Tony picked up the fax receiver.
Don Carmine watched him carefully. If he had to whack out this guy, he would want to know exactly how to Fedex coke.
To Don Carmine's surprise, Tony Tollini simply dialed a number, spoke briefly, and then hung up.
"It's all set," Tony said, turning to Don Carmine.
"Whatchu mean, it's all set? You never moved the coke. It's still fuggin' in the case there!"
"They pick it up."
Don Carmine pushed out a thick lower lip. "Who does?"
"The Fedex people."
"Oh. Oh. This I gotta see. What's their cut?"
"They usually charge about twenty dollars a delivery."
"Fine. It comes outta your end.
"Why?"
"On account of you didn't tell me first," Don Carmine snarled. "You wanna spend my money, you tell me first. The double sawbuck comes outta you. Consider it an object lesson. A cheap one."
Less than a half-hour later there came a knock at the door.
"I'll get it," said Bruno the Chef casually.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Don Carmine said with hushed urgency. "Everybody wait one fuggin' minute here. I smell a rat."
"What?" asked Bruno, dropping into a crouch.
"Check out the window. Look past the curtain. What d'you see? Tell me what you see."
Bruno stopped dead in his tracks and scrunched down. He looked over the green chintz curtain that blocked off the lower part of the storefront windows.
"I see a van," Bruno said, eyeing the street.
"Right. What's on the side of the van?"
"Words. I can make one out. Says 'Federal.' Wait a minute! 'Federal'!"
"That's just-" Tony Tollini started to say.
"The feds!" hissed Carmine Imbruglia. "You. Maggot. Toss me your piece."
A .38 revolver went sailing into Carmine Imbruglia's meaty hand.
"Cover me. I'll show those feds not to mess with the Kingpin of Boston."
"No, wait," Tony tried to say, waving his hands frantically.
"Shut him up," Carmine barked.
A hand went smack against Tony Tollini's face and he crumpled in a corner.
Carmine Imbruglia stepped up to the door, placed the stubby muzzle of the .38 to the wood panel, and fired twice.
The wood splintered in a long vertical line. Gunsmoke tang overwhelmed the close, garlic-scented air.
Triumphantly Don Carmine Imbruglia threw open the door.
"Get a load of this," he said in disbelief. "He's wearin' a uniform." Don Carmine craned his thick neck up and down the narrow street. "I don't see no backup. Musta come alone. Hey, check this out!"
His bodyguards in tow, Don Carmine Imbruglia ambled over to the white van that was marked "FEDERAL EXPRESS."
"Look at this!" he muttered. "It says 'Federal' plain as day on the side. Some nerve these feds got. They even advertise. "
"I never saw nothin' so stupid in all my life," clucked Pauli (Pink Eye) Scanga.
"Hey, what the fug, right? It's the nineties. We use computertry and the feds advertise. It's a whole new fuggin' ballgame."
Everyone had a good laugh, except the Federal Express deliveryman, who moaned and rolled on the sidewalk, clutching his stomach as the blood pumped out of two bullet holes near his navel.
"Drag the sumbitch inside," ordered Don Carmine. "We gotta lam outta here."
When Tony Tollini was revived by the simple expedient of having his head thrust into the cold water of the Salem Street Social Club toilet, he sputtered, "What happened?"
"We gotta lam," said Don Carmine. "I clipped a fed. Soon the whole place will be swarmin' with them."
"That wasn't-"
"Don't tell me. The fuggers got 'Federal' written all over their van. We busted in and found this."
Don Carmine shook a black electronic device in one thick paw. Tony recognized it as a Federal Express package-tracking computer.
"This was the bug he was tryin' to plant," explained Don Carmine. "Some balls, huh? Walked right up to the door to do it, too. "
"But-"
Don Carmine suddenly looked up. A smile lit up his brutish face.
"Hey, I just realized somethin'!"
"What is it, boss?" asked Bruno.
"I just made my bones. With a fed, too. Ain't that somethin'?"
"Congratulations, boss," said Pink Eye.
"You done great," added the Maggot.
"I feel like celebratin'. Let's get this junk outta here. We'll find a new place later. Tonight is our night to fuggin' howl."
Chapter 19
"I cannot fathom it," said Dr. Aldace Gerling as he examined Remo's new face with practiced fingers. "There is minimal scarring, virtually no sign of a recent operation." He turned to Harold Smith. "Yet you gave me to understand that this patient underwent extensive facial reconstruction only two weeks ago."
Harold Smith thought fast. He said, "That was what I understood. Obviously there has been some mistake."
"There has been an abomination," spat Chiun in disgust.
"Oh, I don't know about that," said Remo airily. "I kinda like it."
"Bah!" said Chiun.
Dr. Smith turned to his chief staff physician.
"Dr. Gerling, could you excuse us? Obviously your services are no longer needed."
"As you wish."
Dr. Gerling withdrew from the room. Smith closed the door after him. He faced Remo.
"I do not know what to say," he said, tightening the knot in his tie, which threatened his skinny Adam's apple.
Remo, rubbing his jaw and regarding his new face in the upright mirror, said, "Guess the joke's on you, Smitty."
"This of course cannot be allowed to stand."
Remo's new face hardened. It hurt as the muscles realigned the face, but he didn't care. "Smith, it stands."
The Master of Sinanju drew Harold Smith off to one side.
"Emperor, how is this possible?"
"There is only one explanation," Smith said tiredly. "As you know, Remo underwent several of these procedures in the past, each one intended to make him unrecognizable.
Previous to this surgery, and at Remo's insistence, we restored certain of his natural facial contours. Just enough to satisfy him."
"I can hear every word you two are saying," Remo reminded them with no trace of rancor. He was looking at his chin, and liking what he saw.
"Obviously Dr. Axeworthy inadvertently restored the remaining components of the original face," Smith continued. "It makes sense. Remo's facial contours had been reduced over successive surgeries, to their absolute foundation. Dr. Axeworthy must have realized that and gone in the only direction the procedure could go. Building up. He simply restored the final pieces of the true Remo.
"Damn good job of it too," Remo said proudly. "It's the old me. A little more mature maybe, but I can live with that. Maybe I'll start using my old last name too."
"You will not," Smith snapped. "And you know this is a serious matter."
Remo turned to Harold Smith. His face was serious but there was a humorous light in his deep-set dark eyes. He was enjoying Smith's consternation.
"Hey," he pointed out, "you wanted this, not me. You wanted the face that I had wiped out. You got it. And now you got this. It's been twenty years since I walked a beat. I have no family, and all my so-called friends from those days have probably forgotten me. They think I died in the electric chair anyway. I still look younger than I would have if I hadn't been dragooned into the organization. So you're covered and I get to keep my true face." Remo smiled. It was his old smile. "I'd say it worked out."
Smith stood fuming, saying nothing.
The Master of Sinanju, his hands in the sleeves of his pale ivory kimono, drew close to Remo. His aged head tilted one way, then the other, as he examined Remo's face critically.
"Ah," he said.
"Ah, what?" Remo asked suspiciously.
"The doctor did not fail entirely."
Remo blinked. "What do you mean?"
"Nothing," Chiun said innocently, abruptly turning away.
Remo blinked again. Suddenly he turned to the mirror. He looked at his eyes. They were set deep in his skull, above the pronounced cheekbones that had dominated his face since puberty. A familiar face. Good, strong, handsome, without being pretty.
The trouble was, the eyes were in shadow.
Remo pressed his nose to the glass.
It can't be, he was thinking.
He lifted his chin, bringing his eyes into the light. The trouble was, he couldn't look at his own eyes squarely.
Did they look slightly . . . oblique?
"Smith, come here a sec," Remo called.
Smith came up as Remo turned around.
"Look at my eyes," Remo said anxiously. "How do they look?"
"Brown," said Smith, who lacked imagination.
"Forget color. I mean the shape."
"What do you mean?"
"They don't look . . . ?" Remo swallowed, glancing in the direction of Chiun, who was making a show of sniffing a vase of peonies on a bedstand. "They don't look . . . slanty, do they?"
Smith frowned as he peered more closely at Remo's eyes.
"Tilt your face up. Now down. Sideways."
"Come on, Smith. Stop fooling around."
"I am sorry, Remo, but your brows are casting shadows. It is difficult to see clearly.
"What's so freaking hard about telling if I have Korean eyes or not!" Remo shouted.
"Can't you tell?" returned Smith.
"No," Remo said, frowning. He called over to the Master of Sinanju. "What about it, Chiun? What did you make that doctor do?"
"Nothing," Chiun said. "He did nothing. He has restored you to your former sad, round-eyed state." The Master of Sinanju sounded unconcerned.
"Are you playing head games with me? Because if you are-"
"The games that have been played are with your face, round-eyed one," said Chiun unconcernedly. He hummed. It was a happy hum. It was the hum of a person who had secured a minor victory in the midst of a defeat.
"I want that plastic surgeon back," Remo said. "I want my eyes rounded off!"
"I am afraid he is dead," Smith said tonelessly.
"What did he die of, anyway?"
"A round eye killed him," said Chiun. "Heh-heh. A round eye killed him."
"Shhh," said Smith suddenly.
"Are you in on this too, Smith?" Remo demanded hotly.
"No!"
"Then what is he talking about?"
"Please, please," Smith said. "I need you both. We have a crisis on our hands."
"What crisis?" Remo wanted to know.
"Have you forgotten the IDC matter, Remo?"
"Oh, right," said Remo, subsiding.
"You were correct, Remo. IDC and the Mafia are in cahoots somehow. After you went under the knife, Chiun rescued the hard disk."
"It was nothing. Any non-round-eyed person could have done it," Chiun said loftily.
"Har-de-har-har," snorted Remo.
"It seems that IDC has created a software specifically designed for Mafia purposes."
Remo shrugged. "So, we take it off the market."
Harold Smith shook his gray head. "Not so simple. We still do not know how this has come to pass. That will be your job, Remo. Penetrate IDC and learn the truth. Then we will take action."
"No problem. I have a new face. I'll just reapply to Tony Tollini. He'll never suspect it's me again."
"Tony Tollini has been missing for the past two weeks," Harold Smith said levelly. "As is a large amount of IDC office equipment, including faxes, dedicated phones, and other high-tech office material."
"Well, we know where to find them."
"No longer," said Smith. "The Salem Street Social Club has been vacated completely. The Boston Mafia has gone underground. We have no leads at present. It's as if it had ceased to operate."
"Maybe they had a power surge and their disk crashed again."
"Criminal activity in Boston has actually increased. We think they're up there. Somewhere. Maybe a lead can be developed at IDC."
"I'll give it a shot," said Remo, again looking at his face.
"These eyes are fine," he said doubtfully, as if trying to convince himself.
"I agree," said Chiun, sniffing a peony as if it were the most beautiful flower in creation.
Which caused Remo's eyes to fly back to the mirror. They were wide and round as they looked back at him. He realized that fright was making them that way. He squeezed his eyelids tight. Suddenly they looked definitely oblique.
Remo spent the next ten minutes trying to work his eyes into a natural shape, neither too round nor too narrow.
His face began to hurt again.
Chapter 20
Wendy Wilkerson was living in fear.
To be more precise, she was working in fear.
Ever since the disappearance of Vice-President in Charge of Systems Outreach Antony Tollini she had wondered if she would be next. She took the week following Tony Tollini's disappearance off.
No one had complained, which was not surprising. As director of product placement, she was even less important than the VP in charge of systems outreach-a position so new that no one at IDC knew what the person holding the job was supposed to do.
Since no one knew what Tony Tollini was supposed to be doing for Bold Blue, he had not yet been missed either.
After a week and a half, Wendy Wilkerson decided it was safe to return to work. She needed her check.
It was strange, thought Wendy, lunching on a peeled apple and plain yogurt in the relative security of her dimly lit office, how the higher-ups seemed oblivious to the entire mad mess.
She could understand how Tony's absence could go virtually unnoticed, his biweekly salary checks piling up on his secretary's desk. This was the south wing, where upper management never ventured.
But why, after two fruitless police visits, had the absence of the missing programmers and customer-service engineers not been questioned? It was as if as long as the bottom line remained relatively constant, the board of directors didn't care.
Wendy shivered inside her immaculately tailored business suit, wondering if Tony were alive or dead. She was sure he was dead. There was no other explanation for why they hadn't come for her too. Tony was a corporate weasel. He would have handed her up to the Mafia to save his own skin in no time flat.
As she pared a wedge out of a Granny Smith apple, there came a timid knock at her inner office door.
"Yes?" said Wendy.
"Miss Wilkerson, there is a man here who would like to speak with you."
"About what?" Wendy asked, her heart stopping. It was Tony's personal secretary.
"About . . . about Mr. Tollini."
The precise wedge of Granny Smith apple poised on the point of being swallowed, Wendy's mouth was suddenly dry. She tried to swallow the apple, her mind racing.
They were here!
Just as the apple wedge went sliding down her slippery esophagus, Wendy's throat constricted. The apple wedge wandered off-course, producing a sputtering paroxysm of coughing.
Wendy began hacking.
"Miss Wilkerson! Miss Wilkerson! Are you all right in there?" demanded the secretary.
"What's going on?" a hard male voice demanded.
"I think she's choking," cried the secretary, rattling the doorknob, which Wendy had taken the precaution of locking.
The door exploded inward, propelled by a cruel-faced man with dark recessed eyes and wearing an expensive silk suit.
His hard face tight and grim, he came toward Wendy with such ferocity of purpose that she tried to scamper into the safety of the desk well.
A hand got the shoulder of her tailored business outfit and pulled her back into her seat.
Wendy would have pleaded for her life, but she couldn't get anything past her spasming windpipe.
She wondered for a wild minute what would kill her firs
t, the blocked airway or the terrible Mafia executioner who had come to rub her out.
With undeniable strength, the man lifted her up onto the desk and laid her across the blue blotter, upsetting her yogurt. He pulled her head straight back by her red-gold hair while his other hand reached for her midriff.
She closed her eyes, hoping the apple would kill her before she was violated. After she was dead, he could do anything he wanted. Just please, not before.
The sound was like a gentle slap. But it made Wendy's abdomen convulse so hard she saw stars. All the air spewed out of her lungs.
The apple wedge jumped from her yawning mouth and came down to splatter on her forehead.
"Okay," said the Mafia enforcer. "You can sit up now."
Wendy declined. The fact that she could breathe again only meant she was going to suffer at the mafioso's hands.
"I said, you can get up now."
"Perhaps she needs a drink of water," suggested the secretary helplessly.
"Go get some," said the Mafia enforcer, his voice less harsh now.
Wendy opened her green eyes. The face that looked down at her had the deep-set eyes of a skull. They were flat and dead, with no trace of warmth.
"What are you going to do to me?" she asked.
"Ask you some questions."
Wendy sat up. His voice was direct but nonthreatening. "Who are you?" she asked.
"Call me Remo."
Wendy leaned back again, shutting her eyes. Remo. Her worst fears were true. She shuddered.
A firm hand forced her upward again. Hard-as-punch-press fingers pried one of her eyes open.
"Why are you acting this way?" asked the killer called Remo.
"Because I don't know what else to do," replied Wendy truthfully.
High heels clicked near. "Here's your water."
The one called Remo accepted the water from the secretary and brought it up to Wendy's lips. Wendy took the paper cup in her hands and greedily gobbled down the cold spring water. It had never tasted so good, she decided.
"Will you leave us alone now, please?" said the man who called himself Remo.
"Of course."
"No!" said Wendy.
"Yes," said Remo.
The secretary hesitated. Remo plucked a yellow pencil from a Lucite holder and jammed it into an electric pencil sharpener. The motor whined. The pencil disappeared into the orifice. Complete.
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