Kill or Cure Read online

  He put on his gray worsted that morning, a television blue shirt, and when he sat down to breakfast, his wife Laura, still in curlers, put an envelope on his plate instead of soft-boiled two-minute eggs.

  “What’s this?” asked Farger.

  “Open it,” said his wife.

  “Where are my eggs?”

  “Open it.”

  So Willard Farger tore the end off the fat envelope and saw tightly compressed bills in it. He pulled them out slowly and was surprised to see that they were twenty-dollar bills. Thirty of them.

  “This is six hundred dollars, Laura,” he said. “Six hundred dollars. Not a bribe, is it? I can’t have my career ruined by a measly six hundred dollar bribe.”

  Laura Farger, who had seen her husband gratefully accept five dollars to fix a ticket, cocked a disdainful eyebrow.

  “It’s not a bribe. It’s mine. It was given to me for a magazine interview.”

  “Without checking with me? You don’t know how to handle reporters, Laura. You know nothing of the intricacies and the traps of the media. For a crummy six hundred dollars, you may have damaged my career. What did you tell the magazine?”

  “I told them you were a wonderful husband, a good family man, and that you loved dogs and children.”

  Farger pondered that statement for a moment.

  “Good. That was all right. Did you tell him anything else?”

  “No. Just that I’d speak to you. He wants to interview you.”

  “What magazine?”

  “I forget.”

  “You give an interview to a magazine and forget? Laura, how could you do this to me? Just as my career is taking off. An amateur handling the media is the most dangerous thing for a political career. Politics, Laura, is for pros, not housewives.”

  “He said he’d pay $6,000 for an interview with you.”

  “Cash?” said Willard Farger.

  “Cash,” said Laura Farger, who knew by the way her husband asked the question that she could count on at least a trip to Europe that year. Six thousand dollars went a long way. “The guy’s name who interviewed me was Remo something. I forget his last name.”

  “Cash,” mused Willard Farger.

  · · ·

  On a yacht cruising past the famous skyline of Miami Beach, a man who smelled heavily of lilac cologne heard complaints from Sheriff Clyde McAdow, Tim Cartwright—mayor of Miami Beach, and city manager Clyde Moskowitz.

  “Farger is becoming impossible,” said McAdow. “Impossible.”

  “Impossible,” said Mayor Cartwright.

  “Incredibly impossible,” said City Manager Moskowitz.

  “Idiots usually are,” said the man who smelled heavily of lilac cologne. “And you forget that if he were not an idiot, he would not have done what we wished.”

  “Which was?” Cartwright asked.

  “To make himself a target for the people who are trying to send you to jail, Mayor.”

  “Yeah. But what can they do to him now? Under the glare of all this publicity?”

  “Gentlemen, it is going to be a long hot day today and I intend to get some very good sleep. I would suggest you get some sleep also. When you asked my help, you said you would leave everything in my hands. Consider it left. And don’t panic if a few more idiots get killed.”

  The three politicians exchanged glances. Jail after indictment was one thing; murder and killing was something else totally.

  “Gentlemen, I see by your faces that you feel somewhat betrayed,” said the man with the lilac cologne. He was a squarish sort of man with heavy shoulders and a tubular waist, whose ample bulk made him appear shorter than his six-feet-two. His face had the smooth, unworried look of old wealth; the sort of tan one does not sit on the beach for, but acquires naturally when one lives in Palm Beach, eats breakfast on the patio and yachts extensively.

  Now he sat with a towel draped around his waist, lounging in the stateroom of his vessel with three nervous men in business suits.

  “Let me ask you a question,” the man said. “You blanch at killings. It offends you. Does it offend you enough, Mayor Cartwright, that you will return all the millions in graft, the diamonds in safe-deposit boxes, the stocks and bonds in Switzerland?” He ignored Cartwright’s open-mouthed stare, and went on. “And you, Sheriff, does it offend you enough to give up your wife’s 50 percent interest in the construction company which gets most of the city’s building contracts? And to give back the money which helped buy the auto dealership that you list under your brother-in-law’s name? And you, Mr. Moskowitz, how much does it offend you? Enough to give back all the money you have taken by adding 10 percent to every city purchase in the last five years?”

  He looked at the three men, hard, one after another.

  “You are surprised that I know these things,” he said. “But you forget. I have the notebook that Bullingsworth compiled and it is only the fact that I have it, and not he, that keeps you three from jail. The price I paid was his death; would you have me give a refund?

  “Now the simple fact is that a secret organization of the federal government has been planning for two years to put you all in jail. By following my advice, you have foiled this plan. Publicly exposing the government has made it impossible for the government to act against you. Now this secret organization is making its last attempt against you. And instead of letting you three be the targets, I am using poor, simple Willard Farger as the target. And suddenly you are struck with remorse. It is too late for attacks of conscience. If you wish to stay in office and out of prison, you must do it my way. Because no other way will work.”

  Mayor Cartwright and Sheriff McAdow were silent, unmoving, but City Manager Moskowitz shook his head vigorously from side to side.

  “If they wanted to get us, why not months ago, before Tim’s re-election campaign?” he asked.

  “For a simple reason,” the heavy-set man said. “If you were all indicted months ago, there would have been a mad scramble of contenders for your positions. The government’s plan was more clever, more insidious. They were going to let you get re-elected, Mayor Cartwright, and then indict you and your whole administration. In the confusion they were going to pick their own man to run the city.”

  “But now they can’t touch me,” Cartwright said. “My only opposition in the election next week is that silly ninny, Polaney. And if they try to indict me now, it’ll be a scandal. This is going to be bigger than Watergate. We’ve got them over a barrel.”

  “Watergate was done by amateurs,” the heavy-set man said.

  “Ex-CIA and FBI men,” said Cartwright defensively.

  The man shook his head. “When they worked for their former organizations, they worked in a context that made them competent and professional. On their own, they were stumbling, bumbling men taking risks that shouldn’t have been taken. No, gentlemen, you underestimate your opponents. You have uncovered a secret organization that has obviously operated effectively for years. Do you expect them now to cut and run? Believe me. What they are doing now is retreating to defensive positions, while they devise a new plan of attack against you. Farger is to be the lightning rod for that attack. That is why the idiot is necessary.”

  The heavy-set man rose from his pillows and walked to a window of his stateroom. He looked at the Miami Beach skyline, money rising out of sand. Cities always had been prizes of war, from the fall of Troy to the Battle of Moscow. To take a city, that was an accomplishment.

  Behind him, Moskowitz said: “You didn’t tell us it would be this way.”

  “I didn’t tell you the sun would rise either, but what do you expect? To have the cover of darkness forever?” He wheeled and faced them angrily. “Gentlemen, you are at war.” He measured the tension in their faces. Good, he thought. They are losing the illusion of safety. Always good for green troops.

  “But, don’t worry, gentlemen. You are at war, but I am your general. And the first thing I have done is to set Farger out as bait to see what our opponents pla
n.”

  “But killing?” said Moskowitz. “I don’t like killing.”

  “I didn’t say he would be killed. I said he would be their first target. Now I think the meeting is concluded. I’ll have my launch take you back to my city.”

  “Your city?” asked Mayor Cartwright, but the heavy-set man with the heavy smell of lilac cologne did not hear him. He was intently watching the back of Moskowitz as he stepped out onto the highly varnished deck. Moskowitz was still shaking his head.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  WILLARD FARGER WANTED TO MAKE one thing perfectly clear before the interview began.

  “I am not giving your magazine an interview just for the six thousand dollars. I’m giving you this interview so that a broader spectrum of the American public will see the treachery they are pitted against. I want to return America to the principles that made her great. Did you bring the money?”

  “After the interview,” said Remo. He had noticed the two plainclothesmen outside Farger’s home, so he might have to leave with Farger if he couldn’t find out what he wanted in the interview.

  “I’ll be perfectly honest with you,” said Farger. “This money is going to go right into Mayor Cartwright’s campaign coffers. I’m not going to use a cent of it myself. It’s going to pay to elect a mayor with the guts to stand up against an insidious central government. So I’m really taking the money for the people.”

  “In other words, you want the money up front,” Remo said.

  “I want the people to be assured of their birthright as Americans.”

  “I’ll give you a thousand up front and the rest after the interview.”

  “Remo, if I may call you Remo,” said Farger, “this is a time of crisis in America, polarization of the races, rich against poor, labor against capital. Good government can bring us back to our senses, but it costs money to elect good government.”

  “Two thousand up front,” Remo said.

  “No checks,” said Farger, and the interview began.

  Remo noted that Farger must have done extensive research into this secret government agency and this Folcroft. How did Farger do it?

  Farger answered that every American should be aware of his government in order to help improve it. That was the trouble with government today.

  How did Farger find out the Betterment League was a front and how did he get his hands on the Bullingsworth notes?

  Farger answered that he was a product of an American home with American values; decent hard-working parents had taught him persistence.

  Did Farger still have the Bullingsworth notes and, if so, where did he have them?

  “Any man who wants to serve his community must take stock of his resources and apply them in the most judicious and farsighted manner,” said Farger.

  Who else but Farger knew about the notes?

  “Let me make one thing perfectly clear. Morality is the key to everything. The little people of America, of this city where I was born and raised, all of them are with me in standing up and crying out in an angry loud voice: Foul.”

  Remo shrugged. Perhaps reporters knew how to cut through this windage. Maybe they knew special key questions that would unspring direct answers.

  “You’re not answering my questions,” Remo said.

  “Which question haven’t I answered?” asked Farger innocently.

  “All of them,” said Remo.

  “I never fail to answer a question,” Farger said. “America was built by forthright men who answered forthright questions with candor. I am known for my candor.”

  All right, thought Remo. If that’s the way he wants to play it, that’s the way we’ll play it.

  Remo studied Farger’s face, peering intently into his eyes, then at his hair. He raised his hands to frame it.

  “We need photos for the story. A good cover shot. Front of the magazine.”

  Farger shifted the angle of his head so Remo could see the better side.

  “A background,” Remo said. “A background. We need a good background.”

  “With my family?”

  Remo shook his head. “Someplace important. To capture your stature if you know what I mean. Some place which best epitomizes your spirit.”

  “I’m not going to fly to the White House for just one picture,” said Farger angrily.

  “I was thinking of some place close to home.”

  “It’s a little late for the governor’s mansion, isn’t it?”

  “Outdoors,” said Remo. “A man of the land.”

  “Do you think so?” asked Farger intently. “I’ve thought of myself more as the answer to our troubled cities.”

  “Land and city,” said Remo.

  Did Remo have an idea for a good background?

  He most certainly did.

  The plainclothesmen followed the pair in a separate car. They drove down Coffins Avenue, Miami Beach’s main drag, turned into several side streets, then back to Coffins Avenue. The detectives were still following.

  “Here?” asked Farger.

  “Too rich a background,” Remo said. “If you should ever run for office yourself, your opponents could use the picture and smear you as the rich man’s candidate.”

  “Good thinking,” Farger said.

  “Any roads lead into the countryside?”

  “Sure, but we’re not on it.”

  “The countryside,” said Remo, and Farger wheeled the car around while the detectives wheeled their car around.

  “Stop the car,” said Remo.

  “This isn’t the countryside.”

  “I know, just stop the car.” Farger slowed his car and parked at a curb. The unmarked police car stopped also.

  Remo got out of the car and strode purposefully to the unmarked car. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “Deputy sheriffs. Dade County.”

  “Let me see your identification.”

  “Let us see yours.”

  In the confusion and rambling of wallets, Remo’s snake quick hands darted through the steering wheel to the car keys, plucking them out too fast to jingle.

  “Hey, what’re you doing with the keys?”

  “Nothing,” said Remo as his thumb pressured the grooves and teeth of the ignition key out of line. “Just want to make sure you don’t run anywhere until I see that identification.”

  The detectives at the wheel snatched back the keys. “You just watch your step there, fella. We’re officers.”

  “All right. I’ll let it go this time,” said Remo in his best, decade-old patrolman’s voice.

  The two deputy sheriffs looked at each other in confusion. They were even more confused when Farger and the reporter who talked like a cop drove away, and their ignition key wouldn’t work.

  “The sonofabitch switched keys.” But upon examination, that proved not to be the case. They tried the key again and it did not work again. Finally one of the deputies held the key to his right eye and sighted along the grooves. He noticed they were bent out of shape. As he tried to hammer the key back into shape with the butt of his revolver, Farger’s car vanished over a hill.

  Miles ahead, Remo noticed a lovely dirt road cutting into swamplands. Farger pulled in.

  “You see what happened to the deputies?”

  Remo shrugged. He pointed to a tree.

  “Pretty wet over there,” Farger said. “Do you think that’s good?”

  “Try it,” said Remo.

  So Willard Farger in his best Douglas MacArthur wading-ashore stride went to the tree and Remo drove the car right up to it into the wet mush.

  “What’re you doing? You crazy? That’s my car,” yelled Farger. He dove for the driver’s seat. Remo snatched the ignition keys, slid out the passenger’s door, and jammed it shut so it would not open. He pranced over the car top and down to the other side where he performed the same jamming operation on Farger’s door.

  “What’re you doing, you crazy bastard?” screamed Farger.

  “An interview.”

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p; “Open the damned door.” Farger struggled with the handle, but it snapped off. The car sank into the dark ooze up to the midpoint of the hubcaps. Remo hopped to the dry spot of moss near the palm tree. He took a notebook out of his pocket and waited.

  “Get me out of here,” yelled Farger.

  “In a minute, sir. First, I want your opinion on ecology, the urban crisis, the farm crisis, the energy crisis, the Indochina situation and the price of meat.”

  With a sudden belching sound, the front end of the car sank almost to the windshield, Farger climbed over the seat to the back. He hurriedly opened the window and tried to climb out headfirst. Remo left the dry spot to push Farger back inside.

  “Let me out of here,” yelled Farger. “I’ll tell you anything.”

  “Where are the Bullingsworth papers?”

  “I don’t know. I never saw them.”

  “Who told you what to say, when you started shooting off your mouth about Folcroft?”

  “Moskowitz. The city manager. He said Mayor Cartwright wanted me to do it.”

  “Did Moskowitz kill Bullingsworth?”

  “No. Not that I know of. The Folcroft people did. Are you from Folcroft?”

  “Don’t be absurd,” Remo said. “That organization doesn’t exist.”

  “I didn’t know that,” cried Farger. “You gotta let me out of here.” Muck oozed up into the car window and Farger raised the window. Just ahead of the slime.

  “What was the point of you guys blabbing about the Folcroft thing?”

  “It was Mayor Cartwright’s idea. He said if we exposed it, they wouldn’t be able to slap any of his men or him with phony, trumped-up indictments.”

  “I see. Thank you for the wonderful interview.”

  “You going to let me out of here?”

  “As a newsman, I have a responsibility to report the facts, not interfere with them. Representing the Fourth Estate…” Remo had no chance to finish the sentence because with a lurching slurp, Farger’s car dropped and now only the roof of the sedan showed. Muffled moans came through it. Remo leaped to the roof. The car sank deeper from his weight and the swamp began to crowd his little platform.