Remo thought about Rocco Nobile in the next room. If he heard any noise outside, he might be inclined to look out and someone might just notice him. Remo chose not to go outside.
"You'd better do it here," Remo said. "The afternoon air might chill my ping pong muscles."
Tolan growled and charged into the room. He felt something hook his ankles. He looked back as he was falling. It was the Oriental's foot. The old man had tripped him up. He looked at the Oriental. The old man still had the same simpering smile on his face.
Before he had a chance to reach out and grab that little yellow face in his hands and crush it like an egg, he felt himself being lifted up by the seat of his pants. The skinny white guy had him and was swinging him back and forth. Then he let him go and Tolan swung out through the open door onto the sidewalk in front of the motel room. He felt
142
the skin scraping off his hands and knees as he slid. He heard the door slam behind him.
He rolled over and looked up at the door. The door opened again and a ping pong ball came out and landed in front of Mark Tolan's nose.
He heard the white man's voice. "Come back after you have a chance to practice."
He heard the door lock.
When he stood up and dusted himself off, he again heard the infernal tapping of the ping pong balls off the wall. He started for the door again, but stopped when Sam Gregory came out of his room two doors away. Behind him was Al Baker, . looking around carefully before stepping outside. The Lizzard, dressed again in woman's clothes, stood lingering in the doorway.
"Come on," Gregory said. "We've got to leave."
Yeah, it would be fun beating up on the guy, Tolan thought. Taking a ping pong paddle and shoving the handle down the skinny guy's throat. But that wasn't nearly as much fun as spraying the Bay City Improvement Association with bullets. The skinny white dude would have to wait. Tolan followed Gregory to the car.
Gregory drove.
"Where we going?" Tolan asked.
"To our safe apartment," Gregory asid. "We'll time our move from there."
"You got my guns?" Tolan asked.
"The Lizzard has them in his pocketbook," Gregory said.
"Hey, faggot," Tolan called into the backseat. "Don't go getting them smeared with lipstick."
143 .
The last ping pong ball had been smashed when there was another knock on Remo's door ninety minutes later. Remo thought it might be the hard-faced guy coming back. He hoped it was. His muscles ached to hit something more substantial than a ping pong ball.
It was Denise. She held a paper in her hands and she smiled when she saw Remo.
She handed it forward.
"Here it is. Three-sixty-four Barrack Street. A big transvestite rented it two days ago."
Remo took the paper and hugged her.
"Oooooh," she said.
"Come on, Chiun, let's go," Remo said. He thought of Rocco Nobile next door. Maybe he should be in at the finish too.
"You going somewhere?" Denise asked. Disappointment crinkled the corners of her eyes.
"Have to now," Remo said. "But there's plenty of time for us."
He got her into her car and then roused Rocco Nobile who was napping, and together with Chiun they drove back into Bay City, toward Barrack Street, toward the. Bay City Improvement Association, toward their long-awaited meeting with The Eraser.
144
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sam Gregory had titled this one the "Bay City Blast." And he told them, "When we're done here and we've wiped out these Mafia goons, we're going to go across the country. We'll be the stuff legends are made of. Minneapolis Massacre. Birmingham Bloodbath. Tucson Terror. Salinas Slaughter."
"Hey, those are good," said The Baker. "You shoulda been a writer."
"Well, perhaps one day when we're done and we've destroyed the insidious hold of the mob upon our nation," Gregory said.
"Cut the bullshit," Tolan said. "When do we kill somebody?"
As Gregory began to outline his plans, The Liz-zard went to his suitcase of clothing. From it he brought out a nun's habit, and after carefully applying makeup that made him look pale and drawn, he began to put it on.
"How do I look?" he asked, spinning around.
145
"Like a six-and-a-half-foot faggot," said Tolan. "You look just fine," The Baker said. "Don't you ever wear man's disguises?" Tolan asked. "Whoever heard of a nun as big as a basketball player?"
"Part of my genius, sur," said The Lizzard. "By the time I walk into that place, I will be so shrunken over that if anyone ever asks, they will remember only a little old nun. The operative word there is 'little.' Such is my genius that I will be absolutely tiny in their memories. Miniscule. Minute."
Gregory looked out the window of the apartment at the Bay City Improvement Association. Its store windows were brightly illuminating the sidewalk in the nighttime darkness.
He told Lizzard, "Now you go over there on some kind of pretext. Tell them anything. Tell them you want to volunteer to help clean up the honky tonks on Barrack Street. But stay there. And when the crooked cops arrive with their gambling money, you come out and give us a sign." "How do you know they're going to be there tonight?" Baker asked Gregory.
"You told me," Gregory said. "You said this was the night the payoffs were made. Don't you remember?"
"Oh, yeah," said Baker, who had made up the payoff schedule. "This is the squaring away night of the week. That's how the Mafia gambling empire always works. You want me to tell you about it?" "Later," said Gregory. "Never," said Tolan. "All right," Gregory said. "And we'll be watch-
146
ing from up here. When you give us the sign, we'll be over."
After the gaunt man had left the dingy apartment, Tolan said, "I don't trust that faggot."
"You shouldn't call him that, Exterminator," said Gregory. "He's an actor. Dressing up is one of the tools of his trade."
"He likes it too much for it to be just a job," Tolan said. His hands itched to be on a gun, to have people's foreheads down his line of sight, to squeeze and watch them explode away in little fuzzy red chunks. Yeah. He was The Exterminator. Yeah. Legend? Who cared? This beat frying eggs in the diner, that was all he knew.
The three men stood watching from the window as The Lizzard came out of the alley between the tenement buildings, looked around and, when he saw the street was clear, walked across the street to the Improvement Association offices.
"Stoop, you jerk," said Baker. The Lizzard was walking straight up, all six-feet-five of him. Baker wanted to yell out the window at him. That was what he wanted. But more than that, he wanted to be away from here. He had counted on Gregory being good for a big stake so he could go somewhere and try to gamble up some real money. But Gregory was a little tighter with his money than he had expected. Baker had already forgotten Hawaii and Las Vegas and he had settled down to trying to get to Atlantic City to make his big score. But now, flanked by a madman with a mission on one side and a homicidal maniac on the other, all Al Baker wanted was to get away. With his Ufe.
147
Just before he reached the far curb, The Lizzard hunched over and then walked slowly to the door of the clubhouse.
Tolan hooted. "Now instead of looking like a six-and-a-half-foot nun," he said, "he looks like a six-and-a-half-foot nun who's all bent over. Where'd you get him?"
"He's doing just fine," Gregory said. His eyes were not on The Lizzard at all. They were on headlines he saw in his mind, huge headlines in huge unnamed papers.
THE ERASER RUBS OUT THE MOB BAY CITY BLAST
KOKOMO KILL WESTPORT WIPEOUT
NUNS OF NAVARONE
t
He thought a moment and scratched that last one. That was somebody else's title. If he ever found a mob-infested American city named Nava-rone, he would save it till last, until he thought of a good title. The Eraser striking fear into the hearts of the mob.
Inside the headquarters, two secretaries
whose salaries were paid personally by Rocco Nobile were compiling a survey of the income and the health needs of the city's residents so Nobile could try to set up a health clinic for preventative medicine. The only other person in the place was Louie, the almost-janitor.
Louie was a borderline moron and had lived largely on handouts and make-work jobs that peo-
148
pie gave him. People never expected him to succeed, but Louie knew how to push a broom and he liked the feeling of working and supporting himself, so he made up in energy and dedication what he lacked in technique and quick-wittedness.
As the big nun came through the door, Louie glanced at bis watch and realized it was seven o'clock and the bulldog edition of the Daily News would be on the stands.
"Hello, Sister lady," he said as he brushed past her to go get a paper. It was the only newspaper Louie read and actually he didn't read all that much of it, just one tiny number on one corner of one page. It was the total mutuel handle from a New York racetrack and the last three digits constituted the winning number in the illegal numbers game. Louie played every day.
The two secretaries stood up when they saw the nun, but there was something odd about her and they exchanged glances with each other.
"Oooooh, hello, my dears," The Lizzard said in a high-pitched squeak. "Aren't you both lovely?"
"Thank you, Sister," said the brunette. "Can we help you?"
"It was just the opposite, heh, heh, just the opposite. I was hoping I could help you. You see, I'm at St. Joseph's and we wondered if, perhaps, there was some work we could do to help you in the vital task of rebuilding the city."
"Why don't you sit down, Sister?" the brunette said. She nodded to the blonde secretary that she would handle this. "It's a little late for you to be out, isn't it, Sister?"
"Actually, I received a dispensation from Father
149
Cochran to be out alone on this terrible street." "Father Cochran? I'm afraid I don't know him.
And just where is St. Joseph's?"
Trapped, The Lizzard thought. He improvised.
"It's a new church, dear. We're just starting it. But,
actually, I didn't come here to talk about myself.
Rather, we would like to help in any small way we
can."
The brunette secretary didn't know what to make
of it. She reached into her desk for an application
form. "You wouldn't mind filling this out, would
you?"
"Of course not. The longer the better. Nobody here but you two lovelies?"
Louie came back into the Association office on the dead whoop, shouting and pointing at the paper. "I hit! I hit! I had 456 and I hit it in the box! Twenty-five dollars! I hit! I hit!"
"All right, Louie," said the brunette.
The Lizzard stood up quickly. He had heard all he needed to. This man was in here with the numbers play. And besides, it was tune for a drink.
"I'll just take this application with me," he said as he snatched the paper from the desk. "And I'll be back tomorrow night."
Without waiting for a reply, he walked out the front door. Behind him, the two girls looked at each other and suppressed laughter. Louie was drawing his finger across the winning number again to make sure that he had won.
Outside on the street. The Lizzard rubbed his forehead three times in the pre-arranged signal.
"That's it," Tolan said joyously. "Let's go kill somebody."
150
He had a gun in each hand as he walked to the door. Gregory followed him, carrying a Gregory Sur-Shot.
The Baker lingered behind.
"Come on," Gregory said. "Timing is everything."
"Do I have to go?"
"Yes." Gregory looked at the sad expression on Baker's face. "A good job tonight and tomorrow is bonus day for everybody."
Baker brightened appreciably. "Okay, Let's do it."
"Take a gun," Gregory said, pointing toward a small arsenal of weapons on the dresser.
Baker sighed and took the smallest one he could find and stuck it into his jacket pocket. No way he was going to fire it. No way.
They had to run to catch up with Mark Tolan who was marching at doubletime across the street. The plan had been for all of them to talk to The Lizzard and get the lay of the land, but Tolan had had enough of talking. While Gregory and Baker walked toward Lizzard, Tolan marched toward the front door of the Bay City Improvement Association.
"You know where Barrack Street is?" Nobile asked Remo.
"Yeah," said Remo. He spun the car around the corner, making a right-hand turn toward Bay City. The car strained upward on its two inside wheels. Just as it reached the point where it was sure to tip, Remo tromped on the gas pedal, and
151
the sudden forward surge overcame the centrifugal force and brought all four wheels back to the pavement.
"You always drive like this?" Nobile said.
"Yes," said Chiun. "With callous disregard for the lives of people who are worth something, namely me."
"You ain't seen nothing yet," Remo said.
Mark Tolan knew the face of evil when he saw it, no matter how it was painted or disguised. His had looked into evil before, and it could not hide itself from him or from his judgment. The little brunette looked up when he came through the door. She smiled, the same kind of smile she smiled every Sunday at 11 a.m. when she sang in the choir of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church where she was the second alto and was hoping that she would be the first alto next year. She was still smiling when the first Gregory Sur-Shot string of fragmentation slugs ripped into her head.
The blonde secretary was not a choir singer. She was nineteen years old and by the brunette's standards already a fallen woman because she had once let her fiance touch her there and they weren't planning to be married until next year, when he got out of college where he was studying archaeology. She went next, a string of slugs almost severing her neck. She fell onto the table gushing red. Tolan thought, yeah, my favorite color, blondes wearing
red.
Louie was sitting at a table in the back of the room and he looked up slowly when he heard the
152
shots and saw the two girls hit and the big goon standing in the doorway. He was enraged because the two girls had been nicer to him than anyone else had ever been and he jumped to his feet and raced at Tolan.
"Bad man, I'm gonna get you," he cried out.
Tolan let him get close, fifteen feet, ten feet. Louie was waving his fists over his head, his puffy face distorted with rage and anger. At eight feet, Tolan squeezed the trigger.
The gun jammed. He squeezed again. It did not fire. Then Louie was on him, his hard little fists flailing at Tolan's face and Tolan didn't like it. For a moment, he thought of running way but then he remembered the other gun in his left hand, the .357 Magnum, and he put it to Louie's right temple and squeezed the trigger. This one fired and Louie dropped to the freshly linoleumed floor.
Tolan ran to the back of the office hoping there were more people there. But there weren't. He turned and ran back toward the street. He grabbed a handful of pencils from his pocket, and with one wrench broke off their eraser ends and dropped them onto the floor. On the street, he met The Eraser, The Baker and the Lizzard.
"All done," said Tolan. "Let's go."
The four men ran back up the steps of the tenement building where they kept an apartment, just as Remo's car turned the corner. He pulled up in front of the Bay City Improvement Association, as Gregory and his three accomplices began to look out the window. Remo was scanning the windows on the other side of the street.
153
"Hey, I know him," Tolan said. "That's the dip with the ping pong balls."
Remo looked up at their apartment and for one chill moment, it seemed to Gregory that his eyes had locked with those of the hard-faced man in the street.
Behind Remo, Chiun and Nobile had gone to the association offices.
"Oh, my God," Remo heard Nobile say.
He turned to see the mayor bent over the body of Louie near the doorway. Chiun was gesturing to Remo to go after the shooters.
"Nobile," Tolan said upstairs. "I can get him from here."
"No. We want him to sweat a little," Gregory said. "First his drug trade, then his numbers business. Next is him, but let him wait."
Baker saw Remo look in the Association headquarters. He saw the thin man's fist clench. Remo turned and ran across the street toward them. His face was twisted with anger.
"We better get out of here," Baker said.
"I think you're right," Gregory said.
"Let's shoot it out with him," Tolan said.
"Later," said Gregory. "We'll get him on our terms."
The four men went through a back window and down the fire escape. Their rented car had been parked in a vacant lot behind the old tenement building.
When Remo kicked in the apartment door, they were gone. He looked out the back window and saw only the taillights of the car pulling around a building and into the street.
154
"Damn," he said. "Damn." Back at the Association headquarters, Chiun handed Remo three broken pencils.
"I thought you would want these," he said.
155
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It was on the TV—eleven o'clock news.
The three major New York channels carried brief pieces on the killings. They described how Mayor Rocco Nobile, making his usual nightly visit to the club, had come on the scene only seconds after the shootings.
"It was two young juveniles," the stations quoted Nobile as saying. "I ran after them, but they were too fast for me and they got away." He described them as Hispanic youths, perhaps five-foot-six or -seven, wearing yellow nylon windbreakers. He pledged an all-out police effort to apprehend the perpetrators.
There was no mention of the erasers dropped at the scene and nothing to tie in the shootings with the fire near the waterfront the day before.
Sam Gregory and his three cohorts watched the news together. Gregory reacted in cold and fury.
157
T
"What do you have to do to get on the TV news?" he wondered aloud.
"Kill the mayor," said Tolan. But his mind wasn't on killing the mayor. It was on the nutcase with the ping pong balls. His hands still hurt where he had hit the sidewalk in front of the nutcase's room, and Tolan owed him one. If the man was associated with Mayor Nobile, so much the better. Maybe he was a Mafia bodyguard. He had dark hair and eyes. He might be Italian. Yeah, Mafia. He was sure of it. Yeah. Tolan looked around the room at Baker, still sweating and nervous. At Liz-zard, who had changed out of his nun's habit. At Gregory, who kept drumming his fingers on the table top.
Bay City Blast td-38 Page 11