Dr. Quake, page 12
part #5 of The Destroyer Series
These were the kind of girls, Remo thought, that men rarely dreamed about. In their dreams, men wanted beautiful women—but women who were human, who could be taken, violated, and overpowered by a man’s lust. The twins in front of him now were too much for that. So ripe, rich and sensual that they were overpowering, a normal man would shrink from them because he would know that his lust could never conquer them. No matter how strong it was, his lust would be burned up by their sexual heat and proved inadequate.
That’s how a normal man would feel. Remo was no normal man and he felt rising in him a lust beyond lust.
“Do we embarrass you?” Jill said.
“No, I like liberated women.”
Jill cupped her own breasts. “Good. We like being liberated.”
They approached Remo and sat down, one on each side of him on the diving board. Their hands were on his thighs, then Jacki put an arm behind his head and planted a kiss on his mouth, a long-lingering kiss in which her tongue darted into and probed his mouth.
He felt hands pulling off his bathing trunks and then his swimsuit was down around his ankles and his feet were being pulled from it. Jacki’s mouth was still over Remo’s and it felt as if his lungs were being sucked from him. Then he was pulled to his feet and hands were all over his body, pulling at him, feeling, stroking, rubbing. Every time he moved, he felt breasts rubbing against him, soft breasts that shuddered when his skin touched them.
Then there was no more deck and the three of them, intertwined, fell into the water. Remo felt himself being manipulated and he and Jacki were joined under the water. They broke the surface for air, then Jill plunged down and then was at Remo with her face, her tongue and lips moving. Remo planted a hand and began stroking rhythmically in the rolling waters of the pool that now slapped against the tile sides.
He felt Jill shudder spasmodically, her body releasing tension, and then Jacki pulled her mouth away from his and arched her body, crying out, “Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”
Remo was angling them toward the pool ladder, pronging one along, pulling the other along with a fingertip, and he steered them up the ladder and followed them up, still conscious of his manhood. “Inside,” he said hoarsely.
“We’re going to do you now, Remo. And do you. And do you,” Jill said.
They walked toward the glass doors that opened into Remo’s bedroom. Then Chiun stepped out into the poolside area. Remo felt suddenly embarrassed and stepped behind Jill before turning.
Chiun looked at the girls with distaste and at Remo with loathing.
“Oh, you’re cute,” Jacki said. She stepped toward Chiun. “Let’s,” she suggested.
He just stared at her. “Let’s make it a foursome,” she said.
Remo turned and went inside with Jill.
Chiun looked at Jacki coldly. “I do not perform in public,” he spoke firmly.
“Shy?”
“No. I am civilized. Only cattle and beasts of the field copulate in the open.”
“And libetrated women,” she said, sinking to her knees in front of him, offering him her breasts. “Come on,” she said. “Please. You’ll never forget it.”
“The last woman I had I was twelve years getting rid of,” Chiun said. “I need no more slaves. Go with him. You will find him adequate in every respect. He is your type exactly.”
Chiun turned and walked back into the house, heaving his shoulders in a sigh. Poor Remo. He would always be an American. Always a fancier of cows. He should have been a dairy farmer.
Jacki stood up, followed Jill and Remo into the bedroom. They were already tangled together on the bed and she stood alongside them, trailing fingertips along their bodies, then she moved to join them. Jill was throbbing again and Remo felt himself being rolled off her by Jacki.
They were insatiable. It was like making love to an octopus which had come to drain his vitals, to dry him up, to turn him into an aged man in one lasting moment of lust.
Out in the living room, Chiun watched his TV tape of As the Planet Revolves. He watched his tape of Edge of Dawn. Then he stood up and turned off the television.
He heard steps behind him.
He turned.
Remo was there, buttoning a black, short-sleeved shirt. He wore black slacks and black sneakers.
“Well, little father, are you ready?” he said.
“I am always ready. And the forward ones?”
“They’ll rest now,” Remo said.
As they left the house, Remo saw the twins’ Volkswagen bus parked at the door, behind his rented red hardtop. In the back seat of the camper was the bright blue water-laser. Stupid broads. This was probably how they were keeping it safe. By carrying it around with them.
Sure enough, the doors were unlocked. Remo saw the keys in the ignition, and pulled out the key ring, reached in and locked the doors.
“Be just a minute, Chiun,” he said and walked back into the house.
He opened his bedroom door. Jacki and Jill were on the bed, unconscious, drained, exhausted, their faces wearing ecstatic smiles.
He tossed the keys toward the bed. They landed between Jill’s breasts, which received them with a quiver. She smiled in her sleep at the sensation.
Remo softly closed the door and walked out. Let them sleep. They had earned it.
He whistled softly as he hurried out the front door and got into the car, where Chiun waited in the front seat. Remo moved quickly now, so quickly that he did not notice the man watching him from the front seat of a black Cadillac across the seat, cleaning his fingernails with an icepick.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
“CHIUN? HOW DO YOU BATTLE a force without vibrations?” Remo asked as they drove to town.
“There is no force without vibrations,” Chiun said.
“I’ve seen one,” Remo said. “A water-laser. It generates tremendous power, and no vibrations.”
“There are always vibrations,” Chiun said, “no matter how small. You must feel those vibrations, then harness them to your own until you are the master of the relationship.” He folded his arms.
After a few blocks, Remo said again: “It had no vibrations.”
After another block, Chiun said: “There are always vibrations. Like those you feel now. Do you feel them?”
Remo opened his senses for a moment. “Concentration?” he said.
“Yes,” Chiun said. “We’re being followed.”
Remo looked up into the rearview mirror. The road behind them was empty. He glanced toward Chiun.
“Ahead of us now,” Chiun said. “The big, black monstrosity. He just passed us and then pulled to the curb.”
Remo slowed down slightly without hitting the brake, glancing at the black Cadillac in which a man sat trying to act nonchalant. Remo looked at his head, the back of his thick neck, as he drove by. Musso, he told himself.
Remo glanced at his watch. Almost six o’clock. Plenty of time before Wyatt would make his delivery. Remo hung a right on the next corner and stepped on the gas. In the mirror, he saw the black Cadillac turn the corner and follow him.
The street was thinned of people now and Remo picked up his speed, barreling through the town, then out into the flat countryside of truck stops and gas stations. He had seen the place he was looking for the first day he’d come into town with Smith.
The Cadillac was laying back now, a car between it and Remo, and he slowed to get rid of the blocker. The station wagon behind Remo finally pulled out and passed, but the Cadillac stayed nearby, in sight. Then Remo saw the bulb-embroidered sign up ahead: “U-Du-It Car Wash.”
It was a one-story cinder block building, really a tunnel open at both ends.
The road was clear both ways. Remo began to sway out into the left lane, cutting his speed and the Cadillac closed the distance between them. Remo kept slowing, watching the approaching Cadillac in the rearview mirror.
Then, just as they drew almost abreast of the car wash, Remo spun his wheel to the right. His car skidded. The Cadillac driver swerved to avoid hitting Remo and went bouncing off the roadway, turning into the gravel driveway that led to the carwash. Remo gassed his car and pulled up alongside, but slightly behind the Cadillac which was now angled in against the empty car-wash building.
“A regular Mario Andretti,” Chiun said. “You must be very pleased with yourself.”
Remo could tell Chiun was pleased.
“Yes, little father,” he said as he opened the door and jumped out.
The driver of the Cadillac was rolling down his electric window. He hollered out at Remo: “Hey, stupid! What’s the matter? You nuts or something?”
He was a big man. Big and thick in the neck; the arm that rested on top of the door showed a heavy wrist and forearm under the sleeve of the pearl-gray suit. His face was lined and hard; his nose a slice of obsidian in his hatchet face; the kind of man, Remo thought, who would kill with an icepick.
“Whyn’t you watch where you’re going?” Remo called, coming around the front of his car. “You guys in Cadillacs think you own the road.”
“Well, what’d you cut me off for?” the other driver shouted.
“Cut you off? Why, you punk,” Remo shouted. “If you weren’t tailgating… get out of that car and I’ll put you on your ass!”
The door opened and Musso stepped out. “Mister,” he said, “You’re asking for trouble.” He was big and towered over Remo.
He began to walk toward Remo, slowly, surely, and Remo began to back off. He put his hands in front of him, palms forward. “Now, just a minute, Mister. I didn’t mean anything… ”
“Then you should learn to keep your big mouth shut,” Musso said.
He kept coming. Remo was inside the opening to the car wash now, still backing up.
Musso came closer, his eyes glistening with anticipation at the fright and confusion he saw on Remo’s face.
Now they were both inside the car wash; it was cool and curiously quiet. Musso reached a hand into his inside coat pocket and slowly pulled out an ice pick whose point was jammed into a bottle cork.
He pulled the cork off, then stuck it in his side pocket. The point of the pick glistened bright and silvery in the stray glints of the late afternoon sun that angled in the front entrance of the car wash.
“Now, wait a minute, mister,” Remo said. “An argument’s one thing, but you’ve got no call to… ”
“Remo Blomberg,” Musso said. “I have a call. I’ve got all the call I need. Didn’t you tell one of my men that if I came back I’d go out in a doggy bag?”
He held the icepick in front of him like a street fighter’s switchblade, coming on slowly now, his bulk trapping Remo and preventing escape. Remo backed up until he could see from the corners of his eyes that he was standing between the twin chains of the conveyor belt which pulled cars through the car wash.
“You’re Musso?” Remo asked.
“I’m Musso.”
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Good,” Musso said, with a smile. “Before I punch you like a railroad ticket, who’s behind the earthquakes?”
“I am,” Remo said. ‘It’s my own little shakedown racket. You think I’m going to turn it over to a gang of organ-grinders?”
“That’s what I thought,” Musso said. Both men were still, now. Remo backed up against the damp strips of cloth hanging from the top of the car wash, marking its entrance, Musso only five feet away from him, the shiny icepick weaving back and forth. Over Musso’s shoulder, Remo saw Chiun in the front seat of the car, reading a road map.
“How do you do it?” Musso said.
“I tried to tell one of your men. We do it with Vitamin E and carbon dioxide.”
“Don’t give me no smart-ass talk, Blomberg,” Musso said.
“It’s the truth. Ask anyone. Ask the governor. He’s my partner. I took him on as second choice. I tried to interest the Mafia in it first, but they were too busy eating peppers and beating up candy store owners to give a damn. What about you, Musso? You interested? I’ll cut you in for one-half of one percent. That ought to give you a fast $137 a year. It’ll keep you in icepicks.”
“Keep talking, Blomberg. You’re digging your own grave.”
Remo glanced at his watch. Time to go.
“Musso,” he said. “I don’t have any more time to play. The game’s over.”
He took a step forward toward Musso and Musso lunged with the pick. He jabbed only air, and then he saw Blomberg’s hand close around the blade of the pick and it was pulled out from Musso’s hand.
Then Blomberg was behind him, between Musso and his car, and he was waving the pick at Musso, who started to back off. He took one step back and then dove forward at Remo. He saw lights. Then just darkness.
Musso awakened moments later. He was sore and his back was wet. It was dark where he was and he shook his head, trying to clear his vision. He was looking up at the ceiling, lying on his back on the hood of his Cadillac.
He started to rise to a sitting position but then a hand slapped at his throat and he was knocked backward. He turned his head. There was this Remo Blomberg, still holding the pick blade, smiling at him.
“Tell me, something, Musso, did you like your work?”
“Yeah, punk.”
“And how about Curpwell? You enjoy killing him?”
“Yeah. As much as anyone.”
“Good. This is one for him.” And then the icepick flashed up into the air and Musso closed his eyes so he wouldn’t see it kill him, but it missed all his vital organs. It came down instead through his wrist, and under his wrist it punctured the steel hood of the car. Remo twisted the pick and bent it so Musso couldn’t pull it out, and he was nailed there to the hood of his car like a deer in hunting season.
“Think of me in that great car wash up yonder,” Remo said.
He walked away. The shock and pain from his wrist paralyzed Musso, but he turned his head and through the windshield of the Cadillac he could see Remo digging into his pocket out at the entrance to the car wash. He brought something out of his pocket—coins—and then he dropped them into a chute.
Suddenly, Musso was enveloped by a whir and then a roar. Hot water poured into his face. Soap jets shot at him, filling his nose and mouth as he tried to scream from the scalding, and he could feel bubbles forming inside his head. He wrenched and yanked, trying to pull himself free, but he could not.
He fell back and looked up. The whirring came from the overhead brushes, giant brushes, two feet in diameter; they were lowering now, coming down, only inches away, then touching Musso’s face. They began to spin. He felt the first bristle flick away a gouge of skin from his face. The bristles kept turning, brushing his face, it felt like nothing more than an uncomfortable sunburn, but then the pressure came down harder and harder on him, and there was no skin left to burn, so he could feel the raw flesh stinging where the soap was jetted into it. Now he could hear his clothes ripping under the pressure of the brushes. There was more steaming hot water. Then Musso remembered nothing.
Remo waited a full ten minutes at the control panel of the car wash. Then he flipped the lever that activated the conveyor chains and the Cadillac began to lurch forward. Remo fished again into his pocket.
When his body was found the next morning, Musso would be dry and sparkling. Remo had thrown in an extra quarter to give him the special diamond-hard wax finish.
· · ·
Back in the car, Chiun was still looking at the map. “Korea is not on this map,” he said as Remo got behind the wheel.
“No. It’s a map of California,” Remo said.
“A map without Korea is no map at all,” Chiun said, rolled down his window and tossed the map out onto the crushed rock driveway.
“Tell me,” he added, “are you always so melodramatic?”
“Only when I know you’re watching, little father,” Remo said, driving away.
“Watching? Who would watch such a display?”
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
IT WAS GROWING DARK WHEN they got back to town but Wyatt’s black-and-white squad car was still parked in front of his office. Remo and Chiun parked across the street in a supermarket parking lot and waited.
It was almost an hour before Wyatt stepped from his front door. Remo spotted his Stetson rolling from side to side on his head as he walked around to get into his car. He still carried the brown leather valise.
Wyatt paused at his door a moment, then looked both ways before sliding in behind the wheel.
He pulled from the parking spot, drove to the end of the block and turned left, heading out of town. Remo eased out of his parking spot and fell in line, a car behind Wyatt, keeping his eyes trained on the oval stoplights on the back of the sheriff’s car.
Then Wyatt turned again and he was moving out, faster now, out onto the highway leading up into the San Bernardino Mountains. It was dark now. Remo turned off his lights and drove in darkness, two hundred and fifty yards behind Wyatt.
Remo recognized the road. It was the way to the Richter Institute. So it was Dr. Quake.
Now there could be no mistake about their destination, as Wyatt turned off the main highway onto the narrow branch that led only to the shelf of mountain on which the institute was located.
Remo kept his two hundred and fifty yards distance. Then up ahead, he saw the tail lights on Wyatt’s car flash on and off as he tapped the brake, then come on to stay as he rolled to a stop. Remo quickly shifted into low, to brake the car, then into neutral and turned off the key so Wyatt could not hear the motor. He let the car roll forward, slowing it with his parking brake, finally rolling it to a stop in the darkness one hundred yards behind Wyatt.
That was odd, he thought. Wyatt had stopped short of the bridge that led up into the institute’s parking area. Then Wyatt was out of the car. Instead of heading up toward the institute, he began walking along the base of the cliff. Remo remembered the trailer there. He had seen the Volkswagen bus parked in front of it the first day. It was the girls’ trailer. The twins. Jacki and Jill. They were behind the quakes.
He had been a damn fool not to realize it before. Of course. They had the device. Probably had made more than one of them. Poor dumb Dr. Quake knew nothing about it. The women’s libbers, they were doing it. Probably just for the dough.
