Mafia Fix

Downstairs the doorman gave him a quizzical look, but hailed a cab. The cabbie stopped and made no offer to help his passenger with his odd luggage, so the passenger tossed it into the back seat himself.

"Kennedy Airport," he said. The cab driver groused a little because he did not generally make out so well tip-wise on those long hauls, preferring short trips instead. Then on the trip he let his passenger in on his philosophy for the good life, which was that the world would be an all right place if it weren't for the jews, spicks, wops, niggers and polacks, you ain't Jewish or Italian, are you, mister? It was inferior people that made an inferior world, laziness was built into some of those types.

He stopped at Eastern Airlines as he was told and made no effort to help his passenger, who took only one of the bags and told him to wait. He watched through the window. Inside his fare bought a ticket at the counter and checked in the duffle bag of luggage, then the fare came back out and got into the cab. They drove down to the National Airlines ticket office which wasn't far, and did not really give the cab-driver much time to explain about the laziness of most races except his own. There they were already, again his fare lugged out the duffle bag himself and went in, checked the bag after buying a ticket with cash, then he was out in the cab again.

The next stop in line was TWA. The passenger took the third bag, bought a ticket there and checked his duffle bag. The cabbie turned his head for a moment and when he looked around again, his fare was gone. He waited and when the fare didn't return, he got out of the cab. He did not see him on the sidewalk and inside he did not see him anywhere in the TWA lounge, and-cursing all jews, guineas and spiks-he went inside and asked the clerk what had happened to the man who checked the duffle bag.

"Oh, you mean, Mister Gonzales," the clerk said, looking at the slip before him. "Well, he had to rush to catch his plane for Puerto Rico. He said that if you came in, I should tell you he'd get you the next time."

But the man known momentarily as Mister Gonzales was not on his way to Puerto Rico. He was sitting in one of the small jump seats on a helicopter headed for Newark Airport.

The duffle bag that belonged to Mr. Gonzales was now being loaded into the rear of the San Juan plane. And another duffle bag just like it, but belonging to Mr. Aronovitz was being loaded into the back of the Anchorage plane. And a third duffle bag, owned by Mr. Botticelli, was already aboard the Chicago plane.

But in Chicago and San Juan and Anchorage, no Mr. Gonzales or Mr. Aronovitz or Mr. Botticelli would call for the bags. They would sit in the terminals for a few days or maybe even a week, then the smell would begin to come through the rubber suits and the police of three cities would have an airport mystery.

That would really stir the pot but he hoped everything would be over before then, thought Remo Williams, now known as Remo Barry-sometimes Mr. Gonzales, Mr. Aronovitz and Mr. Botticelli-as he sat in the helicopter looking down at the meadows, as the chopper lowered for a landing at Newark Airport.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Conwell Funeral Home sat on a tired little side street in Hudson. It was located behind a supermarket, in an old frame building that dated back to the revolutionary war, and in the back yard was a giant oak tree under which George Washington once held a council of war.

The Conwell Funeral Home was very Wasp, very proper, and they simply did not like to bury just any Italian. But Dominic Verillio of course was another story. Why, Mr. Verillio wasn't even really like an Italian or even a Catholic, for that matter.

Why, he was a friend of the mayor's; he belonged to the Museum Society, gave to charities and was active in civic and social work. It was only an accident of birth that gave him an Italian name. The poor man must have suffered so to take his own life because of the pressure of overwork-work for the good of the people, you could count on that-and so funeral services would be held at Conwell's. A call from City Hall had stressed that they must be held immediately, that very day, with the funeral to be held tomorrow.

So there had been a private visitation that afternoon and men in cars, big, black cars and hard-faced men, had come to the funeral home all afternoon.

They had bent a knee at the sealed coffin containing Dominic Verillio's body. They had blessed themselves and left. Not a few of them wondered what had happened to their down payment money for the heroin.

The same men had sent flowers and the flowers had filled not only the small chapel for Dominic Verillio, but the entire first floor of the funeral home. Additional floral pieces were stacked outside on the front porch and still they came from all over the country.

Pietro Scubisci left his bag of peppers inside his car when he came in to bid farewell to Don Dominic. It was not like the old days at all. In the old days, they would have stayed at the funeral home. They would have taken it over. They would have rented entire hotels, so that there would be accommodations for all those who wanted to help send off the spirit of Don Dominic.

But today, Pietro sighed. It was impossible. The feds with their cameras, their microphones and their agents were all over and one could stop only for a moment before having to move on. The world changes. It was probably a good idea to rush the services before the feds could annoy everybody who showed up.

But still it would have been nice to send Don Dominic into the hands of God with a proper ceremony. There was no doubt that he was going to God. Had not Pietro's own daughter said that Don Dominic was going against a god? She must have meant going to God.

Pietro Scubisci bent his knee at the coffin and wiped a tear from his face. Don Dominic Verillio was a widower and no matter what Angela said there had been no children and so no one for Pietro to say goodbye to. Because of her obvious grief, however, he said goodbye to the beautiful young woman standing at the back of the chapel. She had the kind of face that Etruscans dreamed of and the bones looked familiar.

She wept and when Pietro Scubisci patted her on the shoulder, she said, "Grazie, Don Pietro." He looked hard at her but could not remember where he had seen that face. And then he went out into his car, told his driver to get moving to Atlantic City where there would be a conference about leadership and Pietro might have the votes. But who had the heroin?

Scubisci and the other Mafia men had arrived in the afternoon and there were more or less public ceremonies that night. Mayor Hansen was there looking dignified and vacuous, with his daughter, Cynthia, who looked truly grieved, and her mother, a dark woman who only a few persons knew had a drinking problem. She wept uncontrollably. There was Police Chief Brian Dugan because, after all, Verillio was the biggest contributor to the PAL and there was Horgan, the editor, and the Rt. Rev. Msgr. Joseph Antoni. In the back there was Remo Williams, who sat and watched the crowd.

Monsignor Antoni had revised his Columbus Day speech for the occasion. He spoke of Michelangelo and Leonardo DaVinci, of Christopher Columbus and Enrico Fermi. He spoke of Verdi, Caruso, Pope John XXIII and of Frank Sinatra. He said that against this panoply of greatness, of service to mankind, of progress and beauty, Dominic Verillio surely stood, joined with them in strong array against the more sensational exploitations of a handful of overrated gangsters, belief in whose existence blasphemed against the Italian people. When he said that, he glared angrily at Horgan, who had personally written a long, involved obituary of Verillio, hinting at the mystery in his life and making his opinions clear without ever stating them.

From his seat in the rear of the sweaty little room, Remo watched them all. Mayor Hansen, sitting erect, mixing his small repertoire of facial expressions carefully: one from column a for the eyes; another from column b for the mouth, alternately looking respectful, thoughtful, grieved, contemplative, and then respectful again.

Remo watched him carefully. It was the first time he had seen him, since Cynthia seemed intent on keeping the two of them apart, and Remo felt the frustration one often feels in dealing with a public man. It takes a lot of digging to get beneath the public face to find out what's really going on and often one finds nothing's going on. The private face is as stupid as the public face.

Still he might have the heroin. Remo would have to find out.

And there was Mrs. Hansen, an Italian looking woman, a woman of real beauty, but obviously now well along the road to alcoholism. She was immaculately groomed, but there were the few telltale signs. The slight disjunctive trembling of the hands, the shifting of weight from one foot to the other, the trapped look deep behind the eyes. She was deep in a personal grief that her husband either did not understand or did not recognize. But she wept to herself continuously. She had lost something with Verillio's death.

Cynthia was there too. She had been there all day, in grief also, and in grief, drawn near to her mother. She did not look at Remo. Perhaps she did not even see him, but he looked at her, felt the stirrings rising in him and wondered what she was doing afterwards.

Horgan was a sphinx, sitting in the front row, next to the police chief, chatting, smiling often; he and Dugan the only two men civilized enough to have fun at a wake.

There were other people that Remo didn't know. He looked at their faces and could not tell anything about their relationship with Verillio. So he leaned over and asked a man next to him, loudly: "He's a suicide, isn't he? How can they bury him in hallowed ground? What's that priest doing here? Isn't suicide a sin? He's going straight to hell, isn't he? What is this all about?"

He watched carefully-saw shock in Mrs. Hansen's face and stupidity in her husband's, saw hate and anger in Cynthia's face, outrage in the face of the police chief and the editor.

Then there was another face that came into the room and the face coughed. It was Willie the Plumber Palumbo. He stood in the back of the room and looked around. Then his eyes met Remo's and Remo smiled, Willie the Plumber turned away and left rapidly before anyone could see the dark splotch on the front of his pants.

Somebody in that room knew about the heroin. But who? Remo had to find out.

Willie the Plumber Palumbo already had found out. And it did not really surprise him. True, he did not yet know where the heroin actually was, but that would be next. And in the meantime he now knew who the boss was and he knew that it was all clear sailing for Willie Palumbo.

He had already carried out his first assignment, letting the Mafiosi in Atlantic City know that the narcotics were still going to be moved, and by tomorrow the Mafiosi around the country would have to deal with him. He would not be the leader of leaders. He did not delude himself. But he would be the man with the key to the heroin and that was just as good. Millions of dollars would be his. Millions. Women. New cars. Anything he wanted.

But first he must make sure that he had a chance to enjoy it all. That meant something must be done about Remo Barry.

Willie the Plumber stopped at an outside telephone booth near the Conwell Funeral Home and dialled a number. He waited while it rang, cursing the uncomfortable dampness of his trousers, and finally after nine rings the phone was answered.

"Hudson Police," the woman's voice said.

"Give me Extension 235," Willie the Plumber said, thankful he was not calling to report a fire. The whole world could have burned down before the phone at headquarters was answered.

Later Remo waited in the parking lot behind the funeral home, standing next to the car he had rented at Newark Airport and kept an eye out for Cynthia Hansen, whose city Chevrolet, black and dented, was still in the lot.

A green Chevrolet bearing three men pulled in through the narrow driveway into the parking lot and pulled up alongside Remo.

The driver rolled down his window and looked at Remo. If he had worn a neon sign that said cop, he couldn't have been more obvious.

"Your name Remo?" he said.

Remo nodded.

"I've got a message for you," the driver said. He was husky and graying, his face was set in a perpetual grin.

"Oh," Remo said, "what's the message?" and stepped closer to the car, pretending not to notice the man in the back seat reach for the door handle.

And then Remo had a gun stuck into his face by the driver, the man in the back seat was behind him, expertly frisking him, putting his own gun against the back of Remo's neck. He herded Remo into the backseat and kept the gun on him as the driver peeled off and sped away. Through the window, as the car pulled out of the driveway, Remo could see Mayor Hansen and his wife and his daughter walk slowly down the funeral home stairs, but they did not see him.

"What's the message?" Remo said again to the driver's thick neck.

"You'll get it soon enough," the driver said and chuckled. "Ain't that right? He's gonna get the message."

He turned right on the city's main drag, a few blocks later turned left, and then drove straight on, toward the Hudson River, down into the city's decaying dock area where rotted old barges vied for space with burned out pilings.

They drove out on an old poured-cement pier, against which was tied the metal hulk of a ship which had been gutted by a fire months before and was now waiting for the start of salvage work.

The pier was dark and empty and, except for the scurrying of a few rats, they were alone.

The policeman in the back with Remo poked him in the ribs with the gun. "Get out, wise guy."

Remo allowed himself to be herded up a wooden gangplank onto the ship at gunpoint, then into the wheelhouse on the main deck where the cop behind him pushed him hard against the opposite wall.

Remo turned and faced the three policemen. "What's this all about, fellas?" he asked.

"You been causing a lot of trouble," the one who had been driving said.

"I'm just a reporter. Trying to get a story," Remo protested.

"Save that crap for somebody who believes it," the driver said. "We want to know who sent you. A simple question. All it takes is a simple answer."

"I keep trying to tell people. The Intelligentsia Annual. I write for them."

"What are you, their narcotics expert? That's a funny thing for that kind of a magazine."

"It's just my assignment. I do what I'm told."

"So do we," the driver said, "so I want you to know it's nothing personal."

He opened a cabinet inside the room and took out a blowtorch. He pumped it a few times and then lit it with a cigarette lighter. The flame hissed out-blue, weak-he put it on the floor. "All right, boys," he said, "get him."

He drew his own pistol and the other two policemen put theirs away. Then they advanced on Remo who backed up as far in the small room as he could.

They each grabbed one of his arms and they smirked as he struggled to pull himself free. Fat chance, they thought, but he was tenacious and he skittered along the floor a little bit and then they were closer to the man with the gun than they ought to be, but nothing serious, they had him.

Then they didn't have him, and they each felt a sharp crack on the temple and the driver who had held his gun on the three of them found the gun ripped from his hand and tossed through a burned out window opening. Seconds later, it hit water far below with a splash and then Remo had the blowtorch and he was raising the flame.

The other two detectives behind Remo were unconscious or dead. But they were down and still and now Remo blocked the way to the door.

The blowtorch flame hissed louder, yellower as Remo turned it up, then he said, "All right, officer, now we're going to talk."

The policeman looked anxiously around the room. There was no way out. And his men on the floor had not stirred. They might be dead. Could he get to one of them to get a gun?

Remo moved over toward the two men.

"We'll start out easy," Remo said. "What do you know about Ocean Wheel trucks?"

"Nothing," the policeman said. He started to say "I never heard of them" but never got the words out because his mouth was occupied with screaming as a blowtorch flame seared the back of his hand;

"Try again," Remo said. "That answer was not responsive."

The policeman was shaken. "I saw some once," he stammered. "Coming off the pier. Only time I ever saw them. But they vanished. Someplace on the way out of town. We looked for them, but nobody knows where they went."

Remo turned the flame up higher. "Okay, who do you take orders from?"

"Used to be Gasso."

"Gasso's dead," Remo said.

"I know. Now it's Willie the Plumber. He called us tonight. Told us to get you."

"Who's his boss?"

"Verillio."

"Verillo's dead," Remo said. "Who's Willie the Plumber's new boss?"

"I don't know," the cop said and flinched as the flame came closer to his good hand. "Somebody in City Hall. It's always been somebody in City Hall."

"Not the chief? Not Dugan?"

"No, he's honest. All he's got is numbers and whores," the policeman said, and Remo knew he was telling the truth.

"How about the mayor? Hansen?"

"I don't know," the policeman said. "I don't know." And again Remo knew he was telling the truth.

"Listen," the policeman said, "give me a break. Let me work with you. Ill find out who's running things. I can help you. You can use a guy with brains. Look how good I set up those narco people. They trusted my badge and I unsprung their trap. They were easy kills. I can help you the same way."

He looked at Remo's face hopefully, but Remo was impassive and the policeman knew his offer was going to be turned down, so he did the only thing left to him. He dove for the bodies of the two policemen on the floor, trying to pull a gun from under one of their jackets. His hand circled the butt of one of the guns and then his hand didn't work anymore. He looked up just in time to see a hand speed down toward his up-looking face and he felt nothing after the facial bones splintered.

Remo looked at the three dead men on the wooden floor of the wheelhouse and for a moment felt disgusted with himself. Then his mind went back to the cruise ship and the picture of the young junkie, racked by drugs and fever, and he looked down at the three dead cops who had done their part to protect that kind of traffic. Then he felt a rage turn his body hot, and he did the kind of thing Remo Williams never did. He advertised.

Poor Skorich, at least, had died in the line of duty. Departmental honours. Something for his family to cling to. But these three swine . . . Remo would do his best to make sure there were no brass bands or grieving city for their deaths.

When the sun came up the next morning, the black hulk of the ship would be outlined, silhouetted black against the sun's early rays. As the sun rose higher, the ship would begin to take form, and the early men on the docks would look at it as they always did, without real interest because it didn't mean a day's pay. But sometime during the morning, some of them would look again and they would look at the anchor and then they would look again and some of them would cross themselves, because hanging from the anchor's points, the dull points driven through their bodies, twisted like some terrible fish, would be the three policemen, hooked and hung out to dry. And very dead.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Myron Horowitz was in love. Not only was his girl the most beautiful girl in the world, but she was going to make him rich-rich in a way that no one on Pelham Parkway could understand.

Had she not built for him this new drug plant? Probably unique in the world. Fully-automated. It needed only one person to operate it and he was that one person, Myron Horowitz, Rutgers University, 1968, R.P. Just him and no one else, except of course the janitor whom he had sent home tonight, and a billing service that he used to handle his paperwork.

He supposed it was business that made her ask him to meet her tonight at the factory. He supposed it was, but he was ready in case it wasn't, and so he checked the sofa in his office. It was neat and clean and the stereo was playing softly; he had out a bottle of Chivas Regal and two glasses, was ready in case there was a chance to talk about anything but business.

Late night meetings were not unusual, not when you considered that in a secret basement below the one-story building were hidden four tractor trailers, their drivers frozen to death, but their cargos still intact, ready to make up into powders and pills and ointments and syrups. Any strength.

Four trailer loads. Fifty tons of 98 per cent pure heroin. Fifty tons. And the U.S. drug peddlers used maybe eight tons a year. Six years' supply. Fifty tons. Horowitz was sitting on it.

Fifty tons. Horowitz often did the arithmetic. Fifty tons was 100,000 pounds and when it was cut and cut and cut and thinned at each step along the line, a pound would have a street value of over $100,000. For each pound. And he was sitting on 100,000 pounds.

He knew there had been problems with delivery. Everything was being watched carefully. But he had gotten some out in aspirin bottles and some as stomach powders and all in all he had probably gotten out maybe 100 pounds in the last two weeks. That was $10 million worth when it got down to the users.

Myron Horowitz never considered the morality of what he was doing. Narcotics were like alcohol. A little bit never hurt anybody. Didn't everyone know that most doctors use narcotics regularly? And they still practiced medicine and performed operations and delivered babies and nobody seemed to get upset about it. In a way, maybe he was even doing a service. By making more of it available in a better grade, maybe he was helping to stop accidental deaths from contaminated drugs and if users did not have to steal drugs maybe he could reduce the crime rate a little.

Headlights flashed out in front of his factory and he picked up the telephone and dialled the number of the Parrish Electronic Protective Service. "This is Myron Horowitz, Code 36-43-71. I'm opening the front door at Liberty Drugs on Liberty Road. Okay., Right."

He hung up the phone and walked to the front door. Through the frosted glass, he could see the outline of the familiar dark sedan as it pulled around behind the building, out of sight of the road. He waited a moment, then heard footsteps and opened the door.

Cynthia Hansen stepped inside quickly and he closed the door behind her.

He turned and followed her down the dark hallway to his office ahead, where two large lamps burned. As he followed her he could not resist reaching out and cupping her cheeks in his hands but she stopped short and said chillingly, "This is business, Myron."

He removed his hands reluctantly. "Lately, it's always business," he whined.

"A lot of things have happened," she said. "I just haven't been in the mood. Things will be back to normal soon," she said and gave him just the hint of a smile.

It was enough to bolster Myron Horowitz's spirits -to raise his hopes that the stereo, the Chivas Regal and the open couch might yet have an effect.

Cynthia Hansen walked into the office and turned off the stereo. She put the bottle of Chivas Regal back into the portable bar and put the glasses away. Then she took a chair and sat before the desk, facing Horowitz who sat behind the desk.

She wasted no time. "The shipment downstairs. How much can you package?"

"The plant's working real well now," he said. "I can turn out 500 pounds of heroin in different forms in a week. But can you move it? That's been the problem, hasn't it?"

"Yes," she said, "that's been the problem. And the government has had some snooper in and he's been causing trouble."

"I read about Verillio. He must have really been under pressure to blow his own brains out. I thought these thugs never did that."

"Mister Verillio to you," Cynthia Hansen said. "And don't ever think he was a thug. He died so that there'd be no link to me and to you. Don't forget it."

"I'm sorry, Cynthia," Horowitz stammered. "I didn't mean. . . ."

"Forget it," she said. "Anyway this federal man, this Remo Barry. He should be out of it by now. Some of the boys took care of him tonight. And I've found out how to make deliveries. You sure you can do 500 pounds a week?"

"At least 500 pounds," he said. "And 98 per cent pure heroin. Do you know what that's worth?" he asked.

"Better than you do," she said. "Fifty million on the street. But we're wholesalers. To us, only one-fifth of that. Ten million."

"But every week," Horowitz said. "Ten million every week. And we can go on forever."

"Just don't get careless. I've gone to a lot of trouble to set this up." She lit a cigarette. "I've let the leaders know that the stuff is still available, same prices, same quality, same terms. And now I can guarantee delivery."

"How are we going to do that? Everything's being watched."

"We're going to ship it out with carrots."

"Carrots?"

"Yes, carrots. In vegetable trucks. Don't worry about it, it'll work. And I want to move this stuff out of here as fast as I can, then I want to burn this place down, cover it over with dirt, and go live someplace civilized."

"The two of us," Horowitz said.

"Hmm? Yes, the two of us, Myron," she said. "Keep preparing the stuff and stashing it. I'll be in touch with you about delivery." She stubbed out her cigarette and stood up.

"Cynthia?"

"What?"

"How about tonight?" he said. "Please."

"I've told you. I'm not in the mood."

"I bet you're in the mood when you're with that hairy ape I've seen you with."

"No. He's got nothing to do with it," she said. "Besides he's dead." And she thought of Remo who by now was also dead and she smiled at Myron and said, "I'm sorry, Myron. I'm really just not in the mood."

She left quickly. Myron watched her go out the door, then phoned the protective service again to let them know he had opened the door. While he was on the phone he opened the center drawer of his desk, took out a small bottle labelled aspirins and popped one of the pills into his mouth. It was good for the nerves, even better than real aspirin.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The first word came from Great Britain. It came unofficially, so that it could be denied if need be, but it came accurately.

Her Majesty's Government regarded the lack of effective action on the part of the United States regarding the massive heroin shipment as inexcusable error. And since so much of Great Britain's narcotics traffic was tied hand-to-hand with the availability of drugs in the United States, Her Majesty's Government had decided it must protect its own best interests.

And in Charing Mews, a hard-faced man who looked like Hoagy Carmichael put his exploding briefcase in the back seat of his supercharged Bentley to begin the drive to London Airport for a BOAC plane to New York.

Elysee Palace shared Her Majesty's Government's feelings exactly. After all, had not France offered to close down the heroin operation and had not the White House prevented them from doing so? And did not the American ineptitude now threaten continued friendly relations and cooperation in the field of law enforcement between the two countries?

Therefore, the government of France would now feel free to take whatever steps were necessary to close down this narcotics operation and in the process protect France's international reputation as a battler against the drug menace.

And Japan, too, had heard. It joined in the general panic at the prospect of so many tons of heroin being moved openly into the world's illegal narcotics market. And from Tokyo also came the same message, unofficially of course: "whatever steps we feel are necessary."

In his office at Folcroft Sanatorium, Dr. Harold W. Smith, head of CURE, read the reports.

They meant manpower. It meant that these governments would send in to the United States their top operatives, gun-happy lunatics to try to track down the heroin gang. What the hell did they think they could do that Remo Williams couldn't do? Except get in Remo's way.

Smith looked at the reports again. He could tell the President that he was pulling Williams off the assignment. He would be justified in doing that.

Then Smith pursed his lips and thought of the pictures and reports he had shown to Remo: the stories of agony those dry statistics told; the young children hooked on drugs; the addict infants born to junkie mothers; the lives ruined and lost; the millions stolen and wasted. He thought of his daughter now cold-tur-keying it at a farm in Vermont, and he pulled back his hand which had strayed close to the special White House telephone.

America's best hope to crack the case was Remo Williams, the Destroyer.

In the hope of preserving international relations, Smith prayed softly that none of the friendly countries' operatives would get in Remo's way.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Don Dominic Verillio had been laid to his eternal rest in the green rolling hills of a cemetery fifteen miles outside the city, where the air was still semi-breathable and where birds sang.

A police motorcycle escort and honour guard had led the hearse and the flower car. One hundred persons had followed in limousines and stood at the graveside, in early morning dew, as the final funeral rites were held.

Then people had separated and gone their own ways.

Willie the Plumber Palumbo had been directed to take Mrs. Hansen, the mayor's wife, back to her home. She was still crying uncontrollably.

Cynthia Hansen joined Mayor Hansen in driving back to City Hall. She left him at the door of his office and went to her own office.

Craig Hansen took off his homburg, which he disliked wearing because he felt it added too much age to his face, and stepped through the massive wooden door into his office.

A man sat there, in his chair, feet up on his desk, reading the sports section of the Daily News.

The man put down the paper and looked up as the mayor walked in. "Hello, Hansen," he said. "I've been waiting for you."

Hansen had seen the man last night at the funeral home. It was that writer fellow, Remo something or other, who had been pestering Cynthia. Well, Mayor Craig Hansen would make short work of him.

"Hi there, fellow," he said, tossing his homburg onto the fourteen-foot long mahogany table. "Something I can do for you?"

Remo stood up. "Yeah, Hansen. Where's the heroin?"

"It's a terrible problem, the entire problem of drug addiction," Hansen said. "It feeds at the vitals of America and there is no real cure for any of our urban ills until this social cancer is removed from the body politic."

Hansen had walked over by his desk and Remo stepped aside to make room for Hansen in the mayor's chair.

"Yeah, but where is it?" Remo persisted.

"Where is it at? That's the question we continuously hear in the streets of the city. I regard it as an anguished cry for help from those upon whose strength and vigor the city relies for its renewed vitality," Hansen said. "Can there be any doubt. . . ."

As he talked, Remo looked at the vapid, bland face and he knew that Mayor Craig Hansen could no more plot a heroin operation than he could clean a street. He looked closely at his face, all of it seemingly in correct proportions-the right shape-but apparently without a bone in it.

And Remo thought of other faces. Hansen's wife, with her fine Roman lines. And Verillio who, before his own bullet had removed the top of his skull, had worn a face with character and strength. And he thought of Cynthia Hansen and he realized suddenly where that fine Etruscan face had come from, and why Mrs. Hansen had cried so much, and why Verillio had conceded his own death so quickly.

Mayor Hansen had spun toward the window and was staring through the dirty dusty glass at the city -his city-and his voice droned on, "without social strength, no real progress is possible, particularly inasmuch as our real estate tax base. . . ." and he continued on as Remo slipped outside and quietly closed the door behind him.

Remo walked past a startled clerk-typist and toward the door to Cynthia's office. He stepped inside silently and locked the door behind him.

Cynthia was seated at her desk, her head down, still crying, her body racked with sobs.

She wore a black dress that celebrated her body. As Remo stood there and watched her, slowly she realized someone's presence. She looked up and saw him. Shock slowly blasted sorrow from her face.

"You. . . ." she said.

"Me. Your goons last night missed."

And Cynthia, whose tears were for Remo as well as Verillio, turned shock into anger and fear into hatred, snarling, "You bastard."

She stood up and reached for her top right hand desk drawer. Remo knew it would be a gun. But he had no eyes for a gun, only for her breasts and her long waist, and he was on her, rolling her around, away from the open drawer, around the front of the desk. Then his weight was on her. He had her dress up around her hips, she was pinned and Remo was in her.

"Just one for the road, baby," he said.

She hissed at him, "I hate you, you bastard, I hate you."

Remo stayed working at her, pressing into her at her desk. The touch and the contact worked slowly and her fury again turned back to tears, as she said, "How could you? He was my father."

Remo said, "I didn't know."

"You didn't really think that creep inside could sire me, did you?" Cynthia asked. It didn't really seem to call for an answer so instead Remo just kept stroking away at Cynthia Hansen, the daughter of Don Dominic Verillio.

Willie the Plumber Palumbo had coughed savagely several times and paused, leaning on the door of his blue Eldorado, until his eyes cleared and his breath came back. Then he closed the door, not slamming it too hard, and walked around to open the door for Mrs. Hansen.

Even now, now that he knew she had been Verillio's mistress for years, he still felt her tears were excessive. But that was all right in Willie's book. Let her practice, he thought grimly. She'll soon be crying all over again at the loss of a daughter.

He helped Mrs. Hansen up the stairs of her home and turned her over to the mercies of the family maid. Then he went back to his car and began the leisurely drive downtown to City Hall.

Willie had been promoted yesterday and it had been his third shock of the day. First, there had been Gasso. And then Verillio. And then the ultimate shock of Cynthia Hansen telling him that she alone controlled the heroin and that she needed him now to be her number one man.

He had always known that Verillio had had a boss, and probably one in City Hall, but he had always thought it was the mayor, not the daughter. And now that he thought about it, about her tears and her honest mourning, he wouldn't be surprised if there were more to it than just the fact that she was Verillio's partner and the one with the heroin. There had to be something more to it than that.

She was quick, though. He had to admit it. She had done the right things. She had told him to contact the leaders in Atlantic City to tell them the deal was still on. She had told him to get the narcotics cops to finish off Remo Barry. And she had seemed excited when he had told her about the funny machine that tracked down carrots and turnips and poppies. She had even kissed him on the cheek.

No matter. No matter. She was not Sicilian and she was a woman. She was going to remain Willie the Plumber's boss just long enough to lead him to the heroin and then she was going to join her friend, Mr. Verillio, in a very cold grave. In Willie's city, there would be room for only one boss-and he would be it.

But for the time being, he'd have to play it cute, Willie the Plumber told himself as he parked his Eldorado in the lot behind City Hall in a spot reserved for the City Clerk.

He was preparing his opening pleasantry as he rode up in the elevator, and he almost had the words out of his mouth as he used the symbol of his new status, the key Cynthia had given him to her City Hall office. He never got the words out because there she was, dress hiked up around her ass, being humped in front of her desk by that bastard again, that Remo Barry, who Willie thought had been taken care of last night by the narcos.

Willie the Plumber did not believe in using a bean shooter when a howitzer would do. And he did not understand all the niceties of Gasso, Verillio and probably the narco cops. What is more, he didn't care. So he reached into his jacket and pulled out his pistol. Then the man known as Remo turned around and looked into Willie the Plumber's eyes. Remo's eyes were cold and deadly, like brown ice, and Willie the Plumber knew what Gasso and Verillio must have felt just before they died.

Remo moved. Willie's finger froze on the trigger and Remo was at him. Then Remo was throwing his floater stroke which if it had hit could have cut Willie in half.

But unconsciously, Willie the Plumber had discovered one of the great secrets of Oriental combat: the fastest way out of a path is to collapse. Willie collapsed, fainted dead on the floor, and Remo's floater stroke, without a target to use up its energy, continued forward-missing Willie-and all its force, instead of destroying some target, raced back along his own arm. The force was just too much for muscle to take and Remo's shoulder dislocated from its socket. The sudden wrench of pain knocked him out and put him unconscious on the floor next to the twisted body of Willie the Plumber who lay there, terrified and coughing even in his sleep.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Remo shivered.

He felt cold and he forced his mind to quicken his body rhythms and his blood began flowing faster, carrying warmth throughout his body. It was only when he was warm that he realized his shoulder hurt.

He opened his eyes slowly. He was on the stone floor of some kind of factory or warehouse building and it was not just cold in his imagination. He could see swirls of cold air vapour moving slowly across the floor and when he pushed himself into a sitting position he discovered his left arm was useless.

Chiun had made him a superman, but Chiun could do nothing about changing the human anatomy. Shoulder joints were not designed to withstand the force Remo had applied to his own, no more than knees were designed to resist the tearing and pulling put on them by two-hundred-eighty-pound giants who could run the hundred in 9.5 in football garb. Maybe in twenty generations of evolution. But not yet.

And it was cold. Cynthia Hansen shivered as she stood in front of him, leaning against a trailer truck. Remo shook his eyes into focus. The truck said Chelsea Trucking but there were four of them in a row, parked neatly, and Remo knew he had found the four Ocean Wheel trucks that had carried the heroin.

But more important than the four trailers and the cold was something else, this pistol Cynthia Hansen held In her hand, pointed at Remo's head.

Remo struggled to his feet and swayed groggily back and forth. His arm was really shot. He could tell. There was no sense of belonging, no sense of muscle, just a numbing pain somewhere south of his left shoulder.

"Where are we?" he asked, speaking more thickly than was necessary.

"You're in the place you've been looking for. Our drug factory. These are the trucks of heroin," Cynthia said.

Remo allowed himself to be impressed. "Enough here for a tidy little nest egg," he said.

"More than enough," she said and he could sense her grasping for the little straw he had held out.

"How'd you get me here?"

"I drove you here. My druggist carried you down from upstairs."

"You've got a partner?" Remo questioned, trying to sound hurt.

Cynthia looked up and saw the door leading to the top of the stairs was tightly shut. "Him? He's an employee," she said.

"There's too much here for one person to spend," Remo said.

"Better one than none," she said, and she shuddered as the cold went through her.

Remo swung his good right arm as if to warm himself and as her eyes went toward the movement, he slid forward a step, imperceptibly, toward her.

"Yeah," he said, "but better two than one."

"It could have been, Remo," she said sadly. "It really could have been."

For the first time she met his eyes full and Remo turned on the warmth in them. He forced his mind to conjure up visions of their sex, under tables, among salami skins, against desks and in chairs. His eyes mirrored exactly what was on his mind and she responded to his eyes.

She said again, "It really could have been. Just you and me."

"Yeah, just the three of us. You, me and your gun," Remo said, swinging his arm again, moving another step closer. "You know," he said, "we've got something. It never took any gun for me to perform."

"It was never like that for me before, either," she said. "But never again. How could I trust you?" she asked, hoping that he could convince her.

"How do women ever trust men? Most of them don't need guns," Remo said.

"I didn't think I needed one," Cynthia said.

Remo answered, "Everything you ever needed you were born with."

Her gun hand wavered slightly. Remo saw it and said, "It would just be you and me." Slowly the gun came down and she was defenceless before him. He was only a few feet away and, dammit, all he could see was that finely chiselled face and that great bosom and long sloping waist, she leaned her face forward and Remo was on her lips with a groan. When she searched his mouth, he heard the gun drop to the floor with a clank.

Then he was moving her, their mouths still joined, but slowly, step by step, he was moving her toward the cab of the first truck. He leaned her against the cab and took his good hand from her breasts and reached up and caught the door handle and opened the door. Then he lifted her up and slid her into the seat. And he had her dress up around her eyes and he forced her legs apart so one was up on the dashboard and he forced himself between her legs, ignoring the pain in his torn shoulder and he put himself in.

The cold was chilling and the cab was uncomfortable, but for Remo, with this woman, it was like an overstaffed bed.

He leaned against her ear and told her, "I always wanted to do it in a truck," and he brought her up to his rhythm.

He kept her there as he kept moving. Her arms came around his head and pulled him close to her face, as she whispered in his ear, "Remo, I love you. I love you. Please. Please."

They were both nearing the end. She was bucking and writhing under him on the seat of the truck and she bit into his ear as they came. He pulled back slightly, not to escape her teeth, but to give himself room to pull her skirt up over her face, so she would not see the blow coming as his good hand came up over his head and then down into her waiting face. Remo felt the bones crunch under his hand and he knew she was dead.

He knew that if he had looked into her face, he might not have been able to do it, and he had to do it. He had to do it in the name of all those teenage junkies who infested the country, whose curse was the source of Cynthia Hansen's riches, and whose lifelong agonies would pay for her pleasures.

Out of hatred, he killed her. But because, in a way, he loved her, he had let her die quickly.

Then Remo pulled away from her and he saw for the first time why the truck cab had seemed crowded. Huddled on the floor in the corner under the steering wheel were the bodies of two men, crowded together for warmth, frozen solid. Remo stared at them unseeing for a moment.

Then in a flame of anger, he brought his hand up again and down hard into the already crushed face beneath the black skirt, this time with hatred only, and said, "That's the biz, sweetheart."

Remo stepped down from the truck cab. He thought to himself sadly that he had left a great deal of himself in the cab along with the twisted body of Cynthia Hansen.

Then he tried to remember her face and found out he could not. Perhaps such memories were only for men. And he was not just a man. He was the Destroyer.

Suddenly he felt cold again.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Myron Horowitz had been humming.

He had helped Cynthia carry that impossible bastard, Remo something or other, down into the deep freeze, had left her down there to shoot him.

He was needed up here. The machines were busy and the pills were spinning out, dropping into bottles labelled "aspirin" but containing a better medicine than all the acetaminphen in the world. Ninety-eight per cent 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 multi-millionaire 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 moustache 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 brief case 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 ju-jitsu 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 moustache 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. "Til 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 attaché case handle, pressed down on the second-bolt-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 Morgan, 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 signalled 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 copy-boy 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 by-line 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 by-line 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 pencilled:

"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 ashcan 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 brief case and to empty the money from the ashcan into it. It was $227,000. Willie counted it often.

He closed the brief case 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 enamelled 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 favourite organ?"

"You didn't have to do that to the Eldorado," Willie said. "You know, you're a real son of a bitch."

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.