Midnight Man

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE NEW YORK TELEPHONE Company had built its reputation on taking sixty days to install a telephone and begin service, and only sixty seconds to disconnect a phone. But in his hurried move from his Brooklyn house, Elmo Wimpler obviously had not notified the company, because the telephone in the bedroom was still turned on.

When he reached Smith, there was agitation in the CURE director’s voice.

“Where have you been?” Smith said. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”

“Easy. You’ll live longer,” Remo said. “Besides, we’ve been out here solving this case. Your killer is a little twerp named Elmo Wimpler. He invented the invisible paint. He also invented some kind of skull-crusher machine and a gadget that blows out lights. He lived next door to that Curt who got it last night, and those three guys at the Friends of Inventors had turned down his paint invention.”

“Where is he now?” Smith said.

“I don’t know. He split from his house in Brooklyn,” Remo said. “Anyway,” he continued. “That’s the good news. Now the bad news.”

“Go ahead. I’m used to it from you,” Smith said.

“There’s a magazine called Contract,” Remo said.

“I’ve heard of it.”

“We found some copies of it in Wimpler’s house. A lot of stuff in there involved killing the Emir, and he had them circled. Stories, ads and things.” Remo still had the copy of the magazine in his pocket. He took it out and read some of the ads to Smith.

“Here’s one called ‘Ice an Emir,’ “ Remo said.

“That one is mine,” Smith said.

“What?”

“I placed that one,” Smith said. “That’s what I was calling about.”

“You’re responsible for ‘Ice an Emir’? I didn’t think you had it in you,” Remo said.

“I was second in my class at Dartmouth in creative writing,” Smith said.

“Well, don’t think I’m going to be your agent, too,” Remo said. “I’ve already got a client.”

“I placed that advertisement to try to flush out anybody who might be thinking about a contract killing on the Emir,” Smith said.

“I got my first group of answers today. Most of them are obvious cranks, but one in particular seemed real. I think it might be our friend, Wimpler. I’m supposed to meet him tonight,” Smith said.

“Where?” asked Remo.

“In the Sheep Meadow at Central Park. At midnight.”

“We’ll take it for you, Smitty,” Remo said.

“I don’t have to tell you how important this is,” Smith said.

“Then don’t,” Remo said. It was the same old thing, a sidewise slide by Smith into telling Remo that he was not to bring Wimpler back alive. Smith’s rock-bound, New England morality made it difficult for him to order Remo to kill someone, but over the years he had found enough ways to say it without saying it. What Smith wanted was Elmo Wimpler’s body left lying in Central Park. It wasn’t a question of trying to evade responsibility. Remo had seen the pills that Smith always carried and was prepared to use, pills that would kill Smith in seconds. Remo had seen the coffin in the basement of Folcroft, in which Smith’s body would go, and be sent to a funeral home in Parsippany, New Jersey, for a fast prepaid funeral. If Remo knew one thing in the world, it was that Smith would not try to run away from his responsibilities.

It was something else. It was simply the conflict between Smith’s heart-deep belief in obeying the law, and his equally strong belief that CURE, while working outside the law, was absolutely necessary if America was to survive. He was unable to reconcile the two. He managed to deal with it by talking around it. Instead of directing Remo to kill Wimpler, he just reminded him how important it was. And Remo was well-trained. He knew what the assignment was. Elmo Wimpler had to die, and Smith would be happy about the result, and able to cling to some small piece of his pre-CURE self by knowing that he had not ordered the death. Not in so many words anyway.

Out in the living room, Remo told Chiun, “Come on. We’re taking a walk in Central Park tonight.”

Chiun rose, like a puff of smoke, still reading the copy of Contract he held in his hands.

He followed Remo toward the front door. Remo politely held the door open for him and Chiun stepped out first.

Then Remo heard it. It was a sound above them. Chiun’s eyes were burrowed into the magazine. Remo could hear the feet on the edge of the roof above them. He heard the scraping as the feet pushed from the edge of the roof.

Someone was coming at Chiun. From off the roof. And the old man, oblivious, his nose stuck in that magazine, was an easy victim. Remo jumped out through the open front door, pivoted around and met the attacker as he came from the low roof in a flying leap. Remo caught him around the waist. The sound of the man’s spine filled the dark quiet street with a loud snap.

Remo let the man drop to the sidewalk. Chiun continued walking away without looking up.

“There is another one up there, too,” he said over his shoulder to Remo.

Remo glanced upward in time to see a second man, a knife in his hand, leap off the roof toward Remo. Remo ducked, grabbed the man who lay in a clump on the walk, and tossed him up.

The quick and the dead collided in midair. And then both were dead as the knife in the live man’s hand twisted around from the force of the collision and buried itself in the man’s throat. They were both dead when the two bodies hit again.

Remo glanced up. Chiun was leaning against their rented car, still reading.

Remo looked through the dead men’s clothing. There was no identification. Their faces told him nothing. They could have been any of a half-dozen nationalities. There were no wallets, no clothing tags, no driver’s licenses. Nothing.

Remo left the bodies where they lay. When he approached the car, Chiun said, “What took you so long?”

“You could have warned me they were up there,” Remo groused.

“I was busy reading. Why is it that people in this country always think that if you’re reading, you are not doing anything important?” He pointed over Remo’s shoulder. “And my magazines. You dropped them. Go pick them up. First, you keep me waiting, and then you drop my magazines, too. Really, Remo.”

· · ·

Back at their hotel room, high overlooking Central Park, Remo called Smith again and told him of the attack at Wimpler’s house.

“No identification at all?” Smith asked.

“None,” Remo said.

“Could you tell if they were foreign?”

“You mean, maybe from the Emir Bislami? I don’t know. They could have been from Italy for all I know.”

“Dark skinned?” Smith asked.

“Yes, but that means Spanish, Italian, Bislamic, or a dozen other things including sun tanned. Besides, why would anyone from Bislami send a hit team after Chiun and me?”

“Maybe you didn’t make any friends when you visited the Emir?” Smith said. “Be careful tonight.”

“Sure, Daddy. Tell Mommy we love her. Bye.”

Chiun was still reading Contract in the living room of the hotel apartment.

“Did you see any ads that might fit us?” Remo asked him.

“No. Not one. Not once did I see any advertisement calling for someone to attempt fruitlessly, to dispatch the Master of Sinanju and his ungrateful pupil who drops magazines. Not a word,” Chiun said. “Wait until I start writing for this magazine. Then you’ll see its quality improve,” he said.

Remo looked out the window at the park.

Could the assassins have been hired by Wimpler? That made no sense. He sounded as if he liked to do his own killing.

The night was moonless. The park would be perfect for an invisible assassin.