Never Say Die

Chapter 7

Dr. Smith had handled Remo’s urgent query from his office at Folcroft Sanitarium. It was a relatively simple matter to pursue Eugenix Corporation through computer records, with his access to the IRS and other federal databases paying off. Unfortunately there, was only so much to report about a company that had dissolved in 1984.

Eugenix had its roots in Delaware, a state renowned for incorporation statutes that allowed residents of other states and nations to employ a local lawyer, rent a post box to fulfill the residency guidelines and cash in on tax breaks they might otherwise have been unable to achieve. All strictly legal, and it brought the Diamond State sufficient revenue to make the laws worthwhile. In fact, an estimated seventy percent of corporations “based” in Delaware did little or no business there, aside from filing annual reports and keeping up on legal fees.

Eugenix Corporation had been chartered in July of 1961, four years before the scam with Thomas Hardy in Nevada. Under “Goals and Purposes,” the officers in charge had listed “education” and “genetic research,” in that order.

Could mean anything, Remo had said when he spoke to the CURE director. It could also mean nothing.

Smith had explained to Remo something about one law that governed corporations: they could claim most anything when making application for a charter, and it made no difference in the long run. Fine points like, an argument for tax exemption would be argued elsewhere, with the state and federal agencies in charge of revenue. The Ku Klux Klan was chartered as a “benevolent fraternal order,” and for those who bought that nonsense, there were still some hefty pieces of the Brooklyn Bridge available for purchase any time they chose to lay their money down.

The charter officers who launched Eugenix Corporation had included Jasper Frayne as president, his wife, Lucille, as vice president, and Roscoe Giddings as secretary/treasurer. The Fraynes had lived in New York City at the time, while Giddings was a cut-rate lawyer chasing ambulances in Wyoming, Delaware, a few miles from the capital at Dover. Giddings on the board made everything legitimate, at least on paper, and the state was satisfied once it received the stipulated fees.

None of the named Eugenix officers had any background whatsoever in the fields of education, medicine, biology or any other discipline that would have helped the corporation to attain its stated goals. A background check on Jasper Frayne described him as a Wall Street stockbroker, cashiered from the exchange in 1958 on allegations of insider trading. He had paid a fine of twenty-seven thousand dollars to the SEC, avoided any jail time and resurfaced six months later as a “corporate analyst” with several major clients on his string. Three of the client corporations, incidentally, were said to be front groups for syndicate investments, while a fourth—Laredo. Chemical, in Texas—specialized in flooding Third World markets with substandard medicines and drugs.

The medical connection, Remo thought. Or was it?

Mrs. Frayne had been a high-school cheerleader and home-economics major who dropped out of college, married well and afterward confined her interests, to the New York social scene. The only “genes” she understood were the designer kind, with fancy labels on the ass. Her listing as vice president of the. Eugenix Corporation was almost certainly a sham to keep the lion’s share of stock in her husband’s hands, but such shenanigans were hardly criminal—in fact, they ranked as standard operating procedures in the corporate jungle. As for Roscoe Giddings, he had been the local front required by law, and nothing more. His office satisfied the mandate for a Delaware address, and almost certainly provided him with extra tax breaks for a minimal investment of his time.

Where were they now?

The record showed Eugenix posting heavy losses for the last five years of its existence, finally going belly-up and filing for bankruptcy in February 1984. The corporation’s creditors were left without a prayer of making up their losses, and they couldn’t even slap a lien on lab equipment, since the previous December a fire of undetermined origin had razed the corporation’s sole research facility in Belding, Michigan. Arson experts declared the blaze suspicious, but they never proved complicity by anyone, on the Eugenix payroll, and the corporate insurance finally paid off around Thanksgiving.

The Fraynes dropped out of sight for eighteen months, then surfaced with a hefty wad of cash in Coral Springs, Florida, where they apparently retired. Lucille made the mistake of purchasing a new Mercedes-Benz, which tempted her to drive a bit too fast. On June 4, 1987, driving south from Stuart, she misjudged her own ability to pass three semitrailers on the turnpike, met a fourth truck heading north and she was history. Closed casket, R.I.P. Since then, her husband was reputed to enjoy the company of younger women who disrobed for tips at nightclubs in Fort Lauderdale.

The lawyer, Giddings, had no luck to speak of, either. Six months after Eugenix Corporation folded, he went on retainer with the Alvarado brothers, late of Medellin, to help them organize a trucking company, ostensibly involved in hauling citrus fruit from Florida to New York and New England. The brothers seemingly grew paranoid when federal agents picked off several truckloads of cocaine in transit through the wilds of Georgia and Virginia. Suspicion fell on Giddings, and the lawyer disappeared. He had been missing thirteen days when hunters found his vintage Caddy in the woods near Jacksonville, with Roscoe’s headless body in the trunk. His;head was never found, but rumor had it that the eldest Alvarado brother, Rico, had it shrunk as a dashboard ornament.

So much for traveling in style.

The Belding fire had wiped out all Eugenix personnel and payroll records, scuttled the computer data banks, reduced the work of two decades to ashes. A covert scan of records at the FDA and U.S. Patent Office turned up nothing to suggest the company had broken any new ground in the area of drugs or medical procedures—no new products whatsoever, for that matter. There had likewise been no applications for a research grant of any kind, a circumstance that, while peculiar in the world of medical experiments, was hardly grounds for an investigation. Federal auditors would surely have been grateful for a corporation that eschewed the public trough, assuming they were conscious of Eugenix in the first place.

What, exactly, had Eugenix Corporation done for something like a quarter of a century? Was it connected to Laredo Chemicals in some way, picking up the slack when that esteemed conglomerate dissolved in 1970? If it was all one great, extended scam to swindle Third World customers, what use would the Eugenix team have for the body of a hit man executed in Nevada?

The only person still on record who could answer Remo’s questions would be Jasper Frayne, in Coral Springs, Florida. He might be hesitant to talk, but there were ways around that problem. Remo could be damn persuasive when he set his mind to it, and getting nowhere fast on an assignment always put him in the mood.

He booked the next flight out of Reno for Miami, and advised Chiun to pack his steamer trunk.

All things considered, life hadn’t been hard on Jasper Frayne. He had experienced his share of setbacks and embarrassment like anybody else, but you took the bitter with the sweet and kept on rolling, or you gave it up and pulled the plug.

If there was one thing Jasper Frayne could never tolerate, it was a quitter.

Like Lucille, for instance.

Despite the fact that she was drinking on the afternoon she totaled the Benz, Frayne would never buy it as an accident. She had been going through the Change and giving everybody hell about it, trying quacks for size like they were some new Paris fashion, taking pills that made her alternately loopy and depressed. Frayne always figured that she meant to slam that semi rig head-on, though he would never say that to the pricks from the insurance company. Hell, no. They would have screwed him altogether, and why should he do anything to cost himself a quarter million?

Check the dictionary under stupid, and you would not find his picture, no damn way at all. It was too bad about Lucille, of course, but things were getting stale between them anyway. Frayne was cultivating an enthusiasm for the game of jai alai, which let him slip out two, three times a week to nudie bars in Lauderdale, and he suspected that Lucille had found diversions of her own. So what? She was entitled, after all, and jealousy had long since faded in the stretch, along with love.

Frayne missed his wife of twenty-seven years, in the abstract, but not for long. It was a new, wild world out there, and never mind the crap you heard on television, how the sex was hard to find with everybody scared to death of AIDS., In Jasper Frayne’s world, money talked and bullshit walked. The past eight years, if anyone had asked him, Frayne would have to say that he was living, bet your ass.

He hardly thought about Eugenix anymore, at all, except when there was something in the paper to remind him. Like the bullshit in Miami, back in April, with the two Colombians. He would have shrugged it off, another case of scum eliminating scum, except the shooter had been captured and refused to give his name, then offed himself in jail. The dicks at Metro-Dade had put his mug shot on the tube for three nights running, asking anyone with information to call in, and Frayne had nearly shit himself the first time he had seen the photographs.

That face.

He wasn’t likely to forget it, even after all this time. The old crowd had no hold on him these days, at least in theory, since they knew he was a man who could be trusted taking secrets to his grave. It looked like they were getting careless, though—or cocky. Convinced that no one in the world could crack their secret, they let their guard down just enough to start the Feds asking questions.

On the other hand, he told himself, there could have been a problem with the drone—or plain bad luck. They had gone twenty years without a glitch, before they lost the first one. Any other company with products on the market, they were making recalls every time you turned around. Bad tuna, flammable pajamas, cars that went off like a fucking atom bomb if they got love-tapped from behind, airliners crashing when some idiot forgot to doublecheck the nuts and bolts.

Frayne lounged beside his pool, eyes covered with those little plastic cups that looked like something from a 1950s horror movie, flaccid body slathered with enough sunblock to protect him from a napalm strike, and waited for Justine to put in her appearance. He had met her dancing at the Lucky Strike, in Lauderdale—that is to say, she did the dancing, while he sat and tried to keep his pulse from going through the roof. His second time to visit, she had joined him at his table, stalled a little bit before she finally agreed to private sessions at an hourly rate that should have qualified her as a lawyer or psychiatrist-—perhaps even a plumber.

Frayne had to smile at that, his capped teeth glinting in the sun. Justine had cleaned his pipes, all right, and she was well worth every cent she charged. It wasn’t like a man his age could drop into a singles’ bar and find some sweet young thing to love him for his personality, much less the body that would surely fail him one fine day before too long. They did not go to dinner or the movies, were not dating or engaged. It was a straight-up pay-for-play arrangement, and Frayne liked it that way, everybody knowing where they stood. When Justine tired of him, or found somebody with a bigger bankroll to entice her, Frayne could always shop around for a replacement. Maybe something Latin next time. Get a little piece of NAFTA working for himself.

Lately, though, he had trouble maintaining interest in the game. He still looked forward to the visits with Justine, of course, and went out trolling in the clubs at least three nights a week, but it was getting stale. Frayne had begun to wonder if maybe there was something more to life than lying in the sun and chasing someone else’s tail.

It could be worse, he told himself. He could be like that asshole Giddings, stone-cold dead. Or like that, crazy fucker Radcliff, hooked on some great cause that made the rest of life seem like a fever dream.

No, thank you very much.

If Frayne got a vote, he would prefer his current lifestyle over the alternatives—no life at all, or a crusade that ate up every waking moment of his time. Wall Street was bad enough, while, it had lasted, with the damn margin calls and everybody screaming in the pits all day. It almost came as a relief when they had caught him with his fingers in the cookie jar, especially since he had. already socked away enough cold cash to send him on his way in style.

Good times, he thought. And then, there was Eugenix.

Fuck it.

Frayne heard the side gate creaking on its hinges, and he smiled at the image in his mind. He felt himself begin to stiffen in anticipation. Should they start out with a little skinny-dip this afternoon, or maybe a massage? He had two hours booked, and if he needed more—

A shadow fell across Frayne’s face and stayed there, blocking out the sun. He waited for a moment, psyched up for the phony compliments she always threw in free of charge, then became a bit confused when she said nothing.

Finally he raised a hand and slipped the sci-fi goggles up onto his forehead, blinking at the man who stood above him, where Justine should be. The sun was at the stranger’s back, and yet—

That face.

“Aw, shit,” he muttered, bolting upright, angling for the house and the guns inside.

A set of steely fingers gripped his throat like talons, stopped him dead and slammed him backward to the deck.

Remo drove west from Lauderdale on Highway 84, picked up 817 northbound, the final thirteen miles to Coral Springs. He had an address memorized for Jasper Frayne’s retirement, directions from another street map, but his mind was busy with a replay of his latest conversation with Chiun.

“I take it from our flittering hither and yon that you have not yet located one of Smith’s walking dead men,” the Master of Sinanju had blandly inquired as they were settling into yet another motel room.

“Not yet,” said Remo.

“Nor will you,” Chiun sniffed. “The man has obviously taken complete leave of his senses. How does he expect you to kill a man who is already dead?”

“We never really got that far,” Remo admitted.

“Pah! He is a fool and you are on a fool’s errand.”

“Is that why you keep barricading yourself in these hotel rooms and refusing to help with the leg-work?”

“Legwork is for dancers, not Masters of Sinanju. If you want to be a Rockette, that is your business.”

“Thanks a heap. Little Father.”

Chiun tipped his birdlike head to one side. “I am somewhat curious,” he said. “Your targets simply wear a dead man’s face?”

“And fingerprints. Maybe the same DNA, for all I know. The new technology didn’t exist in ’65, and no one bothered saving Hardy’s blood.”

“But someone saved the body,” Chiun reminded him. “The act required some risk. You should assume it has significance.”

“I sort of had already.”

“Are they religious?” Chiun asked suddenly.

“Who?”

“Your adversaries.”

“From the nature of their crimes, I tend to doubt it.”

“Perhaps they are politically motivated,” Chiun ventured.

“Their choice of victims doesn’t indicate that, either.”

“So they are hired killers.”

“Almost certainly.”

“Then you must understand that everything they do is done for money or to save themselves.”

As the preeminent assassin from a village known for expertise in that regard, Chiun knew whereof he spoke, and Remo didn’t argue with his personal assessment.

How long before his unseen, unknown adversaries started working overtime to save themselves? Within the past few months, they had lost two of their peculiar carbon-copy killers, and they had to realize that the authorities would be investigating the bizarre phenomenon. It was a time for plugging leaks, and Remo wondered if Devona Price would be all right. Or Yuli Cristobal, in Carson City. Both of them had spilled their guts, and while they only pointed him toward nameless shadows, toward a corporation long defunct, that breach alone would, be considered a betrayal in the big leagues, justifying punishment.

But they had taken a risk a long time ago, and now they were on their own. And he had more important fish to fry. If anyone could tell him what was cooking with Eugenix Corporation, that someone was Jasper Frayne, the former CEO and founding father. Remo meant to keep his FBI facade in place as long as possible, but he would use whatever pressure might be necessary if he met resistance from the one-time leader of Eugenix.

There was nothing in the book that said Frayne had to come out of their interview alive, much less intact.

He found the address, parked his rented compact at the curb and walked up to the house. No answer to the bell, but Remo heard a muffled sound, like someone coughing, that appeared to issue from the yard in back. He circled to the left and found a gate half-open, beckoning him to proceed. The scuffling, thrashing sounds were louder now, and Remo knew exactly what they meant.

Someone was fighting for his life.

He came around the corner in a burst of speed, found two men grappling in a grim, uneven contest. The older, softer of the two, was sprawled across a chaise longue, clad only in a black bikini bathing suit, his brown skin slick with oil and blood. The man who stood above him, bending at the waist, wore linen trousers and a garish flowered shirt that gave him the appearance of a tourist gone astray. He held down his victim with one hand, while his other made repeated, choppy jabbing motions from the waist.

A knife, thought Remo, closing in.

He spoke because he wasn’t quite there yet, and he wanted to distract the killer now, while there was still at least some chance of saving Jasper Frayne.

“Back off!” he snapped, still moving toward the executioner, his legs almost a blur.

The killer turned to face him, and the sight made Remo hesitate for something like a quarter of a second. He had seen that face before, in photographs displayed by Dr. Smith. It was Tom Hardy, minus thirty years or so, the same face worn by hit men lately buried in Miami and upstate Wisconsin.

“Want some?”

It was strange to hear the voice. To him, Hardy was a photograph. A man long dead. Somehow, the killer’s voice—so normal it was almost pleasant— was more worrisome to Remo than the bloody knife he held in front of him or the too familiar face he wore.

Behind him, Jasper Frayne was thrashing weakly on the chaise, blood streaming from the stab wounds in his chest and abdomen. A slash across the throat would have been quicker, more efficient. Maybe the killer liked his work enough to drag it out by torturing his victims.

“What’s your name?” he asked the killer, circling to his right, toward Jasper Frayne.

“Fuck you!”

“That’s funny, you don’t look Chinese.”

The killer blinked, uncertain what to make of that, and sneered in lieu of a rejoinder.

“Well, Fuck, I have to tell you that the best thing you can do right now is drop the knife and give it up. No reason you should die, if you cooperate.”

“Fuck you!”

“I see. Name, rank and number, is it? Fair enough. We’ll play it your way.”

Remo feinted to the right, saw the hit man shift his weight to meet the charge, and went straight up the middle in a rush that left his enemy with no time to correct or compensate. The blade flashed red and silver, Remo blocking with his left hand, striking with his right, a straight jab to the chest that slammed his adversary over backward. Remo planned to take the guy alive, for questioning. But down and out appeared to be two very different things. The assassin’s shoulders barely hit the turf before he rolled over, grimacing in pain, and scrambled to his feet once more, the knife still in his hand. His first few steps were shaky, but he came back, straight at Remo, cursing underneath his breath.

A roundhouse kick disarmed him and set him up for Remo’s backhand punch. The killer staggered backward, bleeding from the nose and mouth, but still not beaten. Remo saw his free hand rummage underneath the baggy shirt and come out with a shiny automatic pistol, muzzle-heavy with a silencer.

Remo kept his eyes fixed on the weapon, saw his adversary’s finger tighten on the trigger, heard his flexor tendons creak as he prepared to make the killing shot. The trick to dodging bullets was anticipation, readiness, and Remo sidestepped as the first round whispered past his face, bare inches to his right. The shooter tried correcting but overdid it, and the next round went to Remo’s left, his forward motion barely interrupted by the revolution of his torso as he turned to let another round zip by.

The hitter used up four of his nine shots before a hand shot out and took the gun away from him with such force that he spun about, then slammed his temple into the unforgiving corner of a square standing flower urn. When he landed on the grass, he didn’t rise again.

Three steps to the chaise longue, and Remo knelt beside the dying man who must be Jasper Frayne. The quantity of blood around his nose and mouth told Remo that at least one lung was punctured, maybe both. The heart was beating, but it would soon be running out of blood to pump. No ambulance could get there fast enough to make a difference, and the time he wasted on a phone call would remove whatever hope remained of getting any information from the dying man.

Frayne’s lips were moving, blowing slow crimson bubbles. Remo bent down low enough to try to hear what Frayne was saying.

One word, repeated in a weak whisper, twice.

Radcliff.

Remo was about to try a question, when the light went out behind Frayne’s eyes, his muscles going slack in death.

Too late. He’d have to fit the name, be it a person, place or institution.

He spent another twenty seconds with the killer, turning empty pockets inside out. Besides the knife and gun, his adversary carried nothing on his person. No ID, no money, credit cards, no Kleenex—nothing.

A professional, thought Remo, who just happened to have someone else’s face. The fingerprints and DNA analysis would fall to someone else.

A twenty-something fox was just emerging from a taxi when he hit the driveway, reaching in her purse to pay the driver. Glancing up at Remo with green eyes that had-seen an awful lot of living, she hesitated.

“You for Jasper Frayne?” he asked.

“So what?”

“He’s indisposed. You’d better go on home.”

“Did he say that?”

“He isn’t saying much of anything.”

She got the drift then, wise enough to know that life was cheap in southern Florida. She muttered something to the cabbie, closed her door and glared at Remo as the taxi pulled away. He watched it out of sight, then followed in his rental, heading back toward Lauderdale. The name, two syllables, kept playing through his mind.

It wasn’t much, but he would have to check it out. And if he came up empty, then presumably the game was over. He would be the loser, no place left to turn.

But Remo wasn’t ready to concede defeat.

Not yet.

The game still had at least one inning left to play, and he was hanging in until the bitter end.