“Wild? What about the guy who cut his own throat at the hospital this morning? Only one arm and that one with a hook on it and he still cuts his own throat. I mean if a man wants to kill himself…” Remo kept on walking.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The local newspaper had it in detail. “Man Kills Self on Second Try; Jump Fails, Hook Works.” They didn’t leave out anything.
The man, a mental patient from a New York sanitarium which thought him sufficiently cured for outpatient treatment, had jumped yesterday from a twelve-story building on Avenue East, police said.
They said he was guarded round the clock with no one allowed in the room. “Miraculous,” said doctors about the way he allegedly ripped open his own throat with the hook that replaced an amputated hand.
“It’s amazing he could do that,” a hospital spokesman said. “He was in traction and it must have taken tremendous effort for him to get that much pressure behind the hook. Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” the spokesman alleged.
Detectives Grover and Reed said flatly, “It was suicide.”
Meanwhile, another suicide victim was recovering in the Jersey City Medical Center. Mildred Roncasi, 34, of 1862 Manuel Street…
Remo dropped the damned paper in a trash can. Then he hailed a cab. That nut, MacCleary. That idiot. That fool. That damned fool.
“What’s holding you up now?” Remo asked the driver.
The cabbie leaned over the back seat. “Red light,” he said.
“Oh,” Remo answered. And he was quiet as the cab let him off at St. Paul’s Church, where he completed an errand, then hailed another cab that took him to New York.
Remo didn’t sleep that night. He didn’t rest in the morning. He just wandered until he reached the telephone booth at 232nd Street and Broadway in the Bronx. A stiff, chill autumn wind blew across Van Cortland Park. Children played in the drying grass. The sun was orange and setting. It was three p.m. He stepped into the telephone booth and shut out the wind. A group of Negro boys were scrimmaging in motley uniforms. They banged away at each other and piled on. Remo’s attention rested on a small boy with no helmet but his kinky hair. Blood ran from beneath his left eye. An apparent knee injury forced him to hobble when he jogged to the line from the defensive huddle.
He saw one of the big backs on the opposing team yell something and point to the boy. The boy yelled back and waved his arms in an obscene gesture. The quarterback handed the ball to the big back who followed his interference into the center of the line. Miraculously, the offense stopped, right at the small boy’s slot. When the pileup peeled off, there was the little boy with no helmet, a big cut and a bigger grin. An idiot grin by a dumb black kid who didn’t know enough to get out of the way. CURE should’ve gotten that kid. He and MacCleary. Go, team, go.
Remo slowly dialed the special number. Between five to three and five after, he had been told, it would ring on a local line in Folcroft. Smith would pick up with a 7-4-4 code signal.
Remo heard the buzzing and casually watched the little Negro return another challenge with another obscene gesture. Again the plunge. Again the pileup. And the boy got up with a tooth missing, but the grin was there.
Pretty soon, no more teeth. Remo wanted to yell out: “Kid, you stupid kid. All you’ll get is brass teeth and a broken head.”
“7-4-4,” Smith’s voice interrupted Remo’s thoughts.
“Oh. Hello, sir. Williams. I mean 9-1.”
The voice was steady. “That was a good job at the hospital. All ends sewed up. Very neat.”
“You really liked that, didn’t you?”
“Yes and no. I would rather it had been me. I knew the man…but that’s beside the point. We only have three minutes. Anything?”
The plunge was on once more, this time with the big buck in the new uniform and shiny helmet driving straight at the kid, who didn’t blanch. He crashed toward him, but the squirt ducked under to hip height, rammed his feet behind him and drove. Beautiful tackle.
“Anything?” Smith repeated.
The kid slapped his knee and tried to make light of his hobble back to the huddle. But this time it was an offensive huddle. He had held. The little dumb kid, bloody-faced, with no helmet, nothing but a strand of guts somewhere, had held. No one had passed. They weren’t able to move over his hole.
They couldn’t break him and somewhere there was something worthwhile and if the whole damned world and its rotten judges and slimy politicians, its crooks and emperors had tried to go through that slot, they would have hit a wall that wasn’t going to move for anybody. Not an inch. And that was worth something even if nothing else was. Not for the rest of his life would that kid forget that he had done something and no matter what curves the world threw at him, he would have that.
And MacCleary had had it. He had had it in spades. And if he wasn’t there now, he didn’t have to be. Because MacCleary had held. And that little nigger kid had held. And that’s what it was all about, this whole rotten stinking world.
And Chiun was wrong. Vietnam was wrong. You didn’t let someone crash your home and if you died at the doorstep, then you were dead. But you had stood there and no one passed and it didn’t matter a sneeze in a windstorm if no one wrote it down or paid you. You had done it. You. You were alive. You lived, you died, and that was it.
“Anything? Any lead?” Smith’s voice was loud. “We’ll be cut off soon.”
“Yeah. I have a lead. You’ll have Maxwell’s head in a bucket within five days.”
“What? You sound violent.”
“You heard what I said. You’ll have his head or mine.”
“I don’t want yours. Be careful. That was an excessive amount of money you took. Frankly, I didn’t expect…”
The line went dead.
Remo left the telephone booth. The kid was sitting on the sidelines, holding his head.
“Hurt?” Remo asked.
“No, just a little.”
“Then why’s it bleeding?”
“Ah got hit.”
“Why don’t you wear a helmet?”
“Helmet?” the boy laughed. “They cost money.”
Remo reached into his pocket and handed the kid a twenty dollar bill. “You’re a dumb bastard,” Remo said, and then he walked away. He needed a shave.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Felton knew that fear had a point of diminishing returns. The shaking Italian before him could be no more terrorized than he was at that moment, trembling in the chair of Felton’s study.
From here on in, more threats would only diminish fear and action could somehow strangely eliminate it. He had seen too many people afraid of beatings until the first blow, afraid to die until they saw the finger tighten on the trigger.
“We’re going to hold you awhile,” Felton said.
Bonelli groaned. “Why me? Why me?”
“Simple. You’re Carmine Viaselli’s brother-in-law. You people are strong for family.”
Bonelli slid from the chair to his knees. “But nobody comes back when you have ’em. Please, on my mother’s grave, please.”
Jimmy, the butler, standing behind Tony’s vacated chair, chuckled. Felton shot him a dirty look. The smile disappeared, but Jimmy’s large, raw-boned hands began to rub together like a man anticipating a meal.
“You’ll be safe,” Felton said, leaning back in his leather chair, raising a leg over the other so that his kneecap was nose level with his guest. “As long as I’m safe, you’ll be safe.”
“But I came free. Nobody brought me. Why all of a sudden, after twenty years, this? Why?”
Felton uncrossed his legs quickly and leaned forward. Veins bulged in his massive neck. He looked down at Bonelli’s slick combed head and yelled: “Because you don’t give me the answers!”
“Whadya want to know? If I know, I’ll tell you. Honest. I swear on my mother’s grave.” He pulled a silver medal from beneath his shirt and kissed it. “I swear.”
“All right. Who is co
ming after me and why? Why the pressure? Who’d gain but your brother-in-law?”
“Maybe some other syndicate?”
“Which one? Everything’s settled. You tell me, Tony. You tell me everything ain’t decided over a conference table or in some damned guinea kitchen. You tell me, huh? You gonna tell me?”
Tony shrugged, a supplicant in a temple whose god knew only wrath.
“Tell me it’s the cops, Tony, tell me. Tell me about one-armed cops that come in killing. Tell me about ’em. Tell me about an Internal Revenue man poking around my junkyard in Jersey City, tell me what he’s doing. Or bartenders who get people interested into moving into Lamonica Towers. Tell me it’s cops when a hooked torpedo says he wanted to rent in the Towers and then goes for my throat. Tell it to me, Tony.” Beads of sweat formed on Felton’s forehead. He rose from the chair. “Tell me.”
“Carmine didn’t send ’em. I swear.”
Felton swung his body around and leaned over yelling. His hands flailed the air. “You didn’t send ’em?”
“No.”
“I know you didn’t send them.”
Bonelli’s mouth opened. He gaped unbelieving.
“I know you didn’t send them,” Felton yelled again. “That’s what’s bothering me. Who? Who?”
“Please, Felty, I don’t know.”
With a sweep of his hand, Felton dismissed his guest. “Jimmy, get him to the shop. He’s not to be hurt. Yet.”
“No. Please. Not the shop, not the shop. Please.” Tony ripped the medal from his neck, imploring for mercy. Jimmy’s large hands grabbed the padded, pinstriped shoulders and lifted the guest to his feet.
“Get him out of here,” Felton said like a man asking that lobster shells finally be removed from his plate. “Get him out of here.”
“Right, boss,” Jimmy laughed. “C’mon, Tony baby, we’re gonna take a trip. Yeah. Yeah.”
When the sliding door clicked shut, Felton walked to the cabinet bar and poured himself a massive shot of Scotch, in a tumbler. His castle had been breached. The Tower had holes. And for the first time, Norman Felton was not attacking.
He swilled down the drink, made the face of a man unaccustomed to heavy drinking, poured another, looked at it, then returned the liquid-filled glass to the cabinet. Well, now he would attack. He didn’t know where, but he knew as all jungle animals do that there is a time to kill or be killed, there is a time when waiting means only counting the minutes to death.
He walked out on the balcony again and watched the lights on the George Washington Bridge that linked the two great eastern states.
He had ruled as champion in these states for nearly twenty years. And in a decade, he had never had to use his own muscles until…he glanced at the broken palm pot…until tonight.
He had built up a system of contract torpedoes and sub-let torpedoes. With just four regulars who could buy the hit-men and with the perfect way to get rid of bodies, he reigned unmolested in the quiet of Lamonica Towers.
But one of his regulars, O’Hara, had bought it, right in the living room. One blow, a slash of the hook, a head opened and twenty-five percent right off the top, the top of the system.
Felton stared at his hands. Now there were three: Scotty in Philadelphia, Jimmy here, Moesher in New York. A multi-million-dollar system and it was under attack from an invisible enemy. Who? Who?
Felton’s hand tightened into a fist. There’d have to be hiring. Moesher would lay low and come in only on cue. Jimmy would stay in the Towers.
It would be like the forties again when nothing could stop him, nothing, not the crummy rotten world, the cops, the FBI, the syndicate, nothing could stop him. When, with his hands and mind, his team had made Viaselli, the punk, chief in the east; made a second-rate numbers banker the king and kept him there.
Felton breathed deep the clear cool night air and a smile formed on his face for the first time that night. The tinkling of a phone floated out to the patio.
Felton returned to his study and picked up the black receiver on the mahogany desk. “Yes?”
“Hi, Norm,” came the voice. “This is Bill.”
“Oh, hello. Mayor.”
“Look Norm, I’m just calling about that suicide. He carried identification as an outpatient from Folcroft Sanitarium. It’s in Rye, New York. Ever hear of it?”
“Oh, he was mentally disturbed.”
“Yes. Looks like it. I spoke personally to the director up there, a Dr. Smith. And, Norm, I warned him that if he released any patients who are cuckoo, he’s responsible. By the way, Grover and Reed were all right, weren’t they? I have them here right now. They gave me the lead on this Folcroft.”
“They were fine,” Felton said. “Just fine, Bill.”
“Right. Anything I can do for you, just buzz.”
“I’ll do that, Bill, and we’ll have to have dinner some night too.”
“Right, bye.”
Felton waited for the click, then dialed.
A voice at the end said, “Marvin Moesher’s residence.”
“This is Norman Felton. Please put Mr. Moesher on the line.”
“Certainly, Mr. Felton.”
He hummed as he waited in his study.
“Hello, Marv. Vas masta yid?”
“Eh,” came the voice from the end. “Nothing…and you?”
“We got troubles.”
“We’ve always got troubles.”
“You know where Scotty is?”
“Home in Philly.”
“We may have to do some hiring again.”
“What? Just a minute. Let me close the door. This is an extension phone, also. Just to be safe.”
There was a moment of silence. Then Moesher again: “Business picking up?”
“Yes.”
“I thought we had cleared the market.”
“A new market.”
“Viaselli expanding?”
“No,” Felton said.
“Someone expanding?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What does O’Hara say?”
“He passed away this morning.”
“Mine gut.”
“We won’t be doing any hiring yet. There’s some things we have to find out.”
“Speak to Mr. Viaselli?”
“Not yet. He sent a representative for preliminary talks.”
“And?”
“And he’s still talking.”
“Then it might be Mr. Viaselli who’s…?”
“I don’t think so. I’m not sure.”
“Norm.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s retire. I got a nice house in Great Neck, a wife, a family. Enough’s enough. You know. Why tempt fate?”
“I’ve been paying you good the last twenty years?”
“Yes.”
“You do much work in the last ten?”
“You know it’s been nothing.”
“Jimmy, Scotty, and O’Hara been carrying your load?”
“Scotty ain’t been working either.”
“He’s going to now.”
“Norm, I’m going to ask a favor. Let me retire?”
“No.”
“All right.” Moesher’s voice was resigned. “How we going to work it?”
“First, ground work. There’s a place called F-O-L-C-R-O-F-T. Folcroft. It’s a sanitarium in Rye.”
“Yes?”
“Find out what it is. Try to rent a room.”
“Okay, Norm. I’ll get back to you.”
“Marv? I wouldn’t be calling if I didn’t need you.”
“Forget it, Norm. I owe this much. I’ll give you a buzz tomorrow.”
“Love to the family.”
“Zama gazunt.”
Felton replaced the receiver and clapped his hands. A private sanitarium. No government office to hide behind. That was it.
He made two more phone calls that night. One to Angelo Scottichio in Philadelphia; and the second to Carmine Viaselli.
CHAP
TER TWENTY-THREE
The Paoli local clacked along on its ancient tracks through the Pennsylvania countryside. Remo Williams gazed out of the dusty window at the Philadelphia suburbs, inch for inch some of the most exclusive property in America.
This was the fashionable Main Line country surrounding the ghetto that Philadelphia had become. Here the aristocrats of the nation retreated for the final stand against the poor. They had surrendered Philadelphia to the common man a generation ago.
It was a dull, wet afternoon, a chill gray reminder that man should be holed up in his cave around a warm fire. It reminded Remo of his school days, his chore as class monitor, center of the line in high school, and failure after two years of college.
He had never liked school. Maybe it was the schools he went to. And now he was going to see the finest women’s school in the country: Briarcliff, without the publicity of Vassar or Radcliffe or the innovations of Bennington. A gaggle of brainy broads and he was going to have to convince one of them to bring him home to Daddy.
Remo lit a cigarette when he saw others ignoring the no-smoking sign. He was careful not to inhale the smoke into his breathing pattern.
Chiun had been right. Put enough pressure on him and he’d revert. It was the same old story. Remo puffed again. The houses, most of them two-story brick, had personality, lawns, and just breathed old money. Homes.
MacCleary’s words came back to him. “No home, no family, no involvements. And you’ll always be looking over your shoulder.”
The cigarette was good. Remo toyed with the ash and reviewed his mistakes. He never should have remained in the area after the visit to MacCleary, never should have played games with the bartender, never should have approached that hospital receptionist. A white jacket in almost any hospital would have given him anonymity and passage into any room. It was done, though. That was it. Over. Probably nothing fatal.
Now all he had to do was kill Maxwell, whoever the hell he was. Felton was the key, but his sanctuary seemed unapproachable. Felton’s daughter would be his passport. He undoubtedly kept his daughter totally ignorant of Maxwell’s organization. He wouldn’t have sent her to Briarcliff College if he didn’t. She probably had no idea of what Felton did for a living, MacCleary had said.
Created, the Destroyer Page 10