Political Pressure

16

"Boudoir Fantasies," said a husky, sultry voice, "I'm Ursula."

"Ursula, give me Harold," Remo said, feeling unfriendly.

"We do not have anyone working here by that name," Ursula breathed. "Is he one of our customers? We have lots of men who have sensual, provocative portraits done by our professional photographers."

"I doubt Harold would go for that."

"Oh, yes! Here we go! We have a five-o'clock appointment for a Harold. He's booked the Tarzan studio."

"Can't be him," Remo insisted.

"The loincloth is silk with leopard spots," Ursula continued relentlessly.

"Picturing it makes my flesh crawl."

"We have a stuffed lion that the gentlemen can pose with."

"Ursula, I'm begging you."

"For an extra fee we can have one, two, or three topless jungle girls appear in the shot with him," she insisted. "Some of our males have the shots done in the nude themselves. Do you think your partner Harold—?"

Remo hung up the phone with superhuman speed, but not fast enough. The message was delivered. The images were in his head, branded there forever.

"I may not be able to look Smitty in the face ever again," he said.

"Can you not see that my program is on?" Chiun asked from in front of the television. "From this moment until the end of time, consider me unavailable for conversation under such circumstances."

The phone rang and Remo waited a full minute before picking it up. "Remo," Harold Smith demanded, "why did you not allow the screening system to complete its scan?"

"Smitty, your screening system is screwing with my head," Remo complained. "And every time I call, it wants me to talk longer than the time before."

"I think you're exaggerating."

"Uh-huh. And who comes up with the weird scenarios? Not you, I hope."

"No, they're completely randomly generated."

"Man, I hope you're not lying."

"Of course not. Why would I lie? What happened when you visited the hospital? Did you get anything useful out of the gunner from the courthouse?"

"No. He didn't know a thing."

"How certain are you of that?" Smith asked.

"Pretty sure. We asked nice and we asked not so nice. He was doped up and didn't have much to say. He never knew anyone outside his own cell. Why? Somebody kill him?"

"Yes."

Remo lowered the phone. "Oh my God, Little Father, they killed Kenny."

"Speak only at the commercial," Chiun said.

"We're both sick about it," Remo informed Smith. "We did get the name of the cell commander. They called him General Bernie. I think it was the guy who got away."

"Was General Bernie an American?"

"Yeah."

Remo heard the tapping of Smith's keyboard in Rye, New York. "There's no record of a General Bernie in any branch of the armed forces. Must be made up."

"That's what Ken said."

"Ken?"

"Also made up."

"Nothing about the leadership of the White Hand? Stated purpose? Full name of anybody in the ranks?"

"No, no and no. But the FBI had Ken's real name."

Smith sighed. "Jerome Reik. Special Forces, dishonorable discharge, no known political or organizational affiliations."

"So why'd somebody kill him?" Remo asked.

"Maybe just insurance, in case he happened to accidentally pick up some tidbit of intelligence during his time with the White Hand, and we're not even convinced that's the real name of the group," Smith said, "There have been white supremacist groups with similar names, but the FBI identified Latinos and African Americans among the dead from both the Chicago and Denver cells, so that's not a likely affiliation. I can tell you that the Denver police would like to have a word with you about Mr. Reik's unfortunate passing."

"We'll be sure to stop by the station."

"I assume you were the ones who left the child's doll with the patient? Does this have any significance?"

"Not that you want to know about."

"Fine. But the hospital staff remembered the visitor in the kimono," Smith said. "We may need to ask Master Chiun to wear less distinctive attire while on mission."

"What?" Chiun squeaked.

"Hear that? I think you have your answer."

"Maybe you can explain to Master Chiun why this would be beneficial," Smith suggested.

"Oh, no I can't. You're on your own on this one. So what do we do next?"

Smith sighed. "We're working on that."

"Should we just hang out here in Denver? The air is making us sick."

"Smog?"

"Yeah. Anything you can do about it? Maybe call in the Air Force to use its highly classified weather-making technology to blow Denver?"

There was a stony silence. "What Air Force weather- making technology?" "So the Air Forcedoes have weather-making technology! What'11 you give me if I keep it to myself?"

"I never said—!"

"Joking, I'm just joking, Smitty. Listen, isn't there anybody else in the vicinity who's done some governmental corruption?"

"Of course," Smith said. "In Colorado alone there are hundreds of government workers at all levels who are likely involved in corruption of some kind or another."

"I mean high-profile," Remo said. "Somebody who's getting a lot of press or maybe would get a lot of press if they got gunned down."

"Hmm," Smith said.

"Come on, Smitty, I can't take being cooped up with Chiun and his Excito Tomate soap opera."

"Exciting Tomatoes?" asked Mark Smith as the call at the Rye end switched to speakerphone.

"It is Excito Totalmente, imbecile," Chiun said.

"How's it going in the salt mines, Junior?" Remo said. "Help out the old taskmaster, would you? We're trying to figure out what targets might be next in the Mile High City of Asphyxiation."

Mark Howard answered with an eerily familiar, "Hmm."

"There's got to be somebody," Remo insisted.

"We've considered it, Remo," Smith said. "We're doubtful they would even continue with the next strike after their run-in with you and Master Chiun."

"Think again," Remo replied. "These people have an

agenda. You said so yourself. They've got a long to-do list, and I'll wager the plasma-screen TV at the duplex that they're not going to slow down for a minute."

"Do not take that bet, Emperor—it is not his television to gamble with!" Chiun called.

"You said yourself the cell is probably been pared down to the single commanding officer, this General Bernie," Smith said. "Maybe he would carry on, but even so he would change his planned targets."

"Maybe not," Remo said as the latest commercial ended and the discordant wail of music heralded the return to the Exciting Tomatoes soap opera. The tomatoes in question, Remo gathered from trying not to listen, were four generations of superrich Mexican women. They were all ruthless. They could all spew tears at the drop of a hat. Every one of them, from the seventeen-year-old bimbette daughter to the fifty-five-year-old grand matriarch, possessed massive breasts. They wore a lot of halter tops to show off their massive breasts, and Remo was almost certain that most aristocratic Mexican grandmothers did not wear halter tops, especially to formal dinner parties.

"I bet Ken knew what the next hit was going to be," Remo decided out loud.

"Who's Ken?" Mark Howard asked.

"The guy who was in the burn unit. We questioned him, but he was too dosed up in the hospital to be helpful. I tried getting something out of him at the courthouse but there were complications. Maybe he said something to the paramedic who worked him. Can't hurt to ask."

The Exciting Tomatoes matriarch and her teenage descendant chose that moment to sob and embrace, and the cameraman widened his view so as not to miss a single bulge of their fronts coming together in a braless mash.

"Anything's better than staying in the room," Remo added.

There was a man jogging alongside the ambulance. He made a gesture with his hand and the paramedic in the passenger seat incredulously rolled down her window.

"Hi, Shorley."

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Can we talk?" asked the jogger.

Shirley Feely shook her head. "Did you happen to notice we're on a call?" she asked sarcastically. "That loud noise is called a siren. And see the flashing lights?"

"Yeah, I know about these things," the stranger said, amazingly unwinded by his running. "Is it really an emergency or just one of those cat-stuck-in-a-tree calls?"

Shirley Feely decided that this guy ranked just below her dad as the world's biggest all-time asshole. She turned on her partner suddenly. "Why are you slowing down?"

"Well, that guy you're talking to," Keith Ostrowski said.

"Forget that asswipe and drive!"

Ostrowski was competent enough when it came to his job, and he drove them quickly to the scene of the call. The suburban ranch house was quiet when they arrived. For a second, as they came to a halt in the driveway, Shirley thought she glimpsed a flash of movement in the backyard between the houses.

The front door was unlocked. When they stepped inside they heard an old woman saying, "Why, thank you kindly. That is much better."

They found the old woman on the sunporch, relaxing into a reclining wooden chair. Remo Williams was pouring her a tall glass of lemonade from a frosty pitcher.

Keith Ostrowski frowned. "Isn't that the guy you were talking to?"

"Hi, Shorley," Remo said.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"Helping out," Remo said. "Mrs. Butler fell. She couldn't get up."

"I threw my back out again. Oh, it hurt to high heaven!" said the elderly Mrs. Butler. "Remo gave me a little squeeze on the hip and behold! The pain was gone."

"This doesn't explain what you are doing here," Shirley insisted.

"I thought he was getting fresh with me at first." Mrs. Butler smiled. "You weren't getting fresh with me, were you, Remo?"

"No, ma'am, I sure wasn't."

"What if I asked nicely?"

"Mrs. Butler, you slay me!"

Mrs. Butler giggled, but Shirley Feely was not amused. "Mrs. Butler, I do not know who this man is, but I can tell you he certainly is not a trained paramedic." "Oh, but he did a wonderful job. My back hasn't been so loose in years."

"Regardless, I'm going to have my partner check you out while I have a talk with Mr. Remo."

"I don't need to be checked out," Mrs. Butler insisted mildly.

"Now, Mrs. Butler, you listen to Shorley. She's the professional," Remo said.

"Whatever you say, Remo."

"My name is Shirley!"

"Oh, no, it's not, dear, just look at your embroidery," Mrs. Butler pointed out.

Shirley grabbed Remo's arm and dragged him into the tidy kitchen off the sunporch.

"Let's talk," Remo said.

"No, you listen! You cannot and will not interfere with me or my job, understand?"

"I fixed her back spasm," Remo protested. "You would have had her in a neck brace on a stretcher by now. Poor lady would have wasted the next week in a hospital bed."

"I don't believe for an instant that you actually helped that old woman."

"Remo! Look!" Mrs. Butler cried through the screen door. "I can touch my toes!" Keith Ostrowski was dancing around in a panic as the elderly woman bent at the waist and touched her toes. Remo applauded.

Keith managed to coerce her back to the chair, and Shirley glared at Remo.

"Your head is gonna explode, isn't it?" he asked.

"Listen to me," Shirley pronounced slowly. "I do not like people interfering with what I do."

"I can tell. You've got real control issues."

She belted him. He took it and smiled. "Feel better now?"

She backhanded him.

"Now?" he asked.

He took a third blow to the face. Shirley knew how to throw a punch.

"This helping you out?" he asked. "Uh-oh."

Too late he sensed the change. His assailant had suddenly stopped being mad, and she started being something else entirely. It had to have been all the hitting. She threw herself into the air and landed her pelvis on the front of his beige Chinos, wrapping her legs around his posterior and encircling his neck with her strong arms. She latched her mouth on to his.

She pulled away briefly. "You're an asshole."

"Your punches hurt less than your kissing."

"Brace yourself." She hurt him again.

On the porch, Mrs. Butler watched and sighed with envy. "Lucky little tramp."

"Yeah," Keith Ostrowski said.

"You," said the naked paramedic, "are the worst person I ever met."

"Have you met a lot of people?" Remo asked.

"If I meet a hundred thousand people, I'll never meet anybody worse than you."

"Ha! I can prove you wrong within the hour—-just come to my hotel."

Shirley's sour glare became baleful. "Your wife?"

"Naw. My trainer. You want unpleasant, he can deliver it in truckloads. He's mean, he's nasty and he's so old he makes Mrs. Butler look as fresh as butter."

Shirley considered that, then shook her head. "You're still worse. Look what you made me do—no old man could use me like you did."

"I think you're actually warming up to me."

"Remo, look around you!"

Remo looked around. "So?"

"We just did it in an ambulance! My ambulance!"

"It was your idea," he reminded her.

"I'm a professional paramedic! My behavior's been appalling! I let myself be coerced and manipulated."

"Listen, everybody makes mistakes. You had a little too much to drink, I was complimenting you all evening, sometimes those things lower your defenses."

She rose on her elbows and blinked at him. He was sitting on the gurney, trapped by her legs. "What are you talking about?" she asked. "We only started mashing lips a half hour ago."

"You'll feel better if you go with my version."

She considered it, then shook her head. "I'm ruined. Keith's the biggest gossip in the city. He'll have my reputation smeared before the shift ends."

"I'll talk to him." Remo wasn't sure how to handle this young lady, and he didn't want to push the wrong button, but he finally got to the point. "You know, I actually came here to talk to you about your patient yesterday."

Her mean face turned sad. "Died."

"Murdered."

"By you, if the story I heard is true. Lord knows I tried to stabilize him."

"All I did was get him away from the bomb the fastest way I knew how. And you did stabilize him. He was murdered in the hospital." She got up on her elbows again, which made her trim stomach wrinkle in a way Remo found quite cute. Her breasts had just enough heft to sway with the movement. That was nice, too. In fact, Shirley was an incredibly attractive young lady when she didn't scowl, which wasn't often. There were also flashes of niceness that leaked out during the rare moments she forgot to be horrid.

"How?" she demanded.

"Somebody put rubbing alcohol into his IV," Remo said.

She shuddered. "Jesus. That would have burned his circulatory system from the inside out."

"He never felt a thing," he assured her. "He was on so many pain meds I guarantee he never regained consciousness."

"Not many people you could kill that way," she said conversationally. "Most patients would feel the intoxicating effects or the pain and alert somebody. Actually, though, isopropyl alcohol's a pretty good murder weapon. It's clear and mixes with water, so it'll mix just as easily with whatever hydration solution they had in the IV. It's common enough, it's untraceable. Even the smell wouldn't be a big problem if it was inside a sealed IV bag, and who'd pay attention to a little alcohol smell in a hospital anyway? It's a wonder there are not a lot more hospital murders like this."

"This an area of interest?" Remo asked.

"Yeah, forensics. I wanna be a coroner. I've got two more years before I can start my internship."

"Congratulations."

She gave him an interested look. "Now, you I'd like to autopsy."

"I'm flattered."

"I mean, what's going on with your physiology, anyway? You chased this ambulance for miles, you give the old woman a massage that cures a crick in her back that's older than I am, and you use some sort of magic musk power to force me to have sex with you. I don't know what kind of sex that was, but it wasn't human sex. There's also yesterday's troublemaking. If half of what I heard really happened, then you must be some sort of freak of nature."

"I've been called—"

"Like, a missing link."

"Maybe just the opposite, like the next step in human evolution."

She sneered as she gave him a head-to-toe examination. Remo modestly covered himself with a tiny paper pillow.

"Missing link," she concluded definitively. "But fascinating."

"You're not autopsying me."

"Maybe just a little look-see? I can do it with just one cut, eight inches long. Here to here." She poked his stomach twice.

"That's more than eight inches, and anyway I'm not letting you. You would just be disappointed."

"Figures. You're such an asshole."

"Yeah."

She burned him with her evil eye for a half minute, then fidgeted. "Well?"

"Huh?"

"Aren't you going to take advantage of me again?"

"Not until you talk about your patient yesterday."

"Never! You'll have to beat it out of me."

Remo grimaced. "Nice try, Shorley, but I've reached my kink threshold."

"My name is not Shorley, you asshole!" She viciously slapped his face and shoulders until he yawned. "Oh, all right, dammit, I'll tell you what the burned guy said."

She told him everything she knew. It didn't take long. "Help you out?" she asked.

"Maybe," Remo said, thinking over what she had told him.

"Good enough for a little something extra this time?" she asked.

"No."

She sighed and fell back on the gurney. "Vanilla sex

sucks," she complained, although, in fact, she had just had the best sex of her life.

"Hey,we don't have to do it again."

"Don't even think of weaseling out now," Shirley snarled, her legs clamping around his waist. "You are such an arrogant shit."

"And you're a foul-mouthed little tramp."

He saw the gleam in her eyes become a radiance. "Yeah? What else am I?"

Remo sealed his lips and paid his debt, wondering if Mrs. Butler would mind if he used her shower for an hour or two.