"That's a selfish view of life, Little Father. Tell me. Don't you ever wish you could just get rid of all the evil people in the world, all the garbage, all the animals?"
"No," Chiun said.
"Did you ever?" Remo asked.
Chiun smiled. "Of course. I was a child once too, Remo."
CHAPTER TWELVE
When Remo's cab pulled up in front of Reverend Wadson's apartment building, the crowd was pulsating on the street and sidewalk. Some carried signs, others were chanting. "Brutality. Atrocity."
Remo tapped the driver on the shoulder and motioned him to the curb.
"Wait here for me," he said.
The cabbie looked at the two hundred people milling around across the street, then swiveled on his seat to look at Remo.
"I'm not staying here, buddy. Not with that gang over there. They'll use me for chum if they spot me."
"I'd like to stay and discuss it with you," said Remo, "but I don't have the time." His hand slipped forward past the driver, turned the ignition key off, and plucked it from its slot on the steering column, all in one deft movement. "You wait. Lock the doors, but wait. I'll be right back."
"Where you going?"
"Over there." Remo motioned to the apartment house.
"You'll never be back."
Remo dropped the keys into his trouser pocket. As he trotted across the street, he could hear the heavy mechanical click of the four door locks in the cab behind him.
The crowd was being kept at bay by the locked front doors of the apartment building. Inside the lobby, a uniformed doorman kept motioning the people to leave.
"What's going on?" Remo asked the question of a young man with a shaved head and a Fu Manchu mustache who stood on the fringe of the crowd.
The man looked at Remo. His face curled down in disgust and he turned away silently.
"We'll try one more time," Remo said gently. "What's going on?" He punctuated the question, using his right hand to grip the muscles on both sides of the man's lower spine.
The man straightened up from the pain, taller than he had ever stood before in his life.
"They got Reverend Wadson."
"Who's they?"
"I don't know who they is. His enemies. Enemies of the people. The oppressors."
"What do you mean, they got Wadson?"
"He's dead. They killed him. Cut him up and butchered him. Let go, that hurts."
Remo did not let go. "And 'they' did it?"
"That's right."
"And what do these people want? Why are they marching around here?"
"They want justice."
"They think you get it by singing?"
The young man tried to shrug. It felt as if his shoulders were going up and leaving his spinal column behind. He changed his mind.
"Police arrive yet?" asked Remo.
"They just been called."
"Thank you. A pleasure talking with you," Remo said.
He released the young man and moved along the perimeter of the crowd. If he went through the front door, he'd just open a path for this mob. Behind him, the young man tried to marshal his breath to sic the crowd on Remo but every time he tried to fill his lungs to shout, the pain returned to his back. He decided that silence was golden.
Remo surged forward and back with the crowd, moving from spot to spot, being seen, then disappearing, visible, invisible, never in anyone's field of vision for more than a split second, until he had moved to the alley alongside the apartment building. The alley was barred by a locked iron gate eight feet high, with spikes atop it, and barbed wire laced in and out of the spikes.
Remo grabbed the heavy lock and wrenched it with his right hand and the gate gave way smoothly. Remo slipped aside, then punished the lock again until it merged with the metal of the fence and stayed closed. The fire escapes were in the rear of the building and Remo went up the fourteen stories until he got to a window outside Wadson's apartment. He was ready to push open the window when the drapes inside were flung back and the window was opened.
Ingrid stifled a scream when she saw Remo on the fire escape, then said, "Thank God you're here."
"What happened?" Remo asked.
"Josiah's dead." Tears poured from her eyes.
"I know. Who did it?"
"A blond man. With a foreign accent. I was sleeping but he came into the apartment and I heard him talking to Josiah and then I heard screams and when I got up, Josiah was all cut up and dead. The blond man was running out the door. I called the doorman to stop him, but I guess he escaped."
"Why are you running away before the police arrive?"
"This'll cost me my job if I'm found here. I was supposed to be doing a film documentary. I wasn't supposed to fall in love with a black man." She climbed out onto the fire escape. "I loved that man. I really did." She buried her face in Remo's shoulder and wept. "Please get me away from here."
"All right," Remo said.
Remo closed the window again, then hustled her down the fire escape and out another alley behind the building. It exited onto another side street, secured by an identical heavy iron gate. Remo snapped the steel with his hands. He turned to see Ingrid staring at the twisted metal.
"How'd you do that?" she asked.
"Must have been defective," Remo answered, as he steered her around the corner to the cab. The driver was lying on the front seat of the cab, trying to keep out of sight and Remo had to thump loudly on the window to get him to look up. Remo gave him his keys back and the driver peeled rubber leaving the neighborhood. The crowd had already grown larger in front of the apartment building because the word had spread that the television cameramen were coming and no one wanted to miss his chance to be on the tube. Especially the veterans of the civil rights riots who left their liquor stores and their card games to come over and carry signs.
When Ingrid came into the Plaza suite with Remo, Chiun said nothing, but saw the boxy lump hidden inside her purse.
While she was in the bathroom, Remo said, "Wadson's dead. I got her out of there. She's staying with us awhile."
"Good ting," Tyrone said. "She can sleep in my bed. She some hunk of honkey."
"Lacks bulk," Chiun said.
"Hands off," Remo said to Tyrone.
"Sheeit," said Tyrone and went back to watching the rerun of Leave it to Beaver, Chiun changed it to Sesame Street.
While Remo had been at Wadson's apartment, the management had installed a new telephone in the suite. And now, while Ingrid was at the drugstore in the Plaza lobby, the phone rang.
"Yeah," said Remo, expecting to hear Smith's voice.
"This is Speskaya," a voice said. There was something in the voice that Remo remembered. But where? Who? The voice was not accented but sounded as if it should have been. "I killed Wadson."
"What do you want?" Remo asked.
"To offer you work. You and the Oriental gentleman."
"Sure. Let's talk about it," Remo said.
"That is just too easily said for me to believe you."
"Would you believe I want your job if I say I don't want it?" Remo asked.
"Job?" Chiun said. He was sitting on the sofa. He looked toward Remo. "Someone is offering us a job?"
Remo raised his hand to silence Chiun.
Speskaya said, "It is difficult to gauge your motives." The voice was familiar, but Remo could not put it together with a face.
"I can't help that," Remo said.
"What is the offer?" Chiun said.
Remo waved a hand to shush him.
"You work for a country which is breaking down,"
Speskaya said. "People are butchered in their homes. You, who are no stranger to death, find that offensive. Why not come over with us?"
"Look, let's stop mousing around. I've got a secret weapon you want. I'll give it to you. You tell me about the secret weapons you're working on and we'll be square and you can go back to Russia," Remo said.
"Secret weapons? I'm working on?"
"Y
eah. Two of them."
There was a long pause, then a boyish laugh over the telephone. "Of course. Two secret weapons."
"What's so funny?" Remo said.
"Never mind," Speskaya said.
"Is it a deal?"
"No. The device you have is nothing but a low-level biofeedback device that works off induction and is virtually without worth."
"And your two secret weapons?" Remo said.
"They are of great worth. Great worth."
"I bet," said Remo.
"There is a club called The Iron Dukes on Walton Avenue. I will meet you there tonight. I will tell you about my weapons and I will expect your answer about working for us. Nine o'clock."
"I'll be there."
"The Oriental too."
"We'll be there," Remo said.
"Good thing, fella. Look forward to seeing you," Speskaya said. And as the telephone clicked, Remo recognized the voice. It was that jovial "fella" that did it. The man he had met at the excavation at the Mueller's apartment, the man whose knee he had banged up. Tony Spesk, alias Speskaya, Russian colonel and spy.
"Tonight," Remo said to Chiun, just as Ingrid came back into the room. "We'll find out what two weapons he's working on."
"And then?"
"Then we get rid of him and that's that," Remo said.
"You have no idea what his special weapons are?" Chiun asked.
Remo shrugged. "Who cares? More machinery."
"You are a fool," said Chiun.
A few moments later, Ingrid remembered something she had forgotten at the drugstore. She went back downstairs and called a number on a pay phone.
"Anthony," she said. "I just overheard. They plan to kill you tonight."
"Too bad," Spesk said. "They would have been most valuable additions to our arsenal."
"What now?" Ingrid asked.
"Use the white ring. And let me know how it works."
On Halsey Street in Newark, the burly black man found what he was looking for. He had passed up two Volkswagens to find an unlocked car big enough for him to sit in comfortably.
He opened the door of the new Buick and hunched over close to the dashboard, bridging the ignition with a pair of alligator clips he carried in his pocket. From his belt, he unhooked a huge ring of keys, dwarfed by his big heavy hand, and sorted through them until he found one that seemed right and put it in the ignition. He turned it, the starter growled, and the motor started smoothly.
Big-Big Pickens drove into traffic with a smile on his face. He was going home and getting those Saxon Lords straightened out.
Just turns his back, and some honkey and little old chink, they been busting up the gang, and two of the leaders dead, and the Reverend Wadson dead, and about time for all this nonsensery to end. He patted the ice pick he carried in his hip pocket, its business end stuck into a cork. On a whim he removed it and slammed it deep into the car seat. And he smiled again.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
In the living room Remo had changed into a black tee shirt and black slacks.
"Remo." Ingrid's voice was a soft call from the bedroom door.
Remo nodded and stood. Chiun was wearing a thin black robe. Tyrone still wore the same denim jacket, jeans, and dirty white tee shirt he had worn for three days.
"We'll be leaving right away," Remo said, looking through the window at nighttime New York. "But there's something to do first."
The old man nodded.
Inside, Ingrid sat on the edge of the bed. She had just come from the shower and wore only a thin blue satin robe.
"Must you go?" she said to Remo. With her faint European accent, her voice sounded wistful and lost.
"Afraid so."
"That man is a bad man. He killed Josiah."
"You mean Spesk? Just another agent. No problem."
She put her hands up to Remo's arms and pulled him closer to her, until his knees touched hers.
"I would be shattered if you were hurt… or…"
"Killed? I don't expect to be."
"But he is a killer."
"That's right, isn't it? And you saw him running away after he killed Wadson."
Ingrid nodded. She trailed her hands around Remo's back until they were at the base of his spine. She pulled him to her and buried her face in his stomach.
"Yes." Her voice seemed choked. "I saw him. I will never forget him."
"Tall, lean man. Thinning blond hair. Little scar over the left eye."
He felt her head nod against his stomach. Then he felt her hands at his waist, fumbling with the belt of his trousers.
"Remo," she said softly, "this may be strange, but in just these few hours… there has come to be… I can't explain it. You'll laugh."
"Never laugh at a woman in love," Remo said.
His trousers were open now and she busied her hands and her face with his body.
Then she fell back onto the bed, her right hand holding his left wrist and pulling him down to her.
"Come, Remo. Make love to me. Now. I can't wait."
The front of her robe fell open and Remo slipped down onto her blond goddess body. Mechanically, he began sex. He felt her right arm leave his wrist and reach up under the pillow at the headboard of the bed. She put her left arm around his neck and pulled his face down to her so he could not see what she was doing.
He felt the slight shift in her body weight as her right hand returned toward her waist. He felt the fingers slide in between their stomachs and then he felt the constriction as the hard white metal ring was placed on his body.
Remo pulled back and looked down at the white ring. Ingrid reached again over her head and had the small black box in her hand, with the red toggle switch in the center.
She smiled at him, a vicious smile that was as foreign to love as it was to warmth.
"And now, the charade ends."
"As all good charades must," Remo said.
"Do you know what that ring is?"
"Some kind of pressure device, I guess," Remo said.
"As effective as a guillotine." She scootched herself up into a sitting position in bed.
"Is this what you used on Wadson?" Remo asked.
"Yes. I used it all over his body. To mutilate him. He was gross. You learn very quickly."
"No," said Remo. "I didn't learn. I knew."
It was time for Ingrid to be surprised. "You knew?"
"When you said you saw Spesk running" away after killing Wadson. I broke Spesk's kneecap three nights ago. He isn't doing much running these days."
"And yet you came in here? Like a lamb to slaughter?"
"I'm not exactly a lamb."
"You will be. A lamb. Or a gelding."
"What is it you want?" Remo asked.
"It is simple. You join Spesk and me. You work with us."
"I don't think so," Remo said.
"The old one would. I have heard him today. He would go wherever the money is best. Why is he so reasonable and you so unreasonable?"
"We're both unreasonable. Just in different ways," Remo said.
"Then your answer is no."
"You got it, sweetheart."
She looked down at the red switch in her hand.
"You know what happens next, don't you?"
"Go ahead," Remo said. "But know this. You die. You can play with your toy there and maybe hurt me but I'll have time to kill you and you know I will. And you will die very slowly. Very painfully."
His deep brown eyes that seemed to have no pupils met hers. They stared at each other. She looked away, and as if backing down from his stare had thrown her into a rage, she slammed her hand onto the red toggle switch, pushing it all the way forward. Baring her teeth and gums with lips twisted open in hatred, she looked up at Remo.
He still knelt in the same place on the bed. His face showed no emotion, no pain. Her eyes met his again and Remo laughed. He reached onto the bed and picked up the two halves of the white ring, split cleanly, like an undersized doughnut cut in two by a v
ery precise knife. He tossed them to her.
"Called muscle control, kid."
He stood up and zipped his trousers and fastened his belt. Ingrid scurried across the bed and reached into her handbag on the end table. She pulled out a small pistol and rolled toward Remo, aiming the gun at him in an easy, unhurried motion.
As her finger began to tighten on the trigger, Remo picked up half of the white ring and tossed it at her, skidding it off the ends of his fingertips with enough force that it whirred as it traveled the four feet to Ingrid.
Her finger squeezed the trigger just as the piece of the ring hit the barrel of the gun with hammer force, driving the muzzle upward under Ingrid's chin. It was too late for her brain to recall the firing signal.
The gun exploded, one muffled shot, which ripped upward through Ingrid's chin, passed through the bottom half of her skull, and buried itself in her brain.
Eyes still open, lips still pulled back in a cat snarl of anger, she dropped the gun and fell onto her side on the bed. The gun clanked to the floor. A thin trail of blood poured from the bullet wound in her chin, slipping down throat and shoulders until it reached the blue satin of her robe which absorbed it and turned almost black.
Remo looked at the dead body, shrugged casually, and left the room.
In the living room, without turning from the window through which he assayed New York City, Chiun said, "I'm glad that's over with."
"Did ah hears a shot?" asked Tyrone.
"You sure do," said Remo. "Time to go."
"Go where?"
"You're going home, Tyrone."
"You lettin' me go?"
"Yeah."
"Good thing," said Tyrone, jumping to his feet. "So long."
"Not so quick. You're going with us," Remo said.
"Whuffo?"
"Just in case this big bear or whatever his name is is around. I want you to point him out to me."
"He a big mean muvver. He kill me if he find out I finger him for you."
"And what will I do?" Remo asked.
"Aw, sheeeit," said Tyrone.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
All the streetlights were out on the block which housed the Iron Dukes' clubrooms.
Remo stood under one of the unworking lights and touched his toe to the broken glass on the street. The block seemed weighted down with summer dampness. All the building lights on the street were out too and Tyrone looked around nervously.
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