THE DESTROYER #43: MIDNIGHT MAN
Warren Murphy
For Trace, whom I never keep up late, and for the
House of Sinanju, P.O. Box 1454,
Secaucus, NJ 07094.
CHAPTER ONE
What Elmo Wimpler really wanted to invent was a dry cereal that tasted like ham and eggs. Or pancakes. Or all those other things he couldn't afford and didn't know how to cook.
But he didn't know how to do it, so he was stuck with dry cereal. One day cornflakes, then crisped rice, then that fruity stuff, then that chocolaty stuff. It was funny, he thought. If they could make a cereal taste like chocolate without putting any chocolate in it, why couldn't they make one that tasted like ham and eggs? Or Belgian waffles—with strawberries and whipped cream? Chipped beef on toast?
Why not? Maybe he'd work on that. But only when he was finished with the invention that occupied his mind right now.
Today, Elmo Wimpler had no idea what cereal he was eating. He had just grabbed the box, poured some into a bowl, drowned it with a weak mixture of powdered milk and water, and started eating. After a while they all tasted alike.
As he ate, he read his cyber-psychomatics book, which promised to teach him how to become a stronger-willed person.
Today, his heart wasn't into cyber-psychomatics, so he snapped the paperback closed and took another book from its spot on the kitchen table: How to Be Pushy.
He read two paragraphs and sighed. He just couldn't be pushy. He was too small, too mild-mannered. What would he do if he tried to be pushy and somebody pushed him back?
He closed the book and looked out the dirt-shaded window of the small kitchen. He'd like to try it, though. Just once. Maybe try being pushy with his big-mouth next-door neighbor, the no-talent jock. Just once, he'd like to put the big slob in his place, then make him watch while Elmo put himself right square into Mrs. No-Talent Jock's place. Despite that teased hair and that loud mouth, she was the creature of his dreams and his fantasies, and he would like to give it to her good.
He brought himself back to reality, which was his soggy bowl of cereal. He dumped it into the sink. Today, he felt as if he was getting near a breakthrough with his new invention.
Maybe when it was done. When he was acclaimed and rich and powerful. Maybe then, he'd show Mrs. Jock that men weren't measured by muscles alone.
Elmo Wimpler ran the water until all traces of the cereal had disappeared down the drain. Then he wiped the bowl once with a paper towel and put it on the drainboard. He started to walk back to his bedroom to change from his ratty bathrobe into his equally ratty clothes, but the impulse was too strong. He went back into the kitchen and got the book on being pushy. He read it while he walked down the hall. He bumped his ankle painfully against a cardboard box that was stuck against the wall. He tripped over his cat, who was lying majestically directly in the middle of the hallway. The cat
would like to give it to her good. | Damn.
snarled, lashed out at Wimpler with his claws, and left gouge marks along the top of the man's foot. Wimpler apologized to his cat.
Elmo dressed quickly, hoping that he could make it to his garage workshop without running into his loud-mouthed neighbor, Curt, or his sexy, noisy wife, Phyllis. He didn't feel like dealing with them today, not when he was so close to a breakthrough.
He left his house by the rear door and walked quickly toward his garage. Too late. He heard a high-pitched woman's voice yell, "Hey, Curt. Look at the wimp. He's tryin' to sneak into his garage without us seeing him."
Ignore them.
"Hey, wimp!" Curt yelled. "That light from your goddamned garage is still keeping us awake. You had better do something about it, you hear?"
Elmo looked up. He still didn't see them. He knew the light from his garage didn't bother them because there was no light from his garage. He had covered all the windows with heavy black plastic so no light would leak through. But he knew that would not satisfy Curt, and he was just tired of explaining.
"I'll work on it, Curt," he said. 'Tm sorry."
"He's sorry, he says," Phyllis said. "Make him really sorry, Curt. Punch him out."
"Yeah. Maybe I should. And listen, that damned radio of yours, you're playing it too loud at night. How'd you like me to stuff it down your throat?"
Curt came around the corner of Elmo Wimpler's garage, six-foot-three, bulging biceps, bulging beer belly. He had steel-wool hair and a sneering mouth.
Behind him was Phyllis. She had teased blonde hair and also wore a sneer, but below the sneer, she wore
a halter top over full breasts and a pair of skimpy, « andfortune he deserved.
cutoff jeans that showed her ripe, round thighs. Elmo often saw her out his kitchen window while she was gardening, bent over, as if trying to show him her round, little bottom.
He thought about telling Curt that he didn't have a radio, that the only musical sound Curt might hear coming from the garage would be Elmo humming. But why bother?
"I'll try to keep it down, Curt," he told the big * He«ached out with his hands. He could feel the
man, who blocked his way to the garage.
" Til try to keep it down, Curt,' " Phyllis mim-
icked nastily. "He makes me sick. Belt him." f,
"He ain't worth it," Curt said, hitching up his But he couldn t see the car.
0r• His heart beat a little faster, and he walked
pants, which immediately started their inevitable slide down his burgeoning belly. ■ "Go ahead, Curt, punch him out. Punch out his pissy little face."
Curt turned to tell Phyllis how he didn't want to dirty his hands on wimpy garbage, and Elmo took the opportunity to slip past the big man and into his garage. He shut and locked the door behind him. Suddenly he felt relief, but it lasted only a few seconds.
"I'll be waiting for you when you come out of there, wimp," Curt yelled. His voice, next to the garage door, sounded as if it might splinter the wood.
Elmo Wimpler put his neighbors out of his mind. He would be in his garage until long after they had gone to sleep. Here, there was peace. Here, where he was surrounded by his inventions, the works of
his life, which would someday bring him the fame
But even as he thought it, he doubted himself. It had been so many years, and now the small estate that his parents had left him when they died was shrinking fast. He would have to make something commercial pretty soon.
He walked to the front of the garage to turn on the overhead light. He bumped his left knee on his car. Funny, he thought, that he hadn't seen it.
car, the hood, the fender, the windshield wipers. But he couldn't see it. All he could see was the dark, car-shaped silhouette in the dimness of his garage.
quickly to the light string, pulled it, and turned around. He almost yelled. The paint had worked.
In the harsh light overhead, the car was a deep black silhouette. But none of its features was visible.
It had worked! This time, he did yell. Let Curt scream. Who cared? Elmo Wimpler was on his way.
He had been testing paints, trying to invent a paint for cars that would defy rust and never need waxing. He had stumbled onto something better. He had mixed a black enamel with a special metallic formula. The paint appeared to be smooth, but under a microscope, the metallic compound was a field of pits and valleys. Light hitting the surface would not reflect back to a viewer's eye but would bounce back and forth inside the paint, from peak to peak. Unable to reflect light, anything coated with that paint would be totally black—100 percent black—and would be visible only in silhouette
«Mister . . . Mister . . . Wimple," she said, glancing • tOr?" one of the other men said-
at a sheet on her desk.
7
against something lighter. But none of its details | , "WimPl£*;" he corrected He counted out the bills
could be made out It was an invisible paint. ¡ fromhs waUet' Somg slowly s0 he co^ l°6k a*
He touched the grill of the old car and felt the ripples and grooves of the once shiny metal. He took his hand away and leaned back. The grill was not visible.
He felt his heart pounding inside his chest. This was it. His big chance. No more dry cereal. No more living next door to Mr. and Mrs. Jock. No more trying to make do with old, worn-out equipment. No more working in a garage.
The invisible paint was his passport to a new life.
An hour later, he had his new paint compound in a spray can. Ignoring the hoots and calls of Curt and his wife, he walked quickly back into his house and called the FOI telephone number he had seen in a magazine—Friends of Inventors—a commercial group that would help him patent and sell his new paint.
The secretary told him that there was one opening later that afternoon, and he could make it if he hurried. The evaluation fee, payable in advance to FOI, was $500. Cash.
Elmo Wimpler dressed in his one suit, put his can of spray paint in a paper bag, and walked to the neighborhood bank. He had exactly $504 in his checking account, and he withdrew $502. Enough for the fee and bus fare both ways to FOI.
The pretty receptionist at FOI headquarters in New York City looked at him strangely as he arrived, clutching his paper bag under his arm.
"You have the five hundred dollars?" she asked.
big, sweater-clad bosom. She smiled at him, a professional bored smile. When he gave her the money, she counted it, put it into her desk drawer, and announced into the intercom, "Mister Wimple is here."
"Wimpler," Elmo corrected.
"Send him in," a voice crackled over the speaker.
She nodded him toward the door.
Inside the room, three men sat at a long table. They watched carefully as Wimpler approached them.
He placed the paper bag on the table, cleared his throat, and said, "I am Elmo Wimpler." He started to go on, but one of the men interrupted.
"Yeah, yeah, okay, guy, we're the panel you have to show your stuff to. We make all the decisions on inventions and like that. Show us what you got, 'cause we ain't got all day."
"Very well."
Wimpler opened the bag and took out a piece of black cloth, a small vase, and the spray can of paint.
He draped the black curtain over a small picture that hung from the wall.
"C'mon, pal, speed it up," the same man told him. "You're not setting a stage, you know. We've got a lot of other geniuses to see, so don't be wasting our time."
Elmo adjusted the black cloth so it hung smoothly.
"Jesus Christ, what is this guy, an interior decora-
Wimpler ignored them. When they saw what his
invention did, then they'd know he was no crackpot, there to waste their time and his money.
He moved a small table over in front of the painting and set the white vase on the table. It was an ornately carved, cheap, little, milk-glass vase.
Without paying any attention to the three men, he sprayed the white vase with his spray can of black paint. He turned to look at the three members of the panel with a smug look on his face.
They looked at him as if he were from another planet.
'So, you got a black vase?" one of them said. "And it used to be white."
"Watch. It'll dry quickly," Elmo said. He turned to watch himself. The paint was drying before his eyes, and as it did, the definition of the vase seemed to vanish. And then the paint was dried, and the vase was invisible against the black cloth background, i Who needs that?"
"Invisible," Elmo said with a small, proud smile.
"What the hell good is an invisible vase?" one of the men asked. "Why would anyone want an invisible vase?"
The three men began to chuckle and dig elbows into each other. Elmo Wimpler couldn't believe what he was seeing and hearing. Were they blind? Didn't they realize what a great invention this was?
"It's invisible," he said. "That's invisible paint. Don't you understand? Anything you paint that color won't reflect any light. In the dark or against a black background, it'd be invisible. Against a lighter background, you'd only be able to see its silhouette. You wouldn't be able to make out any of its de-
tails."
8
"Big deal," one of the men said. "Suppose you painted a car that color?" another asked. To Wimpler, the three men were interchangeable, like triplets. "I mean, you never remember where you park it now, but if you couldn't see it, that'd make it even worse. People would keep backing into you. At night, like I mean, who wants a car you can't see?"
They began to laugh again and Elmo closed his eyes, trying to remember some necessary paragraphs from How to Be Pushy. Fight back, he told himself. Fight back. But he could not utter a single word in his own defense. He watched them and listened helplessly to their inane chatter.
"You still got that Cadillac, Ernie?" one man asked another.
"Yeah, but I may be selling it."
"Why? That car's beautiful."
"Yeah, but it sucks up gas like a pack of Turns.
"I could use it. Have to change the color though," the first man said. Suddenly all three seemed to remember Wimpler.
"You got anything in mauve?" asked the one who was thinking about buying Ernie's Cadillac. "Mauve is going to be a hot color this year. A lot of mauve. Maybe if you could do something in mauve."
"Maybe for kids," Ernie suggested. "Maybe they might want to make things invisible, like if they don't want their folks to find them. I mean, maybe if you sprayed this on a joint of marijuana . . . would it change the flavor? What does this paint taste like?"
"Taste?" asked Wimpler helplessly. He shook his head, blinking his eyes hard.
"Yeah, you know, if it tastes like shit, it'd make the grass taste like shit and nobody'd want it. But if it doesn't change the taste, then maybe somebody might want invisible marijuana."
"I think we're agreed," the third man said, "that it is not prudent to represent this item in its present form."
All three nodded toward Elmo.
"Work on the taste," Ernie suggested.
"And the color," the second man said.
"Mauve," said the third man. "Work on mauve. A hot color this year."
"That's it?" Elmo finally sputtered. "You talk
men. The third man agreed but suggested it might sell best in mauve.
A back scratcher.
Elmo Wimpler packed up his curtain, his invisible black vase, and his spray can and left, shaking his head. On the way out, he didn't even notice the receptionist's forty-inch chest. She was busy talking to a man who was offering to demonstrate how useful his back scratcher would be for front scratching too.
By the time he got home, Elmo had decided to finance himself in marketing his invisible spray paint. Thank God he had money—a little money—
about cars, you talk about mauve, you give me two \ still left in stocks and savings. He called the banker
minutes, and you say good-bye?"
"That's it," the team leader said. "It's impractical in its present form, Mr. Wimple."
"Wimpler."
"Yes, Mister Wimper. I'm afraid it's impractical. Now, if you had something to do with a barbecue, maybe. People are into barbecues again with infla-
.. T, .. . - • -vi u -u« your holdings and made some investments."
tion running rampant. But not an invisible barbe- J6
cue. There's no market for that."
"Try mauve," another man suggested.
"I paid you five hundred dollars," Wimpler shouted.
"Nonrefundable," Ernie snapped. "You understood that when you came in. Nonrefundable. Now, we have other people to see, Mister Simple, so if you're finished? ... We have a man to see about a back scratcher that's supposed to revolutionize the art of scratching your back."
"That sounds interesting," said one of the other
10
who was the trustee for his parents' estate and asked him how much money was left.
"Nothing," the man answered.
"Nothing?" Elmo said. "How can that be? There's a mistake." Please lei there be a mistake, he thought.
"I'm sorry, Elmo, but I saw a chance to increase
"I didn't authorize any investments," Wimpler snapped.
"I know," said the banker, sounding huffy over the phone. "But I knew you wouldn't mind. So I put your money in gold."
"And gold dropped from eight hundred to six hundred an ounce. I should have something left."
"No," the banker explained patiently. "I bought on margin. The two-hundred-dollar drop wiped you out. Sorry about that."
"My house," said Wimpler. "I can mortgage it. What can I get?"
11
"Too late. You really should have called me last week. I mortgaged your house."
"Damn," snarled Wimpler.
"Well, if you let me know once in a while what's on your mind . . ." the banker said. "I can't read minds, you know. Anyway, if I can be of any more . . ."
Wimpler hung up.
He was broke.
Ruined.
And hungry.
But there was no food in the house. Nothing but dry cereal and powdered milk, and he gagged just thinking about it.
He fell into a chair, holding his head between his hands. What could he do now? He had no family, no friends to turn to for help. He could starve to death and no one would know. Here he had this great invention worth millions. Imagine all the things that could be made invisible. Tanks. Airplanes. An army. Policemen. Burglars.
Wait a minute.
He sat straight up in the chair and reran everything that had just gone through his head until he found the one he wanted.
Burglars.
Could he do it? Did he have the nerve?
...
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