Shooting Schedule td-79 Page 3

  "Anything but that," Bronzini said with a rueful laugh. "He fought more rounds than Ali. Okay, I guess beggars can't be choosers."

  "Great. I'll set it up. Ciao. You're loved." Bartholomew Bronzini hung up the phone. He noticed that although the phone said MANGA on it, the corporate symbol matched that of the Nishitsu symbol on his message machine.

  He went to his personal computer and began typing in instructions to his flock of servants. He noticed the keyboard carried the Nishitsu brand name too.

  Bartholomew Bronzini grunted an explosive laugh. "Good thing we won the war," he said, not realizing the irony of his own words.

  Chapter 2

  His name was Remo, and, he was going to kill Santa Claus if it was the last thing he ever did.

  There was snow falling on College Hill, overlooking Providence, Rhode Island. Big puffy flakes of it. They fell with a faint hiss that only one possessing Remo s acute hearing could detect. The snow had just started, but already it formed a pristine blanket under his feet.

  It remained pristine after Remo walked over it. His Italian loafers made no imprint. He walked deserted Benefit Street, as quietly and stealthily as a jungle cat. His T-shirt was so white that only his skinny arms with their unusually thick wrists showed against the falling flakes. Remo's chinos were gray. Snow clung to them in patches so that they too were predominantly white. The camouflage effect made Remo almost invisible.

  Camouflage had nothing to do with not leaving footprints, however.

  Remo paused in mid-stride and ran his eyes along the silent rows of well-preserved Colonial-style homes with their distinctive glass fanlights. There were no cars on Benefit Street. It was after eleven P.m. Providence goes to bed early. But this week, the week before Christmas, it was not the ordinary sleeping habits of this insular city that made its inhabitants retire early. It was fear-fear of Santa Claus.

  Remo started off again. In the spot where he had stood there were two shallow but well-defined footprints. But none leading away. Had Remo looked back to observe this phenomenon, his high-cheekboned face might have registered surprise. Not at the two inexplicable footsteps themselves, for he took it for granted that when he walked, leaves did not crinkle under his tread, nor sand displace. But for what they represented-the fact that, officially, he no longer existed.

  Once, many Christmases ago, Remo had been a New Jersey cop. A pusher's murder was blamed on him, and Remo got the chair. And a second chance. The chance effectively erased his previous existence and brought forth a new, improved Remo.

  For Remo became a Master of Sinanju. Trained as an assassin, he worked for a secret arm of the United States government known only as CURE. His job was to locate and eliminate the nation's enemies.

  Tonight his assignment was to kill Santa Claus. Remo had nothing against Saint Nick. In fact, he had not believed in Santa in a long time. Saint Nick was a jolly elf who symbolized childhood, a childhood that Remo had never really experienced to the full. He had been raised in an orphanage.

  But while Remo had been denied a normal childhood, he did not resent it. Much. Maybe a little. Usually around this time of the year, actually, when he realized that the universal celebration of childhood, Christmas, was something he would never truly know.

  This was why Remo had to kill Santa Claus. The bastard was ruining it for other children-children who had fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters. Innocent children with warm homes and Christmas trees they decorated with family instead of orphanage nuns. Remo would never see a Christmas like theirs. But he'd be damned if another little boy or girl would be denied Christmas by a fat slob in a red suit carring a fire ax. Remo finished his sweep of Benefit Street. This was the old section of Providence, where time seemed to have stood still. The streetlamps might have been standing a century ago. The houses belonged to another era. Most of the low stone steps boasted wrought-iron foot scrapers, which in the days of horse-drawn cars saw constant use. Now they were merely quaint relics.

  Santa Claus didn't trouble Benefit Street tonight. No corpulent figure haunted the rooftops. No bearded face pressed to windows, tapping gently, enticingly.

  Remo walked to Prospect Park. Set on an embankment, it gave a commanding view of Benefit Street and the city of Providence. Remo sat on the parapet beside the statue of Roger Williams cut from granite. He stood with one broken-fingered hand lifted helplessly as if to ask, "Why my city?"

  Remo wondered that as well, as his deep-set dark eyes picked through the snow. His face, the skin tight over high cheekbones, was tense. He rotated his thick wrists unconsciously.

  Usually Remo did not concern himself with the why. Not on the small hits like this. He never asked the crack dealers whose necks he broke why they sold cocaine. The Mafia hoods never tried to explain themselves before he fractured their skulls like eggs. Remo wouldn't have listened. After twenty years in this game, it had come down to the same tired old story: new people committing old crimes. That was all.

  But Santa owed him an explanaton. And just this once, Remo was going to ask why.

  The moon was a fuzzy snowball as seen through the swirling snow. It shone down on the golden dome of the State House. It was a beautiful city, Remo realized. He could easily imagine himself back in the nineteenth century. He wondered what his ancestors did then. He wondered who they were. He had no idea. But he could recite from memory exactly what the emissaries of a certain Korean fishing village were doing at any time in the last century. They were, like him, Masters of Sinanju. But they were his spiritual ancestors.

  The unusual quiet made it possible for his highly sensitive ears to pick out conversations emanating from the picturesque homes huddled below. He turned his head from side to side like some human radar dish. Instead of trying to listen, he let the snatches of conversation drift to him.

  ". . . Molly, come quick! The lost episode of Murphy's Law is on! . . ."

  ". . . Ward! Ward Phillips! If you don't answer me right now . . . "

  ". . . Santa! You're early." It was a little boy's voice. Instantly, another voice joined it. A pouty girlish voice. "What is it, Tommy? You woke me up. Bad boy."

  "It's Santa. He's at the window."

  Tiny feet scampered. "Oh, let me see. Let me see!" Remo forced himself to relax. Tensing up would constrict the blood flow to his brain and lower his sensitivity. His head made decreasingly smaller turns as he narrowed his focus.

  He got a fix on the sound of a window being raised and a thick blubbery voice saying, "Ho ho ho!"

  The sound made Remo's blood run cold. He had read the newspaper reports that Upstairs had supplied him. They had made him sick, then angry, and then burning with a rage that was as hot as the sun.

  It was a thirty-foot drop from the parapet down to the tangle of underbrush that was clotted with leprous snow. It was the most direct way to the house.

  Remo stood up. The snow fell around him like white spiders slipping down invisible webs. His breathing keyed down to its most minimal efficiency. He felt the falling snow, its rhythms, its inexorability. And when he was at one with the snowfall, he jumped into it.

  Remo felt the flakes gravitate toward him. He felt each one individually. Not as a puffy bit of emphemeral frozen water, but as strong, structurally sound ice crystals. He sensed their inner strength, their uniqueness. They clung to him like brothers, not melting when they touched his face or bare arms. His skin was as cold as they were. Remo thought like a snowflake, and like a snowflake he became.

  Remo floated to the ground at the exact speed of the falling snow. He was covered in snow when his feet touched the ground. This time he made footprints. Just two. He floated down the embankment without leaving any further sign.

  Remo's eyes were on a brown house with a single lighted window. Then an oblate shape fell across the light like an evil eclipse.

  Cursing under his breath, Remo moved for it. Tommy Atwells had to climb onto his windowsill to reach the latch. He stood there in his pumpkin-orange Dr. Denton pajamas.
His little knees trembled. "Hurry, Tommy," his sister said. "Santa's cold."

  "I'm trying." And on the other side of the snowsprinkled glass the wide smiling face grew eager. Tommy used both hands to push the latch clear. It sprang with a sharp sound.

  "Okay, that's it," Tommy said, climbing down.

  The window squeaked as it rolled up. Tommy stepped back into a corner, near the toy box, where his sister stood with wide eyes. He had heard about Santa Claus for years. But he had never seen him with his own eyes. He was very big.

  After Santa has squeezed himself through the window, a question occurred to Tommy,

  "How come ... how come you're early? Mommy says Christmas isn't till next week."

  "Ho ho ho," was all Santa would say. He unslung his big sack and let it slump to the floor, a long red handle sticking out of it like a shard of ribbon candy. And then he was clumping toward the shivering children, his hands outstretched, his eyes very, very bright. His vast shadow covered Tommy and his sister.

  The window was already closed when Remo reached it. It was a first-floor window. The glass was held in place by dry wood putty. Remo tested the pane with the flat of his hand. It gave slightly. He pushed harder, instinctively reading the points of maximum weakness in the putty. Repositioning his hand, Remo smacked the glass, firmly but with restraint. The putty gave like stale bread. Remo caught the glass in both hands and flung it back into a growing snowbank. He went in.

  Remo found himself in a children's bedroom. Both beds were rumpled but empty. The room smelled of peppermint. A half-eaten candy cane lay on a toy box.

  Remo glided to the open door, every sense alert. "Oooh, presents," a girl's voice was saying.

  "Can we ... can we open them now, Santa?" A boy's voice this time.

  "Ho ho ho," Santa said. His laugh was very quiet, and the sound of tearing and crinkling wrapping paper overtook its echoes.

  Remo eased into the hallway. His shoes made no sound on the varnished floor. Weak light spilled from a room at the end of the hall. Fresh pine scent wafted from it, carried by hot air from a floor register.

  Remo came up on the door. He peered around it. At first he saw only two children. A boy he took to be five and a girl who might have been a year younger. They were on their knees at the foot of a popcorn-andtinsel-decorated Christmas tree. They were opening presents eagerly, the way Remo never had. He always got new clothes. Never toys.

  Remo brushed the wistful thought from his mind. For on the far wall, next to the shadow of the bedecked tree, was another shadow. Short, round, it was a blot of darkness that any child in America would have recognized from its shape.

  Except for the upraised ax in its hands.

  Remo flung himself into the room as the ax came back. The children didn't see Santa, for Santa stood behind them, his too-avid eyes fixed on the backs of their fresh-scrubbed necks.

  "No!" Remo shouted, for once forgetting everything he had been taught about silent attack.

  Santa started. The children's heads came about. They saw Remo. Their eyes widened in surprise. They didn't see the ax descending for their skulls.

  They never saw the ax. Remo's hands intercepted the chipped blade as it came down. He pulled the weapon from Santa's two-handed grip.

  "Run," Remo called to them.

  "Mommy, Daddy, Mommy . ." Tommy yelled as he scampered from the room. "Some strange man is trying to hurt Santa."

  Remo broke the ax in two, flung both pieces away. He took Santa Claus by his rabbit-fur collar and yanked his bearded face into his own.

  "Why, you bastard? I want to know why!" he said fiercely.

  "Mommy, Daddy!"

  Santa opened his mouth to speak. Instead, as he looked past Remo's shoulder, his thick wet lips broke into a foolish grin, showing yellow teeth like old dice.

  A new voice broke the stillness. "Stand where you are! I have a gun!"

  "Don't shoot! Daddy, please don't shoot Santa."

  Still holding on to the rabbit-fur collar, Remo whirled in place. Santa's black boots left the floor. When they touched down, Remo and the fat man had changed places. Remo now faced the hallway. Over Santa's redvelvet shoulder he saw a man in a terry-cloth bathrobe. He had a .45 automatic pointed in Remo's direction. The little boy clung to his leg. But the girl was still behind Remo, in the line of fire.

  "Get away from my daughter," the man shouted. "Cathy, call the police."

  "What is it?" a woman's twisted voice demanded. "Where's Susie?"

  "Put the gun down, pal," Remo said. "This is between Santa and me. Isn't that right, Santa?" Remo shook the fat man angrily.

  Santa only smiled slackly. It was a horrible, unbalanced smile.

  "Susie, come here," the father prompted. "Walk around the men, honey."

  "Do as he says, Susie," Remo said tightly, looking into Santa's eyes.

  Susie stood unmoving, her thumb in her mouth.

  "The police are coming, George," the mother's voice said. She appeared in the doorway, saw Remo and Santa Claus in a clutch, and let out a stricken scream. "Cathy! Will you get back!"

  "George, for God's sake, put away that gun. You'll hit Susie!"

  "Listen to her," Remo said. "I have this under control." To prove it, he lifted Santa Claus off his feet and bounced him up and down on his boots.

  "See?" Remo said.

  From his wide black belt, Santa pulled a switchblade. Remo sensed the knife coming up. It didn't concern him. He saw the father draw a shaky two-handed bead on the broad red back of the Santa suit and exert pressure on the trigger.

  Remo pushed Santa aside. He ducked under the first wild shot. One open hand swept in and batted the muzzle up. A single shot pocked the ceiling.

  Remo tripped the father. He went down. The gun ended up in Remo's hand. He yanked out the magazine and disarmed the weapon by pulling back the hammer with one strong thumb. The hammer broke off like a gingerbread man's leg.

  Remo turned his attention back to Santa Claus. Santa was halfway out the door.

  Remo started for the door, but felt a drag on his leg. He looked down. Little Tommy was clinging to his ankle, banging on it, hot tears streaming down his cheeks.

  "Oh, you're bad. You made Santa go away."

  Gently Remo bent down and pried Tommy's fingers from his pants fabric. He took the boy by his tiny shoulders and looked him in the eye.

  "Take it easy," he said. "That wasn't Santa. That was the Boogey Man."

  "There's no such thing as the Boogey Man. And you hit my daddy. I'll kill you! I will!"

  The vehemence of the little boy's words shocked Remo. But he had no time to think about that. Outside, a car started up.

  Remo released the boy. He went through the door like a cannonball. The sturdy panels flew apart.

  Out on the pavement, a little foreign car spurted from the curb. Its tires slipped on the slick snow. The car was Christmas-ornament red.

  The car turned the corner at high speed. Remo cut through a backyard to intercept it, but the car had already slid into the maze of College Hill when he reached the sidewalk.

  Remo spotted it again at the top of Vertical Jenckes Street, so called because it was as steep as a San Francisco avenue.

  The car went down slowly, brakes on. To release them would have invited disaster.

  At the top of the hill, Remo put his feet together and pushed off.

  Knees bent, arms at his sides, Remo went down Vertical Jenckes as if skiing from a steep slope. He caught up with the car and grabbed the bumper.

  Hunched low so that he wouldn't be visible through the driver's rearview mirror, Remo locked every muscle and joint, and allowed himself to be towed. It brought back memories of his childhood in Newark, when he used to skip-hop the length of Broad Street. Back then, cars had big chrome bumpers that were easy to hold on to. The modern composition bumper afforded Remo no real purchase. So Remo's fingers dug into the plastic like claws and made his own. When he let go, there would be permanent holes.

  The ca
r weaved through College Hill with Remo attached it like a hunched-over human trailer. Snow collected at the tips of his shoes. When it got too thick, it fell away, only to start collecting all over again. Remo watched his shoes with interest. He had no idea where Santa Claus was taking him, but when the car came to a stop, the expression on Father Christmas' face was certain to be priceless. For the few seconds it would take before Remo started peeling the flesh from his skull.

  Then Remo would get his answers. He might have to tear an arm off as well. Maybe he would rip off every limb and dump the bastard in a remote snowbank somewhere, where he could scream to his heart's content as he bled to death. It was a method that the man who

  had trained him to kill would frown upon, but this was a special case. This was the Christmas season.

  The car took Route 95 North, heading for the Massachusetts border. Remo recognized this only after the car drove past a pesticide company which displayed a huge papier-mache termite as an advertising gimmick. Remo had overheard this bug jokingly referred to as the Rhode Island state bird. He had laughed when he heard it. Now, hours later, with the snow falling like a shroud and a homicidal maniac towing him to an unknown destination, nothing seemed funny anymore.

  The car turned off the highway in Taunton, Massachusetts. Remo didn't know that this was Taunton, and had he known, he would not have cared. His thoughts were red. Not Christmas-ornament red, but blood red.

  The red car pulled into a blacktopped carport beside a row of snow-burdened evergreens.

  Remo kept low. The car door clicked open and slammed shut. Clopping boots carried Santa Claus to the side door of a Cape Cod-style house. Remo heard a key tickle a door lock. The tumblers clicked so loudly that he heard them twenty feet away. A glass storm door clanged. Then there was only the hiss of the falling snow.

  Remo got to his feet. He eased up to the door and received a shock. Staring back from the reflective glass of the storm door was an eerie sight.

  It looked like a snowman. Not a jolly rotund snowman, but a lean sculptured one. There was no carrot nose, but it did have what looked like coal eyes. Remo peered closer. They were not coals, but the deathlike hollows of his own eye sockets.