A string of facts and evidence. Tax-dodging, illegal corporate structures, daughters with abortions, sons with criminal records, wives with habits like shoplifting. Smith's computers had noted everything.
Corbish let out a gleeful whoop. With the information the computer had just given him, he could guarantee, absolutely guarantee, the votes of every man on the executive board.
So much for Holly Broon. Let her think she had stopped him. When the executive board did meet, it would be Blake Corbish who would be chosen. She had been a fool to think she could put him down so easily, as if he were someone who was careless.
Corbish ripped off the computer printouts sheets and put them in his top desk drawer. No need to leave them around; no time to be careless.
But Blake Corbish had already been careless.
He had failed to notice that each man written up on the printouts had had an item added as of that day. This would have been hard to determine, because the date of the information was in a string of Code numbers at the end of each individual item. One had to look carefully for the date to find it.
There was a simple explanation for the late items. They had been put there that very day by Dr. Harold W. Smith.
After talking to Holly Broon, Smith had realized that Corbish's first move would be to take over IDC. If Holly Broon believed Smith about the death of her father, she would try to stop Corbish and he would have to go after the executive board to get the job.
From a thick blue book in a public library, Smith had gotten the names of the executive board members. Then, armed with his change maker, he had gone to a row of telephone booths in a sleepy shopping center and begun to make phone calls.
One went to a newspaperman in Des Moines. Another went to a police captain in Jersey City. Another went to the plant manager of a federal installation outside Philadelphia and another to a postal inspector in California. Call after call, across the country, to different types of people in different walks of life, all joined by one common denominator: without knowing it, they worked for CURE.
They were all professional gossips, and for their gossip they often received cash stipends. They were all part of Smith's informal but effective nationwide information-gathering system.
Except in this case there was a difference. The information Smith gave them, under the guise of being an anonymous tipster, was false. Smith had dreamed up a string of lies about the nine men on the IDC board. He did not know what steps Corbish might take, but if he had the sense to use CURE's information against the men, Smith had decided to complicate the process by putting in some false information. Perhaps Corbish might overplay his hand.
Those phone calls took a big part of Smith's day. When he was done, there was one more piece of business to perform. He put a dime into the telephone, dialed the number and waited for the operator to cut in. "That will be $1.60 for three minutes," she said.
"Right here, operator," said Smith, clicking off six quarters and using the initial dime which she had returned.
He was running low on quarters and would have to restock, he noted idly.
"Thank you," the operator said.
"You're welcome."
A moment later, Smith heard the buzz of a ringing phone. It rang for twenty seconds before it was picked up by a female voice.
"Hello?"
"Hello, dear, this is Harold."
"Harold, where have you been?"
"Away on business, dear," Smith said. "But I'm all right. How are you?"
"I'm fine, dear. And so is Vickie. When are you coming home?"
"Soon, dear. Very soon. Listen dear, this is important. Do you have a pencil?"
"Yes. Right here."
"All right. A man will call on you, seeking information about me. When he comes, tell him this. He should go to Washington, D.C., and rent a room in the Lafayette Hotel under the name of J. Walker. I will contact him there. Do you have that?"
"I think so. Washington, D.C. Lafayette Hotel. Room in name of J. Walker. You'll contact him."
"Very good, dear."
"By the way, Harold. What is the name of this man who'll be calling?"
"His name is Remo."
"Why, Harold, what a funny name."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
"Is this Remo?" asked the woman's voice.
"Yes. Who are you?"
"This is Holly Broon. We met today in Corbish's office?"
"Sure," said Remo. "Where'd you get my number?"
"I called the switchboard at Folcroft. They told me where to find you."
"Oh, good," said Remo. "That's swell. For a minute there, I thought somebody might be giving my number out indiscriminately. But as long as the switchboard is only giving it out to everyone who calls, well that's okay."
"I'd like to see you tonight. Could I?"
"Sure. Time and place?"
"My house. Forty minutes. I'm in Darien," she said, and gave him an address and directions.
"I'll be there," said Remo. He turned to Chiun.
"Do you know how she got our phone number?" he asked.
"Mr. Garbage advertised it in the small print in one of your newspapers?" suggested Chiun, without looking up from the parchment on which he was still writing.
"No, but he might just as well have."
"Give him time. He will. If you live that long."
"Or if he does," Remo said. "I've got to go out for a while."
"Go," said Chiun. "I am reaching a critical point in my history of the mad emperor Smith."
When Remo drove his rented car up in front of title Broon estate in Darien, a butler was waiting at the front door.
"Mr. Remo?" he said.
Remo nodded.
"Right this way sir," the butler said.
It was great, Remo thought, being a celebrity. Another two weeks of working for Corbish and everyone in the country would know him. His face would be more famous than Howard Cosell's; his name more well known than Johnny Carson's; and Remo himself would be more dead than Kealey's nuts.
The butler led him up a broad center stairway to a second-floor suite of rooms. He pushed open the door, stepped aside, let Remo enter and closed the door behind him.
Remo went in, looked around, and realized with some amusement that it might just be the first living room he had entered by invitation in ten years. He had gotten used to skulking in through a window or forcing a door. But Remo was there as a guest, not as a killer stalking someone. It was an eerie feeling, rejoining the human race.
He sat back in a chair, savoring the moment, waiting for Holly Broon. How nice to be in a living room, waiting for someone who expected you, secure in the knowledge that when that person greeted you it would not be with gun in hand.
A door to a connecting room opened and Holly Broon, tall and full-figured in a violet silk wrap, stood there. She held a gun in her hand.
Remo noticed it, but noticed even more the long line of thigh which jutted out from the opening of her wrap. It was doubly sensuous in the heavy shadows cast by the old-fashioned lighting in the room.
"Mr. Remo," she said.
Remo stood. "You always greet your guests this way?"
"Only the ones I'm going to kill."
"Kill me with kindness. It's my weak spot."
"The only one?"
Remo nodded.
Holly Broon pushed the door shut behind her and came into the room. She was a woman, and experience had made Remo cautious of women with guns.
With men there was a logical sequence of steps, an intensity that mounted steadily, until at the flash point of emotion they pulled the trigger. A carefully tuned-in man could read that sequence and act at just the right time. But with women it was different. They could pull the trigger at any moment, because their minds and emotions didn't follow any normal sequence of steps. They might fire because they thought it was going to rain, or because they thought it wasn't going to rain. They might shoot because they remembered the grease spot on the green tulle dress in the closet. Anything might do it, so Remo would watch her. He would act as if the gun wasn't in her hand. He would keep her calm at any cost. That was the safest thing to do.