Before Remo could argue, an electronic beep sounded from the depths of Smith's desk. The CURE mainframes deep in the bowels of Folcroft's basement had pulled some new data from the Net. Smith brought up the latest information.
"Raffair has finally established a corporate headquarters," Smith said as he read the report the computers had flagged. "It opened in New York this morning."
"Wasn't that place you sent me and Chiun to their HQ?"
"No," Smith said. "Lippincott, Forsythe, Butler merely coordinated Raffair's start-up. Until now, it has been an entity without a visible head, which was why I've had such a difficult time tracking ownership."
"Okay, so now that we've got a home base, we can find out for certain who's behind it."
Smith was staring down at his desk, a sober expression on his gray face. His fingers were resting on his buried keyboard. "We know now," he said evenly.
"Why?" Remo asked. "What've you got?"
The CURE director looked up, his flinty eyes flat. "I know this address," he replied tersely.
Chapter 21
From the outside, the Neighborhood Improvement Association in Manhattan's Little Italy appeared largely as Remo remembered it. After parking his car farther down the block, he and Chiun stopped on the sidewalk in front of the Mott Street entrance. Around them, Chinatown continued to encroach on what had formally been exclusive Italian-American territory.
"Did you not slay the Roman lord who ruled from this ugly castle?" the Master of Sinanju asked. There was little enthusiasm in his voice.
"That was Don Pietro," Remo replied. "Thanks to good old-fashioned Mafia nepotism, his kid took over where he left off. Although Smith says he doesn't technically own the joint anymore. He had to sell it to some dummy corporation for legal expenses or something. Come on."
They mounted the stairs and passed beneath the shiny new Raffair sign on their way through the front door.
They found that the real change had taken place within.
The aroma of tomato sauce and the ancient fuzzy wallpaper were both gone, as was the Old World gloom. Stylish artwork now hung from whitewashed walls.
Several of the downstairs rooms had been opened up. This one big room was filled with fresh-faced young men in long-sleeved dress shirts. They were performing a frantic dance from computer terminals to telephones. To Remo, they looked as if they'd been transplanted to Little Italy from some sterile Wall Street office.
"I don't like it," Remo complained as they passed through the foyer. He looked as if he'd smelled a particularly foul odor. "It had a kind of Untouchables charm before. Look, they even got rid of the guys who used to shoot at you when you walked in," he said, sounding like a kid who'd gone all the way to Disney World only to find that Space Mountain was closed for renovations.
They were past the empty receptionist's desk and had reached the end of the hall where old Don Pietro used to have a private office. Remo was reaching for the door when he felt a bony hand press his forearm. When he looked down at the Master of Sinanju, there was a hard glint in the old man's eyes.
"We are not here for Smith's nonsense," Chiun warned. "We are here to learn who it was that burned Castle Sinanju."
The pang of guilt that had rested in the pit of Remo's stomach since the previous night swelled larger. "I know, Little Father," he said quietly.
His pupil's tone brought the first hint of suspicion to the old Korean's face. He squinted one eye as he examined the younger man. "What is wrong?" he queried.
"Huh?" Remo asked, suddenly alert. "Nothing. Nothing's wrong. What makes you think there's anything wrong?" He quickly changed the subject. "Anyway, our goals mesh with Smith's here. He just wants us to find out who's running the show."
Chiun's expression did not change. "Just as long as you know which is more important."
Remo nodded. Turning from the old man's penetrating hazel eyes, he reached for the closed office door.
The old walnut door had been lovingly sanded and refinished. When Remo's palm touched the surface, the beautiful antique door cracked viciously along one side. A fragmented chunk of wood held the dead bolt and knob in place as the rest of the door screamed around on its twisting hinges. It slammed with a thunderous slap against the interior office wall.
Inside, a harried little man with slicked-back hair sat at a polished oak desk. When he saw Remo and Chiun glide into his office a split second after the door, the tumbler of Scotch whiskey he'd been lifting to his lips slipped from his shaking hand. It struck the desk's surface in echo to the crashing door.
Sol Sweet jumped to his feet, backing against the wall. His gelled hair bumped a picture frame.
"Oh, God, no," Anselmo Scubisci's lawyer breathed.
"No introductions in order, I see," Remo said. His face brightened when he saw the two other men in the office. "Now, they're more like it," he mentioned to Chiun, pointing.
Sweet's two huge bodyguards were lumbering up out of their chairs. Chiun stood between them and Remo.
"Why don't you have them out front?" Remo chastised the lawyer. "Give them some frayed lawn chairs, maybe a couple of muscle shirts. You know, if he knew what you'd done to this place, Don Fietro would be spinning in his grave right about now." He advanced on the lawyer.
"Stay back!" Sweet ordered, his forehead already breaking out with sweat. "You're trespassing here! I can use force against you!"
"Sounds serious," Remo said. "More force than that?" He jerked his thumb to one side.
Sweet heard two soft thuds hit the wall-to-wall carpet even before his eyes darted right. When he saw what Remo was pointing to, he had to slap a hand over his mouth to keep the alcohol in his stomach.
Chiun stood between Sweet's two bodyguards, his arms upraised. Suspended from each of his extended index fingers was a guard. The Master of Sinanju had snagged each man with a long talon in the soft tissue beneath his chin.
To Sweet, it was obvious that those nails were even longer than they'd seemed on videotape, for neither of his two bodyguards appeared to be doing much in the way of living. Their eyes were already growing glassy. Blood dribbled from their tightly closed lips, splattering the beige carpet.
The sound Sweet had heard was that of their guns striking the floor. The weapons sat useless below their dead, dangling toes.
Like a demented orchestra conductor holding a note too long, Chiun bore the men aloft. When his nails at last withdrew, the two behemoths collapsed into a six-hundred-pound pile of limp Sears polyester-blend suits.
Chiun's hands retreated to his kimono sleeves. Sol Sweet felt his mild arrhythmia knot into the first fluttering fist of a full-fledged seizure. "Anselmo Scubisci!" he gasped, panic dancing across his wide-open eyes. "He tells me what to do. He's serving three consecutive life sentences at Ogdenburg Federal Penitentiary in Missouri. I can drive you to the airport." He tore holes in his pants in his desperation to remove his car keys.
When he held the jangling key ring aloft, he felt a bony hand slap against his own. The keys screamed across the room, embedding deeply in the wallboard.
Sweet was clutching his chest when he looked down.
Chiun had circled the desk and was standing below him.
"Did you or he order the destruction of our home?" the Master of Sinanju demanded in a tone that chilled the very air around them.
Despite the cold frisson up his spine, Sol Sweet's chest still burned. "Neither one of us did," he panted. He was becoming light-headed. Blood pounded in his ears. "Those men acted entirely on their own. Well, for the house-burning part. Not the killing-you part. They were sent to do that. But that was obviously before I knew what wonderful, caring, dangerous people you both are. May I take a nitroglycerine capsule?"
"No," Remo and Chiun said in unison.
"Splendid," Sweet enthused. He pulled his left arm close to his chest. If he held it tightly enough, he almost could dull the horrific pain that was shooting up it.
"Are you the one who's sending all these lunatic hit m
en in ski masks after me?" Remo asked.
Through the pain, Sol Sweet grew confused. "Hit men?" he asked. "No. Just the ones who burned down your house. Did I mention how terrible I feel about that?"
On the other side of the desk, Remo frowned. The lawyer wasn't lying. Remo had been sure the attacks of the past few days had been the work of whoever was behind Raffair.
Chiun steered them back to the most important topic. "Where are your lackeys, that they might pay for their wicked deed?" His eyes were truth-detecting lasers, boring twin holes into Sol Sweet's whirling brain.
"Here," he gasped, "lemme..." He staggered to his desk. With a shaking hand, he wrote down three names on a yellow legal pad. "They're hiding," Sweet wheezed as he handed Chiun the sheet. "Don't know where they are. But that's them, I swear."
The old Korean accepted the paper. Sweet felt a pinch of relief when Chiun retreated to the other side of the desk.
"Well, if that's all the business we have, I think I'll just call up an ambulance." He forced a weak smile on his suddenly very pale face.
"Not all," Remo said, shaking his head. "What the hell is this Raffair thing all about?"
"Oh, that," Sweet said. Reluctantly, he took his hand off the phone, grabbing again at his burning chest. "Mr. Scubisci has opened up the business opportunities of organized crime to the masses."
Remo looked to Chiun. The old man was interested only in the scrap of paper in his hand. He turned back to Sweet.
"You're doing what with the what now?" he asked.
Sweet leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes weakly. "Lot of people have a lot of money to invest these days. More regular folks are building portfolios. Scubisci is giving the common man the opportunity to invest in what's historically been a very lucrative field."
Remo blinked. He didn't like the sound of where this was heading. Evidently, Smith had been right.
Sweet had his eyes closed tightly now. His face was ashen and his lips were turning blue. Hands pressed over his heart in a mockery of penitence, he panted out the words in labored spurts.
"Raffair exists as a public cover for the Scubisci crime Family, as well as several others. Money generated by stock purchases goes to developing company infrastructure. Raffair expands, investors reap dividends, company grows, new investors come aboard, Raffair expands more." Sweet's too-white tongue brushed his cold lips. "Is this room spinning?"
"No," Remo answered.
"Oh," the lawyer whimpered. "Anyway, with the money we've made already, we've been able to invest in better methods for narcotics distribution, which feeds a host of other ventures, like gambling, prostitution and bribery. Our great success has been passed on to our stockholders."
Remo couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You're telling me ordinary people are buying stock in the Mob?"
"An archaic term," Sweet said weakly. He opened his eyes. "Is someone gonna shut off that damn alarm?"
"How do people even know about all this?" Remo asked. "It's not like you could take out an ad in the Wall Street Journal."
"When the stock's hot enough, word gets around," Sweet said. His ears pricked up as he strained to listen to a sound only he could hear.
"Ah," he sighed, relieved. "They finally shut it off." Eyes rolling back in his head, he collapsed face first on his desk.
"Are you done?" Chiun asked impatiently. He stood near the door, anxious to leave.
"Yeah." Remo nodded. He was turning from Sweet's twitching body when a sudden thought occurred to him. "Oh, crud," he groused.
Quickly flipping the lawyer onto his back, he drummed his fingertips hard on his chest just above the heart. Catching the rhythm of the fluttering attack, he established a counterrhythm that he forced the muscle to follow. The arrhythmia caught, slowed and tripped to a normal pace.
Sol Sweet's eyes rolled open.
"Sorry to interrupt," Remo said, "but I forgot to ask. They said in Boston you got a copy of that tape with us on it."
Sweet nodded numbly. "There." He pointed to a corner closet.
As Remo went over and popped the door, the attorney sat up. The pain was gone in his chest and arm. Even the light-headedness had vanished. His face was flushed as his color returned.
Remo found but one videotape in the closet. Turning, he held it out to Sweet. "This it?" he asked. Sitting on the edge of his desk, the lawyer nodded. "It's the only copy," he promised. "I took it from the direct satellite feed."
"Great," Remo said. "Off you go."
The hard look in the intruder's eyes told Sweet precisely what Remo meant.
"Wait!" he begged. He leaped from desk to chair, away from Remo. "Where's Anselmo getting the cash for all this?" He waved an index finger all around. "The Scubisci Family's been broke for years. Anselmo's been spending it like water these past few months. Believe me, I don't come cheap, either. I think there's someone behind-" He stopped in midsentence.
An odd sensation had just flitted under his rib cage. Different from anything he'd ever experienced before.
"Oh, my," Sweet said, inhaling sharply.
"Someone other than the Dippy Don's behind this?" Remo asked. He was thinking of the men who'd attacked him. If Anselmo Scubisci wasn't responsible, maybe this other individual was.
Still squatting on his chair, Sweet fumbled in his pocket, producing a small business card. He flung it at Remo. "Scubisci...24A...answer ...questions..." His voice grew more labored as he looked down in utter confusion at his own chest. The pain was back, worse than ever. "What's happening?" he gasped.
"Hmm?" Remo asked, glancing at the card. "Oh, that," he said as he pocketed it. "'That's just your heart exploding."
Sweet looked up in abject horror. At that precise moment, the struggling muscle in his chest swelled and burst, flooding his thoracic cavity.
Face contorting in a rictus of excruciating death, he fell backward. His chair rolled into the wall, and his head smashed into the heavy Monet print that hung over the desk. Lawyer, picture and chair crashed to the floor. The glass shattered, and the frame settled about the rounded shoulders of Sol Sweet.
Remo tipped his head as he examined the attorney, conjoined in death with the French countryside, "I don't know much about art, but I know what I like," he said dully.
"Can we go now?" the Master of Sinanju complained.
"Yes. No, wait." Remo glanced around the room. "A fire for a fire," he said in a low voice.
Remo found a wastebasket next to the desk. He filled it with computer paper from an idle printer. Pushing the wooden desk against a wall, he sat the wastebasket on the floor in the desk's foot well. He lit the paper with a lighter collected from one of the dead bodyguards. Once the fire had started, he smashed the lighter on the desk's surface.
As an afterthought, he tossed the incriminating video into the burning basket.
"Now I'm ready," he said coldly.
When they left the office, the surface of the desk had already flashed to life, igniting the wall behind it.
Smoke and flames were spitting out the door as they crossed the foyer. The young men in starched white shirts continued to race around the open room, oblivious to the fire that was rapidly engulfing the small back office.
"Let's get them out of here," Remo said.
"Why?" Chiun sniffed. "If they are in league with the villains who burned our home, let them also blister on the pyre that will consume those malefactors."
"If we can get them out of here, maybe they'll jam the street enough that this place'll burn to the ground before the fire trucks can get through." Bracketing his mouth with his hands, he took a deep breath. "Fire!" he yelled into the bustling room.
Although he was certain many of the men had heard, there was no reaction. They continued to switch from computer to phone, lost in the electronic roller coaster of day trading.
Remo tried yelling again, louder this time. Still no reaction. By now, the flames were licking out of Don Pietro's old office and up the hallway.
"I
have been through one inferno already," Chiun said, peeved. "If you want this one, you may have it." The old man spun and darted out the front door.
Smoke was pouring in from the hall, hovering in ominous clouds beneath the fluorescent lights of the big room. Obviously, the men knew now that something was wrong, yet their adrenaline-fueled greed held them in place. Remo decided that he needed to find something that would motivate them even more than fear for their lives.
Fishing in his pocket, he pulled out a fat roll of hundred-dollar bills. He flapped the cash in the rolling clouds of smoke.
At first, there was no reaction. But all at once, a face turned his way. It was followed by another, then another.
Like a herd of gazelles on a scent, the entire crew of traders soon had heads in the air, sniffing the aroma in the smoke. The room grew very still. All was silence save the crackle of flame at Remo's back. Remo moved the bills to the right.
All eyes followed.
Remo brought the bills to the left. The pack tracked the movement with their eyes. Some of the men were starting to drool. Continuing leftward, Remo moved over to a front window. With a flick of his wrist, he popped it open. The window shot up, burying deeply in the wooden frame.
He flapped the wad of bills one last time before throwing them out the open window. They caught the breeze like autumn leaves.
"Fetch!" Remo yelled.
Chaos erupted in the Neighborhood Improvement Association. Men shoved and screamed on their way to the exits. Some jumped out the one open window while others smashed the sealed windows with chairs and computer monitors. Screeching brakes and honking horns rose up from Mott Street.
Remo turned from the suddenly empty room. He cast one last glance at the growing wall of flame. Thinking dark thoughts about the men who had set fire to his own home, Remo slipped out the front door into the growing commotion on the street.
Chapter 22
Remo caught up with Chiun on the sidewalk down the street from the Neighborhood Improvement Association. Behind them, men dashed for cash, clogging traffic. The first thread of black smoke was curling into the cold sky.
"Finally," the Master of Sinanju said as Remo trotted up beside him. "Smith can aid us in our quest. Let us hie to his stronghold."
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