«If you would, my dear, take off the lipstick, I would appreciate it.» Felton's tone was a hard-forced moderation of a great desire to scream.
«Remo likes it that way, Daddy.»
«I'm sure it makes no difference to Mr. Cabell and his presence here whether you wear face paint or not. I'm sure he'd like you better without it, wouldn't you, Mr. Cabell?»
Remo had a strong urge to needle, to demand even heavier lipstick, more mascara, beauty marks over both eyes. But he fought it down.
«I think Cynthia is beautiful with or without lipstick.»
Cynthia flushed. She beamed and radiated like any woman who has been charged up with a compliment.
«I'd love to take off the lipstick, Daddy, if you take off that.»
Felton lowered his gaze. He stepped back and like an innocent lamb, said «What?»
«You're wearing it again.»
«Please, dear.»
«There's no need to wear one in the house.» She looked back at Remo, her beautiful neck white and smooth, catching and molding, it seemed, the light from the ceiling.
«Daddy carries a lot of money sometimes and that allows him a permit for a gun. But that isn't the real reason he carries a gun.»
«No?» Remo said.
«No,» Cynthia said. «He carries one… I hate to say it… because he reads so many of those trashy mystery books.» She turned back to her father. «I mean it.»
«I haven't worn this for ten years, dear.»
«And now you must have read another one of those books that used to intrigue you so. And I thought you had changed your reading taste.» She spoke with mock anger but with warmth as she snaked her hand into her father's jacket and removed a gun metal blue pistol which she held at arm's length like a smelly dead mouse.
«I'll give this to Jimmy and have him put it away where he'll know it will be safe,» she said with authority.
She brushed past the hulk of the man at the doorway and left as Remo called, «Don't go now.»
But she was gone and Remo was alone with Felton, a disarmed Felton to be sure, but one who could count on reinforcements from the wall that moved.
Remo felt the evening air, cold and chill, blowing from the patio onto his back. He smiled politely at Felton who now had Remo in a position where he could kill him, out of Cynthia's sight.
Felton nodded gruffly. He began to speak when, from the back of the apartment, Cynthia's voice rang out: «Uncle Marvin. Uncle Marvin, what are you doing here?»
«Just got to tell your father something, that's all. Got to tell him something and run.»
Felton, his big shoulders hunching near his ears, his large hands finding the side of the oaken desk behind him, his backside leaning on the polished desk top, looked at Remo.
«That's Marvin Moesher, not really an uncle, but he works for me. He's close to Cynthia.» Felton's tone to Remo was almost conspiratorial.
«What sort of work are you in?» Remo asked.
«I have many interests. I guess you must too.» Felton did not remove his eyes from Remo as a fat, thick-featured, balding man waddled into the room.
«A new employee?» Moesher asked.
Felton shook his head, but the eyes remained fixed.
«I got something private I should tell.»
«Oh, I think we can talk fairly freely in front of this young man. He's very interested in our business. He might like to see our Jersey City operation.» Felton brushed back an imaginary cowlick.
That was the indicator, Remo thought.
«Would you like to see it?» Felton asked.
«Not really now,» Remo said, «We were all going to have dinner soon. That's what Cynthia was planning.»
«You could be back in a half hour.»
Moesher agreed. «A half hour, what's a half hour?» he said, with a shrug of his shoulders and a tone of voice indicating that a half hour was the most worthless unit of time imaginable. «A half hour,» he repeated.
«I'd rather have dinner first,» Remo said.
Felton's steely eyes fixed Remo's again. «Mr. Moesher has been on vacation. He's just come back from Folcroft Sanitarium in Rye, New York.»
Don't move. Control breath. Blank mind. No show of emotion. Remo made a great display of concern for a place to sit.
He chose one of the chairs near where Felton leaned on the desk.
«He found it interesting, right, Marvin?»
«Oh,» Remo said, «Is it a rest home or something?»
«No,» Moesher said.
«What is it?» Remo asked.
«I think it may be what I thought it was,» Moesher said and Felton nodded.
«What did you think it was?» Remo said.
«A sanitarium,» Moesher said. «And I got some very interesting things to say about it.»
Remo rose from the chair. «Good,» he said. «Maybe I will take that trip to your Jersey City operation, Mr. Felton. Cynthia will probably be all night, anyway. And we can talk about this sanitarium.»
Felton said to Moesher. «I can't go just now, Marvin. You take him. I'll hear from you later about your wonderful rest at Folcroft.»
Felton's right hand raced along underneath the ledge of the desk and pressed a hidden button. The secret elevator door silently lowered. Felton yelled quickly: «Good to see you here, James. We wondered when you would get back from the store.» It was an obvious signal to the man dressed in butler's uniform who stepped from the secret elevator. He had been listening to Felton and Remo and Moesher, just waiting to be called on. The butler said «Very good, sir,» and walked to the other end of the room, trying to look busy.
«Marv. Take Mr. Cabell down on this elevator. It goes right to the underground garage.»
As Remo moved toward the elevator with Moesher, he sized up the rawboned butler who had passed him. He was tall and rangy and also wore a concealed pistol. His was under the armpit of the waistcoat.
Remo was glad to enter the elevator first. His back was to the elevator wall, a wall that he hoped did not also move.
There were only three buttons on the main panel, PH for penthouse, one marked M, probably for the main floor, and another marked B, apparently for basement. Or was there a special basement for people like Remo? Moesher nodded to Felton and the elevator door closed upward. Moesher was a good four inches shorter than Remo, his neck flowed in layers to his gaudy, shiny, brown suit.
He pressed one of his fat fingers against the button marked B, then turned around. «The car is in the special garage in the basement,» he said.
«What kind of car is it?» Remo asked. «A Maxwell?»
The fat man slid a hand toward his gaudy jacket in one of the sloppiest giveaways Remo had ever seen. Remo could see the tension creep into the thick skull at the mention of Maxwell.
The tub turned around slowly, moving the hand from his jacket. The hand was empty. He smiled, a thick-lipped smile.
«No,» he said flatly, «It's a Cadillac.»
Remo nodded. «Nice car. I was riding in one last night.»
The squat man nodded, but said nothing. He showed all the characteristics of a man about to kill, almost like a text book.
He could have been used as a demonstration model. He avoided the eyes of his victim, shuffled nervously, had difficulty carrying on a conversation. Remo knew what would happen. A gun brought out, aimed and silently fired. It would be soon. Beads of perspiration held a convention on the folds of the tub's forehead.
And Remo had to go with him, at least until they got off this damned elevator that might be wired for sound or television or poison gas. He had to go with Moesher until they were alone and he could try to get a lead on Maxwell from him.
Remo took an up-and-down look at Moesher. This tub of chicken fat, he thought, will be easy. Remo couldn't envision the little blob with the downcast eyes doing anything competently.
He couldn't envision it until the elevator door had opened and they had both stepped out into an underground parking garage. There were no windows and Remo could not see whe
re the door was. The sole light in the area cast more of a gray pall than brightness over a pearl gray Rolls Royce and a black Cadillac.
By the time Remo could envision Moesher doing anything right, it was too late and Remo realized he had made the cardinal mistake. He had violated the first rule beaten into him at Folcroft: pride. Never think you're so good that you can't be beaten.
Proverbs were of little use to him now as he stared down the silencer-encased muzzle of a luger held at arm's length in the pudgy fingers of Moesher. And now the brown eyes were staring at him and the feet were no longer shuffling.
The hand was steady, too. And Moesher had chosen the proper distance. Twelve feet-close enough for extreme accuracy, far enough to prevent lunges.
The little tub had moved so silently and smoothly and Remo had been so confident, that now Remo was just a squeeze away from a muzzle flash, then death.
The only picture Remo's mind could conjure up was one of Chiun, moving sideways, crabwise, skittering to escape Remo's deadly hail of bullets in the gymnasium that first day. They had discussed the technique but Remo's training was cut too short to give him mastery of it.
Moesher spoke: «Okay, booby. Where you from? Who sent you?»
Remo could have answered smart, could have fired off a sharp remark. He could have done that and been dead. But as the heavy dank basement air seemed to freeze his lungs and his hands grew damp and his eyes clouded with a film that only pressured terror could bring, he decided to play it by the book. Do what he had been instructed to do.
«What's the gun for?» he said, surprised. He moved forward, slowly, a half shuffle as the action of his hands rising over his head hid his move.
«I'm going to tell Mr. Felton about this,» Remo said, still conveying fear. He waved his hands again over his head, this time taking a full step.
«Another step and you die,» Moesher said. The gun didn't wobble.
«I come from Maxwell,» Remo said.
«Who's Maxwell?» Moesher smiled.
«Kill me and you're never going to find out. Not until he comes for you himself.»
It was a bluff and Moesher wasn't buying. Remo saw the brown eyes squint and knew a shot, a silent dead missile, would explode from the barrel. Now. Complete collapse of the muscles was the fastest way.
Zap went the gun and Remo's sturdy frame crumbled to the garage's cement floor. The body lay there not moving and Moesher, not quite sure whether Remo started to fall before he was hit, came closer to put a bullet in the brain. He came forward two waddling steps, raised the gun slowly and aimed at the young man's left ear. He came one step too close.
He squeezed the trigger but the ear was no longer there. One moment the body had been still, the next moment it was in the air. Remo's foot kicked Moesher's gun arm away. He fired twice but the bullets thudded against the ceiling, chipping cement like an explosion of gravel.
Remo was on Moesher's back, his left arm hooked under the fat man's armpit for leverage against the thick neck. His right arm pressed his opponent's right arm upwards until the luger dropped.
Remo concentrated the pressure, then whispered into the nearest ear: «Maxwell. Who's Maxwell?»
The tub grunted a curse. He struggled to twist his neck free. Remo was surprised how easy it was. When he was a policeman, he had never been able to use the hold competently. But the police had never taught about sustained pressures in their cursory six-week training course.
«Maxwell. Where is he?»
«Aaaah.»
The tub struggled. Remo increased pressure from his left hand, down, down, down. Crack! The spinal column gave. Moesher went limp. Remo gave a final thrust. The head merely went further down in a ghastly limp compliance.
So Moesher wouldn't talk either. Remo stood up and let the body fall. It had been too close. Overconfidence could kill.
Moesher's thick lips opened as a trickle of blood flowed down his left cheek. His open brown eyes were dazed, clouded by death, seeing nothing.
He couldn't be left there.
Remo looked around and saw only the cars in which to hide a body. They wouldn't do. It might be embarrassing later to have to explain what happened to dear old Uncle Marvin, if he and Cynthia got into that car.
He saw a door in the corner of the garage enclosure. He walked to it. Inside was a large commercial washer and dryer, apparently for the use of Lamonica Towers' residents. Remo glanced at the dryer, white and spotless in the corner. A cruel smile formed on his lips.
He dragged Moesher's heavy body across the garage floor to the dryer and with one hand flipped open the door. The body was big but the opening for clothes was twenty-four inches in diameter, big enough for even a big body. Remo stuffed Moesher's head and shoulders into the dryer compartment, twisted them until they turned sideways, making room for the rest of the body. He pushed Moesher's legs in. He noticed he wore argyle socks. With a snap of his fingernails, he opened an artery on Moesher's neck. Then he dried his hands on Moesher's trousers.
He snapped shut the glass-fronted round door and looked for the starter button. «That cheap bastard, Felton,» he murmured. «A coin machine. For people who live in his apartment building.»
He reached for his pocket, then said to hell with it. He wasn't going to feed his own money into Felton's goddam laundry.
Remo opened the round door again and reached far into the machine until he felt pockets. He reached in and yanked out all Moesher's change. Good. He had a lot of dimes.
Remo clicked the door shut again, then placed six dimes in the coin slot. The machine groaned into operation, the cylinder spinning, the heat increasing. Remo pocketed the remaining quarter and three pennies, then stepped back and watched the accelerating swirl of clothes and flesh.
A pink film clouded the round window. That was the blood. The centrifugal force of the spinning cylinder would force the blood from Moesher's body through the cut artery. The heat would dry him out and for sixty cents, Moesher was well on his way to becoming a mummy.
«Oh, Remo, you're a bastard,» Remo said softly to himself. He whistled as he walked back toward the elevator. Now to get back to the twelfth floor.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The private elevator door offered the same type of lock it had on the main floor. Remo reached into his jacket pocket for the keys he had taken from the driver the night before. He glanced back at the garage and saw the Luger.
Remo trotted back to where he had overcome Moesher on the cement floor. He picked up the black gun. Did he need it? Felton would have no doubts about what had happened to Moesher. There would be no reason not to carry the gun now.
Remo fingered the hard black handle with sweat grip. MacCleary had always said: «Don't listen to everything Chiun tells you about guns. They're still good. Carry one and use one.»
And Chiun, when Remo had finally talked to him later, had maintained that guns spoiled the art.
Remo glanced at the barrel, dull, gunmetal blue. Chiun was over seventy years old, MacCleary was decomposing. Remo flipped the gun into a dark corner. Weapons really did take the fun out of it all.
The tubular key, first to the right, then to the left, worked in the elevator door.
Remo pushed the button marked PH. Riding up, he straightened his jacket, wrinkled in the scuffle below. He tightened his tie and in the burnished button panel with only three stops, saw enough of the outline of his head to straighten his hair.
The elevator stopped but the door didn't open. Of course, Remo thought, there was some kind of button to open it. He had ignored what Cynthia had done earlier to open it.
He examined the panel again. Three buttons. Nothing else. His eyes roamed the door, the metal door. Nothing. Back to the panel. He was about to push his hand against the entire door panel to see if it opened by slight pressure, when voices drifted toward the car.
The elevator had been constructed so that a person standing in it when it was at the penthouse level could hear signal commands from the library. Remo hesi
tated. It was Cynthia's voice. She was protesting. «He is not like that at all. He loves me.»
Felton's voice: «Then why did he take the one thousand dollars I offered him?»
«I don't know. I don't know what you told him, or even if you threatened him.»
«Don't be silly, my dear. He took the money because I told him he would get no more if he married you. He was only after your money, dearest. I was protecting you. Could you imagine what would have happened if you had married him and then found out what he was like? When he took the money, I told Uncle Marvin to take him down and put him on a bus.»
«I don't care. I love him.» Cynthia was sobbing.
Remo did not want to have to tell Felton he was a liar just yet, not in front of Cynthia. Plenty of time for that later. He took out his wallet and leafed through the bills. He had about one thousand two hundred dollars. Smith would have a heart attack.
He rolled up one thousand dollars into a wad and replaced his wallet. He pushed the door's face, and as he guessed, it slid downward and he stepped into the library.
Felton looked as if he had just been kicked in the stomach by a mule; Cynthia as if she had received a reprieve from the chair.
Remo hurled the one thousand dollars on the rug and, forcing himself not to laugh, announced grandly: «I love Cynthia. Not your filthy lucre.»
«Remo, darling,» Cynthia cried, running to him. She threw her arms around his neck and violently kissed his cheeks and lips. Remo stared at Felton through the barrage of affection.
Felton was visibly shaken. He could only return Remo's stare, then blurted out: «Moesher? Where's Moesher?»
«He was going to put me on the bus. Then he decided to go for a spin by himself.» Remo smiled, a smile that was immediately smothered in warm searching lips.
Felton had regained his composure by dinner. They ate by candlelight. James, the butler, served. Felton said it was the maid's night off and he had personally prepared the meal. Remo responded he was overcome by an upset stomach and could not eat a bite.
The preliminaries were over. Both men knew that. And each knew that the only thing left was a showdown between them-a personal showdown. They would both know when the time for that had come. And this was not it. The dinner was like the Christmas Day armistice on the battlefield and Felton played the role of the proud father.
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