Jethro dropped his hands to his sides and stared at his audience. There was a stony silence. Then someone clapped and the house came down. Women rushed to the stage to kiss Jethro's hands. They fought their husbands who were trying to shake the same hands. The bands tried to play along with the enthusiasm but were drowned out by shrieking, yelling drivers and their wives.
"Jethro. Jethro. Jethro," the crowd began to chant. "Jethro. Jethro. Jethro." His girl friend's blouse was ripped off in the melee. But that was all right. You could have seen everything before, anyhow. And besides, maybe that was just one of the new styles.
Jethro gracefully skirted away from his adoring followers after a proper enough time to receive adulation. He signalled for Negronski.
"Siggy," he said behind a bandstand where hopefully he would be left alone for a moment. "Why isn't that New York delegate here?"
"I asked him," said Negronski.
"And?"
"And I don't know. He said something funny, like it doesn't make any difference anymore."
"Look. He seemed very strange. I'm hearing even stranger things about him. Now, I want him to be at my suite by noon tomorrow, or I do not want him to be at all. Understand. Take Pigarello and the other New England boys with you. Let them get their hands dirty. If Bludner causes you any trouble, let me know first and I'll handle the whole thing. Okay?"
"Bludner ain't going to let you lean on one of his boys."
"Does Remo Jones look like one of Bludner's boys to you?"
"He's got credentials."
"I'll take vibrations over ink any day of the week. I don't think Bludner would say "boo" if we nailed this Remo Jones to the front of a tractor trailer and rammed it into the convention hall. I don't think he'd say boo."
CHAPTER NINE
The piece about Jethro in the Wednesday morning paper was a typical newspaper story. Remo read it to Chiun. The Master of Sinanju, Remo's trainer since he first went to work for the organization, liked newspaper stories. They were almost as pretty as 'Edge of Dawn' or the other shows with good guys and bad guys and dramatic things going to happen which would dramatically change other things, with subtle reasons for things that didn't happen, and with all those wonderful little songs that politicians and militants and labour leaders and association presidents sing.
'Song' was Chiun's word for beautiful speeches. They were judged on thoughts and words alone and not expected to have anything to do with reality. As Chiun had said, truth ruins the really good songs.
"Read," said Chiun, and lowered himself to lotus position, his robes flowing gently around his frail body.
"Dateline, Chicago," said Remo. "Good-bye, beer bellies and roadside diners. Hello, bell bottoms and Consciousness III. The International Brotherhood of Drivers yesterday in a surprise vote chose the young mod Eugene V, Jethro, 26, as its new president.
"The upset came after a bitter, hard-fought, two-month campaign that showed the youthful Jethro to be a master politician with a gentle touch. Said Jethro:
"I think the day of the strong arm is over. I think the day of the image of the burly driver ready to fight and strike over a bargaining issue has gone with the horse and wagon. We are a new union dedicated to new principles for a new membership. We look to a greater understanding of our relationship to our environment. We will not be turned aside by the old canards of reaction, racism and ruthlessness. Our trucks are headed toward a better total life for ourselves, our families and our neighbours," said Jethro.
"He called the vote a mandate for change. He said America needed an organized transportation front, but did not elaborate."
Chiun nodded.
"Is there anything on Viet Nam? Those are the prettiest songs," he asked.
"Another offensive."
"Read it."
So Remo read Chiun about the new offensive, and Chiun nodded.
"Why did not your government back the north? You have more money than anyone. Why did you not support the north?"
"Because they're Communist, Chiun."
"Communist, fascist, democratic, monarchist, loyalist, or falangist. There is only winning. Even you know that. But this is a silly land. And it is time for lunch. Today you may have duck."
"Roast?"
"Steamed."
"Oh. Where am I going to get steamed duck?"
"We will steam it here. And I shall add the most flavourful spices."
"Yeah," said Remo.
"A three-stone duck," said Chiun.
"They don't weigh by stones, Chiun. You know that. I'll get a two-and-a-half-pound duck."
"Three stones," said Chiun, refusing to be contaminated by Western measurements. And it was time for 'Edge of Dawn."
Remo was halfway out of the hotel door when a roly-poly fellow with a heavy beard accosted him. He introduced himself as Pigarello. He said Jethro wished to see him. He said Jethro was disturbed that Remo hadn't attended the victory celebration the night before. He said Jethro was a forgiving man. He said Jethro would forgive Remo if he came to see him right now. What could be more important than seeing the new president of the International Brotherhood of Drivers?
"A three-stone duck for steaming," said Remo.
"Wha?" said the Pig.
"Look. Don't bother me," said Remo.
Would it be all right if Pigarello walked along?
"Yeah. Yeah. Waddle to your heart's content," said Remo.
Pigarello knew a shortcut to a duck store.
"Ho, ho, ho," said Remo to himself. "That's nice," said Remo to Pigarello.
"It's through that alley over there," said Pigarello.
"Ho, ho, ho," said Remo to himself. "That alley. Will you come with me?"
Pigarello couldn't. He had to see the new president right away.
"All right. We'll square things later," said Remo. "Do you take a regular sized coffin or a hefty?"
"Ho, ho, ho," laughed Rocco 'the Pig' Pigarello.
"Ho, ho, ho," thought Remo, waving good-bye to Pigarello and walking casually into the narrow alley, just the width of a tractor trailer. Surprise, surprise, it was a dead end.
Surprise, surprise, the two doors in the alley leading into the surrounding brick buildings were locked. And surprise, surprise, across the street, across the street making its turn forty yards away, was a large, four-axle jobby. A tractor trailer it was, its horse a good fifteen feet high and diesel chugging the house-long shiny metal trailer.
It had to full-turn to come into the alley on a line because otherwise it would never fit. There was no extra room. The truck nosed into the alley, making a fourth side and blocking escape. The large side-view mirrors snapped at the alley entrance and Remo suddenly noticed a real surprise. He had committed the classic mistake of underestimating his enemy.
He had assumed they would use a regular tractor trailer with a regular bumper on the front of the horse. But this was a special vehicle, designed specifically for his death. In front, there was a bumper, but it was painted on. In front there were wheels, but they too were painted on in front of the real moving wheels. In front there were the headlights, but they, too, were painted. That they were false, did not matter. But beneath the painted bumper and between the painted wheels was the large dark space through which Remo had assumed he could easily slip. That was painted on and it could prove fatal for not being there. The false front appeared to be heavy steel, like a bulldozer. The front rode above the oil-slick, concrete alleyway by a foot, clear light under the oncoming steel wall.
A foot might just be enough. The front lowered, chipping the concrete, catching an empty can and sending it hurling over Remo's shoulder. Even the narrow space was gone.
The air was oppressively hot. The walls of the surrounding buildings trembled as the huge truck lumbered further in, like a giant prong in a giant socket. Remo could smell the sickening diesel fuel of the monster pushing the steel wall toward him in the three-sided alley. He looked back at the building to his left. It had a ledge. He could make the ledge, and h
e broke for it. But looking at the truck and the ledge instead of taking one thing at a time as he had been taught, Remo slipped. The fourth wall kept moving on, pushing his shoes, and Remo reversed, tumbled and retreated. Retreated past the doors through which he could have broken if he had not been so arrogant.
The truck closed the meagre space, driving several garbage cans in front of it. The garbage cans would crumble when the truck met the end wall. Remo would be splattered into the wall. The front steel plate caught part of the uneven alley wall, and chipped brick went flying forward.
Ten feet now, and the truck was coming on. Ten feet to manoeuvre and there was oil in his shoes from the fall. Six feet, and the steel plate loomed overhead cutting out the sun, making Remo's small room that much darker. Remo kicked off the slippery-soled shoes and moved forward into the metal plate with the painted truck front. Speed forward, the up-jump with the hands high, feel the top of the false front and neatly over to the hood, fast, in one movement like a cat, and there he was staring at two suddenly shocked men in the cab, one of them behind the wheel, both of them very unfortunate.
The truck cracked into the wall with a thud, shivering the surrounding buildings. But Remo was not on the hood. He was in the air above it just an eighth of an inch when the impact came. The drivers, despite bracing themselves, slammed into the windshield of the cab. Remo came back down gently. The drivers lunged for the cab doors, but the narrow alley locked them in.
The man riding shotgun to the driver tried to squeeze out of his window space but his torso got wedged halfway between wall and cab.
"You lose," said Remo, and the man's head suddenly spurted blood from nose and eyes and mouth, which is normal for someone who has just had his skull crushed between brick wall and a hand as hard as steel and as fast as a bullet.
The driver was stuck, too. He couldn't make it out his window side. His puffy red face contorted in terror. He tried to make it out the other window. But there was a body there.
"You've got an interesting problem there, buddy," said Remo. He squatted down close to the window. The driver covered his face, waiting for a blow. When he peeked out from behind his arms, there was Remo, still peering at him as if examining a paramecium or a chess move. No hate. No anger. Just interest.
"Are you going to come out or am I going to have to come in there after you?" asked Remo.
The driver lunged beneath the dashboard and came up with a forty-five, but his target was no longer on the hood. Where the hell was he? Then the driver felt a hand tickle his neck sort of, and then he felt nothing.
Remo scampered over the flat metal roof of the trailer. A head peered out of a window three stories up.
"Driver trainees. They took a wrong turn," yelled Remo to the person looking down at an alley full of truck. He took the jump in a straight down instead of going forward with the momentum. As soon as he hit the alley entrance he was walking normally and looking back like any other bystander puzzled by the loud noise and an alley-wide truck, stuck there like a broad broad in a girdle.
"Traffic is becoming impossible in Chicago," Remo muttered indignantly. Down the street, he saw the unmistakable waddle of his friend, the Pig, who would take a hefty coffin. Pigarello obviously had waited for the crash, then without looking back lest he appear guilty, had walked purposefully away, the only person on the block not looking at the alley. Remo caught up to Pigarello in a few moments. He couldn't lose him. He fell in, step to step, behind the Pig. The Pig got into a four-door sedan furtively, as furtively as a rolling, waddling pumpkin could. Remo opened the back door as the Pig opened the front door. The sounds coincided. The Pig stared straight ahead. So did the driver, whose neck was wet from perspiration. Remo eased down just beneath the line of mirror sight.
"Okay, Siggy. That's it for the kid."
"Good," said the driver. He pulled out into the traffic and passed two police cars going in the opposite direction, their sirens ablaze.
"You know," said the driver. "I never did this stuff before. Most of us never had anything to do with anything like this before. I don't like it. I just don't like it. I just never thought this thing would go this far. First one, then another, then another, and it never ends. This isn't unionism."
"You eat good?" asked the Pig.
"Yeah. I eat. But I ate good before."
"Nobody stuck a gun in your face to make you do these things," said the Pig. "You did them. We do them. Companies do them. Loan sharks do them. Numbers bankers do them. Everybody does them."
"I never did them before, and with rare exceptions, neither do any other locals."
"So, I don't like it."
"Tough titty," said the Pig. "It's life."
Gene Jethro was waiting in the garage of his hotel when the car with his two men (and the man they were sent to get if they could) pulled in. He gave everyone a big Gene Jethro smile.
"How are you all?" asked Jethro.
"We're okay. It all worked out fine," said the Pig.
"Good. I hate violence. That's a disruption of the flow of life," said Jethro. The Pig looked puzzled. He reached to meet Jethro's hand which was coming through the car window. The hand went by him. The hand went to the back seat. Rocco 'the Pig' Pigarello's eyes followed the hand to the back seat. He fainted.
"Oh, gracious Lord," said the pale-faced driver. Sigmund Negronski, who suddenly noticed that there was someone in the back seat and that someone was the man he had been feeling guilty about killing. 'Gracious Lord," he said again.
Remo shook Jethro's hand.
"Hmmm," said Remo. "You. I thought so."
"Glad to meetcha, fella," said Jethro. His love beads dangled over his pale madras blouse.
"Can't stay," said Remo. "Gotta run."
"Hey, baby. I'm welcoming you to the family. Don't leave so soon."
"Gotta run," said Remo.
"I'm offering you a job."
"Got more important things," said Remo.
"There's nothing more important than the drivers," said Jethro. Remo slid from the car and walked out of the garage to the street with Jethro following.
"Hey, wait. Wait," called Jethro. "Where are you running to?"
"Got to get a three-stone duck," said Remo. He accosted a woman. Would she know where there was a poultry store? Supermarket? queried the woman. No, said Remo. Poultry store. The woman pointed. Two blocks, she said. She was pointing east. Remo followed the finger and the new president of the International Brotherhood of Drivers followed Remo.
"Two blocks east," said Remo. "The woman said two blocks east."
"This union has got a future. You've got a future. We're going places and you can go places with us. Now how about it?"
"There it is," said Remo, pointing to a store which had a horizontal necklace of yellowish, plucked birds strung in the window.
"The truth is that you're known as a stand-up guy, and I'm a bit suspicious of you. I want you on my team or out of the union. Now I'm being honest with you. I want you to be honest with me."
"A two-and-a-half-pound duck," Remo said to the proprietor.
"You want the giblets?"
"I don't know. I guess so."
"Look," whispered Jethro. "I'll level further. If you hadn't come with Pigarello and Negronski, you'd be a dead man now. How's that for levelling?"
Remo wiped his ear.
"That looks pretty small for two and a half pounds."
"That's two and a half pounds," said the owner wiping his hands on his entrail-splattered white smock.
"Okay. If you say so," said Remo.
"Now I tell you. You've gotten to me, dude. I'll make the offer once more for the last time. You're either my recording secretary or a corpse."
Remo looked at Jethro. He studied the face. He bit his lower lip in deep concentration and study.
"Does that look like two and a half pounds to you?" he asked.
"Jeeezuz," wailed Gene Jethro. "What is the matter with you? You have got to be the loosest dude I have ever u
n-shaded my orbs for."
"Does that mean you think it looks like two and a half pounds?"
Jethro sighed. "Okay. I'll look." He stood on his toes to peer over the counter at the yellowish fowl being encased in thick white paper.
"Yeah, two and a half pounds," he said. "Now. Death or the job."
"You only gave it a little peek," said Remo. "I mean one look, and you say yes. How can I trust you? What do you know about fowl? What do you know about ducks? What do you know about anything?"
"All right," said Jethro. "It's your life." He shrugged and walked to the door.
"Hey, sweetheart, the truck with the funny steel front doesn't work."
Jethro stopped as though slapped by a wet pontoon. He stared at Remo, open-mouthed.
"That funny truck with the unfunny alley. It doesn't work. I only went along with Pigarello to see who sent him. Although I really knew." Remo took the package from the owner, and felt the heft of the duck.
"Light," he said. He struck the bird under his arm and strolled out the door, past a shocked Gene Jethro.
By the time Remo was scampering through traffic, Jethro had caught up with him. The usually calm and cool face was now a red mask of rage.
"All right, you sonuvabitch. What's your price?"
"I'll think about it, okay?"
"Well. You better do some real fancy thinking if you want to see your gook nutritionist again. Yeah. I know about him. I sent some of my people over to him to explain why he should come with us. Now if you need him for a special diet, buddy, and I figure it's got to be very special and very necessary otherwise you wouldn't bring him with you, if you really need him, you better start naming some prices for your services."
"How many men did you send?"
"Three. One to carry him, one to look out, and one to drive."
"Hmmm," said Remo. He asked a passerby for a luggage store.
"Just four stores over," he was told. He went, Jethro followed.
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