Summit Chase Read online

  Gambling was against the law in New Jersey, even though no one seemed to notice. Remo did what he thought was best.

  He stepped inside the clubrooms, and waited until he was noticed.

  “Sorry, fellas,” he said with a smile, “you’ll have to close down the game. Or move to a back room where people can’t see you from the street.”

  There were six players at the table. All had large stacks of money in front of them, except one. He was a tall, lean man; his nose was squashed over his face and he had scars over both eyes. He had only a few singles on the table in front of him.

  The others at the table turned to look at him. He carefully inspected his cards, then looked up at Remo, slowly, contemptuously.

  “Fuck off, kid,” he said. There was no humor in his voice. It was thick, guttural, New Jersey street talk.

  Remo decided to ignore it. “You’ll have to end the game, men,” he said again.

  “And I said, fuck off.”

  “You’ve got a big mouth, mister,” Remo said.

  “I got more than that,” the man said. He stood up, pulled his cigarette from the ashtray, and came toward Remo.

  He stood in front of him and said again, “Fuck off.”

  “You’re under arrest.”

  “Yeah? What’s the charge?”

  “Gambling. And interfering with an officer.”

  “Sonny, do you know who I am?”

  “No,” Remo said, “and I don’t care.”

  “My name’s Kenny. And in forty-eight hours, I’m going to have you dragging ass on some miserable beat in Niggertown.”

  “You do that,” Remo said. “But do it from jail. You’re under arrest.”

  Then the cigarette pointed toward his face, held that way between thumb, index and middle fingers, and it punctuated Kenny’s words.

  “You’re going to be sorry.”

  He booked Kenny that night for gambling and interfering with an officer. Forty-eight hours later, Remo was walking a beat in the heart of the black ghetto. P.J. Kenny’s attorney waived a hearing in municipal court and the case was sent to the grand jury. It was never heard of again.

  Remo never forgot the incident. It was one of the first of a series of disappointments he encountered, when he tried to act as if the law were on the level.

  From his beat in the ghetto, Remo was framed for murder and brought to work for CURE, after having been “executed” in the state prison in an electric chair that didn’t work.

  P.J. Kenny moved on to better things, too.

  He became well-known in gangland as a professional killer who hired out to all sides. He was the top contract man, the man who never missed.

  He had a reputation a department store would envy. He was all business and he gave top value for the dollar.

  Because he was so good, he was feared, and thus he never became a target for one side or the other in the gang wars that periodically infected the country.

  It was known that there was no animosity in his work, no personal enmity. He was just a professional. And a side that knew it had lost a man to P.J. Kenny seemed not to take it personally. If they came up with the right price, they could hire him themselves to even the score.

  He turned down dozens of offers to join forces with different families. He was probably wise, because it was his reputation for even-handedness that kept him alive. He was not a partisan and therefore not a man partisans should go after.

  One man had tried it once, after P.J. had carried off a contract against the son of a mob leader. The hood was trying to impress his boss. The hood wound up dead, along with his father, two brothers, wife and daughter. All carved with a knife like Thanksgiving turkeys.

  That was the last time anyone took personal umbrage at any contract P.J. Kenny carried out. Now he was considered the Tiffany of the trade, and he had more work than he could handle.

  Then a few months ago, there had been a Senate investigation into racketeering. A subpoena was issued for P.J. Kenny to testify. He vanished. Remo had read it in the papers and hoped that CURE would be involved, that he would have a chance to go after P.J. Kenny.

  But CURE wasn’t, he didn’t, the Senate hearing died out, and P.J. Kenny remained out of sight.

  And now here he was, with a new face, on his way to Algeria. Smith’s report had told Remo that many of the top Mafia leaders in the country were on their way to meet with Baron Nemeroff.

  Was there any doubt that P.J. Kenny was traveling on a professional mission? Nobody vacationed in Algeria. Not even Algerians.

  Remo read, while the plane whistled on across the Atlantic, double-timing from day to night.

  Remo heard steps behind him and glanced up as Kenny walked down the aisle of the plane, swaying from side to side, drunk from seven straight hours at the bar in the lounge.

  He staggered to his seat, sat down heavily and looked around belligerently. His eyes caught Remo’s and he tried to stare Remo down. He finally gave up, turned around and slumped back into his seat.

  The blonde stewardess came from the pilot’s cabin and walked slowly down the aisle, her head clicking from side to side, looking to see if passengers needed anything.

  Remo heard P.J.’s guttural voice. “Come here, girl.”

  From his seat, Remo saw the young blonde step up to Kenny. “Is there something I can do for you?” she said, smiling, willing to let bygones be bygones, as they learned in lesson seven at stewardess school.

  “Yeah,” Kenny growled. He motioned for the girl to come closer and he spoke softly in her ear. Remo saw her face turn red with embarrassment, and then, just as suddenly, turn into a pain-filled mask.

  P.J. had his hand up under her skirt and Remo could tell he was squeezing her flesh. It must have hurt too much for her to yell.

  P.J. laughed and put his other hand on her wrist, then pulled her down toward him again. Her face was still pained, and his left hand was still working under her skirt. He spoke again into her ear, cruelly, viciously, and Remo could see tears welling in her eyes.

  He got up from his seat and walked forward to the aisle seat where P.J. Kenny held the girl prisoner in his grip.

  “Johnson,” he said.

  There was a pause, then Kenny looked over his shoulder at Remo.

  “Yeah. What do you want?”

  “Let go of the girl. We’ve got to talk.”

  “I don’t want to talk,” he said thickly. “I don’t want to let go of the girl.”

  Remo leaned close to Kenny’s face. “Let go of that girl or I’ll peel that scar tissue off your face and stuff it down your throat.”

  Kenny looked up again—annoyed this time, as well as surprised. He hesitated a moment and released the girl.

  Remo took her hands in his. “I’m sorry, Miss.” Tears streamed down her face. “Mr. Johnson had too much to drink. It won’t happen again.”

  “Hey there,” Kenny demanded. “Whaddya mean, too much to drink?”

  “Just close your face,” Remo said. He released the girl’s hands with a comforting squeeze, then watched as she slowly walked away, up the aisle.

  Remo slid past Kenny’s knees and took the seat next to him.

  “Your face looks pretty good,” he said.

  “Yeah?” Kenny answered suspiciously. “Yours doesn’t.”

  “I’ll have to get the address of your plastic surgeon. Maybe he can make me as distinguished looking as you.”

  “Look, mister,” Kenny said. “I don’t know who you are or what you want, but why don’t you just fuck off?”

  “I’m from Nemeroff,” Remo said.

  “Yeah? Who’s Nemeroff?”

  “Don’t get cute with me,” Remo said. “You know damn well who he is. He’s the guy you’re taking this trip for.”

  “Pal,” Kenny snorted. “I don’t know you and I don’t like you. Already, I could find a reason to do some things to you that ain’t pleasant. Now get lost.”

  “I’d love to. Except I’m your contact man. I’m supp
osed to get you to Nemeroff. In one piece. That means without being beaten up by some airline stewardess or arrested by airport police for having a phony passport.”

  “What’s your name?” Kenny asked.

  “Roger Willis.”

  “I never heard of you,” Kenny said.

  “I’ve heard of you, Mr. Kenny. So has the baron. That’s why he sent me. To keep you out of trouble.”

  “You got any identification?” Kenny asked.

  “In my briefcase.”

  “Get it,” Kenny said.

  Remo looked around him, then up at the overhead oxygen mask. It would be pleasant to give Kenny a demonstration of how it worked and cut off the air supply. Too risky. Too much chance of people wandering by.

  “You’ve really slipped,” Remo said. “Sure, I’ll open my briefcase out here, so that every nosy bastard on the plane can come by and snoop into our business. The lavatory. Five minutes. The one on the left, leave the lock open.”

  He got up without waiting for an answer, stepped over Kenny’s legs and returned to his own seat.

  Remo glanced at his watch. The plane should be nearing its destination in a few minutes. He wanted to shave the time just right.

  Five minutes later, Kenny got up and walked toward the center of the plane. Remo nodded to him as he passed. He waited a minute, then stood up and followed.

  Kenny was washing his face at the sink when Remo entered the little cubicle and his eyes met Remo’s in the mirror. There was a glint of metal at Kenny’s wrist and Remo remembered he carried a knife in his sleeve.

  Kenny patted his face delicately with a towel from a pile over the sink, put back on his eyeglasses, and turned to Remo.

  “Now where’s your identification?” he said.

  “Right here,” Remo said. His left hand flicked out and the fingernails raked the skin over Kenny’s left eye, tearing up the tissue-paper thin scar tissue, and sending blood streaming down Kenny’s face. “That identifies me as a guy who doesn’t like to see women beaten up.”

  “Bastard,” Kenny growled. He flicked his arm toward the floor, hard; the handle of the knife was in his hand, and then it was pointed at Remo’s midsection. “When I’m done with you, they’ll identify you by my initials on the inside of your stomach.”

  “You’re forgetting Nemeroff. I’m his man,” Remo said.

  “Screw Nemeroff. He hired me to be around if he needs me. He didn’t hire me to be pushed around by some punk.”

  Remo backed off, with only inches separating him from Kenny.

  “Is this any way to greet an old friend?” Remo asked.

  “Old friend, huh?” Kenny glowered.

  “Sure. We met in Newark. Oh, maybe ten years ago. Don’t you remember?”

  Kenny was wavering. “No.”

  “Yeah. I arrested you for gambling. You had me transferred off my beat.”

  Kenny’s eyes squinted behind the glasses, trying to remember. He did. “You’re a cop,” he hissed. “A goddam cop. No wonder.”

  “Take a good look, you pail of garbage. It’s the last face you’ll ever see,” Remo said.

  Kenny lunged with the knife and Remo slid alongside the thrust. The blade hit the metal door and the force of the stroke skidded the blade along the door, until it slipped into the crack between the door and the frame. Remo slapped the door open, and the movement snapped off the knife blade, and then the edge of Remo’s hand hit Kenny in the face.

  He jolted backward, onto the toilet seat, dropping the knife-handle. Then Remo was on him, an arm under Kenny’s arm, the heel of his hand against the back of Kenny’s neck, pressing it forward, cutting off the air. He forced Kenny over the shallow sink and shoved his head down into it. He ran the water until the sink was full, and he kept Kenny’s face down under the water. In the confines of the tiny room there was little opportunity to move about or gain leverage. Remo was on him like a vise. First there was bubbling and then thrashing, then just silent limpness.

  Already, his trip was a success, Remo thought. P.J. Kenny. Good. And that could be his passport to Nemeroff. Passport.

  He reached into Kenny’s jacket pocket and took his billfold and passport. Still holding Kenny in the sink, he flipped open the passport. It was made out in the name of Johnson and carried the picture of the new Kenny—horn-rimmed, country-doctor glasses and all. Remo took his passport from his hip pocket and slid it into Kenny’s jacket. The dead man was now Roger Willis.

  So much for that.

  He dried Kenny’s face and hair with a towel, then arranged him on the toilet seat. Kenny’s body slumped against the wall. His glasses hung from only one earpiece.

  The glasses. Remo took them. He’d need them, if they checked passports. The horn rims would fool anyone, particularly passport checkers to whom all faces looked alike anyway.

  He started to leave, and remembered Kenny’s face. Even with the passport for Roger Willis, someone might recognize him as Kenny. Probably that blonde stewardess.

  With his fingernails he made sure no one would ever recognize Kenny again.

  He then washed his hands and slipped Kenny’s eyeglasses in his shirt pocket.

  Stepping out of the lavatory, he smashed the side of his hand twice against the hinges of the door, crushing the metal, making sure it would not open to a casual push.

  He would be long gone, before they found P.J. Kenny’s body.

  Before anyone was ever able to identify the corpse as P.J. Kenny’s, Remo would be done with Baron Nemeroff and Vice President Asiphar. It should all work very well.

  Remo walked back down the aisle, and with no stewardess in sight, took the attaché case from under Kenny’s seat.

  He got back into his own seat just as the “fasten safety belts” light came on.

  The blonde walked up the aisle, checking seat belts. She smiled at Remo and he smiled back.

  He wondered what her expression would be after they’d landed, and they found the body sitting on the john. Or later, when they determined that he had died of drowning.

  Probably, she’d smile.

  Remo would.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  BARON ISAAC NEMEROFF HAD sent telegrams of summons all over the world, and all over the world men prepared to come.

  From the top families of the American Mafia to the leading producer and purveyor of pornography in the world—a Japanese who owned and operated brothels and film processing plants in more than fifteen countries—they prepared to come. Men who controlled thousands of acres of land, now turned over to the growing of poppies, made ready to come. From the bowels of crime would come the professional gamblers who owned those casinos around the world which once had been expected to drive criminals out of gambling. From Switzerland would come a seventy-two-year-old man whose name was probably unknown to everyone but Nemeroff, who knew him as the greatest counterfeiter in the world, a man who had printed literally billions of dollars of queer and floated it into the world money-markets from his Swiss headquarters.

  There would be smugglers, gun-runners, swindlers, the head of a ring of jewel thieves.

  When Nemeroff called, they would all come.

  And most of them were not sure of why. Few had ever met him, which was as Nemeroff wanted it, since he was not a public man. His name did not make gossip columns unless he wished it to. He did not allow himself to be thought of as phony Russian nobility, another fraud who declared himself baron three days after learning which fork to use.

  His credentials as nobility were impeccable. He chose to live his life to meet the arbitrary standards he had set for that nobility.

  Nemeroff was forty-six years old, the only son of a beautiful young Frenchwoman, and a Russian father whose ancestry was connected with the Romanoffs and whose capacity for anger was connected with the Cossacks.

  Young Isaac had been born in Paris, and soon after his birth, his mother died under circumstances that could only be described as suspicious.

  Those who knew the old Count Nemer
off knew that there was nothing suspicious about it. His wife was a trollop, of noble birth, but a trollop nonetheless, and upon finding himself cuckolded, Nemeroff had simply poisoned her.

  There was almost no Nemeroff fortune left, the Russian revolution having taken care of that. But his mother left young Isaac and his father a comfortable amount of money, which his father found decidedly uncomfortable.

  The old man and the boy then began to live the life of wanderers, traveling continuously from year to year, from one pleasure capital of the world to the next. And everywhere there were beautiful women for Count Nemeroff, to provide him with the funds to at least imitate his former life style.

  Young Isaac grew to hate them, with their brittle faces and alabaster skins, and their staged, identical, musical laughs. He hated them as rivals for his father’s affection. He hated them most when he saw them slip envelopes into his father’s pockets and he hated the look on his father’s face when he opened the envelope and counted the cash it contained, when in their carriage on the way back to their hotel.

  Isaac was eight years old when he became a thief. He had already been well-grounded in the important currencies of the world: diamonds were best, gold next, other precious metals, stones and American dollars following somewhat after that.

  He specialized in diamonds.

  While he was supposed to be at poolside at some rich woman’s villa and his father was inside tending to her needs; when he could hear the laughter and the sighs floating softly through a window; he would leave the pool and wander the house. A pin here. A ring, there. A brooch. He avoided necklaces because he thought their absence would be too quickly noted. He gave no thought as to what he would do with his booty. He carried the pieces in a shaving kit which he kept in his suitcase, and which his father never opened, thinking its possession merely a young boy’s affectation.

  When he was a few years older, he rented a safe-deposit box in a Swiss bank and began keeping his jewelry there. Upon each of their subsequent trips to Switzerland, he would take out one of the pieces, break the jewels from their mountings and sell them to a diamond dealer.