Feast or Famine td-107 Read online

  "It's New York. Nothing is unusual here."

  "Point taken," said Tammy. "Thanks. You can go now."

  The officer went back to directing traffic. Tammy went back to accosting the lunch crowd.

  "Anyone who saw the death here yesterday gets to be on TV," she announced.

  Faces brightened, and suddenly Tammy was surrounded by helpful citizens crying, "I saw him! I saw him!"

  "I did, too. He was short and fat."

  "No, tall and bean-poley."

  "Actually, it was a woman."

  "Forget it," said Tammy, disgusted with her opportunistic fellow men.

  "I guess we pack it in," she told her cameraman dejectedly.

  "You discourage easy."

  "It's a discouraging game. I've been in it over two years and I'm not rich and famous yet."

  "Life's an ordeal and then you fall into a pine box," the cameraman commiserated.

  At that moment, Tommy's steely blue gaze fell on a light pole.

  "What's that?"

  The cameraman looked up. A thick clump of orange-and-black matter hung from the streetlight hood. It made him think of some kind of fungus, except pieces of it crawled along the surface.

  "Bees. They're swarming."

  "That's what I thought. Bees hum, don't they?"

  "Actually, they kinda drone."

  "The cop said the suspect hit man was wearing a Charlotte Hornets cap ...." Tammy mused.

  "He didn't say 'suspect hit man.' That was your idea."

  "Shut up! Shoot that light pole."

  The cameraman shrugged and hefted his minicam onto his shoulder while Tammy chewed her red lower lip and said, "It's too much of a coincidence."

  "What is?"

  "That the hit man would be wearing a Hornets cap on the same site where bees were swarming."

  "We don't know those bees were here yesterday."

  "We don't know they weren't. And there's nobody here to say different."

  The film shot, Tammy rushed the cameraman back into the van. She got her news director on the cell phone.

  "Nice linking," Clyde said.

  "Is it a story?" asked Tammy.

  "Check out the medical examiner."

  "Does this mean face time?"

  "Get a shot of the eyeless dead guy, and I guarantee it," Tammy was promised.

  As the van lumbered through crosstown traffic, Tammy was musing, "Do bees eat things?"

  "Everything eats things."

  "No, I mean like meat."

  "Depends on the meat if they do."

  "I wonder if bees could eat a man's eyes out."

  "That kind of meat I don't think so. And weren't you raised on a farm?"

  "I didn't pay too much attention to farm stuff. I was too busy trying to get out of the flatlands."

  "I've heard of dragonflies sewing people's mouths shut, but not bees who eat eyes."

  "Who cares about bugs anyway?"

  "I don't know. Sounds like a Fox story to me-killer bees eat man's eyeballs."

  Tammy snapped her fingers. "Killer bees. Wasn't that a big story about ten years ago?"

  "Sure."

  "Killer bees. They were down in Texas or something. Whatever happened to them?"

  The cameraman made a nonchalant face. "Search me. I guess they died out."

  "Well, they're back and if my theory is on the money, they're going to be the story of the century."

  "What theory?"

  "Mind your driving. I'm still working on it."

  Chapter 7

  "Tamara Terrill. Fox News. I'm here to see the medical examiner."

  "He's conducting an important autopsy right now," the desk guard said, looking up at the electric sight of the blond newswoman towering over him, her chest puffed out to its greatest expanse. It was a noteworthy chest.

  "Great. Stiffs make wonderful TV. C'mon, Fred."

  "It's 'Bob,'" the cameraman said.

  "Hey, you can't-"

  "Shoot us, and we'll shoot back," the cameraman said, turning the harsh glare of his minicam light on the guard.

  That was enough to get them into the building.

  It was a maze of bone-colored brick, with toe-tagged bodies on rolling carts and formaldehyde aroma. The cameraman happily shot every hanging ice-cold hand and blue tagged-toe he could.

  "We don't need that stuff," Tammy snapped.

  "If we don't, I can sell it as stock footage to the 'X-Files' people."

  The M.E. was bent over a dead man lying inert on a white porcelain autopsy table. It looked as if it had been hosting corpses since before the days of Prohibition. The M.E. didn't look up.

  "I am busy here."

  "You the medical examiner?" Tammy asked.

  "Please douse that light."

  Tammy snapped her fingers. The light went off.

  "Tamara Terrill. Fox News. I'd like to talk to you about the dead man you autopsied yesterday."

  "I autopsied many dead men yesterday. This is New York, after all."

  "This dead man had his eyes eaten out of his sockets," Tammy explained.

  "Yes, I am familiar with that case."

  "In your expert medical opinion, could killer bees have done that?"

  The M.E. snapped out of his professional trance and looked up at Tammy for the first time.

  "Bees?"

  "Killer bees. From Brazil."

  "Why do you ask about bees?"

  "There's a swarm of them attached to the light post over the crime scene."

  "And why do you call it a crime scene, may I ask?"

  "We'll get to that. Answer my question and I'll answer yours."

  "I did not perform the autopsy on Doyal Rand, I confess."

  "Oh. Well, I need to talk to the guy who did."

  "I am sorry to disappoint you, but you cannot do that."

  "You don't know how determined I am."

  "I am sure you are quite capable, but the man in question happens to be the man I am presently autopsying."

  Tammy blinked and said, "What?" and then added, "What did you say?"

  "I am the new medical examiner. My predecessor lies here on this slab."

  Tammy walked up, looked at the dead face and asked, "What happened to him?"

  "He was found dead in this very room this morning."

  "What killed him?"

  "That, I am attempting to ascertain."

  "Could it have been killer bees?"

  "Killer bees, as I recall, are not normally fatal unless one is stung by great numbers of them."

  "Was this guy stung at all?"

  "It is a thought." And the M.E. went back to his duties.

  Tammy watched.

  The M.E. was speaking into a microphone suspended before his face on a flexible snake.

  "Subject is a white male 180 centimeters tall and weighing seventy-seven kilograms. There are no discernible marks or contusions visible on the body ...."

  "Are you getting this?" Tammy hissed to her cameraman.

  The man rolled tape.

  The M.E. was saying, "The throat and tongue appear swollen, and there is evidence of cardiac arrest. Lividity is normal, and rigor has not yet commenced."

  "What's that?" Tammy interrupted.

  The M.E. looked up. He saw Tammy's gesturing finger, and his eyes jumped to the spot on the dead man's shoulder where she was pointing.

  Taking up a magnifying glass, the surviving M.E. examined the mark.

  "Looks red," Tammy said helpfully.

  "I can see that," the M.E. snapped.

  "A moment ago, you were saying there were no marks."

  "Hush!" the M.E. said.

  With a tweezer taken up from a stainless-steel tray, he brushed at a tiny dark dimple embedded in the center of the red mark.

  "Odd."

  "What?"

  "It appears to be insect fragments."

  "A bee! Could it be a bee?"

  "They appear to be too small for that."

  "Oh," said Tammy, deflatin
g.

  Carefully, the M.E. scraped the fragments into a waiting envelope. He carried them over to a microscope, deposited the fragments onto a glass slide and inserted it into the microscope.

  Bending over, he peered within.

  "Can I see?"

  "No."

  "Okay, can you tell me what you see?"

  "I see the crushed remains of a very small insect."

  "A killer bee! It's got to be a killer bee!"

  "I am no specialist, but bees don't grow to this size. It cannot be a bee."

  "It's gotta be a bee. If it's not a bee, I have no killer-bee story. I need a killer bee for my story."

  "It is not a bee of any kind," the M.E. said, straightening. "But this is very strange. I don't know what kind of insect could inject a man with fatal consequences."

  "A wasp, maybe? Could it be a killer wasp?" No.

  "How about a hornet? The alleged hit man was wearing a Charlotte Hornets ball cap."

  The M.E. looked at Tammy Terrill as if she were not quite sane. "What are you babbling about, miss?"

  "Nothing. Aren't you going to test the body for bee venom?"

  "I will examine the tissues for foreign toxins, of course. But I don't expect to find bee venom. And now I must ask you to leave this building."

  "You're welcome," Tammy said frostily.

  OUTSIDE, SHE SNAPPED Open her cell phone and got her news director.

  "I think I have a story, Clyde. Listen to this ...."

  At the end of it, Smoot was skeptical. "Killer bees are passe. Strictly seventies."

  "I think they're back. Put me on the air, and let's see where this goes."

  "You're on. But first get to the library."

  "What's there?"

  "Books on bees. Do your research. I want this story backed up by hard facts."

  "I have film and a chain of coincidences. What do I need facts for?"

  "Facts," the Fox news director said, "will keep the snowball rolling down the happy hill. And the longer it rolls, the bigger it will be."

  "Not as big as I will be," Tammy breathed, clicking off.

  Chapter 8

  "Her name is Grandmother Mulberry," said Remo into the pay phone at the Vietnamese market around the corner from Castle Sinanju.

  "First name?" asked Harold Smith.

  "That's all I have. I think it's an alias. And dollars to doughnuts she's an illegal. I want her deported. Preferably to the dark side of the moon."

  "What will the Master of Sinanju say?"

  "This time, for once, I don't freaking care. He can storm around like Donald Duck, screaming like Chicken Little and make my life generally miserable. I want the old bat out of my hair and my life."

  "One moment, Remo."

  Harold Smith was at his Folcroft desk. The buried amber monitor was active. Tapping the illuminated capacity keyboard with his thin gray fingers, he input "Mulberry" and executed a global search of his data base.

  He was expecting no results from such meager data, but Smith's gray right eyebrow involuntarily jumped as something popped up. He read it through the lenses of his rimless glasses.

  "Remo, I believe I can confirm 'Grandmother Mulberry' is an alias."

  "I knew it! What's her real name?"

  "According to this, Grandma Mulberry was an historical or possibly mythical person in old Korea. She was left stranded by the closing of the tides over a stone bridge to an island, her fate unknown."

  "How long ago did this happen?"

  "An estimated five hundred years ago."

  "Well, the old bat looks old enough to be that Grandmother Mulberry," Remo said sourly.

  "I suspect Master Chiun is playing a joke on you."

  "How about if I get you her fingerprints?"

  "If she is illegal, they will be useless," Smith answered. "And if she is legal, she cannot be deported."

  "What if she's a North Korean spy?"

  "That is a farfetched theory."

  "I'll grasp at any shaky straw at this point."

  The Nynex computer operator asked Remo for another dime, and he deposited the coin.

  "Why are you calling from a pay phone?" Smith asked.

  "So nobody knows it's me dropping a dime on the old bat."

  "We may have to live with this woman until Chiun decides otherwise," Smith said.

  "That's easy for you to say. You don't have to live with her."

  "She calls me Sourpuss when I answer," Smith said.

  "It's better than being a pussy-willow-faced pillow-biter," Remo growled.

  "What did you say, Remo?"

  "Never mind. Look, I'm going stir-crazy here. Got an assignment for me? I'll happily squash any terrorist or mafioso you care to finger."

  "There is nothing on my desk at the moment."

  "Are there riots anywhere? Send me to the worst section of Washington, D.C. I'll clean up the crack houses and paint them any color you want."

  "Local law enforcement will handle Washington, D.C."

  "Not from what I read. The town is practically a Third World hellhole, and no one can do anything about it."

  Smith sighed like a leaky radiator valve. "If you stay on the line, I'll see what my system comes up with."

  A dollar-fifty in change later, Smith's voice came back on the line.

  "Remo, a man was killed yesterday in a bizarre fashion."

  "It would have to be real bizarre to impress me. I've seen bizarre. I've done bizarre. What's your definition of bizarre?"

  "He collapsed while crossing Seventh Avenue at Times Square and was found with his eyes and brains consumed by some as-yet-unknown agency."

  "Sounds like the IRS to me."

  Smith's voice actually winced audibly. "That is not funny."

  "But it's true. You've been audited. Okay, it's bizarre. Where do I start?"

  "I want you and Chiun-"

  "Whoa! Where does Chiun fit into this?"

  "The medical examiner who autopsied the victim died himself under strange circumstances. Chiun is an expert on exotic deaths, especially poisons. His knowledgeable eye might be useful."

  "As long at that Korean battle-ax doesn't tag along," Remo growled, looking over his shoulder at Castle Sinanju.

  "See that she does not," said Smith, and hung up.

  RETURNING HOME, Remo broke the news to the Master of Sinanju.

  "Smith's got an assignment for us."

  "You go. I am busy."

  Remo saw that the Master of Sinanju was sorting teas. Oolongs and Pekoes and greens in tin containers were arrayed about him on the floor. Chiun carefully opened and sniffed each container, disposing of stuff that had gone bad. He reminded Remo of King Croesus counting his wealth.

  "Smith says you're needed on this one."

  Chiun looked up, delight touching his wrinkled countenance. "Emperor Smith said that. Truly?"

  "Yeah. A guy was killed somehow. When they found him, his brains and eyes were missing. Then the guy who did the autopsy died under mysterious circumstances."

  "Someone does not wish the truth to be discovered."

  "What truth?"

  "The truth which we will soon discover."

  "Smith said the second guy died of poison. You know about poisons. That's why your help is needed here," Remo explained.

  The Master of Sinanju rose to his feet, a golden puffball with rose-stem limbs.

  "I go where my emperor bids me to go," he intoned, his visage suffused with a golden pride.

  "You go where he says because it keeps the gold flowing."

  "Do not be crass, Remo."

  "I call them as I see them."

  "That is the motto of the crass."

  THE MEDICAL EXAMINER in Manhattan examined Remo's Department of Health credentials, eyed the Master of Sinanju with a mixture of dubiousness and, nodding respectfully, he said, "I have not yet determined a cause of death."

  "For which one-the victim or the guy who autopsied him?"

  "Either. Come this way."
r />   The two dead men occupied adjoining refrigerated drawers. Dr. Schiff-his card read Norman Schiff-pulled out the body of Doyal T. Rand first, and the Master of Sinanju bustled up to examine it critically.

  "For all intents and purposes, this man's head has been emptied of all organic matter except for the skull bones," Dr. Schiff explained.

  "What would do that?"

  "This is so far into the realm of the unknown that I wouldn't venture a guess. But the brain matter showed signs my predecessor ascribed to having been thoroughly chewed."

  "Chewed?"

  "Chewed."

  "Something ate his brain?" Remo asked.

  "It would appear so."

  The drawer rolled shut. Out came the cadaver of the chief medical examiner for Manhattan until that morning.

  "I have found what appears to be an insect bite on Dr. Quirk's shoulder."

  Chiun peered at the bite site and said, "A bad bee did this."

  "Insect parts were found, but they were too small to support the bee theory."

  "It was a very small bee," Chiun said.

  Dr. Schiff frowned fiercely. "I am in contact with one of the most renowned entomologists in the country, and he says no bee that small exists in nature. Therefore, it was not a bee."

  Chiun asked, "Where is the corpse of the bee?"

  "Follow me."

  They were shown the microscope, and it was turned on.

  "Without this contraption for the blind," said Chiun.

  "Beg pardon?"

  "I prefer my naked eyes."

  "But you will not be able to see anything."

  "Do what he says," suggested Remo. "He's the big cheese in his speciality."

  "What is your specialty, might I ask?" Schiff inquired of Chiun.

  "Death," said Chiun in a chilly tone.

  Shrugging, the M.E. shut off the microscope and extracted the slide. He handed it to Chiun, who lifted it to the light.

  Chiun subjected the slide to the critical acuity of first one eye, then the other. Remo leaned over, but Chiun faded back, hissing, "You are in my light, oafish one."

  "Sorry," said Remo, stepping around to the other side.

  "I see bug parts," said Remo.

  Chiun nodded. "Yes, these look like the parts of a bug."

  "Of course," said the M.E., who was astonished that these two could discern this with only their unassisted eyes.

  "Bee parts," Chiun added.

  "No bees are so small," the M.E. insisted. "I have this on the highest authority."

  "Who's that?"

  "Dr. Helwig X. Wurmlinger, the renowned entomologist."