Midnight Man td-43 Read online

  But the man was paying and the man insisted, so Slits got hold of three others, and now they were waiting across from the big apartment house for one white dude to come marching out into their arms.

  Willie the Whip was Slits' main backup man. He was the first one Slits thought of bringing in on this job. Willie wasn't bad with a knife, either, although

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  The carefully contrived plan, the high point of

  Slits thought his slambang technique lacked style.

  Willie was Slits' age, 26, but where Slits was short m. „,., ,-.,,* TVr , , a

  .„. „, , „,.„. . „ , , ., . Shts Wilson s mtellectual hfe, had one flaw.

  and stocky, Willie was tall and reed-thin. T , „ , „ .r, . , , c, .,., . ,

  Ur;il- ¿oj , . , ,. , ., . , „ ., It handled Remo if he turned left or if he turned

  Willie had volunteered his brother-m-law, Tailor

  Taylor. He got his nickname because when he wasn't mugging old ladies, he worked in a dry-cleaning store. Slits hoped that he wouldn't screw things up.

  Number four man in the quartet was Big Louie. Louie was five-feet-nothing when he stretched, but he was the meanest, baddest thing Slits knew. Except for himself.

  "You jus' do what I tell you, hear?" Slits instructed. "This just one guy, but the man say he a

  bad ass, so we gonna be careful."

  "Gotcha."

  "Raht."

  "Cool."

  "Now he gonna come out that door. Me and Wil-

  it " lie be on up here, Louie and Tailor be down there. If

  he come this way, you come in behind him. If he go your way, me'n Willie be behind him. Dig?"

  "Gotcha."

  "Raht."

  "Cool."

  "Now I cuts him first, see, 'cause it be my job. Then he be yours. Make sure we gets his wallet so it look like he was took off. And then when we done, you gets a hundred each. Dig?"

  "Gotcha."

  "Raht."

  "Take yo' positions," Slits said.

  * * *

  right. But Remo came out of the apartment building and without pausing, walked directly across the street, leaving behind him four very confused young

  men.

  As their leader, Slits knew he had to improvise, if this whole deal wasn't going to get out of hand.

  He went running across the street toward Remo.

  "Hey, hey. Stop. Hey, hey," he called.

  Remo stopped and looked at him. He saw three other young men fall in and start crossing behind

  "What do you want?" Remo asked.

  "Got a match?" Slits said, thinking quickly.

  "Where's your cigarette?" Remo asked.

  Still thinking quickly, Slits said "I musta dropped

  "Then you don't need a match."

  "Dammit, honkey, I needs a light," Slits said. He was not about to be dissuaded from a good plan just because of some uncooperative honkey.

  "Rub your head on the sidewalk," Remo said. "That should give off a spark."

  Slits saw the other three coming up on them now so he whipped out his knife.

  "I gonna cut you," he said.

  The dude didn't even look scared. "Why don't you talk right?" he said. Then the dude's hand

  "Cool " moved faster than he could follow and his blade was

  gone.

  "Shit, mah blade. Willie!" he called.

  Willie jumped forward, nervously waving the

  12012!

  blade in his hand. Suddenly, he felt something hit I as if it were floating in a haze. The honkey was say-his hand and the blade cut a narrow furrow in Slits' ing something, asking him a question.

  cheek.

  "Sheeeit," Slits yelled, grabbing his face. "You cut me, you turkey."

  "It weren't my fault, Slits. Honest."

  "Shut up and cut him!" Slits yelled. "You too!" he yelled toward Tailor and Louie.

  Slits watched what happened next with wide eyes, not really believing it.

  Tailor made a stabbing motion at the honkey and suddenly the honkey wasn't there. Tailor and his blade kept going until the blade buried itself to the hilt in Willie's stomach. Willie's scream cut through the silent midnight in Manhattan like an icepick piercing soft bread. While Tailor stared in horror at Willie's body slipping to the ground, Slits saw the honkey pick Tailor up and toss him head first through the windshield of a parked car.

  Louie charged the dude from behind with his knife, but then the dude wasn't there. He was behind Louie. He tapped Louie on the shoulder and when Louie turned, the honkey jabbed him in the stomach. With his finger. Louie went down and Slits knew somehow, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, that Louie was never going to get up.

  Where was his blade? Slits looked around the ground, anger overwhelming his good sense. Gonna cut that dude. Gonna cut him good.

  Just as he got his hand around the hilt of his knife, he couldn't breathe. Something had him by the throat and he felt as if his throat had closed up tight. Then he saw the honkey's face in front of him,

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  "Who sent you?" the honkey was asking. Sheeeit, Slits thought. I don't even know nobody's name. Just a white guy.

  He tried to say I don't know, but it came out like "Ahdun" and then he remembered the knife in his hand and he swung it around, but before it reached anything, the steel band around his throat tightened up even more, and he could feel his brain exploding, and he dropped the knife onto the sidewalk. And then fell to join it.

  Remo looked down at the body. He hadn't really wanted to kill the man, but his reaction had been automatic. Also, Remo's reactions had been slow and he had been stupid.

  Chiun was right as usual. Remo had allowed himself to be affected by a woman and it had altered his reactions.

  He looked at the three men on the ground and at the still feet of the man stuck through the windshield. Just run-of-the-mill, New York thugs. Bag-grabbers and lady-beaters.

  But who? And why?

  He stepped back and looked up at the penthouse window of Princess Sarra, suspicions invading his mind.

  Had she set him up?

  A man watched the action from down the block. He shook his head. He had known they would screw it up.

  He watched Remo walk toward him. He lounged against a car, lit a cigarette and waited.

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  When Remo was thirty feet away, he stepped away from the car, pulled out a pistol, took careful aim, and fired once.

  And missed.

  Impossible, he thought.

  He fired again. He couldn't have missed at this range, but the man didn't even try to duck. He just kept coming straight on. „

  He fired four more times. The man was still com- e was

  ing toward him. He swung his gun at the man's head, but the man seemed to get out of the way of the blow without really moving.

  Then Remo was on him. He felt hands on his kU1 me?" Remo asked'

  throat. He snapped the knife out of its wrist spring.

  He jabbed at the man's eyes. s

  Remo slid below the blow, but then he heard the spine crack. Disgusted with himself, he let the man drop to the sidewalk.

  Remo looked down at him. A white man. He S„' ,., „ „o ., .,

  bent down and felt the man's jacket pocket. He ^ not taUc t0 me' Simth said

  Good. A white man. With a full wallet. Remo took the wallet and started jogging back to his hotel room to tell Smith.

  But his mind was still on Princess Sarra.

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  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Smith repeated it. "I said, he was a federal agent until last week, when he quit."

  'What's an agent—an ex-agent—doing trying to

  "I don't know. I hope you can find out," Smith

  'All right. By the way, did Chiun speak to you?"

  "No," Smith said. "Why?"

  "Because he wasn't here when I got back," Remo

  After he hung up, Remo looked out over the city. An ex-agent. Was
he, really? There wasn't anything simpler than having a guy quit first so that if he was caught trying to perform the job his bosses had sent him to do, they could always wash their hands of him. He quit. He wasn't working for us.

  But for that to be the case, it meant that the United States government might be involved in trying to kill the Emir. It wouldn't surprise Remo. The country had had a solid tradition over the last five years of turning its back on its friends. Washington was known around the world as Hand-ups-ville. Nothing coming out of Washington anymore would surprise him, including trying to eliminate

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  the Emir just to solve the publicity problem of keeping him alive inside the United States.

  Why not? It made as much sense as anything else.

  And where was Chiun anyway?

  The taxi driver had not wanted to go all the way to Sandy Hook, New Jersey, particularly not for that creepy, old, Oriental guy that he just knew wasn't going to tip worth spit.

  In his own nice, New York way, he had tried to hint this to the old Oriental.

  "Naaah, ain't no fucking way I'm going to Sandy Hook, 'cause when I get there, you'll tip me shit, and I'll be bringing back an empty cab, so fuck off, buddy."

  He had tried to drive off, just as he had driven off hundreds of other times from other potential passengers, particularly in the rain, when they were getting soaked but refused to pay double the meter price for their ride. The driver put the cab in drive gear and gave it gas.

  And nothing happened.

  The wheels were turning. He could swear they were turning because he could hear them spinning and he could even smell the scent of burning rubber. But the cab was not going anywhere, and there was the little gook, still standing next to the cab, his hand on the front passenger's door handle, his head inside the window, promising to tip the driver a whole dollar if he took him to Sandy Hook.

  "I ain't goin' nowhere. Frigging cab won't go."

  "I will fix it," the old Oriental in the blue robe

  said.

  "Yeah? How?"

  Chiun slid into the front seat next to the driver, and now when the driver gave it gas, the cab just drove off neatly, as sweet as you please. The driver looked at the old man. If he didn't know better, he would have sworn the old man was holding onto the cab and stopping it from moving. But, no. That couldn't be.

  Chiun saw the driver look at him and he smiled over at him. "It will not be necessary for you to talk to me while you drive to Sandy Hook. I will even pay you the extra dollar if you do not make conversation. In fact, be silent and I will make it a dollar and twenty-five cents. I know this is a lot but I have been in America a long time and I understand the native customs."

  The cabdriver started to say something about probably having to stop for gas on his way to Sandy Hook, but Chiun shushed him with a long-nailed finger pressed across the front of the driver's lips.

  "No talk," Chiun said. "I have to think."

  There was no more talk.

  The fare to Sandy Hook was eighty-eight dollars and seventy cents. Insisting that the driver should think nothing of it, Chiun paid him with ninety dollars in American money which he took from an old, leather purse, secreted somewhere deep in the folds of his silken kimono. Chiun insisted that the driver keep the entire remaining dollar and thirty cents as his tip, even though only a dollar and a quarter had been promised.

  "This is because I am the most generous of men," Chiun had explained. The driver had nodded. All he wanted to do was to go back home.

  The owner of the small fishing boat did not want

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  to go out to the island off the Jersey coast. As he explained to the little Oriental man in the silken kimono, he had already made his final party run of the day, the fish weren't biting anyway, and it was a good day for him to go home, lie alongside his backyard pool, and drink beer.

  He had not realized how weak, how defective, how really dishonorable this goal was until the old Oriental had taken one of his heavy-duty, deep-sea fishing rods, suitable for catching anything from shark and marlin to small whale, from its holder alongside the rauing of the boat. The old man held the inch-thick rod in both hands.

  And then snapped it, as if it were a bread stick.

  He smiled again at the fishing boat captain.

  The captain decided a run out to the island would be nice on a day like today, and five dollars . . . he was going to get a whole five dollars for himself? ... oh, joy. He would be glad to wait at the island dock until the old Oriental gentleman was done and ready to come back.

  When the boat docked at the island, Chiun put down the two broken pieces of fishing rod he had held all the way across the water on the trip and cautioned the captain not to leave until Chiun returned. "No matter how long it takes," he said.

  The captain had looked at Chiun, then at the broken fishing pole, and agreed to wait.

  As he stepped lightly off onto the dock, Chiun wondered why Remo was always complaining about how difficult it was to get around using public transportation. Chiun never had any trouble.

  The two guards at the front door were a different matter, but they were functionaries and that was the

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  role of functionaries in the world, to stop busy people from doing the things that must be done.

  They explained to Chiun that no one was allowed inside the house without proper identification; Chiun explained to them that it was necessary for him to talk to the Emir; and they explained that this was impossible. Clearly impossible.

  Chiun left them lying by the side of the porch. If he had not been so delighted at the ease of finding a cab and a boat, and not in such a good mood, he might have hurt them seriously, but instead, he just put them to sleep temporarily.

  As he did the guard outside the door to the Emir's bedroom.

  When Chiun went in, the Emir was sitting up in bed. His face lit up as he saw the old Oriental.

  "Ahh, my friend, you have not forgotten to come back and visit me."

  "It is my pleasure, Your Highness," Chiun said.

  "I am surprised my men did not tell me you were on the way up."

  "They will tell you all about it when they awaken," Chiun said.

  The Emir laughed. "They are not hurt?"

  Chiun shook his head.

  "They are good men," the Emir said.

  Chiun corrected him. "Perhaps they are good-intentioned men. It is not the same thing, Your Highness."

  The Emir nodded, seeming to think about Chiun's statement for a few moments.

  "Is your companion, Remo, with you on this visit?" he said. He turned toward the left window in the room, and the slowly sinking sun splashed his

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  face with orange light, erasing the pallor that approaching death had laid upon his features.

  "No. And it is not a visit. I am here on a mission," Chiun said.

  "Yes?"

  "Do you trust the people around you?" Chiun asked.

  "As much as I must," The Emir said.

  "Your assistant?"

  "Pakir? He's been with me for many years. Yes, I trust him."

  "Your sister, the Princess?"

  "She loves me. I think she would give her life to save mine," the Emir said. "I have faith that you will," the Emir said. He

  Chiun looked at the dying monarch. How much, J paused a moment, then said, "Tell me. Why is it I he wondered, should he tell him? I have this feeling that you and I have met? Or that

  tacked by these men, the Princess arrived. And later so did Pakir."

  "Master Chiun, I appreciate your good intentions. But I trust those people wholeheartedly. If they were there, as you say and I have no doubt, then they were trying to save me from murderers and assassins so I can wait for my natural death. Oh yes, I know I am going to die. I am prepared for it. You saw it in your examination, did you not?"

  Chiun nodded.

  "We will do our best to see that you are allowed to die in your own way, with di
gnity," the Korean said.

  "There have been attempts on our lives in the last several days," Chiun said. "By people of your country."

  "Did you get their names?"

  "No. They had no identification," Chiun said.

  "But you were sure they were of my country? You know, many nationalities look alike," the Emir said.

  "That is true," said Chiun. "But few of them eat alike. The mouths of these men exuded the smell of parindor, the spice that is used in cooking your national dishes."

  The Emir nodded. "Why would they try to kill you and not me? Assuming that I am the eventual target?" he asked.

  there is some feeling between us that goes back many years?"

  "We have not met," Chiun said. "But our ancestors did many years ago."

  "On a battlefield?" the Emir said.

  "No. The House of Sinanju was retained to work for your royal house. The Master at that time did his task, but was not paid. If I could only keep you alive, I would send you a bill for the amount."

  "And if I could stay alive, I would pay it gladly," the Emir said. "The House of Sinanju," he said softly. "Of course, I have heard of it, in the archives of our land. I thought it was just a myth, a legend."

  "A legend," Chiun said. "But not a myth. I will leave now."

  "Perhaps they are waiting for the price to reach f As he was at the bedroom door, the Emir called

  its highest level," Chiun said. "After we were at- I his name softly. When Chiun turned, the deposed

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  1

  ruler said, "I trust not the Americans. They were once my friends, but now I think I am an embarrassment to them. I think they would like it better if I were dead. Once it was not like this," he said but his voice trailed off into the mists of memory, and sleep came over his tired body.

  "You will not come to harm while I live," Chiun said. "Or there will be many who pay the debt of your death." But the Emir was not listening; he had lapsed into sleep.

  "Where've you been?" Remo asked when Chiun returned to their hotel room.

  "I must account for my whereabouts now like a school child?" Chiun said.

  "No, I guess you don't," Remo said.

  "So have I," Remo said. "If that guy who tried to hit me tonight was a federal agent, it might just mean that our government is involved in an attempt to put away the Emir. Now if you still want us to protect him, we will. But we might wind up killing a lot of our own. Do you want to chance it?"