Bay City Blast td-38

by Warren Murphy

  "No," Remo said, "you're wrong. I am proud. I'm proud of your teaching me Sinanju and me learning it. I'm proud of being an assassin. I'm proud of keeping my elbows straight when I work. I'm proud of kill ... ooops, assassinating twenty-eight men tonight."

  "Good," said Chiun, warmly. "Perhaps you will yet learn what is important in life."

  "And I'm proud to be an American, fellas," Remo said. "Really proud. When those "Stars and Stripes Forever" come marching by on the Fourth of July, I get this warm feeling that I'm ten feet tall and put on earth by God to help the little folks of the rest of the world solve their problems, the good old-fashioned American way. Yessirreebob, proud to be an American."

  Chiun sniffed. "There are some types of river mud which one not only cannot make into diamonds, but cannot even make into bricks. Woe is me. It was my misfortune to find one such as you."

  Their motel room was on a spit of land that jutted out into the Atlantic Ocean and when they

  returned to it, Chiun immediately went to his thirteen lacquered steamer trunks that went with him wherever he went and began to check the contents. Chiun said, depending on his mood, that the trunks contained his few meager possessions, or that they contained his most valuable treasures without which he could not live. "Remo, however, had seen inside the trunks and knew that they contained primarily a year-long supply of satin and silk kimonos, Cinzano ashtrays, hotel towels, free matchbooks, coaster and cocktail stirrers, complimentary Frisbees, plastic shoe-shine cloths, key chains and everything else that Chiun could pick up free or on the cheap. One trunk was filled, top to bottom, with Gideon Bibles that Chiun had stolen from the hotel rooms they had stayed in over the last ten years.

  "Why do you keep checking those things?" Remo asked. He addressed the question to Chiun's back as the old Oriental was bent over a trunk, examining its contents.

  Without turning, Chiun raised a finger as if making a high point in his lecture on life.

  "Chambermaids. They steal things."

  "But cheap Cinzano ashtrays? Who'd steal those?"

  "There are more things in my trunks than ashtrays," Chiun said and his voice was chilled. "Many valuable things."

  "I know," Remo said. "But I don't think the chambermaid would risk getting killed so she could rip off your complimentary dinner napkin from Dis-neyworld."

  "You know nothing," Chiun said. He continued his inspection. The telephone rang, and Remo knew

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  it was Dr. Harold W. Smith, checking on the evening's work.

  "Done," he said. "Yeah. All of them."

  "Good," Smith said.

  "Yes, I was," Remo said. "Very good tonight."

  "Tell him you are proud to be an American," Chiun suggested.

  "I'm proud to be an American, assassinating people for you," Remo told Smith.

  "Yes, yes. Well, there is something I want you to do," Smith said.

  "Dammit, Smitty, how about some time off?"

  "This is time off," Smith said.

  "I'm not going to kill anybody," Remo said. "No matter how proud I am."

  "Good," said Smith. "That's just what I want. I don't want you to kill anybody. I just want you to look around."

  "Look around at what? Where?"

  "Bay City, New Jersey. Something's going on up there and we want to get a little handle on it. I'd like you to go up there and just try to get the feel of the town. Tell me what you think."

  "You don't have anybody else you can send in there? This isn't my kind of work," Remo said.

  "Nothing is," Chiun said.

  "I know," Smith said. "But as a favor to me."

  "Say that again?" Remo asked. '

  "Do this as a favor to me."

  "Since you put it that way," Remo said. "Bay City, here we come."

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  CHAPTER THREE

  The first thing Remo and Chiun noticed in Bay City was a large policeman whose body attacked his blue uniform from inside, like sausage rilling threatening its casing as it neared the boiling point in a pot of water. The policeman was swinging his night stick, walking toward a corner newsstand only two blocks from the city's piers.

  An old woman was buying a newspaper at the stand. After she had the newspaper in her hand, she handed the newsstand man a coin, wrapped up in a piece of paper. He nodded, and she smiled and walked away.

  When the woman left, the policeman went to the newsstand and the operator reached in under the shelf where he kept his money. Remo saw him take something out. He took a newspaper and pulled it down below the level of the shelf on which the papers sat. A moment later, he handed the newspaper out to the policeman, who tucked it tightly under

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  his left arm, touched the bill of his cap with his nightstick and strolled off down the street.

  Remo watched him through the windows of a car parked across the street. Halfway down the block, the policeman ducked into a hallway. His back was to Remo but Remo could see he was fiddling with the newspaper. As the policeman turned back, Remo saw him tuck something into the inside pocket of his uniform blouse. It made a small lump inside the jacket. The cop strolled down the steps, still holding the newspaper in his left hand. Ten feet down the block, he dropped the paper into a litter basket.

  "So," Remo said aloud. "The cops are protecting gambling."

  "You can tell this by watching a policeman buy a newspaper?" Chiun said.

  "I've seen it before. The guy at the newsstand is booking numbers. The cop comes by and the bookie gives him an envelope with the protection money."

  "If he needs protection, why does he not hire us?" Chiun asked.

  "He can't afford us. And it's not that kind of protection. It's just protection against getting arrested. Now the cop takes the money back to his headquarters or wherever and gives it to his captain or his chief, and the cops get a small piece for looking the other way and not arresting anybody."

  "And the rest of the money?"

  "The top cop gets some and the rest of it goes to whatever politician has made the deal with the bookies."

  "The economy of this country is very complex," Chiun said. "How is it that you understand it, when you do not understand many things well at all?"

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  "When I was a cop, I saw it all the time in Newark. That's not far from here."

  "And did you do this?" Chiun asked. "Did you take this money to protect these numerals?"

  "Numbers," Remo said. "No. I was a straight cop. But I saw it done a lot. Usually cops aren't so brazen about it.-Let's follow him."

  They made a U-turn in the middle of the street and drove slowly down the block after the policeman, parking frequently to wait and 'watch.

  They saw the policeman visit two more newsstands. He picked up two more folded newspapers, dipped into two more hallways to remove their contents, then threw the newspapers away in trash baskets.

  The trash baskets were bright orange with large black letters that read:

  BAY CITY IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION MAYOR ROCCO NOBILE, STANDARD BEARER

  While he was stopped at the curb, Remo saw a long black limousine pass them. The back windows were shrouded behind Venetian blinds.

  "Not the kind of car you'd expect to find in this town," he said.

  "It is the ihird such automobile that has passed us in the last hour," Chiun said.

  "You sure?"

  "Yes."

  "Not the same car?"

  "Not unless they keep changing those identification numbers on the front of it, just to confuse us."

  "That's interesting," Remo said.

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  "If you say so," said Chiun. As they drove from the curb and turned the corner, they saw the burly policeman walk into the storefront offices of the Bay City Improvement Association. • "That's interesting," Remo said.

  "You find everything interesting today," Chiun said. "You are not going to try to become a detective again, are you?"

  "No," said Remo. "I'm just doing what Smitty wants. Keep
ing an eye on the place. But I could've been a detective. I could've been a good one. I just didn't have any political connections so I could never get promoted to detective."

  "Probably wise for the city of Newark," Chiun said.

  "Oh, yeah?" "Pfaaah," said Chiun.

  "There's nothing wrong with being a detective," said Remo. "For instance, there's something funny going on here. That cop should've gone back to his precinct to turn in that money. If he's dropping it off here at a political headquarters, that means one of two things."

  "And of course you will tell me what they are?" "Yes, I will," Remo said. "One, it means that politicians, probably this Rocco Nobile, has got his hand in the numbers on an operational level, which is brazen. Two, it means that he's pretty sure he's safe because he hasn't busted the chain between the cop pickup man and himself. That's brazen too. He must figure he's got a tight lock on this town."

  "Maybe he just wants everybody to know how powerful he is," Chiun said.

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  "That's ridiculous," Remo said. "Why would he want to do that?"

  "I don't know. You're the detective," said Chiun. He had his fingers together in steeple fashion and was tapping the tips together in rhythmic patterns, first thumb to thumb, then index to index, and down to the little fingers; then offsetting the rhythms by ones, first thumb to index, and index to middle, and middle to ring, and ring to small finger, and small finger to thumb; and then skipping by twos, thumb to middle, index to small. It was a dexterity exercise he did only when he was bored.

  Five minutes later, the burly policeman came out of the Bay City Improvement Association headquarters. Remo could tell from the flatness on the left front part of his uniform that he had dropped off his envelopes of money. The policeman walked casually down the street toward the riverfront. The street was a garish blend of neighborhood bars and disco joints and even in the morning, bright neon lights flickered on and off along the thoroughfare.

  Another black limousine passed them and Remo decided to follow it. The Cadillac went down two blocks to River Street, the thoroughfare which ran the width of the city from pier to pier. It turned right and stopped, and Remo parked at the corner. The limo had stopped in front of an old loft building whose peeling paint faintly showed the-old legend: CHRISTINE'S SHIRT FACTORY.

  Two green-and-white moving vans were in front of the building and using heavy pulleys, the workers were lifting heavy printing equipment and photo-static copiers ip to a second-floor loft. Inside the

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  building, Remo could hear the sounds of carpentry, hammering and electric saws.

  The limousine disgorged from its back seat a medicine ball of a man in a pinstripe suit who nodded approvingly at the equipment moving in. He waved at the workmen to speed things up. As his hands moved through the morning sunlight, diamond rings glistened on his fingers. He looked like a dew-covered mushroom, shining at daybreak.

  Remo nodded to himself and drove away. Two blocks farther down River Street, the scene was being repeated in front of another loft building. Movers, equipment, workmen refurbishing the building, another black limousine and another Mafia-type with pinky rings and pinstripe suit watching approvingly.

  Four blocks farther north, the scene was repeated again.

  "A lot of moving in for a town that's supposed to be on the skids," Remo said.

  Chiun stopped doing his finger exercises. He looked at Remo, then glanced out the window at the litter that filled the streets. "Perhaps the world has suddenly discovered the charms of this beautiful American city."

  Remo grunted and turned the rented car away from the waterfront, back toward their motel in Jersey City. He dropped Chiun off at their rooms, then drove back to the honky-tonk block in Bay City where the Rocco Nobile Improvement Association was headquartered.

  Remo parked and walked casually up the street, turning into the doorway of the Roaring Twenties

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  Lounge. One portion of its front window was un-painted, in the form of a heart. Inside the cutout were fly-specked pictures of female impersonators who appeared in the club's show every Saturday night. The pictures were yellowed with age and the corners were pulling away from the red velvet back on which they had been taped.

  Inside, Remo stepped to the dark bar and ordered a Scotch on the rocks with a glass of water side.

  He paid a dollar fifty from a five-dollar bill and when he got his change, tried to sip the water. The water in Bay City came from the Jersey City water system, pumped through century-old pipes that leaked out water and sucked up dirt. The water tasted as if it had been filtered through used kitty litter.

  Remo smelled it and only pretended to sip it.

  A young woman with a platinum wig and a short tight red dress slid onto the stool next to him.

  "Buy a girl a drink?" she asked.

  "Why? Don't you have any money?" Remo turned to look at her, his dark eyes drilling into hers. She leaned closer to him on her chair.

  "I'll buy you one," she said. She waved at the bartender and fished a twenty-dollar bill from her sequined red handbag.

  The bartender stood in front of them.

  "Usual?" he asked the blonde. She nodded. "And you?" he aSked Remo.

  "Got any bottled water?" Remo asked.

  "No."

  'Til coast with this one," Remo said. The bar-

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  tender brought back a light tan mixture in a glass, put it in front of the blonde and reached for Remo's money.

  "No," Remo said. "She's buying."

  "That right, Jonelle?" the bartender said.

  "Right, right," the blonde said.

  The bartender glared at Remo, then said to the girl, "All right. This one's on the house."

  Jonelle put her left hand on her drink and her right hand on Remo's thigh. He took the hand off his thigh and put it back on her own leg.

  "How's business?" he asked.

  "So-so."

  "I would have said this town was the pits for a working girl," Remo said. "Who could afford you?"

  "I was hoping you could," Jonelle said.

  "Maybe we can work something out," Remo said. He pretended to sip his water and put his left hand onto the base of her neck. Next to the long muscle running down the right side of her neck, he found a bunch of nerves and tapped on them rapidly with his fingertips.

  "Ooooooh," she said. "What are you doing?"

  "Nice name, Jonelle," he said.

  "Not my real name," the girl said. "Ooooooh," she exclaimed again. Her breath was coming faster.

  "No?" Remo said. "I'm surprised. You look like a Jonelle I used to know. You were telling me about business."

  "Getting better the last few weeks," she said. "More people in town. Maybe the new mayor's got something to do with it."

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  "The mayor have a piece of you?" Remo asked.

  "Ooooooh. I don't know. My boyfriend is kind of close to him."

  "For boyfriend, read pimp?" Remo asked.

  "Ooooooh. You might say that."

  Remo transferred his hand to the left side of her neck. He felt her throat tingle as if she were being massaged with a trickle charge of electricity.

  "Who's your boyfriend?" Remo asked.

  A heavy hand fell over his hand. Jonelle winced as the hand squeezed. Remo turned to see a large man with bushy red hair and an open-necked sports shirt standing behind them.

  "I am," the man said. He tried to squeeze harder with his hand, but he found his hand off the girl's neck and back at his side.

  Jonelle got up from the bar and walked quickly away.

  "Any more questions?" the pimp asked Remo.

  "Yeah," Remo said. "You ever drink this water?"

  "What kinda question is that?" the pimp asked.

  "Never mind," Remo said. "I'll try something easier. Do you pay oft the mayor for protection?"

  "I think that's one question too many, pal," the big man said.

  "And one answer too few," Rem
o said. He reached out and took the pimp's right wrist in his left hand and dragged him to the bar. The pain felt like a saw cutting through his flesh and bone and the pimp gasped and allowed himself to be placed on the stool.

  "That's easy," Remo said in his ear. "Smile. People are watching us."

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  The pimp looked around and forced an agonized smile toward the other end of the bar. He looked back when Remo tightened the hold on his wrist.

  "Question by me: Do you pay the mayor for protection? Answer by you: I think that's one question too many, pal. Now, we try again. Do you pay the mayor for protection?" Remo squeezed to signal the end of the question. "Yes, yes, yes," the pimp gasped. "Do all the pimps?" "If they want to keep operating."

  Remo released the man's wrist. "Thank you and good day," he said. Before leaving the bar, he picked up Jonelle's change and carried it to the booth at the end of the bar where she was sitting. He put a fresh hundred dollar bill on top of it before giving it back to her. She looked at the money, then up at him.

  "Some other time?" she said.

  "Count on it," Remo said.

  Back at his hotel room, Remo called Smith.

  "I'm in Bay City," he said.

  "And?" Smith asked.

  "The mob's coming in," Remo said. "This new mayor, Rocco something, looks like he's giving the town away to the goons."

  "I see," Smith said blandly.

  Remo was surprised at Smith's lack of reaction.

  "Yeah. It looks like he's getting a rakeoff on the numbers and he's got a piece of the hooker action in town. And the joint is crawling with guys that look like they belong in a laundry at San Quentin."

  "Good," said Smith.

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  "Good?" Remo said. "What's good? You want me to hit this Rocco what's-his-face?"

  "No," Smith said quickly. "No. Don't do that. Leave things alone. You and Chiun should just go on vacation. You've been working hard lately."

  "Wait a minute," Remo said. "You're telling us to go on vacation because we've been working hard?"

  "Forget I said that," Smith said. "But you might as well go away for a few days until I need you."

  "Thank you, Smitty. I'm almost ready to believe you're human."