Murder's Shield Read online

  Remo looked down. Indeed. There was a speck of blood. He looked at the bottle. The greenish liquid had caked near the rim from constant use. New York, New York, what a wonderful town, Remo hummed.

  From a transistor radio in the boy’s shoeshine kit, Remo listened to the news. A Mafia chieftain killed in Philadelphia. And the mayor of New York declaring that public insensitivity to social problems was the biggest stumbling block to city progress.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A HOUSE SUITABLE FOR A New York City racketeer had been purchased for Remo. It was a one-family home, upper middle class Queens. Remo picked up Chiun at the airport along with Chiun’s luggage, eight steamer trunks, five large valises and six wooden cartons.

  “I was informed we would be moving into a home so I brought a small change of clothes,” Chiun had said, insisting that one of the wooden cartons go with them in the cab. Three cabs followed with Chiun’s small change of clothes.

  The carton, Remo knew, was the television tape machine that had been fitted with a giant cadmium battery in order to tape Chiun’s favorite shows while he was en route from Texas. He would not leave Texas knowing that he would miss As the Planet Revolves and Dr. Lawrence Walters, Psychiatrist at Large.

  Remo sat crunched between carton and door in the back of the cab. He gave Chiun a baleful look.

  “It is possible that one of the following chariots would get lost and then a moment of beauty would be gone from me forever, a poor shallow moment for a desert of a life,” Chiun explained.

  “You’ve been told, Chiun, we can buy copies of the damned shows.”

  “I have been told many things in my life. What I can touch, I believe,” said Chiun, patting the crate that wedged Remo uncomfortably against the side of the cab door. Remo looked over the crate and saw Chiun had even less room proportionately, but was nevertheless sitting comfortably, his body collapsed into an even narrower form.

  Then Remo disclosed what was worrying him.

  “I picked up a trace when I shouldn’t this afternoon in New York City,” he said, referring to the blood on his shoe. Chiun did not have to be told about blood or shoe. “Trace” was the signal that a blow was improperly delivered, not so badly that it failed to do its job but badly enough to indicate that precision was going. It was a sign that technique was slipping and any careful artisan took it seriously.

  “Anger,” Chiun said. “Anger will do that.”

  “I wasn’t angry. I was working four simultaneously. I didn’t know them.”

  “Anger is a poison that spreads throughout a life. You did not have to be angry at that moment. Anger robs your balance. Only dedication and harmony can restore it.”

  “Yes, I was angry. I am still angry.”

  “Then be prepared for traces. After traces come accidents. And after accidents, misses. And after misses, comes loss. And for us, loss is… ” Chiun did not finish the sentence.

  “We will work on harmony, Little Father,” Remo said. “But I’m still angry.”

  The taxi caravan drove down a tree-lined street with neat brick and shingle homes, cars in driveways, children playing on the clean sidewalks. When the cab stopped in front of the house, Remo saw the nameplate already had been placed on the heavy iron gate that guarded the flagstone walk to the house. Remo Bednick. So that’s who he would be this trip. Remo Bednick.

  He supervised the unloading while keeping the attach cases to himself. Chiun’s television was turned on immediately and Remo began his harmony exercises, sitting in a full lotus, imagining himself first as matter, then as a spirit, then as a spirit combined with all matter and all spirit. When he eased back into the reality of his surrounding, a neat, furnished home, the anger was still there but it was distant. Like someone else’s anger.

  He brought the attaché cases downstairs to store the money in the safest hiding place in any house. The refrigerator. When he swung open the door, he saw the space was taken.

  Five crimson robes, folded neatly, filled the shelves of the refrigerator. The temperature control was turned to freezing. Chiun was upstairs learning for the 287th time that year that Wayne Hampton’s second wife, who had run away with Bruce Cabot, director of Internal Security for Malgar Corporation, was discovering that she really loved her daughter, May Sue Lippincott, and that the two of them might indeed love the same man, Vance Masters, leading authority on heart diseases who was secretly suffering from a disease whose cure he was working on. Dr. Masters did not know he had the disease. He had been about to be informed last September and was still about to be informed as of yesterday.

  Chiun could not be torn away from the show; so Remo could not insist Chiun find another place for the crimson robes. It had to be a cool place because the shoddy Korean dye of which Chiun was so proud tended to run.

  Remo thought a moment, then remembered the attic. There was a toy chest there. Blue robes filled the toy chest. The basement was hung like a carnival with yellow and orange robes.

  Remo took the attaché cases up to Chiun’s room. Chiun was in a green robe, entranced that Mary Sue Lippincott was now going to tell Dr. Masters he had contracted the dreaded disease he was trying to cure.

  Remo waited silently until a woman appeared on the screen to tell about her exciting new washday discovery. For this discovery, she received love from her husband, affection from her son, the respect and admiration of neighbors, and a general feeling of mental health for herself. All because of new lemon-activated Brah.

  Remo unlocked the cases and dumped the money onto the floor around Chiun.

  “Keep an eye on this,” he said.

  “For me?” Chiun asked.

  “No. Operating money.”

  “That is much money,” Chiun said. “An emperor’s fortune.”

  “We could take it and run, Chiun. Who’d stop us? This would support your village for ten generations. A hundred generations.”

  Remo smiled. Chiun shook his head.

  “Should I leave with this fortune, I would be robbing the future of Sinanju. I would be robbing my own house of Sinanju, for then our centuries of service would be stained by theft. Generations hence might lose employment because of that.”

  The village of Sinanju in Korea, as Remo knew, had no crops because of the soil, had poor fishing and no industry, and survived only because for hundreds of years, each Master of Sinanju hired himself out as an assassin or instructor of assassins. The poor of the village lived off the deadly skills of each master.

  “A million dollars, Chiun, would last a hundred generations the way you people spend money.”

  Chiun shook his head again. “We do not know money. We know the martial arts. And should it last a hundred generations, where would the hundred and first find sustenance?”

  “You really worry about the future, don’t you, Little Father?”

  “When one is responsible for it, one worries. Do you now walk blind because of your anger?” Chiun held up a typewritten folded note that had been stuffed into the money.

  “Oh,” said Remo.

  “Oh,” said Chiun. “Oh, the note. Oh, the way the man walked. Oh, the weapon. Oh, the blow. Oh, the life. Oh.”

  Remo read the note as Mary Sue Lippincott returned to the screen. Surprise, surprise, she was going to tell Dr. Masters of his disease.

  The note was from Smith. Typed himself, undoubtedly, because of the typographical errors and because it was not the kind of note the director of a research sanitarium would dictate to a secretary.

  Notes on Bribery

  1. The mark of an amateur is an excessive bribe. Better to come in low than high. When you want something, then raise the offer. Bribery is a bargaining medium.

  2. A general weekly pad for a precinct runs $200 to the captain, $75 to lieutenants, $25 to sergeants and $15 to patrolmen.

  3. Begin small and upgrade. Let the police’s imaginations work.

  4. See if you can get to inspectors with $5,000. Lay off the chief and the commissioner because you might get arrest
ed there. If they are taking, it filters up from all the ranks.

  5. Buy yourself a Cadillac or a Lincoln from a local dealer and pay in cash. Tip excessively in restaurants. Carry a heavy roll. Good hunting. Destroy the note.

  Remo shredded the note in his left hand.

  “Destroy the note,” he mumbled. “No, I’m going to mail it to the Daily News in time for their next edition. Destroy the note.”

  Remo looked up Cadillac in the yellow pages of the telephone directory, saw it was nearby, walked to the showroom and said to a salesman: “That one.”

  “Sir?” said the salesman.

  “I want that one.”

  “Now, sir?” said the salesman, rubbing his hands obsequiously. His expensive tie bobbed at his throat. His blondish hair, pasted to his head, glistened under the overhead lights.

  “Now,” said Remo.

  “May I show it to you first?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it lists for eleven thousand five hundred dollars with the air conditioning and the… ”

  “Put some gas in it and give me the keys.”

  “The forms… ”

  “Mail them to me. I want to buy a car. That’s all. Just sell me the car. I don’t need forms. I don’t need a discount. I don’t need a demonstration ride. What I need is the keys.”

  “How did you intend to pay for it, sir?”

  “With money, what did you think?”

  “I mean financing.”

  Remo brought the heavy rolls of hundreds out of his pocket. The newness made them snap back almost straight. He began to count off a hundred and fifteen hundred-dollar bills.

  The salesman looked at the bills and smiled weakly. He called the manager. The manager looked at the bills. He raised one to the light and felt it. Its newness apparently frightened him. He checked ten more at random.

  “What are you, an art lover?” asked Remo.

  “No, no. I’m a money lover and this money is good.”

  “Give me the keys to the car.”

  “I’ll give you my wife,” said the manager.

  “Just the keys,” said Remo. The salesman scurried to the glass enclosed office as Remo gave the manager his name and address for the forms. Ostensibly for the forms. He wanted the manager to spread the word about the man who paid for the car in cash.

  The salesman nervously continued his sales pitch while handing Remo the keys to the beige four door Fleetwood. On his way home, Remo stopped at a furniture store and ordered two color consoles which he did not need, and a bedroom set which he did not need. He gave name and address and paid in cash.

  That night, Remo reached the local precinct house and was strangely apprehensive about offering a bribe to a policeman. He had never taken when he was a cop and he knew many who also wouldn’t take. Sure, there was Christmastime on a beat but that wasn’t taking. And then there were levels of taking. Gambling money, while not good money, wasn’t considered dirty by many officers. Dirty money was drug money and killing money. Unless police forces had changed in the last decade, Remo thought there were many who would not touch a cent. For Smith, whose ancestors had made a fortune slaving and then had the gall to lead the abolitionist movement when their wealth was established, to now blandly assume that policemen were tagged with prices like supermarket items was an affront to the very balance of the universe.

  Remo got out of the car onto the litter-strewn street and scampered up the worn cement steps of the precinct house. Nostalgia was immediate. Every precinct house smelled the same. Ten years later, a hundred years later. Ten miles away. A hundred miles away. A precinct house smelled tired. It was a combination of the odors of human tension and cigarettes and whatever else it took to make that smell. But tired it was.

  Remo went to the desk lieutenant, said he was new in the neighborhood and introduced himself. The lieutenant was formally polite but his face held bored contempt. When Remo offered a hand to shake, the lieutenant took it as if humoring him. In Remo’s palm was a folded bill. Remo expected the lieutenant to open it up, look at him and throw it in his face.

  He didn’t. The hand disappeared smoothly and now there was a pleasant smile on the face.

  “I’d like to talk to the precinct captain. Tell him to give me a buzz, will you?” asked Remo.

  “Certainly, Mr. Bednick. Welcome to New York.”

  On his way out, when the lieutenant had a chance to look at the size of the bill, Remo heard him call out, “Big welcome to New York City.”

  And then Remo knew why he had been apprehensive. He had set the bribe up absolutely wrong, hoping it would fail, hoping Smith would be proved wrong. He could have done it right, striking up a conversation with a local patrolman, offering him something for his family, working himself up through the ranks carefully. Instead, he had walked brazenly into the precinct house where, for all anyone knew, he might have been a state investigator, where if the lieutenant had any worries he would exercise them. And it worked anyway. Remo was disappointed.

  On the street in the chemical air of New York City, Remo cleared his mind. He was not in the business of failing, and he would not risk it again.

  It was fun to drive the big car and play the stereo as if the car and the lifestyle were really his. When he turned into his street, he saw an unmarked police car down the block, visible even in the dark. The unwaxed dullness about it and the small aerial were the giveaway. Anyone could spot them and Remo sometimes wondered why police didn’t use real unmarked cars, like red and yellow convertibles and jalopies with flower decals on them. Those would be real unmarked cars, not just a different form of standard police car.

  He parked the car quickly and rushed out. What had Chiun done now? It was not uncommon for Chiun to “merely protect himself” or “merely assure his solitude,” which, on occasion had called for the nasty and unpleasant disposal of bodies.

  Remo bounded to the door and found it unlocked. Inside, a paunchy man in a business suit sat by a low coffee table in the living room. Chiun sat on the floor listening intently.

  “Do not be bothered by the rude interruption,” Chiun told the man. “Continue as if we were living in a civilized society.”

  Chiun turned then to Remo.

  “Remo. Sit down and listen to the wonderful stories of this gentleman. How exciting they are. How professional he is. Risking his life every day.”

  “Well, not now,” said the man. “But when I was a patrolman I was in two gun battles.”

  “Two gun battles,” said Chiun with exaggerated awe. “And did you kill anyone?”

  “I wounded a gunman.”

  “Did you hear that, Remo? How exciting. Wounding a gunman and bullets flying and women screaming.”

  “Well, there were no women screaming,” said the man. “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Captain Milken. Morris Milken. Lieutenant Russell said you wanted to see me. I’ve been talking with your servant here. Fine fellow. Sort of gets a little bit too excited over talk about violence and things like that. But I assured him that if one house in this precinct is safe, it’s this one.”

  “That’s very nice of you,” said Remo.

  “He said if ever we felt endangered, even endangered by strangers on the block, we could phone him,” said Chiun. “ For someone of my age and frailness, this is reassurance of most great value.”

  “We protect our elderly in this precinct,” said Captain Milken.

  “Yes. I wanted to talk to you about things like that and I’m glad you could come,” said Remo. “Chiun, I’d like to be alone with the captain.”

  “Oh, yes. Of course. I forgot my humble place as your servant and overstepped my bounds. I will return to my place of servitude.”

  “Knock it off, Chiun. Enough.”

  “As you order, master. Your word is my command. “ Chiun rose and bowed and shuffled humbly from the room.

  “One thing about old time dinks. They sure know respect, don’t they?” said the captain. “There’s a beauty about that old guy�
��s humility.”

  “Humble as a tidal wave,” said Remo.

  “What?” said Captain Milken.

  “Nothing. Let’s talk.”

  Captain Milken smiled and opened his hand.

  “Two hundred a week for you and a proportionate amount to your men. Seventy-five for lieutenants, twenty-five for sergeants and detectives, fifteen for foot patrol. Anything else, we can work out later.”

  “You’ve been around,” said Milken.

  “Well, we all have to live, don’t we?”

  “This precinct usually doesn’t get much business. And there’s nothing I can do for you in prostitution and drugs; some other areas have already been taken.”

  “You’re trying to find out what I do, right?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “All right. When you find out, if you say no, I’ll stop. If you say yes and think you’re not getting enough, then you let me know. But what I do is what I do. I just don’t want to be hassled every time somebody swipes a car in this precinct.”

  “You’re paying a stiff price for maybe nothing,” said Captain Milken.

  “Maybe,” Remo said. “It’s the way I work.”

  Milken stood up and took his wallet from his hip pocket. “Anytime you need me, call,” he said, opening the wallet and removing a business card.

  “That’s an interesting badge,” Remo said.

  Milken looked down at his wallet. Inside its fold was a golden five-pointed star, with a clenched fist in the center. “What’s it for?” Remo asked.

  “An organization I belong to,” Captain Milken said. “The Men of the Shield. Ever hear of it?”

  “No. Can’t say I have.”

  Captain Milken smiled. “I think you should. You might find some of our projects personally interesting. Would you like to meet our leader? Inspector William McGurk. A hell of a guy.”

  “McGurk,” said Remo, filing the name. “Sure I would.”

  “Fine. I’ll set it up. I’m sure he’d like to meet you.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  JAMES HARDESTY III DESCENDED from the helicopter in a broad rolling stretch of Wyoming where his cattle grazed on the rich grasslands and his ranch hands galloped to the landing zone to meet him.