Houton knew. He now knew for certain who this was. For an instant, Martin Houton could almost see the hyenalike smile of satisfaction that broke out among the suntanned wrinkles of that frightening, familiar Aussie face.
Martin was going to say something, but the words wouldn't come. And then it didn't matter because the voice on the phone was speaking again.
"By the way, you're fired, Marty."
And a strange sense of soft relief seemed to wash through Martin Houton's troubled mind like a calming blue tide. It was amazing given the stress he'd been under all day long. He wanted to thank the man on the phone for giving him this miraculous, deadened sensation, but the man had already hung up. Not that it mattered, because Martin Houton had already forgotten who he was.
But he knew it didn't matter that he didn't remember who the man was. He remembered the words. "You're fired."
They had come to him over his many televisions. On a daily basis, for hours. He knew they were there even though he really didn't know. Those words delivered by a man whose identity he could no longer remember were the trigger. They had come with orders that Martin had accepted without even knowing he was accepting them. And they were wonderful, perfect orders. He could not be happier with his orders.
Martin Houton got up and calmly left his office. People spoke to him as he went through the hall and rode the elevator downstairs. If he said anything at all to them, he wasn't aware of it. He was thinking of the beautiful words that had floated off of his TV and into his brain over the past few weeks. Private communications to him alone.
He found his limo in the garage and allowed his driver to open and close the door for him.
On the ride from the city to his Long Island estate, Martin was more at peace than he had ever been in his life.
At home Martin Houton walked woodenly past his worried wife and mounted the stairs to his bedroom. He locked the door behind him. He went directly to the nightstand next to his bed. Behind his reading glasses and a deck of cards he found his .38 pistol. It was stuffed in an old sock.
Martin dumped the gun from the sock, jammed the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
He was a little surprised when there wasn't a brainsplattering kaboom. That's what he figured it would sound like.
In fact, as he thought about it, there really wasn't any sound at all. That didn't seem right.
When Martin caught his reflection in the vanity mirror, he was disappointed to find that the top of his head was still there. What's more, the gun wasn't in his mouth. On top of all that, there was someone in the room with him.
"Oh, hello," Houton said to the young man with the deep, cruel eyes who stood with him in the bedroom of his mansion even though the door was locked. "May I have that back? I have to kill myself."
He held his hand out for his gun, which had somehow found its way into the hands of the stranger. "Answers first, death second," Remo Williams promised. He tossed Houton's gun to the bed.
"Oh, no, no, no," Martin Houton insisted. "I'm sure that's not the right order. I'm in desperate legal trouble for everything I've done. I have to kill myself now."
Face determined, he headed for the gun.
Remo picked up the gun and threw it through the terrace window. There came a wet plunk from Martin Houton's kidney-shaped heated pool with the two ice-covered diving boards.
"Well, that's just going to make this harder than it has to be," Houton pouted.
He headed for the French doors with the one broken windowpane. If he jumped after the gun, maybe he'd be lucky and break his neck in the process.
A very rude hand tugged him back from the doors, knocking him back onto the edge of the bed.
"How do you know me?" Remo asked.
"What?" Houton asked, puzzled. "Do I know you? I don't think I know you." He started to get up. With one hand Remo pushed the TV executive back to a sitting position; with the other he pinched Martin Houton's earlobe. Martin Houton yelped. The pain was bad. Almost enough to make him forget about killing himself altogether.
"That's not nice," Houton complained.
The mean pincher who wouldn't let him properly kill himself relaxed his grip on Martin's ear. As the fiery pain lessened, the words returned.
"You had a guy in Harlem broadcasting subliminal signals from a church basement," Remo said. "One of the things he broadcast was a picture of me. I want to know why."
"Oh, that was you?" Martin Houton asked. The subliminal commands came easily. It was as if whoever had programmed the instructions into his television had anticipated this scenario. "That was part of the 'Winner' show. You were just picked at random because you happened to be there. A white man torn to pieces by a mob in Harlem near the 'Winner' set would get all kinds of press. The news media swarms in, we benefit from the proximity. Synergy with the news boys. Who, by the by, don't pull their weight these days, what with all the twenty-four-hour cable news networks. Can I please kill myself now?"
"In a minute," Remo promised. "How did you get my picture?"
"You were filmed by one of our 'Winner' crews. Did you know the season finale of 'Winner II' got a 21.1 rating and a 31 share? That was amazing. Hard to keep those numbers up. The occasional sweeps stunt is mandatory to keep viewership levels high. A random death like yours would have generated some good numbers for us in February."
Remo disregarded the executive's TV babble. "I made it so I couldn't be seen," he insisted.
"Technology is amazing, isn't it? Your tape was pretty bad. But they're able to take points of reference from a poor-quality recording like yours and computer enhance a solid digital image. Say, maybe I should jump off the roof. Three stories down from the terrace might not do it."
"The pool's below the terrace. Aim for the concrete and you should be golden," Remo said.
"Thanks," Martin Houton said. "You're not such a bad guy after all."
He started for the terrace. Remo collared him and flung him back into a chair.
"Who else was in on this subliminal crapola?" he asked.
"Well, I signed off on it," Martin Houton said, a lie that seemed so much like the truth he actually believed it himself. "Thomas Trumann developed the technology. He's the guy who shot himself in that church basement this morning."
"No one else?"
"Nope, that's it," Houton said agreeably. "Only two men in the entire BCN establishment. Had to keep it quiet. If it panned out, we would have been aces in the ratings. Right now Mondays have been okay for us with it, and Thursdays are holding their own. But we hadn't been using it at any other time and our ratings showed it. Now thanks to Trumann, I guess we're back to hemorrhaging viewers to cable and video."
"How about those orders to the rioters? Why didn't they go out nationally?" Remo asked.
"Our satellite fed to Trumann in the church. Harlem is where we've been testing the technology for a while, so mostly we were local. But flip a switch, and he could send the signals back up to the satellite and make them national. There's a transmitter in the church steeple. That's what we were using for 'Winner.' Just started it on a few more shows."
His Sinanju training gave Remo the ability to sense when someone was lying. Martin Houton was clearly a nit, but he was a nit who was telling the truth.
"Can I kill myself now?" Houton asked hopefully.
"Knock yourself out," Remo said.
Houton rubbed his hands together determinedly. He was getting up from the bed when, as an afterthought, Remo gave another good squeeze to the TV executive's earlobe. Bolts of pain shot through Martin Houton's clouded brain.
"What was that for?" Houton asked, rubbing his ear.
"Ten years of 'Murphy Brown,'" Remo said.
A ghost in shadow, he slipped from the darkened room.
Interruptions finally over, Houton stepped out onto the balcony. Warm steam rose from the surface of the gurgling pool, kissing the cold December air. Martin Houton could smell the chlorine in the air. The stars were beautiful, the air crisp and the words beckoning him to end his life as clear as church bells on a Christmas midnight.