“Five or six years,” Smith replied. “It is hazy. There is a gap of several months before his name turns up again, affiliated, with an institution in the southern part of Indiana. A small town called Dogwood.”
“What kind of institution?” Remo prodded.
“It looks like a tie-in with his late-life redirection of careers,” Smith said; “Some kind of live-in clinic Radcliff calls the Ideal Maternity Home.”
“A maternity home? You mean for unwed mothers? I thought those kind of homes went out with free love and the pill a hundred years ago.”
“You would be surprised,” Smith said. “I grant you, illegitimacy does not have the stigma that it carried thirty years ago but for some it is still a deep ‘concern. Some families do not like the reminder staring them in their face. These will oftentimes go the adoption route. A maternity home is not so unusual in the latter stages of pregnancy.”
The conversation struck a chord in Remo. He had been abandoned as an infant on the steps of a Newark orphanage and tried off and on for years to track his parents down. He had found his father at last: Sunny Joe on the reservation, but saw his mother only in dreams of the beyond. But he had made a kind of peace, and how Sunny Joe helped him maintain his own generational connections.
Old business, Remo thought, and concentrated on the mystery at hand.
“So, Radcliff starts out with Eugenix, fresh from internship. He puts his twenty in, presumably genetic research, then he sees the writing on the wall and takes a hike before the creditors move in. Do we know anything about his rank within the; corporation?”
“The notation on his c.v. says he was chief researcher, which could mean anything. It does not say a word about what he was working on.”
“Okay. And when he bails out from Eugenix in—where was it?”
“Belding, Michigan,” said Dr. Smith.
“In Michigan, right, he moves to Raytown. Wasn’t there a TV show about that place?”
“I would not know,” Smith answered rather stiffly.
“Never mind. I’ll ask Chiun. He moves to Raytown, close by Kansas City, and hangs out his shingle as an OB-GYN.”
“Correct.”
“A baby doctor,” Remo said again, still grappling with the concept.
“We have established that,” said Smith.
“Another six or seven years go by, he moves to Indiana and sets up a home for unwed mothers.”
“Right again. What are you getting at?”
“I’m not sure yet,” said Remo. “He was absolutely with Eugenix when they picked up Hardy’s stiff in Carson City?”
“On the payroll, yes. There is nothing so far to connect Radcliff directly with the buy.”
“He was their chief of research,” Remo said, “unless you think he doctored up his credentials to make himself look more important, giving Pap smears out in Raytown.”
“What is your point?” A subtle undercurrent of suspicion was apparent in the CURE director’s tone. “Are you suggesting—?”
“Where do babies come from, Smitty?”
Smith’s delivery became more formal. “If you need a refresher course on sex education, perhaps Chiun can fill you in. Right now, we have a more important—”
“Sperm and eggs,” said Remo, interrupting him. “They come from sperm and eggs.”
“Yes,” Smith told him, “that is correct.”
“And what’s inside the sperm? Inside the eggs? DNA,” said Remo, answering himself. “Genetic building blocks.”
“You are suggesting—”
“I don’t know what I’m suggesting,” said Remo. “At the moment, I’m just talking to myself.”
“Please do so on your time. What you have in. mind is physically impossible with present-day technology.”
“Tell that to Dolly the sheep. We still don’t have a clue what the Eugenix crowd was working on from 1961 through ’84, correct?”
“That is true, but—”
“They were using private funds exclusively, no federal grants, no applications to the FDA or Patent Office, nothing in the media or scientific journals. Someone strikes a match in Michigan, and there’s no paper trail at all. Is that about the size of it, so far?”
“Even given the current advances in this field, remember we are talking about the 1960s. Back then it was science fiction, Remo.”
“Maybe, but it’s all we have. Ideal Maternity, in Dogwood, Indiana, correct?”
“Yes.” Smith’s voice had taken on a note of caution. “Dr. Radcliff lives across the river, in Kentucky—Brandenburg, to be precise. He also runs a clinic there. It specializes in fertility research and treatment.”
“Getting better all the time,” Remo commented.
“Be advised, Remo,” Smith said, “small-town Indiana and Kentucky might not be what you are used to. Ideas and customs that went out of vogue in mainstream culture years ago still thrive there.”
“Maybe you should FedEx my zoot suit.”
“I am serious,” Smith said, his voice turning lemony.
“No kidding,” Remo replied. “I don’t know why you’re so worried about such a stupid nothing assignment.”
Smith sighed. “Will Chiun be going with you?” he asked.
“Are you kidding? An opportunity to fly halfway across the country and sit in yet another hotel doing nothing? He wouldn’t miss it.”
Smith was silent for a long, reflective moment.
“Maybe I should hand this over to the FBI,”, he said at last, “and let them carry it from here.”
“Your call.” said Remo. “But lately that’s a virtual guarantee of a screwup.”
“Yes.” The CURE director was still thinking.
“Is there something wrong with bringing Chiun?”
“Other than the fact that he’s done virtually nothing on this, assignment so far.”
“It is known that in the hinterlands sixty years ago, the KKK ran politics in Indiana. Kentucky was riot far behind.”
“Are you trying to tell me to bring along some clean sheets just in case?”
“I am trying to be delicate about this, Remo.”
“You’re telling me an old Korean may look out of place?”
“Precisely,” Smith sounded relieved, that it was Remo who said it.
Remo felt Chiun’s venomous glare from across the room. ‘I’ll fill him in on your concerns,” he told the CURE director, “but I think the Asian Anti-Defamation League is already in business.”
“My point is that you need to be discreet. There are times when Chiun is not up to that particular challenge.”
“If there’s been a time when he was, I haven’t been around to see it.”
Remo cradled the receiver, turning to face Chiun. “We’ve got a lead,” he said.
“I heard,” Chiun said flatly. “The baby doctor.” Despite his age and seeming frailty, Chiun still had a falcon’s eyesight and the hearing of a bat. Combine that with a cheetah’s speed, the striking power of a Bengal tiger, plus a cobra’s lethal bite, thought Remo, and you could have based a wildlife video around the aging Oriental.
“We traipse off now to this Indiana,” said Chiun, not asking.
“Smith’s given us the green light.”
“Yes, Smith,” Chiun said. “Chaser of hobgoblins. This doctor he mentioned is engaged in something evil?”
“Maybe,” said Remo. “Guess we’ll know when we get there.”
“Then kill him and let us be done with this fool mission.”
“I’m going to investigate him,” Remo said. “It’s no good dropping him before I find out what he’s up to.”
“Wonderful. Now you are not content to just be a Ghostbuster. You are Remo Williams, P.I. Do you believe this doctor brings assassins back to life?” Chiun inquired.
The question made him hesitate. As an assassin who had “died” and then been resurrected with a new identity, he of all people could not automatically dismiss the notion as preposterous. Still…