Sue me, p.13
Sue Me, page 13
Remo listened to all this and both he and Chiun sensed something else was at work here, something far more dangerous than a change of venue, something that was going to kill.
They were right. What they didn’t know was that it was about to happen onstage.
CHAPTER EIGHT
AT FIRST EVERYONE THOUGHT it was part of the song, a great new song, the rock hit of the decade. All the singers were screaming, some of them clawing to get off the stage. Others crawled and still others punched and pushed, and someone at a microphone cried out.
“Lord help us. Help us. Help.”
The audience applauded as the center of the wooden stage began to sag and then with a sickening crack, it collapsed. Bodies fell into each other. Guitars and bones cracked in the onslaught. The center-stage singers were crushed under the load, smothered by the bodies of those who fell on top of them. It was a full minute before the audience realized this wasn’t the best rock piece they had ever heard but a disaster.
Remo and Chiun saw immediately that the people were in trouble, not singing about it. Using the wires, they pulled Debbie and her guitar free and then dove into the center of the surging mass of bodies, lifting off rock stars, passing them up over the side of the stage. Those on the bottom could not be saved, but they managed to get the upper layers free so that doctors could get to those who were still alive at the bottom.
At the lower levels the bodies were slippery from the blood.
Some of the rock stars didn’t realize what happened for the whole evening. One of them, with a punctured lung and enough cocaine coursing through his blood to numb the whole of southern California, only discovered he was injured when he tried to sing and nothing came out but blood.
Another with a broken hip, completely smashed on Quaaludes, thought she couldn’t walk because this time she’d taken one pill too many. The idea made her giggle.
Debbie Pattie was furious that Remo and Chiun yanked her off the stage before she could get in front of the cameras.
“I hated all this anyway. All those other people sharing the attention. I was going crazy. I had withdrawals. I know others did, too.”
One thing did make her feel better. At least it showed Remo that rock stars not only gave of their time and money but also of their blood.
“You can’t say we’re not saving now,” said Debbie.
Remo ripped off the wires, and so did Chiun.
“Why do you use such sticky wires?” he asked.
“Hey, I’m talking to you. I said you can’t say we’re not saving now,” said Debbie. “I mean, people are bleeding on that stage.”
“I didn’t say you didn’t mean well,” said Remo. “I just said jumping up and down and screaming ’Save’ over and over doesn’t mean anything. You’re not saving people by dying, any more than you’re saving people by screaming.”
“That’s singing,” said Debbie.
“Whatever,” said Remo. “Do you always use wires that stick?”
Debbie shrugged. She hired people for that. She honestly didn’t know how a light bulb worked, but when you made enough money, things just were supposed to work or you fired people.
“That’s the difference between singers and nobodies,” said Debbie.
Remo noticed that Rizzuto, who was standing at the front of the stage, had escaped the collapse of its center by simply jumping off. Being a good trial lawyer, he had the presence of mind to look for an open microphone. Finding one, he gave a last message to the people.
“Do not let them die in vain. Do not let them bleed in vain, everyone, you here and across the world, support change of venue for negligence. Please, I beg you in the name of humanity, the suffering humanity you see here, and the suffering you don’t see which is even worse, write your congressmen. March in the streets. Barricade your courtrooms, Americans, because if the venue isn’t changed to America, if it stays in Gupta where human life routinely suffers extermination by the powerful, then, friends, no humanity is safe. No mother is safe. No child is safe. No one is safe. You are not safe.”
A stagehand wanted to borrow the microphone for a minute to get people in the rear to open a way for an ambulance. Rizzuto put his hand over the microphone.
“In a minute. In a minute, all right?”
“People are dying here, buddy. We got to get the ambulance.”
“I said in a minute,” said Rizzuto, and made one more appeal for the change of venue, this time telling the people in so many words that if they helped the class-action suit against International Carborundum & Phosphate, they would be saving their own air, their own water and, as Rizzuto put it with a trembling voice, “your own green, green grass of home.”
Debbie Pattie saw Remo start to break away from her to get to Rizzuto.
“Hey, you’re the luckiest man in the world. I’m ready to ball you. Let’s go.”
“Later,” said Remo.
“Hey, I’m the most sexually desirable female in America,” said Debbie.
“Sorry.”
“Then I’ll ball the old man, and he’ll tell you what you missed. Everyone says I’m great in bed, everyone lucky enough.”
“Fine,” said Remo, easing his way through the stretchers and wounded. He knew that Debbie had as much chance of getting Chiun into bed as the pope. No, the pope would be easier. But if he told her that, she would keep bothering Chiun all night. Debbie Pattie wanted only one thing in life, it seemed. Whatever someone told her she couldn’t have.
The thing that struck Remo about Rizzuto was that the man was only pressing the Gupta case. If each of those rock stars earned millions, and many of them would not be able to perform again, the size of the negligence suit would be awesome. And yet when Rizzuto dusted himself off, he went happily looking for what he called “action.”
In Gupta, according to what Chiun found out, Rizzuto was right on the scene with a well-prepared case. Here, he walked past millions of dollars in liability, telling Remo that he thought he might know of a crap game in the hotel. Remo followed him, and that was exactly where Rizzuto went. There was a bigger negligence case on that one stage that evening than in all of Gupta, but Rizzuto ignored it.
And Palmer, Rizzuto & Schwartz with a man already on the scene, made no move to get any part of it. In fact, it was one of the few really major cases that year that the firm didn’t get.
Remo contacted Smith on a public phone. Somehow, and of course Remo did not know how, the line was secure the moment contact was made.
“Smitty. I don’t know that this detective thing is getting anywhere. I can’t figure out a lot of this. A lot of things don’t make sense. What if we just gently hang Rizzuto out of a window somewhere and find out what really makes them tick, and then you move the evidence somewhere?”
“Holding someone out a window, Remo, is not evidence. Just find out how they’re doing this, how they’re causing these accidents, and I can get the evidence worked up from here for some prosecutor. We’ve got to destroy these guys in a courtroom. We’ve got to have the law appear as though it’s taking care of its own. Legally we have to do what Chiun always wants us to do. Hang a head on the wall.”
“I don’t even know where the wall is in this case.”
“Keep on it. And by the way, are you all right?”
“You mean that crazy business, or what you called that crazy business? Yeah. I’m fine. I haven’t had a desire to do something decent for days. I just run around after people.”
“I wasn’t talking about that, Remo.”
“What were you talking about?”
“To be honest, Remo, I don’t know. Something is wrong. We’re not getting the right readings from our sources. I backed everything off to the perimeters of the law firm’s business and still our own system doesn’t seem to make headway with them. We have a program that checks and analyzes every call they make. It’s done automatically, even analyzed by the program itself. But every time their phone system connects to the Midwest it seems to suddenly go blank with an incredible amount of static.”
“Like the system you use, Smitty?” asked Remo.
“Something like that, Remo. Except we’re the only ones in the world who are supposed to have it. Or know how it works.”
“So?”
“So, there’s been an even stranger silence from that firm that I can’t figure out. It’s like that quiet in the jungle before a tiger strikes. Have you ever seen a cat stalk prey?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. What are you getting at?”
“I think you’re being stalked by someone or something.”
“Why?”
“A hunch.”
“Smitty, you don’t play hunches. You don’t even have hunches. In fact, I wonder if you have feelings sometimes. So how come you’re coming up with hunches all of a sudden?”
“Because some of our systems don’t seem to be working quite right. Granted, no one has penetrated us. But there is that strange sense of things like in the jungle when the birds stop singing.”
“You’re going crazy,” said Remo.
“Watch yourself, all right?”
“Me and Chiun. Who do we have to be afraid of?”
“Didn’t Chiun tell you?”
“Has he made contact with you?”
“I thought it would be a good safety precaution for me to keep in touch with you both.”
“Because you think I’m crazy.”
“Because I don’t know what you’re going to do. And it’s a good thing I do have contact with Chiun because he thinks that for your own safety perhaps you should take off for a year or two and get out of the country, come back later when things are safer.”
“He’s hustling you. He wants us to get in on some business elsewhere. Nothing’s bothering him. Is that where your hunch came from?”
“No. I’m warning you too. You’re being stalked.”
“You’re both crazy,” said Remo, and hung up.
In Folcroft Sanitarium, Harold W. Smith watched the computer screen taking readouts from a network across the nation. He wondered if he were losing his mental balance. After all, he really didn’t play hunches and had never trusted them. Yet why did he have this feeling that not only was Remo being stalked, but by something he might ultimately be helpless against? Was the organization going to lose him after all these years? And if so, what would happen to the organization? It had come to rely on Remo and Chiun, perhaps too much.
Harold W. Smith did not like hunches because he couldn’t analyze them. He could not explain in hard facts why his senses kept telling him Remo was now up against perhaps the one thing he couldn’t handle. And there was no rational evidence for it. He had absolutely no idea of what that one thing was.
· · ·
In the plush suite of Palmer, Rizzuto & Schwartz it was Palmer who almost threw a chair through the glass case enshrining their old storefront-office desk.
“What is that idiot Rizzuto doing? There are hundreds of millions of dollars to be made on that stage. Why is he talking about stinking little Gupta? Forget Gupta. Was Debbie Pattie hurt? If she were hurt we could earn double Dastrow’s fee for Gupta.”
“I think it was a real accident,” said Schwartz.
“How do you know?”
“I don’t know,” said Schwartz. “I forget what they look like anymore.”
“As good as Dastrow’s,” said Palmer. “But they’re more spontaneous, right?”
“Dastrow’s are spontaneous. There’s nothing more spontaneous than an air disaster. Dastrow’s are very spontaneous. That’s why we use him. The man is incredibly safe. But so what if this thing isn’t his? That doesn’t mean we can’t clean up anyway. And Rizzuto’s sitting on his goddamned hands out there.”
“I never thought of rock concerts. What about the Academy Awards? Can you think of the value of an entire auditorium filled with producers, stars, directors, writers?” asked Schwartz. He rubbed his hands. He thought of having the auditorium collapse after the awards were given out so the winning victims would be worth more.
“You mean do an Academy Awards?” said Palmer. “Dastrow asks money up front.”
“Give him a contingency fee like we work on.”
“Writers aren’t worth much,” said Palmer. “We don’t need the writers. We can do it without the writers. You don’t get anything for writers.”
“We can say the builders who negligently let that auditorium blow up or collapse or whatever Dastrow does with it, maybe poisons the air or something, we can say their lost lives are robbing our entire civilization of art.”
“To say nothing of the studios’ incomes.”
“Yes, studios. The studios will be good.”
Palmer dialed Dastrow’s number and waited for the callback. It came about evening time as the sun set over the Pacific and Palmer, Rizzuto & Schwartz employees headed home on clogged freeways and Schwartz dozed.
“Listen. The accident in Chicago with the Gupta benefit gave me a great idea, Bob. A truly great idea. A wonderful idea. Instead of some accident with rock stars, what about the Academy Awards? We couldn’t pay you up front, but perhaps a contingency-basis sort of thing… Bob, are you there, Bob?”
“I’m here,” said Dastrow. “I’m just looking at something.”
“What do you think?”
“About the Academy Awards?”
“That’s right.”
“I’ve already done an entertainment group,” said Dastrow.
“You mean the Chicago rock disaster was yours?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Are you working with someone else? Is that it? You think we’re broke and you’re working with someone else,” Palmer moaned.
“No. You are the lawyers who work. You’re the lawyers who work well with the sort of thing I do. You’re the sort of lawyers I can always count on for this sort of work. You’re fine.”
“Then why did you do Chicago? We never discussed Chicago.”
“I am trying to find out how something works.”
“How what works?” screamed Palmer. Dastrow was always difficult in his own Midwest hayseed way. But this was impossible.
“What is going to destroy you if I don’t.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m not doing it for you, Palmer. I’ve never done anything for you. Let’s not be confused here. I do things for myself. If they get you, they’re going to get me.”
“They? Who are ’they’?”
“That’s why I returned your call. I thought you might be able to tell me something about them. Most peculiar people I have ever seen. Absolutely strange. If you knew what I know, you would jump out of your windows right now.”
“What do you know?”
“I know it’s going to be fun, finding out what goes on with these two. I know I’m going to remove them from our lives forever. I know, dear Palmer, how things work.”
And Dastrow hung up.
“What did he say?” asked Schwartz.
“He said no to a contingency-fee basis,” said Palmer, “and Chicago was his, and no, he’s not working with anyone else. You know, Arnold, I think that Midwest hoopie has found out how we work. After all these years, I think I realize he’s been using us.”
“Can we sue?”
“Go flash your Rolex,” said Palmer. “If we were to sue Dastrow, the entire courtroom would turn against us. I guess I should have known that eventually he would have figured out how the legal system works. He figures out everything eventually. Could you imagine if his genius were somehow harnessed for good?”
“It is. He’s making us money. We employ people. Our lawsuits help keep corporations more careful. By serving Palmer, Rizzuto & Schwartz, Robert Dastrow serves America in ways he may never fathom,” said Schwartz.
“Do you honestly believe that nonsense?” asked Palmer.
“Just practicing,” said Schwartz.
· · ·
Robert Dastrow could not believe his calculations. And yet there they were. The Chicago disaster had worked to perfection. Without bodyguards, Debbie Pattie had to use those two who knew how Gupta worked but not how machines worked.
They, in turn, had responded to the disaster in front of them. Dastrow would have been satisfied with a quick leap back to safety, But instead, he got more body action than he could have hoped for.
He got tests of strength. Quickness. Balance. Nervous system, and of course blood-pressure levels and the intricate motor responses that made limbs work, all during the course of extreme stress.
Built into the power lines to Debbie Pattie’s guitar were sensors to measure the body responses of those who held them. The lines were coated with thick, sticky conducting fluid to give better readings.
And the most amazing thing appeared to Robert Dastrow, like some strange jewel in an exotic clock that kept time as no other instrument might.
He held the white-and-green paper readouts in his hands, quivering with excitement in the large machine shop he had built underground at his Grand Island, Nebraska, estate. In those black numbers on the coarse paper, he saw evidence of balance that would be more appropriate to a cat than a human. He saw a nervous system respond with a strong, sure precision, as regular and dependable as radio waves from the center of the galaxy, and he saw awesome strength coupled with an unbelievably perfect muscular symmetry.
He glanced around the machine shop. There were more tools and instruments here than in most defense laboratories. The fluorescent lights glittered on the shiny instrument panels. Robert Dastrow felt his mouth go dry. He could think of only one thing seeing these figures, a poem by an Englishman.
“Tiger! Tiger! burning bright, in the forests of the night, what immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?”
Was that what William Blake was talking about? Dastrow had always thought the poet was talking about the basic force of the universe. Did life follow art?
They certainly didn’t understand mechanical things. Where did their power come from? From this symmetry? Would they at last use it against Palmer, Rizzuto & Schwartz and in so doing inevitably reach Dastrow himself? And what had kept them from using this force against Rizzuto, the dramatic mouthpiece of the firm?
