Last Drop td-54

by Warren Murphy

  "Say, that's an idea," Ben offered.

  Remo threw him into the passenger seat. Then he hoisted the drum containing Sam's remains onto the truck and got in on the driver's side. "We're going to the police."

  They rode in silence until they neared the police station.

  Ben cleared his throat. "Excuse me," he squeaked.

  "What?" Remo said.

  "You going to tell the cops you killed Sam?"

  "What time is it?"

  Ben looked at his watch. "Seven-thirty."

  "No time," Remo said. "I've got to catch the ballet."

  "Oh," Ben said, inching toward the door.

  Suddenly, without warning, Remo vaulted out the cab window and landed on his feet in the shadows. Through the darkened windshield he saw Ben grasping frantically for the wheel, bringing the truck to a halt in front of the precinct doors.

  "Hey!" he yelled. "They're going to think I killed him!" Ben started out the door, but was halted by two curious policemen who were circling the truck.

  "That's the biz, sweetheart," Remo said, kicking a stone along an alleyway.

  Killing was the pits.

  * * *

  The lights at Lincoln Center were brilliant, illuminating the lavish fountains in the courtyard. Walking among the columns in front of the New York State Theater was a diminutive figure draped in billowing green brocade robes. His white hair stood in a tufty cloud on top of his head, and hung in long strands from his upper lip and chin.

  Chiun's age was somewhere between eighty and a hundred, but when he smiled, he looked like an eager child.

  "I like this place," the old man said, gesturing grandly toward the stately buildings and their glamorous patrons. "It is good to be at last among surroundings suitable to one of my station."

  "Yeah," Remo said. "Terrific."

  "What is wrong, o uncultured one? Perhaps the prospect of broadening your mind is distasteful to you. You would prefer, no doubt, to gobble hot dogs and ogle the udders of white females?"

  Remo grunted.

  "Hark, it speaks."

  "I'm sick of killing."

  "Ah," the old Oriental said sagely. "This I understand."

  "You do?"

  "Of course. When one practices the art of assassination as you do, one is bound to become disillusioned. But do not sorrow, my son. You will improve with a little practice. Ten, fifteen years. Practically overnight." He patted Remo gently on the shoulder.

  "It's not that, Little Father. I'm just tired of killing people for a living. I don't want to do it anymore."

  Chiun arched an eyebrow. "And what, may I ask, do you propose to do since this great revelation? Sell washing machines?"

  The lights dimmed and brightened in the lobby, the signal to enter the theater. "I don't know. But I'm not going to kill anybody else. I've thought it over."

  Chiun sighed as he settled into his seat in full lotus position. "I guessed as much."

  "Guessed what?"

  "That you have been thinking. Like killing and making love, thinking is an activity which should only be undertaken by those who know how to do it correctly. In your case, you should stick to killing."

  "Very funny."

  "And only under supervision."

  Remo sat back. He wouldn't have to tell Smith about his decision until intermission. Till then, he'd have time to take a nap. The first act of Giselle was as good a place as any to catch a few winks, and he was bone tired.

  "Disgraceful," Chiun muttered as soon as the curtain came up.

  "Hmmm?" Remo cranked one eyelid open.

  "This is not dancing. Where are the fans? Where are the streamers?"

  "This is ballet," Remo said. "It's different from Korean dancing. They use their feet."

  "A shameless display of leg-showing. Girls should have more modesty. Look at that one in the white jacket. Ruffles at the collar, and no skirt. She is ladylike only around her neck."

  "Where?"

  "On the stage. A carnal exhibition. And big legs, too. White legs. Who would have such a woman?"

  "That's not a woman, Chiun. It's a man."

  "A man? With no pants?"

  "Quiet down, Little Father."

  The old Oriental looked around. "Why? Are you afraid I will wake someone up?"

  Remo scanned the seats around him. Indeed, almost half the audience seemed to be fast asleep. He craned his neck to see into the orchestra section. A thousand heads bobbed up and down rhythmically as the air welled with the sound of deep snoring.

  "Everybody's conked out," Remo whispered.

  "What do you expect? Even unconsciousness is preferable to watching those legs."

  "Something weird's going on here," Remo said.

  At intermission, the curtain came down to a smattering of applause. The house lights came up, and a few people straggled into the aisles. Most of the audience remained sprawled in their seats.

  "Let's find Smitty," Remo said.

  Smith was standing by the refreshments counter on the first tier. Remo and Chiun had a hard time getting to him because the other patrons kept staggering in front of them.

  "Out of my way," Chiun commanded as a young couple slammed into him on either flank.

  "Sorry," the young man said with exteme slowness. His mouth worked further, but only drool came out.

  "Slovenly creatures. White, naturally."

  "He's not the only one," Remo said. Near Smith stood a fashionable middle-aged woman in green taffeta. As Smith purchased something from the bar, the woman melted to the floor. A few feet away, another patron, an elderly gentleman holding a styrofoam cup in his hand, slid slowly down the wall to the carpet.

  "What's wrong with all these people?" Remo asked. "They're falling like boll weevils at first frost."

  Smith walked over to them, a styrofoam container in his hand. His face was grave. "Can you see what's happening?" he asked.

  "I see it, but I don't believe it," Remo said. "Is it like this all over New York?"

  "All over the country," Smith said. "The first reports came from Miami, but within hours I'd heard from every city in the United States. The hospitals are full with accident cases, from people falling asleep at the wheel. Suicides are quadruple their usual rate."

  "Maybe it's something in the water," Remo offered.

  Smith shook his head. "Unfortunately, we know what it is. There've been enough autopsies to prove it beyond a doubt."

  "And?"

  Smith looked around him. "Heroin," he said.

  "Heroin?" Remo repeated unbelievingly. "The whole country?"

  "Somehow, a huge quantity of heroin has been introduced to the American public. The epidemic has crossed all social and ethnic barriers. There's no pattern." Smith took a sip of his coffee. "I'm afraid there's just no way of stopping it at present, since we don't know the source. That's yourjob. Find out who's behind this scheme, and how he's operating. And then stop him."

  Remo waffled. "There's just one thing—"

  "I recommend you start with known drug contacts in the Miami area, then work your way up to the main distributors."

  "Yeah, but..."

  "But what?"

  "See, I'd like to catch this bum as much as you, but I've come to a decision. About my life. That is, about the way I spend my life. It's the killing, Smitty.... Smitty?"

  Smith stood weaving in his spot, staring glassily at Remo.

  "Are you all right?"

  He didn't answer. Remo waved a hand in front of Smith's face. He didn't blink. Then slowly, his arm dropped and his coffee spilled in little rivulets down the side of his trousers.

  "Smitty!"

  With a muffled sound, Smith careened backwards and lay unconscious on the floor.

  Remo scooped him up in his arms. "It's got Smitty, too," he said. He listened to Smith's heart. "I think he's okay. We've got to get him home."

  He put Smith in a taxi, gave the driver a roll of hundred-dollar bills, and sent the cab off to upstate New York.

&nbs
p; "What now?" Chiun said in the light of a street lamp.

  "We'll start in Miami."

  "I thought you were not going to work again."

  "I said I wasn't going to kill."

  They traveled to the airport in silence. Why, Remo wondered, would anyone want to drug the entire population of the United States? Whatever the reason, Remo had the sickening feeling that things had just started.

  ?Chapter Three

  The city of Miami was like a ghost town. Except for the constant wail of ambulances in the distance and an unusual number of derelicts, the city seemed to be deserted.

  Remo walked purposefully past the palm trees lining the wide boulevard. A restriction banning all but emergency vehicles from the roads lent the empty streets an air of spaciousness.

  He knew where he was going. Skirting the main routes, he turned into a series of alleyways in the northwest section of town. At the far end of a dead-end street hung a filthy shingle reading "Shoes Repaired" above a dingy storefront. Through the window Remo could see a counter tended by a laconic, murderous-looking fellow.

  If Remo remembered correctly, there was a false wall at the back of the shop that opened to a warehouse filled, intermittently, with large shipments of heroin.

  CURE's computers had flushed out the warehouse some months before, and Remo himself had been inside to verify the stash, but had left it untouched. Harold Smith preferred to leave big drug busts to the FBI, so Remo's climactic moment had come with an anonymous call pinpointing the location of the warehouse. The place had been raided and the heroin seized, but the Feds didn't wait to check the facts about who was in charge, and ended up arresting some minor cog in the drug wheel with no more information than the average street pusher.

  The real operator, Johnny Arcadi, had taken appropriate precautions at the time and was securely and visibly out of town during the raid, speaking at an electrical contractor's convention in Detroit. Arcadi was left clean, as usual.

  The Feds watched him for a while, but with so many underlings working for him, Arcadi was never in the shoe repair shop anymore. Most of the Feds concurred that Arcadi had moved to a new location. Harold Smith knew he hadn't, but Arcadi was small potatoes to CURE.

  Smith waited, hoping that when Arcadi led him to the next rung on the ladder, surely a man untouchable by the democratic laws of the United States, he would send in Remo. To finish both jobs in a way the Constitution did not permit but, the only way that would work. Remo decided that the time had come.

  The shoemaker in the shop was sitting on a high stool, a cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth.

  "Whaddya want," he said.

  "Johnny Arcadi. Your boss."

  "Never heard of him," the shoemaker, whose only calluses were on his trigger finger, said. He removed the cigarette from his mouth and slowly lowered his arm behind the counter. "Who wants to know?"

  "My name's Remo. And I wouldn't pick up that gun if I were you."

  "What gun?" the shoemaker drawled. From an almost imperceptible twitch of the man's right shoulder Remo knew that the man's fingers were wrapping around a weapon.

  Shifting his position slightly, Remo kicked a hole in the front of the counter with the bottom of his foot. The gun spun into the air in three pieces, and with the same movement the shoemaker slammed shoulders first into the back wall. It yielded under his weight. Then Remo was over the counter and through the hole and into the warehouse, and the shoemaker was hanging off Remo's right hand by his nose.

  "Now do you remember who Arcadi is?" Remo asked pleasantly.

  The shoemaker made motions with his tongue. The only sound that issued from him was a kind of squealing grunt.

  "That mean yes?"

  "Ga. Yuh."

  "Give him a call. Tell him I want to talk to him. Here. In five minutes."

  "Gla," the man said. Remo set him down. "You a cop?"

  "No."

  "Then why do you want Arcadi?"

  Remo extended two fingers toward the man and pressed a place on his neck that convinced the man that further explanations were unnecessary. "He's in his car," the shoemaker said. He lifted the phone and dialed, his eyes glued to Remo's hands. "Johnny? I think you better come down here. Some guy named Remo. Says he's not a cop. He wants you should come here in five minutes. Yeah... Sorry, boss. Okay." He hung up. "He says you should go stick your pecker in a ravioli machine." He held out his two hands, palms forward, in defense. "You said call, I called. Mr. Arcadi's with a lady. He ain't coming." A bubble of a laugh escaped from his lips. "At least not now."

  "He'll be here," Remo said.

  "Uh-uh. That five-minute stuff, that was no good, not with Johnny Arcadi. Like he ain't used to taking orders from nobody, you know what I mean?"

  "I said he'll be here." Remo glanced at the clock on the wall of the shoemaker's shop. Fifty-eight seconds had elapsed.

  "How do you know he'll come?" the shoemaker persisted.

  "Say I've got ESP," Remo said.

  "Yeah, but if he don't come, what then? Then you murder me, right? Like maybe you think that's going to make Johnny Arcadi die of sadness or something." He expelled a little puff of air. "It just don't work that way, you know. Like you'll kill me, and he won't give a good flying crap, you know?"

  "I'm not going to kill you. I'm not going to kill anybody."

  The man rubbed the spot on his neck that moments before had sent him into spasms of agony. "Okay. You remember that. But he ain't coming."

  "He's coming."

  Outside there was a skid of tires and a splintering of glass. Then the rotund form of Johnny Arcadi flew through the hole in the wall.

  "I told you he was coming," Remo said.

  "Johnny." The shoemaker's eyes shone with relief. "You cared. You really cared. Hey, I ain't going to forget this, boss, honest."

  "Cram it," Arcadi moaned, rubbing his bald head where he had landed on the cement flooring. Through the hole in the wall walked a slight figure with wispy white hair bobbing over a yellow satin robe.

  "Greetings," Chiun said.

  The shoemaker looked from Arcadi to the old Oriental. "Who's the old gook?"

  "Some maniac," Arcadi mumbled, getting shakily to his feet. "Here I am, halfway to heaven with a chick looking like a Penthouse centerfold, and along comes this old geezer and turns my legs into pretzels. Tears my arms out by the sockets. Makes my neck into a dartboard with those pointy little fingernails. Sheesh. What're you, some kind of Bruce Lee nut?" He wiped his brow with a handkerchief.

  "I do not associate with persons named Bruce," Chiun said with dignity.

  The shoemaker smiled. "He beat you up? You got to be kidding, boss. He can't weigh more than a hundred pounds."

  "That broad'll never let me so much as cop a feel again.... Hey, you think you could do any better with the old man, smartass?"

  "No offense, boss," the shoemaker said apologetically.

  "I'm asking. Do you think you could cream the old gook, or don't you?"

  "Well..." he smiled. "Yeah. I think I could. Sure."

  Then he looked at Remo. "Oh, I get it. You look out for the old guy, don't you. I lay a finger on Pops here, and you step in and brain me, right?"

  "Brain him, Remo," Chiun said. "He could use a brain."

  "Hey, watch it, you old goat—"

  "I won't lift a finger," Remo said.

  "Even if I kill him?"

  "Be my guest."

  "Be his guest," Chiun said.

  Remo touched Chiun's shoulder. "Don't kill him, okay?"

  Chiun's jaw tightened. "You are impossible," he said.

  "And you're dead," the shoemaker said. He advanced on the frail-looking old man and circled him, his fists held in front of his face. "You could at least put your hands up," he said with a smile.

  "Why?" Chiun asked. "You have never seen hands?"

  "You sure your friend ain't going to step in?"

  "Absolutely sure. He has embraced nonviolence."

  "And you ha
ven't, right?" He laughed.

  "That is correct," Chiun said.

  "Okay, then. This is for what he done to me." He poked a mean right at the old Oriental. It missed. And then there was a blur of yellow satin and a sputtering of breathing sounds, and then Chiun was standing in his former position, hands tucked inside the sleeves of his gown, his face serene.

  Beside him lay a spheroid shape banded by a braid of arms and legs.

  "Is he dead?" Remo asked.

  "No," Chiun said with disgust. "It is breathing. It will continue to breathe. That is all."

  Arcadi touched the mass with his toe. It rolled away. "What a cluck," he said.

  "Want to talk?" Remo asked.

  "Yeah, sure." Arcadi's voice was heavy with resignation. "You're taking over the operation, I suppose."

  "What if we are?"

  "Then welcome to it. I'm sick of it anyway. Business. Poot." He spat significantly toward the blob of inert tissue that was the shoemaker.

  "Not good?"

  "Not good? You kidding? You're looking at a ruined man. You think there's any living in hookers and numbers? That's all I got left. Ready for the poor farm, that's what I am."

  "Hookers and numbers? I'm talking about heroin," Remo explained.

  "You and everybody else. Heroin." He looked up nostalgically, savoring the word. "Horse. Smack. Dope. H. Heroin used to mean something," he said through misty eyes. "Secret cargoes by sea. Special cars with the stuff built into the doors. Airline stews with a little stash up their bazonkas."

  "Yeah," Remo sighed. "Junkies screaming. Narcotics raids. Teenage girls turning to prostitution to support their habits."

  "You got it," Johnny Arcadi said with a dreamy smile. "Them were the days." He snapped out of his reverie with tight-lipped resolution. "That's all ancient history now."

  "What's ancient history?"

  "As if you don't know."

  "Maybe I do and maybe I don't," Remo hedged.

  "Come on."

  "You come on, Arcadi. The whole country's blasted to the gills. On heroin."

  Arcadi snorted in contempt.

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Jeez, you guys are even dumber than you look," Arcadi said. No wonder you got picked to close me down. You don't know nothing." He walked slowly to the far wall of the warehouse and lifted up a wooden crate. "Allow me to explain to youse."