Midnight Man

CHAPTER NINE

THERE WERE A LOT of contracts to fill and a lot of millions to make in his new profession, but first Elmo Wimpler had one more personal piece of business to take care of.

Actually, three pieces of business.

The three owners of the Friends of Inventors were in their office late, studying the books on the week’s take, when suddenly the lights in the room went out.

The door to the room opened and closed quickly.

Ernie, sitting in the middle of the table, heard a grunt from the partner on his right and felt something wet strike him on the shoulder. He turned to look at his partner and in the dimness of the office, he saw his partner had only half a head. And the wet stuff, suddenly he knew, was blood.

He turned to his left, in time to hear a phhhhht sound and the snap of bone and his partner’s grunt as his half-head slumped forward and hit the large, oaken table.

“What the fuck,” he said, jumping up from his seat and looking around him. He saw nothing.

“Sorry I couldn’t come up with anything in mauve,” a voice said to him from out of the emptiness.

“Who’s that?” Ernie stuttered.

He felt himself pushed from behind. He turned quickly but no one was there.

“I’m going apeshit nuts,” he said aloud.

“Ever sell that car of yours?” the disembodied voice asked.

Something slapped Ernie in the face, but again there was no one to see.

“I’m dreaming,” he said.

“No, you’re not,” the voice said.

“What is this?” Ernie demanded in a voice made loud with fear.

“Just think mauve,” the voice said. Ernie felt some kind of touch on his head and just before he died, he remembered the meeting they had had with the wimpy looking guy with the funny black paint.

No. It couldn’t be him. Could it?

Phhhhhhht. Crack.

· · ·

“Three more?” Remo asked Smith from the phone in his New York hotel room, overlooking Central Park.

“That’s right,” said Smith and gave Remo the address of the Friends of Inventors. “It’s a phony operation that takes money from would-be inventors but it doesn’t market anything.”

“All crushed skulls?” Remo asked.

“Correct,” Smith said. “But there was something else too. There was a note written in mauve-colored paint on the table.”

“What’d the note say?” Remo asked.

“It said, ‘This is the last one I do for free.’ “

“And another amateur succumbs to the lure of money and turns pro,” Remo said.

“And for a pro, the only game in town is the Emir of Bislami,” Smith said. “Chiun was right about the paint by the way. It’s a special metallic compound that absorbs all light hitting it.”

“Would it make someone invisible?”

“In the dark,” Smith said. “All you could see is a black outline against a lighter background. But you couldn’t pick up any details because they wouldn’t send any light to your eye.”

“But in daylight?”

“In daylight, if our man were wearing some kind of painted costume like this,” Smith said, “you would see the black silhouette of a man. Almost like a shadow.”

“Then he can’t function in the light,” Remo said.

“No. I don’t see how he could,” Smith agreed.

“Remember I told you to get dogs for the Emir’s island?” Remo said.

“Yes. They’re already there.”

“Install floodlights, too,” Remo said. “All over. Make the place look like Yankee Stadium during a night game.”

“That’s a good idea,” Smith said.

The words were so strange to Remo’s ear that he said, “Say that again.”

“I said that was a good idea,” Smith said.

“Now I can die happy,” Remo said.

“Don’t die at all. And don’t let anyone else die,” Smith said as he hung up the telephone.

Remo replaced the receiver and turned to Chiun.

“Three more.”

“So I heard. I am not yet so old that my ears fail to function. The Emperor seemed worried.”

“He is worried about the Emir,” Remo said.

“We have never opposed an invisible man before,” Chiun said.

Remo scowled. “Just a guy in a black suit.”

“You can wish that,” Chiun said. “But there are six people with only pieces left of their skulls who would not agree with you.”

For all the mayhem that had been committed in the conference room of the Friends of Inventors, the room looked as if it had been sent out to the dry cleaners for washing and pressing.

The rug was spotless. Chairs were neatly placed around the table. Blackboards for chart presentations were neatly stacked against a wall.

The only note that seemed out of place in this symphony of order was the note written in paint on the conference table. “This is the last one I do for free.”

Mauve, Smith had called it.

“Chiun,” Remo said. The Korean did not answer. Remo looked up and saw Chiun standing at the light switch. He flicked it and the overhead chandelier lights went off. He flicked the switch again. The lights came back on.

Again. Off.

Again. On.

“Chiun, when you’re finished inventing electricity, will you come here?” Remo said.

The Korean walked smoothly toward the table.

“See this. The purple paint. That’s the note the killer left,” Remo said.

Chiun shook his head. “No,” he said.

“What do you mean ‘no’?”

“That’s not purple. It’s mauve,” Chiun said.

Remo decided it was mauve. But it still looked like purple.

“Why were you fooling around with the light?” Remo asked.

“I was trying to learn something,” Chiun said.

“What was it?”

“I have not yet learned it,” Chiun said.

Remo stepped into the outer office where the blonde receptionist sat preening herself. Stacked in front of her was a comb, fingernail polish, liquid makeup, mascara, and four different kinds of lipstick and lip gloss.

“Ain’t it a tragedy?” she said to Remo.

“I can see you’re having trouble bearing up.”

“They wasn’t bad. I mean, for those kind,” she said. She breathed her chest at Remo, who wondered if good manners would dictate his fleeing in fright to the other side of the room.

“Who was here last night when this happened?” Remo asked.

“Just Willy, the janitor. He was cleaning one of the other offices. Want me to get him?”

“Please. And then I want you to go through your files,” Remo said. “Get me the name and address of everybody who’s been here in the past six months. Every client. And what they invented.”

“Geez. That could take a half-hour maybe.”

“Do it and I’ll put you in for overtime,” Remo said. “But call Willy first.”

Willy the janitor had white hair, bifocals and a scowl that looked genetic.

“Did you hear anything last night, Willy?” Remo asked. “Or see anything?”

“Well,” the old man said. He clamped his lips shut as if that constituted a full answer.

“Willy, it’s important that you tell us,” Remo said.

“What’s in it for me?” Willy said.

“Let me discuss this with Mister Willy,” Chiun whispered. “You don’t know how to talk to old people.” His green satin kimono flowed around him as he walked to the old man.

His hand darted out of his sleeve and he caught Willy’s right ear between two fingers.

“Now answer questions,” Chiun said.

“Owwwww. Yes sir.”

“Willy will help now,” Chiun said.

“I’m really glad you understand the mature mind,” Remo said.

“All minds are alike where pain is concerned,” Chiun said.

Once started talking, there seemed to be no way to quiet Willy the janitor.

“I didn’t want anyone to think I was senile, but I heard it. I heard a voice. And it wasn’t one of the voices of the partners ’cause I knew them voices ’cause they all sound like Long Island, but this voice wasn’t like that, but when I went inside I didn’t see nothing, but I know I heard it. And I ain’t senile either. And I heard him say, ‘This is the last one I do for free.’ But I didn’t see anybody. And then I had to call the police, and then I cleaned up that mess. It was awful, somebody left me this bloody, stinking mess and you don’t know how long it took me to get that room clean again.”

“But you saw nobody.”

“Just them bodies. Awful it was, brains and all, all over.”

“The voice you heard. What did it sound like?”

“Just a voice. Soft like. But a man’s voice. A soft, man’s voice, like he was a whisperer, like you know how some people are.”

Willy was still rubbing his ear. “Can I go now?”

“I’m done with you,” Remo said.

“I am not,” Chiun said. Willy clapped his hands over his ears in self-defense.

“Unhand your ears, you idiot,” Chiun said. “When you came into this office last night, were the lights on or off?”

Remo shook his head. Chiun’s lights again.

“The switch was on,” said Willy. “But all the lights was off. Nine of them. Count them. Nine of those bulbs. They was all burned out. And they was new bulbs, ’cause I only changed them like a month ago. I change all the bulbs at once ’cause I read a story once that it’s more efficient to do it that way than to let them burn out and change them one at a time.”

“So the bulbs were extinguished and you replaced them?” Chiun repeated.

“That’s right, sir. Yes, sir. That’s right.”

“You may go,” Chiun said, dismissing Willy with a wave of his long-nailed hands.

“That’s handling those old folks, Chiun,” said Remo after Willy left. “You call that respect?”

“Respect, unlike water, runs from low place to high place. This means that you should respect everyone you meet. I, on the other hand, am to be treated with respect by everyone. You may not like it, Remo, but it is the way of things.”

“Make your next lecture on modesty,” Remo growled. “You do it so well. Why are you so interested in the light bulbs?”

“Because our invisible man,” Chiun said, “can only be effective in the darkness. These last killings and the one of that man with the wife who varnished her hair were done in darkness. Darkness created by the killer. He may have a way, Remo, to turn out lights.”

Remo nodded. The old Korean made sense.

“Then I guess we better turn out his lights and fast,” Remo said.

The secretary in the outer office had overestimated the difficulty of compiling the names, addresses, and inventions of all the clients the firm had seen in the last six months. There were only twenty of them and she finished the job in twenty-eight minutes.

Remo sat at the conference table looking at the sheet of yellow paper on which she had printed in large block letters the client list.

He did not know what, if anything, he was looking for. But without leads, he would settle for anything. A clue. A hint. A hunch. Anything.

And it was there. The third name on the list.

“Chiun. Look at this.” The Korean came over and stood behind Remo’s shoulder.

“Invisible paint,” Remo read. “Elmo Wimpler. And look at the address. Right next door to the guy with the varnished wife.”

“The little man who did not like his neighbors,” Chiun said.

“You’re right,” Remo said. Somehow he had failed to associate the name and address with the man they had met earlier. “The little nerd with the rented van.”

“The little ones are often the most dangerous,” Chiun said.

Remo looked at Chiun, who stood less than five feet tall, but suppressed the smile he felt that remark deserved.

“I think we ought to go back to Wimpler’s house and see what we see,” Remo said.

“Or cannot see,” Chiun said.