Warren Murphy - Bay City Blast

Remo watched him through the windows of a car parked across the street. Halfway down the block, the policeman ducked into a hallway. His back was to Remo but Remo could see he was fiddling with the newspaper. As the policeman turned back, Remo saw him tuck something into the inside pocket of his uniform blouse. It made a small lump inside the jacket. The cop strolled down the steps, still holding the newspaper in his left hand. Ten feet down the block, he dropped the paper into a litter basket.

"So," Remo said aloud. "The cops are protecting gambling."

"You can tell this by watching a policeman buy a newspaper?" Chiun said.

"I've seen it before. The guy at the newsstand is booking numbers. The cop comes by and the bookie gives him an envelope with the protection money."

"If he needs protection, why does he not hire us?" Chiun asked.

"He can't afford us. And it's not that kind of protection. It's just protection against getting arrested. Now the cop takes the money back to his headquarters or wherever and gives it to his captain or his chief, and the cops get a small piece for looking the other way and not arresting anybody."

"And the rest of the money?"

"The top cop gets some and the rest of it goes to whatever politician has made the deal with the bookies."

"The economy of this country is very complex," Chiun said. "How is it that you understand it, when you do not understand many things well at all?"

"When I was a cop, I saw it all the time in Newark. That's not far from here."

"And did you do this?" Chiun asked. "Did you take this money to protect these numerals?"

"Numbers," Remo said. "No. I was a straight cop. But I saw it done a lot. Usually cops aren't so brazen about it. Let's follow him."

They made a U-turn in the middle of the street and drove slowly down the block after the policeman, parking frequently to wait and watch.

They saw the policeman visit two more newsstands. He picked up two more folded newspapers, dipped into two more hallways to remove their contents, then threw the newspapers away in trash baskets.

The trash baskets were bright orange with large black letters that read:

BAY CITY IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION MAYOR ROCCO NOBILE, STANDARD BEARER

While he was stopped at the curb, Remo saw a long black limousine pass them. The back windows were shrouded behind Venetian blinds.

"Not the kind of car you'd expect to find in this town," he said.

"It is the third such automobile that has passed us in the last hour," Chiun said.

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"Not the same car?"

"Not unless they keep changing those identification numbers on the front of it, just to confuse us."

"That's interesting," Remo said.

"If you say so," said Chiun.

As they drove from the curb and turned the corner, they saw the burly policeman walk into the storefront offices of the Bay City Improvement Association.

"That's interesting," Remo said.

"You find everything interesting today," Chiun said. "You are not going to try to become a detective again, are you?"

"No," said Remo. "I'm just doing what Smitty wants. Keeping an eye on the place. But I could've been a detective. I could've been a good one. I just didn't have any political connections so I could never get promoted to detective."

"Probably wise for the city of Newark," Chiun said.

"Oh, yeah?"

"Pfaaah," said Chiun.

"There's nothing wrong with being a detective," said Remo. "For instance, there's something funny going on here. That cop should've gone back to his precinct to turn in that money. If he's dropping it off here at a political headquarters, that means one of two things."

"And of course you will tell me what they are?"

"Yes, I will," Remo said. "One, it means that politicians, probably this Rocco Nobile, has got his hand in the numbers on an operational level, which is brazen. Two, it means that he's pretty sure he's safe because he hasn't busted the chain between the cop pickup man and himself. That's brazen too. He must figure he's got a tight lock on this town."

"Maybe he just wants everybody to know how powerful he is," Chiun said.

"That's ridiculous," Remo said. "Why would he want to do that?"

"I don't know. You're the detective," said Chiun. He had his fingers together in steeple fashion and was tapping the tips together in rhythmic patterns, first thumb to thumb, then index to index, and down to the little fingers; then offsetting the rhythms by ones, first thumb to index, and index to middle, and middle to ring, and ring to small finger, and small finger to thumb; and then skipping by twos, thumb to middle, index to small. It was a dexterity exercise he did only when he was bored.

Five minutes later, the burly policeman came out of the Bay City Improvement Association headquarters. Remo could tell from the flatness on the left front part of his uniform that he had dropped off his envelopes of money. The policeman walked casually down the street toward the riverfront. The street was a garish blend of neighborhood bars and disco joints and even in the morning, bright neon lights flickered on and off along the thoroughfare.

Another black limousine passed them and Remo decided to follow it. The Cadillac went down two blocks to River Street, the thoroughfare which ran the width of the city from pier to pier. It turned right and stopped, and Remo parked at the corner. The limo had stopped in front of an old loft building whose peeling paint faintly showed the-old legend: CHRISTINE'S SHIRT FACTORY.

Two green-and-white moving vans were in front of the building and using heavy pulleys, the workers were lifting heavy printing equipment and photo-static copiers up to a second-floor loft. Inside the building, Remo could hear the sounds of carpentry, hammering and electric saws.

The limousine disgorged from its back seat a medicine ball of a man in a pinstripe suit who nodded approvingly at the equipment moving in. He waved at the workmen to speed things up. As his hands moved through the morning sunlight, diamond rings glistened on his fingers. He looked like a dew-covered mushroom, shining at daybreak.

Remo nodded to himself and drove away. Two blocks farther down River Street, the scene was being repeated in front of another loft building. Movers, equipment, workmen refurbishing the building, another black limousine and another Mafia-type with pinky rings and pinstripe suit watching approvingly.

Four blocks farther north, the scene was repeated again.

"A lot of moving in for a town that's supposed to be on the skids," Remo said.

Chiun stopped doing his finger exercises. He looked at Remo, then glanced out the window at the litter that filled the streets. "Perhaps the world has suddenly discovered the charms of this beautiful American city."

Remo grunted and turned the rented car away from the waterfront, back toward their motel in Jersey City. He dropped Chiun off at their rooms, then drove back to the honky-tonk block in Bay City where the Rocco Nobile Improvement Association was headquartered.

Remo parked and walked casually up the street, turning into the doorway of the Roaring Twenties Lounge. One portion of its front window was un-painted, in the form of a heart. Inside the cutout were fly-specked pictures of female impersonators who appeared in the club's show every Saturday night. The pictures were yellowed with age and the corners were pulling away from the red velvet back on which they had been taped.

Inside, Remo stepped to the dark bar and ordered a Scotch on the rocks with a glass of water side.

He paid a dollar fifty from a five-dollar bill and when he got his change, tried to sip the water. The water in Bay City came from the Jersey City water system, pumped through century-old pipes that leaked out water and sucked up dirt. The water tasted as if it had been filtered through used kitty litter.