"Whatsa matter with you, Johnny?" she asked, drawing her orange-stained spoon to her ample bosom. "You in trouble again?" She saw for the first time the big circular bruise on his forehead. "Where'd you get that?"
He shook his head angrily. "The men," he demanded, squeezing harder.
"They come about an hour ago," Mrs. Fungillo said, wincing. She looked down with growing concern at her son's white-knuckled hands. His fingers bit into her big arms. "One was young and the other was real old. He was some kind of Chinaman. He was real nice. You know, polite."
"God," Johnny croaked, releasing her. Stunned eyes darted from his mother's sauce-splattered glasses to the cheap linoleum floor.
Mrs. Fungillo took a step back. Regaining her courage, she raised her stirring spoon like a weapon. "You and them slobs you hang around with could learn a thing or two about being polite from them Chinese," she warned him.
Johnny didn't hear. Before she'd even finished talking, he'd regained his senses.
He flew out the kitchen door, grabbing up his mother's car keys from the hook on the wall. He dove into her car, twisting the key violently in the ignition. The garage door split into a dozen neat panels as he plowed through it. The wood was flying into snowbanks on either side of the driveway as he slid out into the road.
He hadn't gotten as far as the stop sign three houses down when he heard something that froze his heart.
"Take your first left."
The familiar voice came from the back seat. He had heard it first in East Africa three months ago. Again on the plane in Boston earlier this week.
His frightened gaze strayed to the rearview mirror.
It was him. Along with the old man from the Boston Raffair office. Dead eyes stared through to Johnny's very soul. He was naked and alone on Judgment Day.
Johnny Books grabbed for the door handle. A long-nailed hand snagged him by the scruff of the neck, pulling him back into the driver's seat. "Please, " Johnny cried.
"We're beyond that," Remo said coldly. "Drive."
There was nothing else he could do. Johnny did as he was told. By the time they reached the empty parking lot behind the abandoned Newark tenement, he had told them where they could find Mikey "Skunks" Falcone and the third man who'd helped burn Castle Sinanju to the ground.
"We can cut a deal," Johnny begged as Remo dragged him out of the front seat.
"You don't have anything we want," Remo said as he hefted the thug into the air.
"Save one thing," Chiun intoned gravely.
As Johnny wept in fear, Remo flipped him upside down. He held the big man by one ankle, dangling him at arm's length above the ground.
The Master of Sinanju bent low. Johnny held his breath as the same deadly nails that had decapitated Louis Dir'rotti moved toward him.
Chiun's hand slipped past Johnny's frightened, upended face. He felt a tug at his hair. Not even very hard.
Johnny strained his eyes to see what the old man was doing. All he could see was the edge of the big purple bruise on his broad forehead.
Where Fungillo's hair brushed asphalt, Chiun twirled a single lock of greasy hair between two fingers. His fingertips rolled faster and faster until they became a barely visible blur.
A tiny curl of smoke rose into the air. Johnny caught a whiff as it rose past his nose. A look of upside-down horror appeared on his reddening face.
"No!" Johnny "Books" Fungillo screamed, just as his greasy hair burst into flame.
Johnny continued screaming as the fire climbed up his clothes. His jacket and trousers ignited rapidly. The sickly sweet smell of barbecued flesh filled the cold air.
For a few minutes, Remo tossed Johnny from one hand to the other. Eventually, when Johnny finally stopped screaming and the flames were too much for even Remo to bear, he tossed the burning corpse into a nearby Dumpster. The trash in the metal container flamed to life.
Remo and Chiun didn't give him another look. As the flames grew, charring to ash the body of the man who had taken their home away from them forever, they climbed into the front seat of Mrs. Fungillo's car. Leaving the fire to burn itself out, the two stone-faced men drove slowly out of the pothole-filled parking lot.
THE PRESIDENT of the United States sat in his bathrobe on the floor of the Lincoln Bedroom. Nearly everything was gone now, including the bed. The red phone was still there. He held it in his hand now as he tried to explain.
"I didn't mean for it to go bad like this, Smith," he said. "She just kind of makes things happen, you know?"
"No, I do not know, Mr. President," the disapproving voice of Harold W. Smith replied. "As for your wife's knowledge of our existence, that is as much my fault as it is your own. She inserted herself into enough crises in the past that I should have dealt with her long before this."
"Yeah," the President agreed hopefully. He bit his lip as he tried to go for the wiggle room. "It really is your fault more than it is mine."
"I did not say that, Mr. President," Smith said tartly, "and you cannot deny culpability in this matter."
The President rubbed anxiously at his face. A smear of orange rouge stained his pale palm. "You really made her forget about you fellas?" he asked.
"Yes," Smith replied. "Not that her knowledge of us was as extensive as yours. But she knew enough to make her a security risk. Obviously."
"Yeah, that was really awful how she made me tell her where your guys would he," the President said. "But you've met her-you can understand how I didn't have a choice."
"No, sir, I do not understand," Smith said icily. "You allowed your wife to manipulate you into placing my men at risk, all for some half-baked scheme that had no hope of succeeding. You had a choice. You could have refused."
"Maybe you haven't met her after all," the President exhaled tiredly. "She's taken me down this same road a million times. From universal health care to those Puerto Rican terrorists. What she wants, she gets."
Smith would not be led down that primrose path. "Before we end this conversation-which, Mr. President, will be our last-I need to ask a few questions. First, are the MIR revolutionaries associated in any way with Raffair?"
"No," the President replied. "I asked you to check Raffair out before my wife called me about you."
"So it was you personally who supplied the whereabouts of my men to your wife, and she in turn instructed the terrorists? There were no gobetweens?"
"Yeah," the chief executive said. "Each time her boys failed, she called me again, meaner than the last time. By the end, she was threatening to stay in New York, not even come down here for the inauguration tomorrow."
"Very well, sir," Smith said. "This ends your contact with this agency. Tonight you will brief your successor about us, and later in the evening, while you sleep, my men will visit you and perform the same procedure they have already performed on your wife. You will forget forever the existence of this agency and its personnel. Goodbye, Mr. President."
"Wait, Smith," the President called. His hand tightened on the red phone.
"Yes, sir?"
Sitting on the floor in his bathrobe adorned with the presidential seal, the President shifted on his ample rump. A lost-little-boy look came to his blotchy face.
"I wasn't so bad, was I?" America's chief executive asked. "I mean, this stuff at the end wasn't too great, but I was okay otherwise, right?" All his life he had always sought approval. He listened expectantly now for an answer.
At first, Smith's voice was flat and dispassionate. "Your actions have threatened us with exposure and put at risk the lives of my two operatives, men to whom this nation owes a debt untold for three decades of tireless, thankless service." By this point, his lemony tone was that of a disappointed New England school marm. "Yes, Mr. President, you were bad. You were very, very bad."
And with this final admonishment over, the red phone went dead for the last time in the ear of the future ex-President.
IN HIS FOLCROFT OFFICE, Smith replaced the phone with an authoritative click.
Face pinched, he slid the drawer shut.
"Guess suck-up time is over," Remo suggested. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, the Master of Sinanju at his side.
Smith nodded tightly. "Tomorrow at noon, we begin with a clean slate. Although we must temper that fact with the knowledge that this President will doubtless not speak kindly of us when he briefs his successor tonight."
Remo shrugged, as if it were all a matter of supreme indifference to him. "One President's pretty much the same as the next one to me," he said. "This guy was no great shakes, but I've seen the new President, so I'm not getting my hopes up. I did like that part, though, where you played us up for our thankless service. That'll come in handy at contract time, I'm sure."
From the corner of his eye, he looked over to the Master of Sinanju.
Chiun sat rigid on the worn carpet, eyes straight ahead. His teacher's silent sadness brushed Remo's heart.
"While you were tracking down the three men who destroyed your home, I continued my search for Anselmo Scubisci," the CURE director said, changing the subject. "He took a jet from Canada to parts unknown. No flight plan was registered. I can't locate a pilot, so he cannot be traced for questioning. For all intents and purposes, Ansehno Scubisci has vanished without a trace."
"And lives to bug us some other day," Remo said bitterly. "If it wasn't for Washington's answer to Evita Peron and her San Juan ski patrol, we would have had him, Smitty."
"Yes," Smith said. "But let us view this with some optimism. Scubisci's plan was a failure. The Securities and Exchange Commission is now looking into Raffair. The stock has collapsed. Given all this, it is likely that Anselmo Scubisci's Camorra benefactor is not pleased with him. Perhaps our work has been done for us."
"I'm not too hot on leaps of faith, Smitty," Remo said. "And I remember a time when you weren't, either."
Smith leaned back in his chair, steepling his long fingers at his chin. "You will find, Remo, that the world changes as you age." His gray eyes were faraway.
The office lights were turned down low. They reflected dully on the big picture window behind Smith. For a moment, cast half in shadow and bathed in pale amber light, the figure seated behind that broad desk seemed unchanged from the first time Remo had seen him.
Smith spoke, breaking the spell. "I should inform the two of you that I have been considering suspending operations," he announced softly.
"Huh?" Remo asked. He glanced at the Master of Sinanju. This had gotten the old Korean's attention.
"The thought has been with me for some time," Smith admitted. "This posting has always been demanding, even in my younger years. And while you and Chiun have remained more than consistent in your abilities throughout our association, clearly I have not."
"You are in but the second blush of life, O Emperor," Chiun said dismissively. "Do not trouble yourself with such vexing thoughts until you have reached one hundred."
"Realistically, that is not an option," Smith said somberly. "And even if I were to stay on very much longer, I am not certain that I'm equipped to understand this new age."
"There's no new age, Smitty," Remo said. "It's always just the same crummy old one with a new coat of paint and a bigger price tag."
"I disagree, Remo. In my day, ordinary Americans would not have invested money in organized crime. A project like Raffair would never have been seriously considered by the Mafia. Such things are products of a different America. One which I am becoming less able to comprehend."
"Bulldookey," Remo offered. "Ow!" he said, feeling a sudden pinch on his thigh.
With a silencing look, Chiun withdrew his tapered nails.
"You will retire?" he asked Smith, his eyes narrowing.
Smith thought of the poison pill in his vest pocket. "In a manner of speaking," he nodded. "Before you leave on this sunny autumn journey, Smith the Generous, Sinanju craves a boon."
"If it is within my power to give it."
"Please be kind enough to tell the new occupant of the Eagle Throne that which you just told his lardbellied predecessor."
"I knew you were listening," Remo said. He had to slap a hand over his leg to avoid another pinch.
"The idiot is going to commit suicide," Chiun hissed in Korean. "Before he kills himself, he could at least put in a good word for us." To Smith, he said, "Your humble servants would be eternally grateful."
There was no rancor visible on Smith's tired face. As he nodded, he stood. "I will see what I can do."
"A thousand thank-yous, Emperor Smith," Chiun said, bowing his head. "Do not play us up too much, however. After all, we do not wish to appear desperate."
Smith came around his desk, his battered leather briefcase at his side.
"Where are you going, Smitty?" Remo asked, trying to dispel the mercenary air that had just descended on the dusty office. "I thought you didn't have to be back in your coffin until sunrise."
"Home," Smith replied. "And the two of you should be leaving, too. You have a plane to catch for Washington. I would appreciate it if you first disposed of the MIR agent you brought here. He is in the security wing."
"Can do," Remo nodded. He was studying the tired lines in the CURE director's face.
"When you leave, be certain to lock this room. Good night." With that, Smith left the office.
"Great," Remo muttered after he was gone. "More planes." He unscissored his legs, rising fluidly to his feet. "If there's any smuggled boom boxes on this flight, I'm tossing them through a jet engine."
Chiun rose delicately beside him. "Unless they are playing the lovely Wylander," he said.
Remo's head snapped around. "Whoa. You told me you were giving up country music."
Chiun gave him a look generally reserved for dim children and mental defectives. "Country music, yes," he said, turning on one heel. "Oxygen, no."
And as his pupil's face fell, the Master of Sinanju padded silently from the shadowy office.
Chapter 38
As promised, the government car picked him up at precisely ten o'clock. Mark didn't even try to engage the driver in conversation for the whole ride to Washington. Lost in silent thoughts, he braced his broken arm on the armrest and stared out at the twinkling lights.
At the White House, he was ushered up to the family quarters. He was surprised to see so little furniture upstairs. A butler brought him down to the Lincoln Bedroom.
The President was waiting for him at the door. No longer capable of being surprised by anything, Mark didn't even blink when he saw the second man who was in the room.
The President-elect sat on a hard wooden chair across the room. It was an old Truman kitchen chair that had to be brought up from a musty corner of the basement. There was very little good furniture left around the mansion.
An old-fashioned phone was at the future President's feet. It was fire-engine red.
"Hello, Mark," the current chief executive said. "I'm sure you two haven't met."
He waved a questioning finger between the President-elect and Mark.
Sitting on his chair, the man who would become President the following day at noon didn't seem interested in Mark in the least. He was studying the phone at his feet, the deep lines of his forehead creased down the middle.
"We were just having a little talk before you showed up," the current President said. "It's a matter that, well, that concerns you now."
He glanced at the President-elect. The other man's face was somber. When he turned back to Mark, the chief executive took a deep breath.
"Mark, let me tell you about a little something called CURE...."
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