Sweet Dreams td-25 Page 11

  Dully, like a battery-powered doll that was running down, Leen Forth nodded and shuffled past Grassione. He watched her behind approvingly as she passed through the door toward the stairs.

  Massello waited until the door was closed before he said to Grassione: "Success. We have it. And the girl will do anything I say."

  "Anything?" Grassione said with a lift of his eyebrows.

  "Do not be vulgar, Arthur. She is little more than a child."

  "Yeah, but you know how them gooks are. They start when they're ten, eleven years old."

  Massello took a cigar from a pearl-inlaid box and lit it with a wood-encased butane lighter whose color matched the deep rich paneling of the walls.

  "Yes," he said exhaling a puff of smoke. "But we have other things to do than to discuss the sexual customs of the Orient. I suppose you'll be returning now to New York."

  Grassione nodded. He turned away to look at the room.

  "Your Uncle Pietro will be very happy," Massello said. "We will pay less for the device than we expected."

  "Much less," said Grassione. He snaked his hand under his jacket and wheeled on Salvatore Massello. "Much less," he repeated.

  Massello coolly took another puff on his cigar before nodding toward the automatic in Grassione's hand.

  "What is this, Arthur?"

  "Uncle Pietro sends his love, Don Salvatore. Take it with you to hell."

  Grassione squeezed the trigger once. The heavy .45 slug kicked into Massello's body and seemed to push him back away from his cigar which dropped onto the table. The man hit the wall with a heavy thud, then began to sink down into a sitting position.

  "You fool," he gasped.

  Grassione fired again, into Massello's face, and the silver-haired man spoke no more.

  From the deck, Grassione heard the answering sounds of gunfire. A quick flurry and then it was over, as suddenly as it had started.

  Grassione walked to the coffee table and picked up Massello's cigar and puffed on it. No sense wasting a good cigar.

  He looked down at the Dreamocizer, thought of the Oriental girl on deck, stubbed the cigar out in the ashtray and walked to the door.

  Marino and Leung had shot Massello's two bodyguards as they started toward the stairs leading down to the lounge from which they had heard the two gunshots.

  As Marino toed the bodies to make sure they were dead, Edward Leung turned and saw Leen Forth staring at him, her eyes shocked wide, and he made a decision.

  He ran along the deck, grabbed the girl by the arm, and ran to the bow of the ship.

  Behind him, he heard Marino yell.

  He kept running and just as he and the girl ducked into a door at the bow of the ship, he heard a shot splinter the wood over his head.

  Now the two sat on the cold tile of the shower floor in the crew's locker room.

  "You must be quiet," Leung whispered. "Grassione is an evil man and would kill you. We will wait till dark and then escape."

  She just stared at him with her big brown questioning eyes, then surrendered with a sob and threw herself into Leung's arms.

  Leung looked down at the girl and when she looked up he smiled broadly, as if to give her confidence.

  "Now isn't that sweet?"

  Leung swung forward to his knees and pushed Leen Forth behind him. He raised his gun toward the voice, but before he could squeeze the trigger, it was kicked out of his hand.

  Arthur Grassione stood in the entrance to the shower stall.

  "What do you think, I'm stupid? The first place you filthy gooks would hide would be in a shower."

  Leung stood up to face the man. He looked toward the gun but realized he would never reach it in time. Behind Grassione stood Big Vince Marino.

  Leen Forth looked at the two men from between Leung's legs. Her face said nothing.

  "Don't you think I know you Chinks'd stick together?" Grassione said.

  Leung spat on Grassione's shoes. "Of course I think you're stupid," he said. "Because you are stupid. You're a stupid man getting stupider all the time."

  Leung rose to his full height and walked toward Grassione, who gave way, then stepped aside and Big Vince Marino pushed a gun into Leung's forehead.

  Leung stopped short.

  "Stupid, huh?" Grassione said. "You were nothing but a gook fortune teller when I met you. And since then you been good for nothing more than taking out the garbage."

  And because he was going to die and nothing would change that, Edward Leung let his anger give way to pity because he saw in a flash that came before his eyes that Grassione was going to die worse than he was.

  "I told you," Leung said, "of death and dreams. Now you have your dream machine. Your death is following."

  "Stuff it," said Grassione. Grassione bent down and picked up a large metal spike from the floor of the shower area. He walked very carefully up to Leung and with his left hand grabbed a handful of the man's black shiny hair and twisted.

  Leung opened his mouth to scream but only a squeak came out. His eyes screwed shut in pain and his knees buckled. He felt Marino's gun jab into the back of his neck under his right ear.

  Grassione's hand twisted harder. The pain coursed through Leung's body. His arms rose to the level of his shoulders, then swung down and his hands slapped the hard tile floor.

  He was on his knees now, tears dripping across the bridge of his nose. His left ear touched the floor, the roar of silence filling it as his face was pressed down. His bent knees were kicked out from under him and he settled heavily onto his stomach. The hand was still twisted painfully in his hair, but all he really felt was the cold weight of the gun muzzle pressing under his right ear.

  Grassione was on one knee, his face hard, his hand buried in moist hair, his knuckles white. Marino kept the automatic pushed against Leung's neck.

  Grassione felt the weight of the iron spike in his hand.

  Leung opened his eyes for the last time and stared at Leen Forth who huddled in the corner of the shower stall. He wanted to scream to her to run but his lips could form only the word "help." It came out in a soft whisper and his mouth stayed open. It was the last word he ever spoke.

  Grassione drove the spike down into Leung's right ear.

  The four inches of exposed steel under his clenched fist tore deep into Leung's head and his entire body jerked as all the brain's organic alarms and defenses rallied to that point.

  Blood spurted out of the raw wound as Leung screamed and started to struggle.

  Marino sat heavily on Leung's back, holding the screaming man down. Grassione looked around, saw a hammer on the floor and lifted it up. As Leung uttered a last scream, Grassione brought the hammer down with all his strength onto the head of the spike.

  The first swing drove the steel ram halfway through the brain. The second brought it to the left wall of the cranium, the skull cracking. The third connected the head to the locker room floor.

  Grassione wiped his hands on Leung's suit, then stood up and wiped the sweat from his face with a monogrammed handkerchief.

  He stood up and saw Leen Forth huddled in the corner of the shower stall.

  Without a word, he moved his head sideways and Big Vince Marino left the room.

  Still mopping his face, Grassione moved to where Leen Forth huddled and spun her around. He gave her one chance to scream, then stuffed his handkerchief deep into her throat.

  He slapped her hard across the face, twice, threw her against the wall, and began to rip at the snap and zipper of her jeans.

  For the first time since he'd boarded the boat, he heard the sound of the Muzak that was piped gently all over the yacht.

  It was playing "Love Will Keep Us Together."

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  "I wish I knew where the girl was," Remo said.

  "She is no longer on this rumpus," Chiun said.

  "Campus. How do you know that?"

  "She is on somebody's boat," Chiun said. "I know that because I am the Master."

&nb
sp; "Yeah, but how do you really know?"

  "The nice man with the television set said so."

  "What nice man?"

  "I don't know his name," Chiun said. "All those names sound alike."

  "What boat is Leen Forth on?" Remo asked.

  "Who knows? All boats look alike."

  "You must have some idea," Remo said. He looked around at the trees that bordered the grassy field in front of Professor Wooley's house and wished that he were conducting this interrogation with a scarlet-crested titwillow. At least he could get an answer.

  "Come on, Chiun, think," Remo said. "That little girl's life may be in danger."

  "She is a Vietnamese," Chiun said. "A South Vietnamese at that. But never mind. I will do this for my country. She is on marshmallow's boat."

  "Marshmallow?" Remo asked.

  "Yes. Something like that."

  "Massello?" Remo asked. "Was that the name? Massello?"

  "Yes. Marshmallow. As I said. And another thing. She has the dream machine with her."

  "The nice man told you," Remo said.

  "Right."

  "Was that nice man's name Grassione?" Remo asked.

  "Yes. That was it."

  "Chiun, that man is the leading contract killer for the crime syndicate in the United States."

  "I knew there was something about him I liked."

  It took Remo a telephone call to the local St. Louis Power Squadron to find out that Mr. S. Massello's yacht was docked in the Captain's Cove Marina in the southern part of the city, near Point Breese, and a few minutes later, in a car that might generously be called borrowed, they were zipping south along Route 55.

  The gate to the boat yard was closed and bolted when Remo and Chiun arrived. The late afternoon sun was behind them and the Mississippi looked flat and black in its dying rays.

  Chiun snapped the chain on the gate and he and Remo trotted quickly toward the back of the marina, when Remo saw the boat: Il Avvocato.

  "It is strange to name a boat after a fruit," said Chiun.

  "That's Italian for lawyer," Remo explained.

  "And it is English for fruit," Chiun said. "Do not lie to me. I have not forgotten about electrical Washington."

  The guard who had earlier been posted on the front gate had been pressed into service by Arthur Grassione after the "unfortunate accident" that had claimed the lives of Don Salvatore Massello and his two bodyguards, and now he patrolled the deck of the yacht with Big Vince Marino. The guard was the first to see Remo and Chiun as they came up the steps of the gangplank.

  "Hold it," he called. "You can't come up here.

  "Not even if I answer a riddle?" Remo said.

  "Get out of here," the man said. He took his gun from a shoulder holster and waved it at Remo for emphasis. "G'wan. Beat it."

  Remo nodded to Chiun who stood alongside him.

  Just then Marino came around from the port side of the boat. "What's going on here?" he called.

  "Trespassers, Vince," the other guard said.

  Marion pulled his revolver and approached them at a lope. He stopped at the top of the gangplank and said, "What do you two want? Hey, it's the old guy with the television. What do you want?"

  "Is this all of you?" Remo asked. "Are we all here?"

  Marino pointed the gun at him in threatening concentric circles that narrowed until the muzzle was fixed directly on Remo's stomach.

  "You better beat it, pal."

  "Just what I had in mind," Remo said. Without tensing his legs, he was airborne, moving toward the top of the gangplank. He clapped a hand over the young guard's face. The man fell back; his gun dropped helplessly to his side; he looked at Marino with two gaping cavities where his eyes had been, and then fell over the rail into the brackish waters of the river where he sank like a stone.

  Marino tried to squeeze the trigger at Remo, but his finger wouldn't close on the ridged metal. The old Oriental had come up the gangplank and now his hand was around Marino's hand, and there was something wrong with the bones of Marino's hand, they wouldn't work anymore, and he looked down to see what was wrong, and he saw the old man's thin bony yellow hand close around the barrel of his gun and he saw the barrel bend toward the deck, as if it were made of summer tar.

  "Where's the girl?" Remo said.

  Marino shrugged.

  "One more time," Remo said. "The girl."

  "Dead. Dead. They're all dead," Marino gasped. The pain in his right hand where the old man held it was now radiating up his arm.

  "Who killed her?" Remo asked.

  "The boss," Marino gasped. "Grassione."

  "You're not Grassione?" Remo said.

  Marino shook his head vigorously. "No. No."

  "You know what that makes you?" Remo asked.

  "What?" Big Vince Marino gasped.

  "Lucky. 'Cause you die fast."

  He nodded to Chiun and then Marino felt the pain in his right hand, wrist and arm move upward to his shoulder. It spread outward, like the ripples of a rock in a stream, and when the small, almost gentle vibrations reached his heart, it stopped.

  The man dropped heavily at Chiun's feet. Chiun looked down at him.

  "What are you posing for?" Remo asked.

  "Just basking in the excellence of technique," Chiun said.

  "Well, bask around this boat and see if there are any more of these goons aboard. I'm going to look for Grassione."

  "If you find him…"

  "Yes," Remo said.

  "Tell him thank you for lending me his television set today," Chiun said.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Arthur Grassione had the Dreamocizer on.

  He was sitting in the downstairs lounge of the yacht, Il Avvocato, alone but for the bullet-shattered body of Don Salvatore Massello which lounged against the room's fireplace wall.

  Grassione had used the telephone in the lounge to call Uncle Pietro in New York who had awarded his nephew warm congratulations on a job well done, and a promise that he, Pietro Scubisci, himself would call St. Louis now to inform people that Grassione had been working on the instructions of the national council and that any attack upon him would be regarded as an attack upon the national council itself.

  "I got the machine too, Uncle," Grassione had said.

  "What machine, nephew?"

  "The television thing. They call it a Dreamocizer."

  "Oh, that. Well, I do not watch much television anymore," Pietro Scubisci said. "Not since they take off the Montefuscos. That was a funny, that show. Like the old days with Mama and Pappa."

  "Uncle, I think you should see this machine. I think we can make much money with it," Grassione said.

  "How is that?" Scubisci asked quickly. "How is this different from the television set Cousin Eugenio got for me off the truck?"

  And Grassione explained how Professor Wooley's Dreamocizer telecast a person's dreams, his wishes.

  "You mean, I watch this television, I can see myself with lots of money, young again, with feet that don't hurt? Your aunt no longer has the boobies like two loaves of bread?"

  "That's right, Uncle Pietro," Grassione said. "And it works for anybody. Whatever anybody wants, he can dream it on this machine."

  "You be sure to bring this crazy machine home with you, Arthur," Scubisci said. "This I got to see. Me with hair, and feet that don't hurt." He laughed, a high tenor giggle.

  "I will, Uncle, I will," said Grassione, but he hung up, not sure that his uncle had really grasped the significance of Professor Wooley's invention, the first major breakthrough in television since Grassione, as a boy, had first seen Felix the Cat at the 1939 World's Fair.

  He remembered the demonstration that Wooley had given at the cafeteria. The little gook broad thinking about a Vietnam with no war.

  Grassione had hooked up the Dreamocizer to the aerial connections of Don Massello's large-console, and then had attached the electrodes as he had seen it done, two to his forehead, two to his neck.

  He sat back in the sof
t leather chair in the room and thought of what he wanted to dream about.

  He knew.

  He wanted to dream about that bastard who had been going around the country, tearing up some of the organization's best people.

  But he had trouble. All he could think of was Edward Leung's warning to him: "All life ends in dreams and death."

  He shook his head to clear it of those thoughts. He was Arthur Grassione. He was on the trail of the man who was attacking the organization. He was going to find him and kill him. Destroy him.

  Slowly the fuzzy image on the television set cleared.

  He had first heard of this character on a drug run in New Jersey a few years ago. Then the presence had been felt after the organization almost became involved in a union dispute. Before the syndicate could influence anyone, the dispute was no more. Neither were most of the disputers.

  Then there was that election in Miami. The papers were crying about a governmental kill squad, but nothing seemed to stop whoever it was who was wiping out the organization's men.

  And finally again, just a short time before, with a famous Mafia home movie. Few had seen it and most of them were dead. It showed one dark-haired young man wipe out two teams of assassins. With his hands and nothing else.

  Grassione had not seen the movie. He had been told though that the man was thin, with dark hair but had thick wrists, and moved fast.

  There were more places that Grassione had felt the unknown man's movements vibrating through the mob.

  And so now for sport, for relaxation, for relief, he was going to kill the man with the thick wrists.

  The Sony TV showed a bright landscape. There was a man running across a field. He was a thin, dark-haired man. He had thick wrists. Grassione had seen him before. He knew it. But where?

  Right. He had seen him run across the campus at Edgewood University.

  The man kept running. Running.

  Grassione had seen him somewhere else, too. Where? On television. Once before. Running in the Boston Marathon.

  The man was running faster and faster now, but the ground around him was covered with a growing shadow. And then the man took one last step and a giant foot came down and squashed him like a hard-backed bug. Juicy.