“I understand. I understand. I understand already. Jeez. Enough.”
“More than enough for someone who does not appreciate gifts and denies little nothings in return.”
At the door, Remo asked if there was anything other than America’s leading singer that Chiun would want Remo to bring him. Remo regretted asking the very minute he spoke.
“Just bring back someone who will listen.”
“I thought so.”
“Work on the balance tonight. Work balance into what you do. It is always good to work on balance.”
“Yes, Little Father,” said Remo glumly, as if he were responding to Sister Mary Francis back at the orphanage school. The motel hallway was strung with brightly colored lights, and a real Christmas tree sat on a coffee table in the lobby. Remo went out into the cold alone, hearing the twinkle of Muzak Christmas carols. It was the yuletide season. He was going to work.
· · ·
The Wilberforce house was lit, but without the bright Christmas bulbs. Remo could see the tree through the living-room window, a small artificial cone of green strung with what appeared to be popcorn. Well, it was better than a bush with tennis balls. Down the street, Remo saw a house with an eight-light candelabra. Even the Jews had Hanukkah. They adapted. They made a minor holiday into a major one to get into the spirit of the season and they had five thousand years, which even Chiun had to admit was something. What did Remo have? The Feast of the Pig. The Feast of the Pig and a bush with tennis balls.
A car skittered down the slushy street and the cold gray slush spattering at him reminded him who he was. He put away his anger, for a man could not work with anger, not this work and not properly. He would be angry later.
Maybe later he would kick someone’s tires and wish them merry Feast of the Pig or something, but right now, while midnight approached and the carols died away as people went warm to bed, he had the only thing the Master of Sinanju told him he would ever really have. His discipline.
It was about 3 a.m. when a car without headlights parked a block away and left its motor running. Two men in dark overcoats carrying packages under their arms struggled from the car and up the street. Remo could hear the contents of their packages sloshing. Probably kerosene. He stood still in the darkness of a curbside tree and let them pass close. He smelled the alcohol on their breath and moved in behind them, two trudging figures followed by a feather-light darkness.
They crossed the street and the fragment of front footage that, in the spring, would be the Wilberforce lawn. They breathed heavily. When one quietly began to jimmy the basement window, Remo whispered:
“Merry Feast of the Pig.”
“Shhhh,” said the man with the jimmy.
“I didn’t say nothing,” said the one with the two packages.
“Merry Feast of the Pig. Fond farewells to men of good will,” said Remo. “Or bad will. Or whatever.”
“Hey. Who are you?” asked the man on his knees, snow up to his groin. His face was reddened and angry.
“I am the Spirit of Sinanju here to tell you you have the wrong house. This isn’t the Wilberforce house.”
“What you talking about?”
“You’ve got the wrong house. C’mon with me.”
“What you doing here in just a tee-shirt? Ain’t you cold? Who are you?”
“I’m the Spirit of Sinanju come to show you the right house to burn down. I help all assassins on the eve of the Feast of the Pig.”
“No one’s burning nothing,” said the man standing. His voice made desperate cloud puffs in the night. So surprised was he at the man before him wearing just a dark tee-shirt that he did not notice this odd stranger made no exhalation clouds when he spoke.
“You’re not Santa Claus, right? Right. What are you doing here with that kerosene or whatever if it’s not to torch, right? Right. So why torch the wrong place? Come with me,” said Remo.
“You know this guy, Marvin?” asked the man with snow clotted to his waist.
“Never seen him,” said the man with the packages.
“I am the Spirit of Sinanju come to show you the right house,” said Remo. “Come with me. I’ll show you the Wilberforce house.”
“What you think, Marvin?”
“I think I don’t know.”
“I think I don’t know, too.”
“Should we plug him?”
“I’m a torch, not a hit man, Marvin.”
“Well, see what he says. Jeez, he’s a spooky looking son of a bitch, huh?”
The dark thin figure beckoned, the two men looked up, both of them less sure they were at the Wilberforce house than they had been when they trudged through the snow along the side of the house.
“See what he says. Jeez. Right, Marvin?”
“Why not? Shhh.”
Across the street, the dark figure that seemed to glide across the snow beckoned for them to lend an ear. Unfortunately, he didn’t want the ear as a loan. Marvin the Torch felt a searing tear at the side of his head. He went for the man with his mittened hand, but the hand did not move. He felt nothing where the glove began.
His partner swung the package at the dark figure and Marvin the Torch saw only the flashing white of a hand and heard the thump of something smacking an overcoat. Then his sidekick was flattened in the slush, face down, can out, and his legs sticking out starkly at angles that legs should not stick out from bodies.
“We celebrate the Feast of the Pig by asking questions,” said Remo.
“What?” said Marvin the Torch.
“Turn your head toward the ear you have left. That’s right. Now, Marvin, who sent you?”
“What happened?”
“No. On the Feast of the Pig, the Spirit of Sinanju asks the questions. Who hired you, asks the Spirit of Sinanju and you say…?”
“Nick Banno. Nick. Nick Banno.”
“Ahhh, a Saint Nick. And where does Nick Banno live?”
“I ain’t saying no more,” said Marvin the Torch. He saw the hand move, felt a sharp burning in his chest and he suddenly remembered exactly where Big Nick lived, how much he had paid, where Big Nick was spending the evening, what Big Nick looked like and that he had never liked Big Nick. Not at all.
“Good night and merry Feast of the Pig,” said the weirdo stranger in the black tee-shirt and Marvin the Torch didn’t even see the flashing hand. He went to sleep very quickly, forever.
Down the street, the driver of the waiting car with its lights out tried to make out what had happened to Marvin the Torch and his assistant. The snow clouded his vision. He thought he heard someone say something like “Merry Feast of the Pig” and then he heard nothing. For good.
“Deck the streets with fallen bodies, fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la,” sang Remo. He liked the tune so he sang louder.
A light turned on in a second-floor window and someone yelled for him to shut up.
“Merry Feast of the Pig,” called out Remo.
“Goddamned drunk,” came the voice from the window and in the spirit of the Feast of the Pig, Remo kicked in a tire of the closest car in the hopes that it belonged to the yeller.
· · ·
The home of Nicholas Banno was a testament to bad taste and the power company. It shone in red and green and orange and yellow and blue strings of lights, hung, draped and strung over a yard filled with enough statuary to shame a Caesar.
Remo knocked.
A light went on upstairs.
There was thumping inside the house.
A portly man in a red velvet smoking jacket answered the door. He blinked his sleep-shrouded eyes open. A small handgun was in his right pocket and so was his hand, Remo saw.
“Nicholas Banno?” asked Remo pleasantly.
“Yeah. Hey, are you all right? You ain’t got a coat. C’mon inside and get warm.”
“Don’t make my job difficult by being nice,” said Remo. “You’ve got to get into the spirit of the Feast of the Pig. Death on earth to men of bad will,” and with
that, Nicholas Banno felt two light taps on his chest, saw his lawn statuary coming toward him, felt an incredible pain on the back of his neck which eased only when he said who he worked for and where the person was now. He did not hear his wife call out, asking if everything was all right.
“All’s well,” called out Remo. “Merry Feast of the Pig.”
“Nick. Nick. Are you okay? Nick?”
· · ·
Into the pre-dawn streets of Scranton Remo trotted, the Spirit of Sinanju making its Feast of the Pig eve visits. Chiun, naturally, would not approve. But that was Chiun. And if Remo wished to make a game of work during the Christmas holidays, then that was Remo’s way. Every religious discipline was affected by the nationalities that adopted it. In a way, Remo might be considered American Sinanju, Reformed Sinanju, American Rite Sinanju.
“Merry Feast of the Pig,” he called out again. He saw a squad car turn away from him, apparently not wanting to pick up another drunken reveler in the cold snow that evening.
· · ·
John Larimer was president of the First National Agricultural Bank and Trust Company of Scranton, a good father, a stable member of the community, at least until 2:30 a.m., according to Nick Banno, who had been very truthful. Most people were when they were in pain.
After 2:30 a.m., he stopped being a good father and a stable member of the community and began enjoying life. John Larimer had a little apartment in what for Scranton would be considered a high rise. Even the president of a bank had financial limitations, but John Larimer had a large source of very liquid and very untaxable income and when he stopped being a family man, he could enjoy his nights with Fifi, Honey, Pussy and Snookums, who were very expensive playmates.
Their game required money. Much money. Cash. John Larimer would enter the huge apartment through the kitchen door. Just outside the kitchen, in a closet, was a new wardrobe, not quite the grays and blacks he wore to work.
He hung up his suit and his vest, put away his brown cordovan shoes, white shirt and striped tie.
Then he put on his high red boots with the laces to the top, his yellow silk pants, his silk cape, his diamond-studded coke spoon and his mink safari hat. He placed diamond and ruby rings on his fingers and, but for being somewhat paunchy and in his middle fifties and a little pale, he would have been a fine figure of a pimp.
“Women. I is home,” he called out, strutting into a plush, rugged living room with modern lights hanging over low, slick leather sofas.
“Sweet Johnny. Sweet Johnny,” called out Honey. She came fluffing into the living room, awash in white fur and pink negligee.
“He’s home. The man is home,” shrieked Pussy. She trotted into the living room in pumps and thin black lace.
Sweet Johnny Larimer stood in the center of the room, sporting his arrogance, his hands on hips, his face a cold mask.
When all the women were pawing him and touching his parts and showering him with kisses, he pushed them away.
“I come for the money, not the honey. No money, no sweet Johnny.” And he waited as they rushed back to their rooms to bring him cash. That the amounts they returned to him were less than a tenth of the amounts he left them in fat white envelopes each week was not a point to be mentioned. In fact, it was necessary to forget, for if someone had mentioned it, the whole game would have been ruined beyond repair. Also not mentioned was the girl who was to be called short. The girls rotated feigning the shortage of money, because sometimes it could be painful. Of course, it was necessary. The one who was to be short this night was Pussy, a peroxide blonde with big soft breasts. She smoked a cigarette in her room before returning. She avoided looking at herself in the large vanity mirror.
“Fucking idiot,” she mumbled to herself about Sweet Johnny. Then, “Who’s the idiot? You’re getting slapped around, sweetie, not him. Then again, he’s paying, not you.” If she had to decide whether to stay on the nights it was her turn to be short, she told herself she would rather go back to the streets. But after it was over, she had a month before it was her turn again and it would be foolish to pass up all that good money during the easy periods. Before she knew it, it was her turn again, and afterwards she had the easy money again. And so on for a year and a half. At least she was banking the bread. It wasn’t as though she had to give it to a man. And since Sweet Johnny was John Larimer, president of the bank, he had propitiously directed her toward safe, high-yield bonds.
“Someone’s missing and someone’s short.” She heard Sweet Johnny’s voice roaring.
Pussy snuffed out her cigarette in an ash tray. One of the hot sparks touched her pinkie and it hurt. She came out of her room sucking her pinkie.
“The money, woman,” said Sweet Johnny.
“Here it is, precious. I had a bad week,” said Pussy, offering up two tens and a five.
“This is twenty-five. You short. Doan fuck with my money, woman.”
Pussy felt the sharp slap, but her pinky hurt so much she forgot to show magnified pain.
That was a mistake. John Larimer’s knee came up into her belly and she doubled over. He had never kneed her before.
“Bitch. Bitch. Damned white bitch,” he yelled. She felt his weight come down on her, then her wives-in-law were grabbing her wrists and holding them, so she could not move. This was going to be different. This wasn’t just a slapping around.
“Get your goddamned hands off me, you fucking banker. Banker. Fucking banker,” yelled Pussy and she saw the sudden hatred in the other girls’ faces, hatred that told her they weren’t about to lose their source of income. Fifi hit her in the mouth with a lamp.
“Burn her tits, Sweet Johnny. Don’t let no woman mouth you like that. You our man,” said Fifi.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Larimer. “That right.”
“She hates burning. Burn her. Burn the bitch. You the man.”
“Noooo. Please, no,” said Pussy, but she felt a pillow stuffing her mouth and her negligee being ripped off and then a mouth on her breast and long hair flowing against her neck. It was one of her sisters.
“Get it hard so you burn the tip. That really hurts.”
Her wives-in-law were punishing her for almost blowing the game, and their vengeance was as bad as any real pimp’s.
She thought the pain would have to end, but it got worse and steeper and it was jabbing down toward her belly button and she smelled her own burning flesh mixing with the heavy stink of perfume from her wives-in-law.
When the burning pain started marching into her pubic hair, she heard a strange voice calling out a strange holiday.
“Merry Feast of the Pig, one and all.”
The pain stopped marching, hands released her and she heard a swishing of air, and bones cracking. She lay on the rug, quivering in pain. She heard someone ask Larimer questions and she heard the questions being answered in a tearful voice. All of them.
“Thank you and merry Feast of the Pig.”
And then she heard what sounded like a big bone popping and the pillow was gently taken from her mouth.
“Have any Vitamin E here?”
Pussy kept her eyes closed. She did not want to open them. She did not want to see. If she kept her eyes closed, it wouldn’t hurt so much.
“In the bathroom,” she hissed. “One of the girls uses it.”
“Thank you.”
She did not hear the man go to the bathroom but quickly, almost too quickly, felt liquid pouring on the pain in her upper body. Then she felt sheets wrapping her gently and she was lifted very smoothly, surprisingly very smoothly, and placed gently on something soft into which her body sank. It was a bed.
“You rest here. Every day, maybe twice a day, keep squeezing Vitamin E capsules on your burns. Guaranteed. Helps the scars heal and breathe.”
“The pain. Something for the pain.”
“A little hand acupuncture, my dear. We of the Regular Established Reformed American Rite of Sinanju know these things.”
She felt a hand search for a
point on her neck and there was a sharp sting there and then her body was numb from shoulders down.
“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“I have a question. What’s a rotten girl like you doing in a nice business like this?”
Pussy did not want to laugh, not now. Not the way she was, not here, not after the horror. But she thought the remark incredibly funny.
“The Regular Established Reformed American Rite has a sense of humor. That is where we differ from the Eastern Rite. Merry Feast of the Pig and to all a last night.”
Later, at noon, when the police and the coroner’s office were all over the apartment and everyone was asking her questions all at once she saw the bodies being taken out with sheets over the faces. She tried to explain what happened, but someone said she was in shock and they gave her a sedative and pain killer. It unfortunately took away the good effects of the hand acupuncture which no one believed but which had worked so well and she was again in pain and misery.
Remo left the Scranton version of the high rise. It was not quite yet dawn and he headed toward his last stop, that given him by the late John Larimer, also known as Sweet Johnny.
The Stace mansion was a magnificent three-story structure combining elements of Greek and English architecture. Its massive front had a beautiful reinforced bolt lock that popped in a nice, neat crack.
Stace, according to Larimer, was a very young-looking fifty-five with slightly graying hair and a trim, well-built body that tended to heft in the shoulders.
Remo night-silently went through the mansion checking beds but found no trim middle-fifties man with heft in the shoulders. There was a very thin man in a servant’s room, a pudgy man and his pudgier wife in another servant’s room, two teenagers—each in their own rooms, and an elderly man, emaciated, dried up and obviously terminal, in what appeared to be the master bedroom.
So Remo awakened the pudgy man in the servant’s room who in his sudden shock said indeed Mr. Stace was the one in the master bedroom, but he had not come out of it for two days. Remo put the pudgy man back to sleep again, carefully, so that it would not be permanent.
The wizened old specter in the master bedroom was gently awakened with a tap on his leathery forehead, and Remo led him quietly downstairs to the basement. The old man was hardly able to walk; his feet shuffled, and his eyes rolled slowly about, aimlessly, as if looking for lost youth.
Murder Ward Page 6