pelham."

"Who told you about me?"

"Deborah Hirshbloom."

"What did she tell you?"

"That you were Nazi."

"Why did you come here?"

"For money. I could get money from you."

"All right. We will play a little game. You will wake up and show me how you can win, and then you will go back to sleep. Repeat after me. You will wake up to play the .game and then you will go to sleep."

"I will wake up to play and then go back to sleep."

"Back to sleep when I snap my fingers. Wake up when I snap my fingers."

And Stohrs snapped his fingers.

"A fast game," he said, smiling.

"A fast game," Remo said.

"Still think you can win?," Stohrs asked, confident in his skills, assured of his victory.

"Yes," Remo said. He picked up the queen from the board. Deborah's queen. "Watch the queen," Remo said.

"I am watching."

"It is my move," Remo said, as he lifted the queen, standing it on its green felt base in the palm of his hand. His fingers curled down to hold it by the base, against his palm. Then his deep brown eyes that seemed to have no pupils burned into Stohrs' eyes and Remo said, "It is mate in one." Remo turned the queen over in the palm of his right hand, and then, with a roll of the wrist, moved it forward. His move, the greatest move in the history of chess, put the white point into Stohr's right eye, and then a push through the socket into the brain, and there was Stohrs with a green felt monocle where his right eye should be, and red ribbons beginning to hang from it. Stohrs' body twitched convulsively and his fingers went snap, snap, snap, because that was the last message his brain had sent before Remo had moved, white queen to the bastard's eye.

Remo looked at him, then smiled with only his lips.

"Checkmate," he said. And walked away.

The rest was easy.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Anna Stohrs was still naked. She was just placing the negatives of Remo into a metal card file containing the other negatives when Remo walked into the darkroom.

She looked up, and her eyes opened wide in horror, when she saw him there.

"He lost," Remo said.

She tried to kick him but Remo, laughing, ignored the effort, and flipped her left arm up behind her back. Then he whispered into her right ear, "Your father said just before I killed him that the one thing he really enjoyed was seeing you perform. But he never wanted to let on, because you might stop."

Then he killed her and left her body sprawled over the giant photo dryer. The sweat on her naked body sizzled as he dropped her over the stainless steel drum. Then Remo burned the negatives, and set fire to the house.

He took a doughnut from the cupboard on his way out, and left a few minutes before the arrival of the first fire company.

The cool of evening chilled the air, and suddenly it became incredibly cold for August, then hot, then Remo felt nothing and just kept walking.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The roast beef at Henrici's in Dayton was good. It had been good for the last two Wednesday nights and Remo looked out of the windows down on the Miami valley, with blinking lights on the outskirts of Dayton, and far off the small towns surrounding it. The restaurant was on the top of the hotel and for Dayton provided exquisite dining. In New York, it would be just another good meal.

He cut into the rich red beef, which shivered slightly, emitting a reddish pool which flowed into the mashed potato mountain, making its base pink. Good beef, somehad once said, was like a hearty woman. It must be taken with gusto. Who said it? It obviously had not been Chiun, who while he once allowed that all women are beautiful but not all men are capable of seeing it, also felt that red beef was like a subtle poison. You enjoyed your destruction because it was comfortable and slow.

Remo enjoyed the beef. In fact, Chiun might be very bright about the poison. Being some place at a certain night regularly, a certain place someone else knew, made you a perfect setup for that someone else. The beef could be poisoned. He could be poisoned without his poisoner ever seeing him. CURE was good at that. In fact, if it wanted to, the poisoner might not even know it was poison. Breaking links wherever you can.

But he was alive and every day he lived probably meant that he was being kept there to stew. The punishment would be waiting to be killed. If he waited, though, it would also show them that he could be trusted again.

What had he really done that was so bad? Talked back? That could be attributed to the long peak. What counted was not what he said but what he did. And what he did was to follow orders. He had headed for Deborah's cot and then he went to Dayton.

How he had gotten to Dayton, he forgot. There was the path, the tiredness, the oppressive heat, and then, what he remembered of it, he was in the Dayton Airport just outside Vandalia, with an incredible sunburn, money from what must have been cashed traveller’s checks and no identification. He had probably gone through the necessary go routine automatically.

He had noticed how weak he had become, but the rest improved him daily. When he returned to training, he would be well ready for it. But he would never again allow them to keep him at that level. He would explain this if he ever got to Smith again.

Deborah, of course, had gotten her man. He knew she would, but it was a sloppy job. He had heard about it in a bar. Father-daughter fight. But why would the woman choose suicide by photo-drying? Funny, it sounded like something he might do. The Israelis were supposed to be a bit neater. Yeah, he might do it. No, it just wasn't fast enough. For punishment, it would do. But Remo, however was not in the punishment business.

Some day, if they should ever meet, he would tell Deborah how sloppy she had been.

He looked out over the valley, gazing for miles. It was a clear night, yet there were no stars, and for reasons he could not fathom, he felt deeply lost, as if he had found something so necessary to his life, then lost it without knowing what it was.

It was then that Remo created an original line of sentiment and felt proud of it. He thought of Deborah's freckles and said to himself, waiting to use it publicly to advantage some day, "A girl without freckles is like a night without stars."

Remo looked around the restaurant for a woman with freckles. He had to try out his original line. He saw only a man in a suit with a briefcase. The reason he saw only this was that the man was standing three inches from him.

"Enjoying yourself? Pleasant thoughts?" asked the man. It was a bitter thin voice. Remo looked up. It belonged to a bitter, hateful face.

"Good evening. Sit down. I wondered why you kept me waiting so long."

Remo watched Harold W. Smith take the other side of the table. He put his briefcase on his lap.

Smith ordered a grilled cheese sandwich. The waitress said, "We have something with tomatoes and bacon and...."

"Just grilled cheese," he said.

"And make it unpleasant," Remo added. Ah, the waitress had freckles. He would devastate her.

The waitress hid a smile from all but the corner of her mouth.

"Be off," Smith said to the girl, and turning to Remo said: "My, you're in fine fettle. Did you enjoy yourself on your last business trip?"

"Not really."

"I never knew you liked to freelance."

"What?" Remo looked confused.

"You've forgotten little details?"

"I don't know what you mean."

Smith leaned over the table and peered intently at Remo's forehead, where his peeled skin was still taut and shiny, and his eyebrows were just growing back.

"Well, the reports said it was there, so I suppose I'll buy it. And I do have Chiun's explanation."

"Buy what?" Smith smiled and Remo knew that he was not supposed to ask.

"When did you recover your memory? I mean fully?"

"Tell you what," Remo said, "you tell me how I got this sunburn because I'm sure you know and I'll tell you when I recovered my memory."

"You'll tell me when you recovered your memory."

"At the Dayton Airport."

"That's about right," Smith said. He looked around him and said, lest anyone be listening, "You left your wallet in my room this morning." He handed Remo a well-worn wallet containing, as Remo knew, who he would be and where he would go and what he should look for that would tell him where he would meet Smith again.

"What about the sunburn?"

"Someday ask Chiun. I can't even understand it, much less be able to explain it."

Smith surveyed the fine surroundings and added: "You know, if the tables weren't so close together, I'd like to see you eating the next time in an automat."

"You would," said Remo, placing his wallet and new self in the pocket of the new suit he had bought for cash.

The waitress was back, putting the grilled cheese sandwich in front of Smith.

"You know," Remo said as she bent over, "a girl without freckles is like a night without stars."

"I know," she said. "My boyfriend tells me that."

And Smith took obvious delight in Remo's obvious deflation.

"I swear it," Remo said to Smith. "There is not an original line hi the world. Whatever you make up has been made up before. I had made that up. It was mine."

"Rubbish," said Smith with the quiet contentment of seeing another soul return from the clouds to the daily level of discontent. "A mutual friend of ours used to use it all the time. Little girls, old women, anyone he could bamboozle. When he was sober enough to talk."

And Remo, who knew whom Smith was talking about, dropped his fork in the potatoes and said, with thorns of outrage, "I remember every word that guy ever said to me. And he never told me that."

"If you say so," said Smith biting into the yellow goo of his sandwich.

And Remo leaned back. "I don't care if you don't believe me. At least I know I have poetry in my heart. You know. Heart, sensitivity, people, human beings."

He did not now feel like eating and he watched the Miami valley, the moving lights of the cars, the dots of lights that were far-off homes.

"All right. I really believe you made that up originally. It's possible. Now finish your dinner. We're paying for it."

Remo continued to look out into the dark waiting for a similar inspiration to come to him so he could prove himself on the point. But the inspiration was not there.