Isaac, though only twelve, was already over six feet tall, and seemed to grow so rapidly that his clothes were always ill-fitting. He was conscious of his wrists extending from his sleeves and his ankles visible below his cuffs when he went to see the first diamond merchant on the list of names he had copied from a telephone book.
The merchant, a kindly-appearing old man with a walrus mustache, had looked at Isaac, at his long, sad face, at his ill-fitting clothes and had laughed aloud and put Isaac out of his office. Years later, Isaac bought the firm, hired accountants for the sole purpose of finding errors in the books, and through criminal and civil actions in the courts hounded the former owner into suicide.
But he had to go no farther than the second name on his list to find a merchant who would buy his stones. He was paid $10,000 American dollars, one-tenth of what the flawless diamonds were worth. He was happy to get it. The cash went into a numbered bank account.
By the time he was fourteen, he had stolen more than a million dollars in jewelry, and had more than one hundred thousand American dollars in his account.
His father was still penniless, still trading his genitalia for meals, still apologetic to Isaac that he could not provide him with all the things a young boy should have in life. Isaac only smiled.
Then came the second world war and suddenly his father’s fortunes improved.
While he had no money of his own, his life had been spent with the international moneyed set and in a war of shifting alliances and backroom power plays, access to the moneyed class was important, important enough for Count Nemeroff to become a sought-after man.
He became a messenger, a negotiator, a promoter for all sides.
He ran guns to Spain, inventing the technique of selling the same shipment to both sides, then leaving the shipment in the middle of the field equidistant from both camps, letting the two sides fight for them. He sold information to the British; he arranged for opium to be gotten into Europe from China; he dealt with the American Mafia to make inroads into Italy’s government.
And in 1943, he died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage.
Governments on both sides mourned; they were truly grieved. He was indispensable; was able to do for governments the things government could do not for themselves. How could he be replaced?
They had not counted on young Isaac, however. He had been a good student. He kept track of the names and the power and the predilections of the people with whom his father had dealt and at his father’s graveside, even as the old count was being shoveled into earth, he let it be known that the Nemeroff family would still be doing business at the same old stand, in the person of the fourteenth Baron Nemeroff.
They scoffed at first; he was too young. But as their problems mounted and grew more complex, at last—in desperation—they turned to Isaac. And he delivered, even better than his father had done.
But where his father had been content to work for cash, for money on the barrelhead, Isaac was not. He already had money; he sought power—power to do things, to build things.
From France, in return for a favor, he demanded a controlling portion of a chemical factory, whose operation was critical to the late war effort and for which he had manged to make available the raw materials.
From Germany, he accepted part ownership of a munitions factory, and so widespread was his influence that when Germany lost the war, his claim to ownership was not disputed by the allies.
His empire spread. At nineteen, he was not only a millionaire many times over, but a conglomerate—controlling scores of businesses and with influence in scores more.
He had selected those businesses with care. The chemical factory in France would one day handle the processing of heroin; the German munition’s factory would provide guns for guerrilla wars, and non-traceable weapons for those willing to pay the price.
He was driven by a lust never to be poor again, and, beyond that, to have power. Power that no stroke of bad luck—no matter how long, no matter how deadly—could diminish. He would never be in the position of groveling as his father had groveled before those painted women whose money was able to cover their shallowness and stupidity. This Baron Isaac Nemeroff would never accept an envelope.
He never had to. And when peace came and governments no longer had need of his power and influence, he looked for a new field of endeavor to replace war. He selected crime.
He would never steal again; he was beyond that. But he would become an ombudsman for international crime. If there was a problem to be solved, he would solve it.
If weaponry were needed, he could produce it. If political influence were required, he could exert it. If judges had to be made to see the light of sweet reason, he could give them very good and ample reasons to do so. When drug shipments were bogged down because of periodic governmental crackdowns, Nemeroff could move them.
He was not in crime, but he was of crime. He refused to accept the label of criminal. He told himself he was a management analyst, providing a service to the highest bidder. And while it was unlikely, he told himself he would have done the same job for any legally-established government which had retained him.
He rarely dealt with any criminal leader directly. But it seemed that most problems of and for crime had a way of ending up on the desk of some obscure company in this city or that. And behind the desk, a bright-eyed young man would promise to “look into it,” and within only a few hours, he would report back to his client that “Baron Nemeroff said that you may have it,” or “Baron Nemeroff said to do it for you as a favor.” Heroin would move, guns would be produced, judges would be bribed and crime would move on as smoothly as before.
The brighter ones might ask the bright-eyed young men, “Just who is this Baron Nemeroff?” And the young men would smile and invariably answer: “The man who can straighten things out for you.”
One of the things that he had been called on to straighten out was a hiding place for an American criminal, fleeing prosecution. He had done it. And then, within a period of two months, three more major criminals had asked him to find them sanctuary. He had.
The western world was in the middle of one of its periodic crackdowns on crime. It occurred to Nemeroff that the solution to the problem of asylum for criminals might be one for his brain to explore.
Then, one night, he had met Vice President Asiphar in a London gambling casino, and all the pieces suddenly fell into place.
The casino arranged for Asiphar to lose, far beyond his means, and Nemeroff had stepped forward to arrange payment of the sweating hulk’s debts. That had brought Asiphar into his orbit. He was kept there at the moment with occasional funds and frequent women, always women of the whitest possible skin.
But Nemeroff distrusted the power of women to permanently lock Asiphar to him. The television tapings of the vice president’s bed sessions were a precaution, against any inclination by Asiphar to reconsider.
It had taken Nemeroff six months to work out the plan, and another three to win Asiphar fully to his side. The scheme was simple:
Assassinate President Dashiti, install Asiphar as president, and put Scambia under crime’s flag.
It was now all ready to go and Nemeroff had sent out 40 telegrams:
Must meet on matter of extreme urgency. July 17th, Stonewall Hotel, Algiers. Nemeroff.
And all around the globe, in the far-off crime councils, the telegrams were received; men cancelled other appointments and began packing their bags.
And Nemeroff sent a forty-first telegram to a man whose work had highly recommended him. He called him both for his skills and for the impact his presence would have on the leaders from the United States, who were inclined to be suspicious of new ideas. His forty-first telegram went to Jersey City, N.J., to P.J. Kenny.
CHAPTER EIGHT
REMO WALKED INTO THE LOBBY of the Stonewall Hotel. The lobby ran the first three floors of the hotel, crowned by a massive crystal chandelier. Dusky-skinned bellhops skittered around the floor, swarming towa
rd Remo and his small bag like a gang of flies.
He shooed them away and held onto the bag, into which he had put P.J. Kenny’s attaché case.
As he had expected, he had had no trouble at customs. The clerk had glanced at the passport in the name of P.K. Johnson, glanced at Remo who was wearing the horn-rimmed glasses as proof of identity, then stamped the passport.
The lobby was empty, which meant that Remo was early. If the expected swarm of criminal leaders had arrived yet, the lobby would be filled with scarred men in silk suits, with white ties and hats, trying to stare each other down, trying to set up their own pecking order of importance. But the lobby was empty.
Almost.
Seated in a chair near the door—facing the desk, reading a newspaper—was a young woman. Her orange knit skirt was too short; it was hiked up high onto her thighs and as Remo scanned the lobby, he could see the tops of her pantyhose.
The woman had dark hair—but brown, not black; her skin was dark too, but it was the darkness of suntan, not race; and her eyes behind giant owl-shaped eyeglasses were a deep green that seemed almost unearthly against the glowing tan face. Instead of lipstick, she wore a whitish kind of lip gloss that was somehow wildly sexy. Her eyes met Remo’s briefly, then dropped back to the newspaper page, and a faint smile played at the edges of her lips.
Remo reluctantly removed his eyes and walked to the desk.
The clerk—mustached, with a red fez—moved forward to greet him, smiling oilily. Remo expected him to sound like Groucho Marx.
He did.
“Yes sir, at your service.”
Remo spoke loud for the benefit of the girl. “I’m P.J. Kenny. You’ve got a reservation for me?” In the mirror behind the desk, he saw the girl’s eyes lift toward the back of his head.
The clerk looked at a list of names under the desk.
“Oh, yessir; yes indeed; yes, we do. Will the gentleman be staying long?”
“The gentleman may not be staying at all. What’s the room like?”
“Oh, very fine, sir.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Hotel rooms are always very fine.” He hoped P.J. Kenny talked like this. “Is there air conditioning?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Carpets?”
“Yes, sir,” the clerk said, trying unsuccessfully to hide his annoyance at the loudmouthed American.
“I’m sorry if I annoy you,” Remo said, “but I’m used to only the best. The finest hotels in Jersey City, New Jersey. I don’t stay nowhere but the best.”
“This is the very best, sir,” the clerk said. He leaned forward. “Your reservations were made by Baron Nemeroff, and any friend of the baron’s…” He left the sentence uncompleted, and slammed the silver bell on the desk.
“That’s all right,” Remo said, waving his hand in dismissal. “Just give me the key.”
As he looked up he saw the woman again staring at his back. He wondered if she were interested in him or in the P.J. Kenny he was supposed to be. He’d have to find out.
He chased two bellhops. “All right, kids, I’ll do it myself.”
“Room 2510,” the clerk told him, handing him a brass key with a blue glass ornament attached to it by a chain.
“Okay. And if it’s not all right, you’ll hear about it,” Remo said, taking the key.
Instead of walking to the elevators, he went back across the lobby to the chair where the girl sat. He stopped in front of her, his feet only inches from hers, and she looked up over the newspaper, her eyes bemused under the big circular glasses.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry, miss, but I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere before.”
She laughed. “I don’t think so,” and lowered her eyes to the paper.
“Do you always read newspapers upside down?” he asked.
Her face showed shock, but only momentarily. She recovered quickly and said coldly, “It’s not upside down.” But the damage had been done. That she was willing to panic for a moment, to think the paper just might be upside down, was proof that it could have been, that she hadn’t been reading it. She knew it and Remo knew it.
He smiled at her again, trying to disarm her. “I know it,” he said, “but I always say that.”
“It must be your Jersey City training in diplomacy, Mr. Kenny.” She had volunteered a sentence at last. Her voice was delicately British—not clipped and abrupt, but soft and throaty—and Remo had a letch for the way British women talked.
“One thing I learned in Jersey City diplomacy,” he said. “Don’t give something for nothing. You know my name and hometown. And I don’t know anything about you, except…”
“Except?”
“Except that you’re lovely.”
She laughed softly. “Well, by all means then, we must maintain the balance of power. My name is Margaret Waters and I’m from London and if you really meant that last compliment, you can call me Maggie.”
“A vacationer?” Remo asked.
“An archaeologist. Who would vacation here?”
“People from Jersey City.”
She laughed again. “You’ve just gone down in my esteem.”
“If you’ll let me buy you dinner, I’ll try to recoup my losses. That is, if you don’t have a roaring date with Ramses II.”
“You know,” she said, “you’re really much more civilized than you appeared to be when you were abusing that clerk.” She pronounced it “clark.”
“I’ve been watching too many gangster movies. Now how about that dinner?”
“I really haven’t been able to make contact with Ramses yet. So yes, why not? Shall we make it nine o’clock?”
“Fine. Here?”
“In front of the hotel,” she said.
Remo smiled down at her again. He noticed for the first time that her bust was every bit as good as her legs and her face.
“Until then, Maggie,” he said, then turned and walked toward the elevators. His trip to Algiers was already a success. The girl was lovely. He was glad now that Chiun had not come; he would have already been harping about Remo’s preoccupation with the opposite sex.
He pushed open the door to his room, and stepped into a six-inch deep rug. The entire window wall was of glass, and stepping toward it, Remo could see all of Algiers laid out in front of him, stretching from the hills on the left to the hills faraway on the right. He noticed, too, the small number of lights in the city, compared with an American city.
The bed was set into the floor, and Remo flopped down onto its mattress. It was first rate and hard.
The apartment’s living room furniture was off to the left; to the right was a dining table and kitchenette. The air was washed clean and air-conditioned cool. The quarters were better than those he had in the Hotel Palazzo in New York. P.J. Kenny, might he rest in peace, would have approved.
He probably would have approved of Maggie Waters at nine o’clock, too.
Sometimes Remo wished he had not been the recipient of such extensive training, because his initial impulses were all masculine and all correct, but his follow-through gave way to discipline, except in very rare cases.
Trust Chiun, that old torturer. He had managed to take the pleasure out of sex, while taking none of the enjoyment out of the anticipation. It was one of the things for which he’d have to make amends before he went to meet his ancestors, all those earlier Masters of Sinanju.
Remo glanced at his watch. He had not reset it. It was 1:30 New York time. Time to call Smith.
He had the hotel operator start the long routine of an overseas call to Mrs. Martha Cavendish in Secaucus, New Jersey, who if she had existed, would never have realized that she was supposed to be the aunt of Remo Williams.
But as the call was being made, the line would be switched and transferred, and eventually it would find its way to Smith’s desk in Folcroft Sanitarium, overlooking Long Island Sound.
It was half an hour before the operator called back.
In heavily accented English t
hat made Remo think she had a scrambler attachment on her mouth, she said, “We have your party.”
He heard a click, and said, “Hello.”
“Hello,” came the nasty lemony voice.
“Uncle Harry?” Remo said. “This is your nephew. I’ve arrived safely. I just wanted to let you know. I’m in Room 2510 at the Stonewall Hotel in Algiers. Should I call Aunt Martha tomorrow?”
“Yes. Call her at noon.”
“Sure. Tell her I’m all right.”
“She’d like to hear it herself. Call tomorrow at noon and reassure her.”
“Okay if I reverse the charges?” Remo asked.
“Put them on your hotel bill,” the puckered voice whined. “How was your trip?”
“All right. There was some snotty guy on the plane. Roger Willis or something. He had an accident.”
“Yes, I heard about it. I was worried for a while.”
“Nothing to worry about,” Remo said. “It was just a perfectly pleasant flight for old P.J. Kenny. Say, Uncle Harry, this is costing money. I’ll call tomorrow at noon. Say hello to Ch…to Uncle Charlie.”
“I will.”
“Be sure. He worries.”
“Be sure to call,” Smith said.
They both hung up.
Smith would understand why he could not use the scrambler phone. If there was a tap on the line, using the scrambler would be more incriminating than anything he was likely to say.
At any rate, Smith knew his hotel, room and cover name. That should hold him. He hoped Smith would give the message to Chiun. The old Korean was a worrier.
CHAPTER NINE
REMO STOOD IN FRONT OF the Stonewall Hotel, looking along the broad, clean Rue Michelet, the city’s main street.
The oppressive heat seemed to coat the city with perspiration. If the humidity could be spooned out to the rest of the world it would end the deserts and turn them into farms. Against the light of the modern, overhanging street lamps, he could see droplets of moisture in the air, sparkling like tiny airborne diamonds.
Summit Chase Page 6