Look Into My Eyes td-67

by Warren Murphy

"How do you know someone is drugged? You could be hypnotized to think he was, when he wasn't."

  "You could be hypnotized to believe he is dead."

  "That is why we are going to work in waves. He is not going to get all one hundred and fifty of us hearing and seeing the same things. First, we stake him out. He has an office on Fifth Avenue."

  "A typical capitalist address," said one captain, glad to be using the language of communism again.

  "Our consulate is just off Fifth Avenue, you idiot." Matesev assigned one unit to the stakeout, a second unit to back them up, and to the other eight units he gave the mission of procuring the proper weapons.

  With the first two units, he isolated the building by intercepting all communication lines and putting them through his own command center. Vassily Rabinowitz did not know the day a new neighbor moved in downstairs that now Hypnotic Services of Fifth Avenue Inc. was located directly above a headquarters of the most effective commando squad in Soviet history.

  In Washington, the President of the United States heard the one thing he never thought he would hear from the organization called CURE. When it had been organized, the need to keep its budget secret was just as great as keeping the organization itself a secret. So it was allowed to covertly tap into budgets of other departments. This avoided a hearing on its costs that would in turn, reveal its nature.

  CURE could have run an entire country with its budget without anyone knowing where the cash went. Of course, Harold Smith was a man of the greatest probity. That was why he had been chosen to run this organization with an unlimited budget.

  What the President had to deal with that day, besides the still mysterious danger from Russia, was the startling news from the man with the limitless budget.

  "Sir," said Harold W. Smith, "I'm afraid we're going to need more funds."

  To save America, CURE was going to have to pay the accumulated fortunes of five millennia of Sinanju Masters.

  Chapter 6

  On the day before the world was supposed to fall on him, Vassily Rabinowitz heard a terrifying story from Johnny Bangossa.

  "They gonna do the job on you," said Johnny, wincing. Vassily had tried to make Johnny believe his brother never used to hit him. This, of course, the master hypnotist did easily. The wincing and ducking bothered Vassily. However, the moment Johnny Bangossa didn't believe that his older brother Carli (in the form of Vassily) would abuse him anymore, he became downright disrespectful, and even dangerous. Vassily had to get him to believe again that his brother Carli was a brutal, insensitive, and, cruel dolt.

  This fact having been reestablished, Johnny Bangossa returned to his form of loyalty.

  "What is this thing 'doing the job'?" asked Vassily. "I have heard you mention the same phrase in regards to romance. "

  It had amazed Vassily with what hostility his men talked about the women they seduced. It was like a war. They talked of doing the job on this woman or that, of really "giving it to her," a phrase they would also use for beating up someone.

  "Doing the job, Carli, is they're gonna kill you. Waste you. Off you. Give it to you."

  "And how did you find out this information?"

  "They tried to bribe me to set you up."

  "I see," said Vassily. "How boring."

  "Why is that boring?"

  "Because they also did it with Rocco, Carlo, Vito, and Guido. This is the fifth plan to kill me. Why?"

  "Carli, you know that you're cuttin' into their territory. They gotta make the move on you."

  "The move. Didn't you make the move on the secretary?"

  "No, that's a different move."

  "How am I cutting into their territory? I just run a weight-loss, quit-smoking, sexual-problem clinic. That's all I do. I only try to protect myself."

  "Well, you know the guys do a little stuff on the side. Rocco's got some narcotics, Carlo's got some prostitution, Vito does a little extortion, and Guido breaks people's legs."

  "That's a business? That's a territorial territory?" asked Vassily, panicked at what America would consider a profitmaking enterprise. He had heard capitalism had evils but had always assumed most of it was propaganda from the Kremlin.

  "That's what they're in, and you should be taking your cut. It's good business, especially the narcotics. "

  "I don't want to be in narcotics, prostitution, extortion, and breaking people's legs, Johnny," said Vassily. What had gone wrong? All he wanted was to live in freedom and then after he was mugged all he wanted was to live in safety. Now he had to deal constantly with these hairy animals, and people were always trying to kill him.

  "We got to do the job on them first. We gotta lay it on them. We got to really bang them hard," said Johnny Bangossa.

  "I suppose we will have to fornicate them," said Vassily, trying to get into the spirit of it all. But it didn't seem to work. There were a full half-dozen men he was supposed to kill. Considering his powers, he thought, there had to be a better way.

  "I'll meet with them," said Vassily.

  "They'll kill you on the way to the meeting," said Johnny Bangossa.

  "I'll tell Vito, Carlo, Guido, and Rocco to stop."

  "Vito, Carlo, Guido, and Rocco will start workin' with the others. And we'll be done for."

  "Is there any way I can get out of committing murder?"

  "What for, Carli? We can have the whole thing. If we win."

  While Vassily did not see breaking legs as winning something, there definitely was a major advantage to living through the day. But he had seen these men work for him. Their collective IQ was insufficient to build an outhouse.

  He had also seen that reason was not something that appealed to them. They had two emotions, greed and fear. Usually they showed these two emotions in a combined form, which was anger. They were angry all the time.

  The moment any one of them realized Vassily was not the man they thought him to be, he would be dead. He thought of running again. He even thought momentarily of running back to Russia. But in Russia, once he got back, they might think of a way to keep him there forever.

  Something about the size of a fingernail decided Vassily's course of action that day. It was not an especially imposing thing, being a dull gray, and was rather soft for a metal. It was an ugly little piece of lead. What made it such an important piece was how quickly it was moving, faster than the speed of sound. And even more important, it was moving very close to Vassily's head. Three inches. He felt the wind of it in his hair as he got into the rear seat of his limousine. It cracked through a large plate-glass window on Fifth Avenue, and Guido and Rocco had their pistols out almost instantly.

  The man who fired the rifle was now speeding away in the rear seat of a car.

  Vassily picked himself up out of the gutter and wiped the dirt off his expensive new blue suit. He was more frightened than he had ever been in his life. Always before in danger he could catch the eye of his attacker. But here he could be killed without ever seeing the man.

  Like most people captured by fear, Vassily lost all sense of balance and proportion. He was yelling when he got his boys together. He wanted to know everything about his enemies. What were their habits, what were their routines?

  And in that state of mine, he devised a simple plan that could be put into effect that very night. He took three leaders of his opposition and targeted them for death, even as he told them he wanted to make peace with them. He hated himself as he did this, but fear almost always wins over self-respect.

  Slimy was the way he felt about himself, but he had no choice. He had one shotgunned to death inside an elevator where the man couldn't move. Fat Guido took care of that one. Another was machine-gunned in bed with his woman, and the woman was killed also. But the most vile part of it all was having one of his men, Carlo, pose as a policeman and shoot one of his targets on the steps of Saint Patrick's Cathedral, a house of worship, a place where people prayed.

  By midnight, as the reports came in of one horrid deed after another, he found he
couldn't took at himself in the mirror. Outside the plush living room of his Park Avenue apartment, Vassily heard noise. It was his men. He could always hypnotize them to believe they hadn't done these horrible deeds. He could have them know in their bones that this horrible day did not happen, but he would know. And one day, he might be so overcome with remorse that he would slip and fail to keep one of these men in a hypnotic state.

  The noise increased outside his living room. Were they in a state of rebellion, revolted by the horrors they were forced to commit, horrors that even for gangsters had to wrench their souls?

  Suddenly the door burst open and there were Johnny Bangossa, Vito, Guido, Rocco, and Carlo, and they were all coming at him. Johnny was the first to grab his right hand. So stricken was he by his guilt that Vassily failed to make eye contact and convince Johnny he had never done such a horrible thing as to machine-gun a man in bed with his lover.

  Vassily closed his eyes and waited for the first horrible sensation of death. He felt something wet on his right hand. Then he felt something wet on his left hand. He couldn't pull his hands away. Was this some form of liquid poison?

  He waited for it to penetrate the skin. But there was only more wetness. He heard a strange sound at one hand. All right, he thought. Poison is not the worst thing. There are worse ways to die. Being shotgunned in an elevator is a worse way to die. Being machine-gunned while making love is a worse way to die. Being surprised by a man posing as a police officer shooting you on the steps of a house of worship is a worse way to die. Perhaps poison is too good for me.

  But he was not dead. He could not free his hands, but he was not dead. He heard the noise of kissing coming from the ends of his arms. Smelled the horrible oils his boys used on their hair. And felt lips caressing the back of his palms. He opened his eyes.

  Vito, Guido, Rocco, and Carlo were bumping heads trying to be the first to kiss his hands.

  It was a form of honor, he knew.

  "You really did it, Carli. You're wonderful. You're a power now. You got respect. You always had our love, brother. Now you got our respect. And the respect of New York City," said Johnny "The Bang" Bangossa to the man he thought was Carli Bangossa.

  "We're a major family now," said Guido, who allowed as how for his wonderful services that day, he should be made a caporegime. And so did Johnny, Vito, Rocco, and Carlo.

  "Certainly," said Vassily. Only later was he informed that he had just given these five thugs the right to recruit and organize their own crime families under his general command.

  The bodies were still warm when the New York media began analyzing the results. Dealing with the brutal killings like some ball game, they announced a new player making a brilliant move. None of the inside sources knew for sure who this new Mafia don was, but he had shown himself to be a brilliant strategist. In one master stroke he had immobilized the other families who were now suing for peace. And an informed source indicated this organizational genius was collecting the remnants of the other temporarily demoralized crime families.

  Vassily Rabinowitz realized now he was some kind of hero. What he had considered a form of degradation was genius here. Who knew, maybe he would even like breaking legs for a living, if they broke cleanly and did not create too much pain and blood.

  He wished his mother could see him now. She would have to agree he was not the most reckless boy in town as he had been called back in Dulsk, before he allowed himself to go to that village in Siberia, before all this, when he was just a simple ordinary lad. He wondered if he could get his mother out of Russia, perhaps set her up here. Maybe as the mother of a don, as he understood the head of a "family" to be called, she would be called a donna. There were women here of that name. He would be Don Vassily and his mother would be Donna Mirriam.

  When General Matesev's first unit hit the Rabinowitz office of Fifth Aveuue the following morning, they made their way through a long line of customers, pushing aside the secretary, and opening the door to the inner office, using an old technique for city warfare. You didn't rush into a room. You threw a hand grenade into the room first. They you looked to see if anyone was in there.

  When the first unit had determined there had been a kill in the office Vassily Rabinowitz had been using every day for the last few weeks, the second unit quickly followed with bags, suction equipment, and various specimen collecting devices. Quickly the remnants of what had been a person would be whisked out of that office into a truck that was really a laboratory. What they wanted from the remnants of a person was blood type, cell type, and fingerprints if they were lucky. If they got a whole face, so much the better.

  But General Matesev was not going to risk anyone talking to this man who could turn even the most hardened minds of the finest KGB officers. Kill first, identify second, return to Moscow third, the mission accomplished. One had to keep things simple.

  Unfortunately the first wave found only shattered furniture and windows. No one had been in the office.

  "Mr. Rabinowitz is not seeing anyone," said a secretary, getting up from behind a desk. People were now scattering in the hallways and screaming.

  "Where is he?" demanded the unit leader of the fourteen men of the lead squad of the Matesev force.

  "Won't do you any good. You can't get an appointment."

  "Where is he?"

  "I think he's moved to Long Island. He's got a big house and a wife with a mustache, I think. I don't know. He's not coming in anymore. He phoned this morning. No more appointments. I've been telling that to everyone."

  Remo approached the large brick house on Long Island, walking between the moving vans that were unloading dark lacquered furniture, pink lamps, and sequined chairs. It was a collection of furniture that any merchant would have been glad to pawn off on a drunken aborigine.

  General Matesev had come to America looking for Vassily Rabinowitz. Rabinowitz' Fifth Avenue office had been blown up that morning by hand grenades. Fifteen men working in unison had demolished the place. The police came. The newsmen came. Then the newsmen started asking if this were another hit in the new Mafia war. Remo mingled among them. He had found out Rabinowitz had an apartment on this fashionable street. He rushed to the apartment. He didn't want Matesev getting this Rabinowitz and getting out of the country before Remo had a chance at him.

  Smith had also had another requirement: he wanted to know what Matesev was after. Remo had said that was simple. Rabinowitz.

  "But why does he want Rabinowitz? No one can figure that out. A simple Russian citizen is not worth all this." So there were two things to do that morning. Matesev first, Rabinowitz second, get them both before one did in the other.

  At Rabinowitz' apartment, he saw workmen carrying out furniture.

  He asked where it was going. The workmen refused to say anything and warned him that if he knew what was good for him, he would keep his mouth shut and his eyes closed.

  Remo said that was an unkind way to respond to a simple question. The movers said if Remo knew what was good for him, he wouldn't ask those kinds of questions. Besides, they didn't have to answer. There was nothing that could force them.

  So Remo offered to help them with the moving. He moved a large couch by grabbing one leg, and held it perfectly level with complete ease. Then he used the other end of the couch to play with the movers.

  "Tickle tickle," said Remo, coaxing a large mover's rib with the far end of the stuffed white couch. He coaxed the mover up into the truck. Then he coaxed him to the front of the truck. Then he coaxed him against the front of the truck. Remo was about to coax the mover through the front of the truck when the mover had something very important to say to Remo.

  "Great Neck, Long Island. Baffin Road. He's got an estate there. But don't mess with him."

  "Why not? I like to mess."

  "Yeah. You don't see how we're haulin' this furniture? You don't see it?"

  "No, I don't see a scratch on it," said Remo, dropping the couch and giving the load its first scratch. With a c
rash.

  "Yeah, well, when you see movers not even getting a scratch on furniture, you gotta know it's for racketeers. No one who can't break your arms and legs is going to get furniture moved this nice. Mafia."

  "Rabinowitz. That doesn't sound Italian. I always thought you had to be Italian."

  "Yeah, well, that ain't what I just heard. This guy's got more funny names than anyone I know. One guy calls him Carli, one calls him Billy, and another calls him Papa. And I wouldn't want to be alone in an alley with any of those guys. So you tell me. Is he Mafia or is he not Mafia? I don't care if the guy's got a name like Winthrop Winthrop Jones the Eighth. If you got the thugs around you like he's got, you're Mafia."

  And so Remo had gotten the new address of Vassily Rabinowitz, and went out to the Long Island estate to await the attack of General Matesev's men. It was a large estate with high brick walls and a big iron fence at which two very tough-looking men stood guard.

  "I'm looking for work," said Remo.

  "Get outta here," said one of the guards. He had a big lead pipe on his lap, and under his jacket he had a .38. He allowed the bulge of the gun to show, no doubt considering it an effective deterrent. He had the sort of pushed-in face that let you know he would happily use either weapon.

  "You don't understand. I want work and I want a specific job. I want yours."

  The man laughed and tightened his ham fists around the lead pipe. He started to push it at Remo's chest. He hardly saw the thin man's hands move, but suddenly the pipe was doubled in half.

  "Sometimes I wrap it around necks," said Remo, and since the man looked on with some incredulity, he showed him how. Remo bent the gray lead pipe around the man's thick neck like a collar, leaving a little bit extra for a handle.

  The other man went for his gun, and Remo put him quickly to sleep by glancing a blow off his skull, causing reverberations that would not allow the brain to function.

  He tugged the pipe along with him, down the long brick path to the elegant main house with the gables and dormers, and guns sticking out of them.

  He tugged the guard a good quarter-mile to the door of the main house. Yellow and red tulips, the flowers in full blossom, made a bright pattern against the red brick. Newly trimmed grass gave a rich earthy smell to this walled haven on Long Island. The door opened and was filled with a hairy man.