He was needed up here. The machines were busy and the pills were spinning out, dropping into bottles labeled “aspirin” but containing a better medicine than all the acetaminophen in the world. Ninety-eight percent pure heroin. He had taken a tablet that morning before Cynthia arrived and he felt good. Of course, that was no real drug problem because he could stop any time, and he must admit, it did make him feel even more the fine upstanding man that he knew he was. Doctors did it, didn’t they? And if he had wanted to, he could have been a doctor.
He was busy monitoring the pill-making machines and he had been humming tunelessly, the kind of humming that a man who will soon be a multimillionaire can indulge himself in. He did not notice the footsteps behind him.
Finally, when someone cleared his throat and Horowitz turned, he was only mildly surprised that it was not Cynthia Hansen, and not much more surprised that three men stood there. They were funny looking men. If Myron Horowitz had not been a gentleman, he might have giggled. He giggled anyway.
There was this round little man with a head like an egg and a twisty little mustache who said “allo,” who must have been a Frenchman because he was carrying an umbrella. There was a silly looking Oriental with thick eyeglasses who just stood there smiling insanely at Myron Horowitz. And there was a very funny one indeed, an enormously fat man who looked like Hoagy Carmichael after six months of forced feeding; he stood there, grinning out of the side of his mouth and clutching the handle of his briefcase with both hands.
Well, Myron Horowitz tried to be polite, and he knew that he would have acted the same, even if he had not had a pill, but it was his time of the day to relax a little and to feel good, so he grinned and said, “Hi, boys. Have a pill?”
He never did know what he said that was wrong because he didn’t have a chance to ask before the Oriental pulled out a pistol and put a bullet in his head, as he said to his two companions, “Is preasing you?”
The shot was the first sound Remo Williams heard as he came through the door that, from the inside, did not look like a door and into the room where the pills were made by automated machines. Even now, with Horowitz dead, the machines kept pumping out their deadly medicine in hard little tablets with a steady tapocketa pocketa.
Remo Williams was unseen by the three men and he walked up quietly behind the Oriental and snatched the gun from his hand.
Remo skidded the gun across the floor of the drug factory and the three men wheeled and Remo demanded, “Who the hell are you? The Marx Brothers?”
The man who looked like Hoagy Carmichael answered. In a clipped British accent, he said, “Official business, old man. Just stay out of the way. We’re licensed to kill.”
“Not around here, you’re not, you silly shit,” Remo said.
The Englishman lifted his briefcase up onto the counter knocking bottles of pills to the floor to make room for it. He began to fumble at the latches.
The Oriental, mistaking Remo’s anger for anger, grabbed Remo’s bad arm and pivoted under his bad shoulder. He bent forward in the classic jujitsu move to throw Remo over his back. Everything was done just right, except he had never done it before to a man whose shoulder was dislocated. All it did to Remo was hurt him, so Remo took his right fist and curled it up into the karate hand mace, bringing it down on top of the Oriental’s head with a fearsome crunch.
The Oriental dropped like a wet sock.
“Just a minute, old chap,” the Englishman said. “Just let me get this case open,” he said, as he fumbled again with the latches.
The little man with the head like an egg and the pointed mustache clutched his umbrella to his side, then pulled his right hand away, peeling out an evil-looking foil almost three feet long. He ducked into a fencing pose, shouted en garde and lunged forward with the point of the epee at Remo’s stomach. Remo side-stepped and the sword slid harmlessly by his waist.
“Keep him occupied, Hercule,” the Englishman called. “I’ll be right with you. I’ve almost got it.”
Hercule pulled back his sword and prepared for another lunge. He thrust forward and this time Remo let the blade slip by him, then yanked it out of the Frenchman’s hand. Holding it by its uncutting dulled edge, he thumped the Frenchman on the head with the umbrella handle and the Frenchman went into a deep swoon.
Remo dropped the sword and turned to the Englishman. He saw Remo staring at him, and tilted his head to the side slightly so he could smile sardonically at him. “Must say you Yanks are always in such a bloody hurry. Now just hold still a moment, while I get this open. M will hear about this defective equipment.”
As Remo watched, he fumbled with the latches and then cried out in triumph, “That’s it. I’ve got it now, I’ve got it,” and he pulled up on the handle and it separated from the briefcase.
He aimed the twin points of the handle at Remo’s chest, tilted his head and again smiled sardonically. I’ve had experience with your sort before. The Speckled Polka Dot Gang, don’t you know. And let me tell you, you Mafia types can’t hold a candle to some of the people I’ve run into. Well, old boy. Are you ready? Anything you’d like to say? I’ll give you a couple of lines in my report. Any last words?”
“Yeah,” Remo said. “Up yours, you dizzy bastard.” He turned his back and walked away toward the telephone he saw on the desk in the office. The smiling Englishman took careful aim with the attache case handle, pressed down on the second-bolt-in-from-the-end and shot himself in the foot.
Remo ignored the noise behind him and went inside to call Dr. Harold W. Smith.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
DR. HAROLD W. SMITH KNEW WHAT TO DO. The Treasury Department was called immediately and within minutes men in snap-brimmed hats began arriving at the drug factory.
Remo had gone. Inside they found a dead Horowitz, an unconscious Oriental and an unconscious Frenchman. A bloated Englishman, bleeding slightly from a wound in the foot, sat on Horowitz’s desk drinking from a bottle of Chivas Regal when they entered. He was on the telephone and he covered the mouthpiece when they came in the door and called out: “Hello, boys. Glad you could join the party. You’ll find everything you need. Just handle the paperwork and things’ll go a lot smoother.”
Then he was back talking into the telephone. “Cedric? That you? You-know-who here. Yes. Biggest one yet. Can we make the next edition? Okay. Grab your pencil and your socks. Here we go. The biggest drug ring in the history of international smuggling was broken up today and the real story is the unsung role played in the case by… heh, heh, you know who, on Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”
At the same time. Dr. Harold W. Smith was on the telephone with the White House. The President sat in his bedroom, his shoes off, listening to the parched voice.
“That matter has been cleared up, Mr. President.”
“Thank you,” the President said. “And that person?”
“I believe he is well. I will convey your concern.”
“And our gratitude.”
“And your gratitude,” Dr. Smith said before placing his phone back on its red base.
It was noon when the first bulletin came out of Washington across the United Press International ticker. James Horgan, editor of the Hudson Tribune, heard the clanking of the bells on the teletype machine and stuck his head out of his office.
His staff studiously ignored the ringing of the bells which generally signaled a major news item. Horgan swore softly and walked to the back of the room where he leaned over the teletype machine, then ripped the yellow sheet of paper from the machine.
He read: “… Enough heroin to fuel America’s underworld narcotics trade for six years was seized today in a daring daylight raid in Hudson, New Jersey, United States Treasury officials announced.
“More to come. EGF1202WDC”
Horgan glanced at the copy, then at the clock. It was 12:03. Three minutes after all the copy should have been gone from the editorial room and out into the composing room on its way into the pages.
He walked
back to the city desk where the city editor was trying to do the word game. Can you get twenty-one words in fifteen minutes from effluvium. Average mark, seventeen words. Time limit, twenty minutes.
Horgan tossed the yellow bulletin on the desk in front of the city editor. “In case you were wondering,” he said, “all those bells ringing were not a fire alarm. So there’s nothing to worry about. Do you think you might finish that puzzle in time to try to get some news in today’s paper?”
The city editor looked at the bulletin, then up at Horgan. “What should I do?” he asked.
Horgan thought for a moment, then picked up the bulletin. “Hold Page One. Then go back to your frigging puzzle and stay out of the way.”
Horgan vanished into his office carrying the scrap of paper from the UPI machine. A few moments later, he bellowed “copy” and a copyboy ran in and carried a sheet of white paper out to the city editor.
“Mr. Horgan says start working on this.” The copyboy ran to the back of the room to take the latest bulletin off the UPI machine.
Every few minutes, he brought a new bulletin into Horgan’s office and seconds later white sheets came out, carefully blending UPI’s dry factual reports with the stories of the dead narcotics policemen, the mysterious Remo Barry who had been in town, Verillio’s death and the political protection that had been given the narcotics gang.
At 12:17, he stepped out of his office carrying the last sheet of paper.
“How’s it read?” he asked his city editor.
“Okay,” the editor said. “But do you think we ought to speculate like that?”
“Only until you get somebody around here who can find out a fact.” He started to walk away when the city editor called: “You want a byline on this?”
Horgan stopped. “It’s going to be one of those Italian mob things again and I just don’t need any more flak about being anti-Italian. Put some Italian byline on it.”
The city editor thought for a moment and his eyes strayed to the reference shelf behind the city desk. History of Great Operas, he read on the back of one book.
He bent over a sheet of paper and penciled, “Set 14 point.”
“By Joseph Verdi”
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
WHEN WILLIE THE PLUMBER PALUMBO CAME TO, on the floor of Cynthia Hansen's office, the bitch was gone and so was Remo Barry.
Willie lay there on the heavy carpeting for a few moments, afraid to move for fear the broken bones would hurt. He had seen Gasso's body. He knew what his must look like.
Slowly, exploratorily, he moved his left index finger. He felt no pain. He moved the entire hand. No pain. Then he moved his other hand. And then his feet. At least he was not crippled. When he sat up, he found that he was not hurt at all.
Willie the Plumber scrambled to his feet and paid for the sudden exertion with a violent coughing fit that caused his eyes to blank for a moment.
Then he was all right again. He walked out into the red-tiled hall where his cleated heels chipped wax and he walked forward on the balls of his feet to make no noise, heading down the back stairs to the parking lot where his blue Eldorado sat.
He did not know how long he had been out. But any long was too long. Remo Barry must have gotten the girl. He would probably be back for Willie the Plumber. Well, Willie the Plumber would be long gone.
Willie the Plumber was not simple. Big score or no big score, heroin or no heroin, it was more important to stay alive.
Willie had enough to stay alive for a long time. In an ash can in his cellar was hidden several hundred thousand dollars in cash and it would be enough to move Willie far across the country, maybe even out of the country, and set him up in a new life.
Willie jumped into his car and sped the few blocks to the old four-family tenement that he had made into a one-family home for himself.
He parked the Cadillac at the curb and took the front stairs two at a time, coughing all the way.
It took him only a few minutes to find a briefcase and to empty the money from the ash can into it. It was $227,000. Willie counted it often.
He closed the briefcase and walked out the front door, locking it behind him. He would send the key to his sister-in-law. She could come in and clean it until he sold it.
As he was about to get into his Eldorado, he noticed a smudge on the hood and he walked up to the smudge. He leaned over the shiny hood and exhaled onto the smudge, then put his face down close to the finish as he polished off the smudge with the sleeve of his jacket.
He caught a flash of movement on the other side of the car and tilted his head slightly to catch the reflection in the highly-waxed hood.
A man stood there.
Willie stood up and looked across the car into the deep brown eyes of Remo Williams.
Remo smiled at him, then holding his left arm stiffly at his side, bent down below the level of the car for a moment and picked up something from the gutter.
He stood up, holding a rusty old nail in his right hand. Still smiling at Willie the Plumber, he pressed the tip of the nail into the blue enameled finish of the hood and pressed. First a tiny piece of paint chipped, and then Remo dragged the nail through the finish, running a scar down the hood of the Eldorado from windshield to grill.
Willie the Plumber looked at the vandalized hood of the shiny car and started to cry. Real tears.
The man named Remo said, “Willie, get in the car.” Willie, still crying, slid in behind the wheel. Remo got in the passenger's side.
“Just drive around, Willie,” he said.
Willie the Plumber, now sobbing only slightly, drove through the heart of the city and finally picked up an old inadequate highway that passed through the meadows bordering the city's western side.
“Turn here,” Remo ordered and Willie the Plumber pulled off the highway into a narrow two-lane blacktop road.
“How do you want it, Willie?” Remo asked. “In the head? Chest? Got a favorite organ?”
“You didn't have to do that to the Eldorado,” Willie said. “You know, you're a real sonofabitch.”
Suddenly, Willie's head dropped onto the steering wheel of the car. Its wheels bit into a hole and the car's weight pulled it off toward the right side of the road, heading at a marshy field.
With his good right arm, Remo slapped Willie's head away from the steering wheel, then grabbed the wheel and wrestled the car back onto the blacktop. He reached his left leg past Willie's feet and slowly began tapping the brake until the heavy car lurched to a halt.
Remo shifted the car into neutral, then walked around to the driver's side. Willie lay with his head back against the seat. His eyes were open, but Remo realized he was dead.
Remo pulled Willie out of the car and let his body drop heavily onto the road. Then he slid behind the wheel of the car and drove off.
He felt bad about scratching a new Eldorado.
Excerpt
If you enjoyed Mafia Fix, maybe you'll like Dr. Quake, too.
It’s the fifth Destroyer novel, now available as an ebook.
Dr. Quake
HIS NAME WAS REMO and he had not read more than one of the geology books shipped to him at the hotel in St. Thomas. He had not looked at the scale models of California’s crust for more than five minutes, and he had paid no attention at all to the tutor who had thought he was explaining faults and earthquakes to a salesman newly hired by a geological instruments company.
Not that Remo hadn’t tried. He read the basic college geology book, the primer, from cover to cover. When he was finished, his memory floated with cartoons of rocks, water and very stiff people. He understood everything he had read; he just didn’t care about it. He forgot 85 per cent of the book the day after he read it, and 14 per cent more the day after that.
What he remembered was the modified Mercalli intensity scale. He did not remember what it was, just that there was a thing geologists called the modified Mercalli intensity scale.
He wondered about it as he stood on the cliff overl
ooking an outcropping of green moss-covered rocks. Maybe he was standing on a modified Mercalli intensity scale. Well, whether he was or not, the little grass air strip that began about one hundred yards farther on along the edge of the cliff and cut into the flat face of the cliff top was where at least five men would die. They would be killed very well and very quietly; in the end no one would think it anything but an accident.
Killing, Remo knew very well.
He lounged against a gracefully curving tree, feeling the fresh salt air of the Caribbean warm his body as it massaged his soul. The sun burned his strong face. He closed his deep-set eyes, folded his arms over his striped polo shirt. He lifted one leg to rest beneath his buttocks on the tree trunk. He could hear the voices of the three men sitting near their little farm truck. They were sure, mon, that no white fellow could sneak through the jungle near them. Certain, mon. They were also sure, mon, that the delivery was soon. If there was any trouble, however, they had their carbines and could put a hole in a mon at two hundred yards and do it right propah. Yessirree. Right propah. Through his bloody genitals, eh, Rufus?
Remo turned his head to get sun on the right side of his neck. His face was healing and he had been promised that this was the last time it would be changed. He looked now almost as he had looked when he had been a living, recorded, human being with fingerprints in Washington, a credit card, bills and an identity as Remo Williams, policeman. He liked that face. It was the most human face he had ever had. His.
And even if someone who had known him by sight should see him and think the face was familiar, they would be sure it was not Patrolman Remo Williams. Because Patrolman Remo Williams had died in New Jersey’s electric chair years ago for killing a drug pusher in an alley.
The pusher was dead all right, but in point of fact, Remo Williams hadn’t shot him. So, in the spirit of justice, Remo Williams didn’t die in the electric chair either. But the whole charade was a convenient government way to remove his fingerprints from all files and his identity from all files—to create the man who didn’t exist.
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