"Back!" Fosdick cried as he retreated at top speed through the suite's open door.
Before Sternovsky could follow, he was knocked to one side by the scrambling orderlies. Because of the mad rush to escape, the biochemist was the last person to exit Grape's room before the door was slammed shut and bolted. As the American staggered back into the middle of the hallway, everyone could see that his white sterile suit was no longer white, but a gaudy speckle of tiny red drops.
From the other side of the door, an animal roar of triumph shook the very walls.
"He pulled their heads off," Sternovsky moaned as he sagged to his knees. "I saw him do it."
No one said a word.
Fosdick Fing looked down at the American without expression, his arms folded defensively across his chest.
Before Fosdick could back away out of reach, Sternovsky snatched hold of the lapel of his lab coat, pulled the research chemist's face down close to his own and shouted, "My God, he twisted those men's heads off like they were chickens?"
Chapter 20
Jimmy Koch-Roche sat behind the steering wheel of his parked V-12 Jaguar four-door sedan. He was able to drive the vehicle thanks to a custom booster seat that allowed him to see over the dashboard and out the front windshield. He wasn't looking that way at the moment, though. He was turned toward the rear, watching his recently freed client stuff her beautiful face with pork rinds.
On the leather back seat of the Jag, Puma Lee-sex queen, fashion setter and homicidal maniac-ripped into yet another two-pound bag of lowbrow snack food. Once the package was open, she didn't bother picking out the chips of deep-fried animal fat with her fingers; that method was way too slow. Instead, she tipped the bag to her parted lips and shook it, letting the rinds fall into her mouth until it would hold no more. Without lowering the package from her lips, she chewed, swallowed and quickly shook again.
Needless to say, this gustatory technique was accompanied by considerable spillage.
The pork rinds tended to fragment and fly when crunched. From her jawline down, Puma's world-renowned, shoulder-length raven tresses were flecked with bits of yellow, crispy pig fat.
Already the rear of the Jaguar sedan looked like the inside of a Dumpster approaching pickup day. Every place a stray shard of pork rind landed, it left a grease mark. Shreds of plastic bag, well lubed on the inside, were drawn by static electricity to the headliner, the front seats, the dash. The overspray of Puma's feeding frenzy, a combination of animal fat, fry oil and her saliva, coated the inside of all the windows like they'd been sprayed with PAM.
It was a detail man's worst nightmare.
Using the very broadest of yardsticks, Jimmy Koch-Roche could be seen as a detail man, too. A very well compensated detail man. He picked up after his careless clients, buffed their scratches, vacuumed their dirt, air-freshened their sullied reputations. And like his automotive counterpart, none of the nasty stuff he dealt with ever stuck to him.
There was never any chewing gum on Jimmy's size-5 shoe.
Which was the main difference between a lawyer/ detail man and your average garbage collector. That and the pay, of course.
The image, public and self, that Koch-Roche projected was that of a scrappy little bantam rooster. He was keen eyed, short fused and always ready for a fight. He dearly loved his job. Not just because of the money, though that was certainly a major part of it. He liked having other people come to him for help. Rich, beautiful, tall people with terrible trouble, almost always self-inflicted. The weaknesses of his clients, despite their physical gifts, made him feel superior. And in a court of law, he was. Before the bar, Koch-Roche was the Terminator, the brute to be reckoned with. That they-tall, strong, lovely-had to come to him, sometimes begging, and that they had to part with large portions of their net worth in order to secure his services, was too, too delicious.
Every night before he crawled into his little bed, Jimmy Koch-Roche thanked the Lord he was a lawyer.
Puma Lee paused for air, lowering the half-full bag of rinds. As she did, the lawyer could see that her face, from nose to chin, was encrusted with tiny bits of fried fat. The actress lifted her right leg, marveling at the swell of her own thigh muscles, at the definition between rectus femoris and vastus medialis. Her tanned, oiled skin shone like silk. On her face was an expression of perfect delight.
Vanity and narcissism, Koch-Roche thought. What would he ever do without them?
"How are you feeling now?" he asked the movie star.
"Famished," Puma said. "Where's Chiz? He was supposed to bring more food." She returned to the pork-rind feed bag.
"He still doesn't answer his car phone," Jimmy told her. "I hope he didn't have an accident on the way..."
A rap on the outside of the driver's window interrupted him. He turned to face a uniformed officer, who made a "lower the window" motion with his hand. The attorney hit the power button.
"Today is definitely your lucky day, Jimmy," the cop said as the glass glided down. "Ms. Lee's husband was picked up a few minutes ago at a convenience store in Hollywood."
"On what charge?"
"Charges, actually. I'm afraid you'll have your hands full with this one. It's nine counts of first-degree murder. And they got the whole thing on the store's closed-circuit video. Major ugly. Graham gave up without a struggle, though. He should be arriving here any minute."
The officer looked past the attorney, around the Jag's headrest, into the back seat. "Sorry to bring you such bad news, ma'am," he said to the screen goddess.
Puma crumpled up the empty bag of pork rinds and threw it on the floor. Then, with a depth of emotion she rarely showed in her professional career, she said, "Isn't there anything else to eat?"
Chapter 21
"Isn't there anything else to eat?" Ludlow Baculum complained.
The old/young lawmaker was like a stuck record. Or a tape loop.
And it was beginning to piss off Remo, big-time. Bound securely hand and foot, the senator sat on the floor of the Koreatown bungalow in front of the Mitsuzuki Mondiale. Since he had regained consciousness, Baculum had been both lucid and passive, if completely uncooperative.
"No more food until we get some answers from you," Remo informed him. "We want to know who supplied you with the hormone drug."
"What difference does that make?" Baculum replied. "WHE isn't illegal to sell or possess. On the other hand, kidnapping is very much illegal. And the kidnapping of a U.S. senator happens to be a capital crime."
"So we've heard," Remo said without interest. "I'll bet you're glad you voted for that bill."
"Who the hell are you two?" the senator demanded. "Who do you work for?"
"That isn't the issue here," Remo answered. "We need information. The drug you've been using is dangerous."
"That's preposterous. Look at me. I'm a new man. Better now than I ever was. How has it hurt me?"
"Ask your late wife."
The senator glared at Remo.
"There will be serious national-security problems if the use of WHE continues to spread," Remo said.
"So you're trying to make me think you're working for our government?" Baculum scoffed. "I wasn't born yesterday, you know. Since when does the DEA hire hit men?"
Remo decided not to get into that area of discussion with the senator. CURE's involvement had to remain secret at all costs.
"If this potion is not illegal," Chiun said from the comfort of the fully reclined La-Z-Boy, "then why are you so concerned about protecting the people who are giving it to you?"
"Because it is a rare and very expensive commodity that I want to keep on taking for a long, long time," the senator told him. "If I make trouble for my supplier, if I make him angry, he might cut me off."