Created, the Destroyer

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Cynthia was to have been at the restaurant at 9:15. With any other woman tardiness wouldn't have been unusual. But with these social purpose types, they lived almost like men. Punctual, efficient.

If MacCleary couldn't penetrate, the penthouse must have traps. What the hell would he be getting into?

Remo fingered the glass of water before him. Somehow Vietnam was different. You could always return to your own outfit. At night, you knew someone else was on guard if you weren't. There was protection.

Remo sipped the water that tasted too much of chemicals. There was no protection in this racket. No retreat. No group. For the rest of his life he would always be attacking or retreating. He put down the glass and stared at the door. He could walk out now, just leave the restaurant, and get lost forever.

Remo forced his eyes away from the door. I will read the paper, he told himself. I will read the paper from the first page to the last and when I am done I will leave this restaurant, drive to New Jersey, find Mr. Felton and see what Maxwell's man can do.

Remo read words that meant nothing. He kept losing his place, forgetting which paragraph he had read. Before he finished the lead story, someone snatched the paper from his hands.

«How long does it take you to read a paper?» It was Cynthia, in a blouse, a skirt and a big clean smile, wrinkling the paper as she stood by the table. She dropped the bundled paper on a passing tray, startling the waiter who never got a chance to give her a dirty look because she didn't bother to glance at him for a reaction.

She sat down and plopped two thick volumes on the table.

«I'm famished,» she announced.

«Eat,» Remo said.

Cynthia tilted her head in mock wonder. «I've never seen anyone so glad to see me. You've got a grin on your face as if I'd just promised you a hundred years of healthy living.»

Remo nodded and leaned back in the seat. He flipped her a menu.

The dainty little Briarcliff junior, whose mind was created only for aesthetic pleasures, downed an orange juice, steak and waffles, chocolate sundae, two glasses of milk, and a cup of coffee with two cinnamon buns.

Remo ordered fried rice.

«How quaint,» Cynthia exclaimed. «Are you into Zen?»

«No. Just a light eater.»

«How fascinating.» At the last cinnamon bun, she began to talk. «I think your story should be about sex,» she said.

«Why?»

«Because sex is vital. Sex is real. It's honest.»

«Oh,» Remo said.

«It's what life's about.» She leaned forward waving the cinnamon bun like a bomb. «That's why they destroy sex. Give it meanings it was never supposed to have.»

«Who are 'they'?»

«The structure. The power structure. All this nonsense about love and sex. Love has nothing to do with sex. Sex has nothing to do with love. Marriage is farce perpetrated on the masses by the power structure.»

«Them?»

«Right. They.»

She bit viciously into the bun. «They've even gone so far as to say that sex is for reproduction. That, thank God, is dying out now. Sex is sex,» she said, spraying crumbs. «It's nothing else.» She wiped her mouth. «It's the most fundamental experience a human can participate in, right?»

Remo nodded. This was going to be too easy. «And in marriage, it gets most fundamental of all,» he said.

«Crap.»

«What?»

«Crap,» Cynthia said casually. «Marriage is crap.»

«Don't you want to get married?»

«What for?»

«For fundamental experience.»

«It only clouds the issue.»

«But your father. Don't you want to make your father happy?»

«Why didn't you mention my mother?» Cynthia asked, her voice suddenly becoming cold.

Whatever you say, say it fast. Throw her off. Make it wild. Remo shot the words out: «Because I don't believe she exists. If she did, she'd have to be a woman. And there's only one woman in the world. You. I love you.» Remo grabbed her hands before she could release nervous energy with them.

It was a risky ploy, but it worked. A flush seized her face, she stared down at the table. «It's rather sudden, isn't it?» She looked around the room as though the world had agents monitoring her love life. «I don't know what to say.»

«Say 'Let's go for a walk'!»

Her voice was barely audible. «Let's go for a walk.»

Remo released her hands. The walk proved profitable. Cynthia talked. She couldn't stop talking and always the conversation returned to her father, his occupation and his apartment.

«I don't know what he does with the stocks but he certainly makes a lot of money,» she said as they passed a jewelry shop on Walnut Street. «You don't care about money, Remo. That's what I like about you.»

«But your father's the one who deserves praise. It must be an awful temptation when you've got a lot of money to play playboy.»

«Not Daddy. He sits in that apartment. It's as if he's afraid to go out in a cruel and vicious world.»

Remo nodded. The air had a faint smell of burned coffee grounds. The chill of late autumn cut through his jacket. The noon sun gave out light but no heat.

Down the block a man stared in another window. He was tall and heavily built. He had passed Remo and Cynthia twice since they had left the hotel.

«Come,» Remo said, tugging at Cynthia's hand. «Let's walk this way.» Four blocks later, Remo knew Cynthia rarely lived at home, that the walls of the apartment were very smooth, that she never knew her mother, and that dear daddy was just too tender and kind to the servants. Remo also knew they were being tailed.

They walked and talked. They lingered beside trees, they sat on rocks and talked about life and love. When it was dark and unbearably cold, they returned to Remo's room in the hotel.

«What would you like for supper?» Remo asked.

Cynthia toyed with the dials of the television set, then made herself comfortable on a lounge chair. «Steak. Rare. And beer.»

«Right,» Remo said, picking up the white phone. As he called room service, Cynthia looked about the room which was furnished in Twentieth Century Characterless. Just enough loud colors to break the hospital atmosphere, but not enough to be striking. It was a room designed by a committee for the average man to live in.

Remo mumbled the order to room service and watched Cynthia draw her knees up to her chin. She would have to do something about her scraggly hair.

As soon as Remo put down the phone, it rang almost as if returning the receiver triggered the bell. Remo shrugged and smiled at Cynthia. She smiled back.

«They're probably out of steak,» he said. He picked up the receiver. A low voice at the other end said: «Mr. Cabell?»

«Yes,» Remo said. He tried to visualize the face that belonged to the telephone voice. It was probably the character who was tailing them. Did Felton keep a guard on his daughter?

«Mr. Cabell. This is very important. Could you come down to the lobby immediately?»

«No,» Remo said. He'd see how far this caller would go-

«It's about your money.»

«What money?»

«When you paid your bill at the bar yesterday, you apparently dropped $200. This is the manager. I have it in the office.»

«I'll settle in the morning.»

«I'd rather we settle it now. We don't like to take responsibility.»

«The manager, you say?»

Remo knew he was tactically pinned. He was in a room with enemies outside. They knew where to get him. Maybe MacCleary was right about no place to lay your head. In any case, he was no longer attacking with surprise. Two days on the job and he had blown his major advantage.

He noticed his hand was wet on the receiver. He was perspiring. He breathed deeply, drawing oxygen down deep into his abdomen. Well, here he was. Now or never. Number one for CURE. He rubbed the flat of his palm against his trouser leg. An exhilaration came over his body.

«Okay. I'll be right down.»

He hung up and went to the closet and took out a suitcase. Folded inside it was the coat he had worn the day before. He moved his hand down the lining of the left sleeve until he felt a long thin metallic object. Carefully blocking Cynthia's view, he removed it and slipped it into a small slit in his belt. Sodium pentathol. If pressure points failed to unlimber speech, this would succeed.

«I'll have to go out for a few minutes,» he said. «It's a contact for a story.»

«Oh,» Cynthia said showing annoyance. «It must be a wonderful contact. It must be the greatest story of your life to go running out of here like this.»

«It is, my dear, it is.» Remo kissed her but she backed away angrily. «I'll be right back,» he said.

«I may not be here when you come back.»

Remo shrugged and opened the door. «That's life.»

«Go to hell,» she said. «If you're not back when I finish dinner, I'm leaving.»

Remo blew her a kiss and shut the door. As it clicked, a blinding flash of light spun through his brain and the green carpeting of the foyer came up to meet him.