Warren Murphy - Syndication Rites

When Remo's foot swung away, it was trailed by Angelo Tanaro's esophagus. Ghastly and elongated, it splattered against the office wall like a slippery red snake.

The gangster fell to his knees, clutching the dimesize hole in his throat. Remo finished him off with a pulverizing heel to the forehead.

"There," Remo announced, spinning to the Master of Sinanju. "No mess to slip on. Nice and neat."

"Stop your childish prattling," Chiun insisted from across the room. He sounded distracted.

When Remo saw what his teacher was up to, he rolled his eyes. "Oh, not again," he exhaled. There was a large paper shredder in the corner of the office. The Master of Sinanju stood beside it, a puzzled expression on his face. As he studied the device, he stroked his thread of beard thoughtfully. Kneeling on the floor at his feet was Fondi Bisol. The gangster's hands had been crushed flat and stuffed into the paper slot.

"God, please, no," Fondi wept.

"Can we speed this up, Little Father?" Remo complained, coming up beside the old man.

"I cannot find the On switch," Chiun frowned.

"It's broke," Fondi blubbered. Tears rolled down his dark cheeks.

"You stay out of this," Remo warned. "Chiun, let's go."

A deeply displeased expression took root on the Master of Sinanju's wrinkled face. His scowling eyes darted to the four corners of the room. They lingered for a moment on the idle coffeemaker before he shook his aged head.

"Pah!" the old Korean snapped.

His hands became vengeful blurs. Daggerlike nails hummed through muscle and bone. A final scream from Fondi Bisol died to a croak in his throat.

When Chiun stepped away from the body a moment later, Fondi lay in tattered strips on the floor. His severed arms hung slack from the mouth of the paper shredder.

"And the fates conspire to rob yet another spark of pleasure from a kindly old man's life," Chiun said, glowering at the remains.

Remo nodded agreement. "Let's get going," he said. "We've still got miles to go before we sleep." Chiun didn't argue. Leaving the bodies where they lay, the two men slipped from the office and out into the mild New Orleans night.

Chapter 30

"When did they hit New Orleans?"

"Coupla hours ago, Don Anselmo. Took out everybody. It was a big mess, what I hear." Anselmo Scubisci couldn't even remember who was in New Orleans. He thought maybe Tommy Guns was there.

Not that it mattered. Whoever was there was dead. Four offices had been hit so far, all around the country. There were only three left.

In more optimistic times, Don Scubisci would have considered the remaining Raffair offices to be three more chances to stop the enemies who were out to destroy him. But hope had fled when he heard what happened in Chicago.

According to his mother, the men who were doing all this were coming after him. For now, his greatest hope was that they'd continue jumping from state to state. The longer they spent going after the individual Raffair offices, the more time they gave him.

"I talked to Skins Moletti just like youse asked, Don Anselmo, sir," said the deeply reverent voice on the phone.

Holy Pauli Pavulla still sounded awed to be speaking personally to the legendary Manhattan Don.

The first phone call the day before had stunned him. Pauli had been pretty much shunned by everyone else in the Scubisci Family ever since the Miracle of the Cheerios. He thought they'd only come around once he heard back from the Vatican. But then, whammo! From out of the blue, a call from Don Anselmo Scubisci himself.

Such an important event was this in Pauli Pavulla's life that the letters and photographs he'd sent off to St. Peter's months ago were forgotten. After all, the Pope was all well and good, but Don Scubisci was the capo of them all. Pauli might be called crazy as much as he was holy, but even he knew which ring to kiss first.

"You tell Skins to get moving faster," the Don ordered. The more nervous he got, the more he rasped. "The way they're moving, there's not much time left."

"Sure thing, Don Anselmo. He says he can be ready for eleven tomorrow morning."

"Six," Don Anselmo insisted.

"Uh, Skins says there's a lot to do," Holy Pauli said.

"Tell him to get it done!" Don Scubisci snapped. His angry words echoed through the dark prison. Somewhere distant, a sleepy voice yelled for quiet. Don Scubisci huddled farther into the phone. He had bribed a guard for these phone privileges. Of all times, he didn't want to have them revoked now. "What did he think all that money was for?" Anselmo whispered sharply. "For this. Now you tell him to get it done, or I swear on my mother's eyes it'll be the last thing he doesn't do."

Holy Pauli gulped. "I'll let him know, Don Anselmo," he vowed.

"And you don't stop off at church first, Pauli," Scubisci warned. "You call Skins as soon as you hang up from me. Six o'clock sharp. I don't care how it gets done. You screw up on this, you join Skins, capisce?"

"Yes, sir, Don Anselmo, sir," Pauli promised. "But don't worry so much. Ain't the Gabinetto brothers down in Miami?"

Don Scubisci thought of the four hulking Gabinettos. They were throwbacks to some early stage of man. At any other time, Don Anselmo Scubisci wouldn't have questioned the outcome of a contest involving the Gabinettos. Now he only hoped they lasted long enough to buy him the time he needed.

"I'll call back in an hour," he said, his voice flat.

"Don Anselmo?" Holy Pauli asked before the Mafia leader could hang up.

"What?"

"Youse want I should say a prayer for you, Don Anselmo?" Holy Pauli offered hopefully. Anselmo Scubisci pictured Pauli Pavulla kneeling at his kitchen table, a dozen flickering votive candles arranged around a bowl of curdled milk and Cap'n Crunch. Eyes already dead, he hung up the phone.

Chapter 31

General Rolando Rodriguez of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria had parked his great People's Combat Wagon in front of the darkened Raffair office. The PCW was an '88 Ford station wagon he'd borrowed from his brother-in-law, Alberto, a Puerto Rican exile living here in Miami.

His nervous sweat fogged the car's windows. He was forced to clean away the dew periodically with a grimy T-shirt he'd found on the floor in the back.

After the disaster at MIR headquarters back in San Juan earlier in the week, Rodriguez had been bumped from corporal to general. It was a battlefield promotion he was afraid he'd never live to enjoy. After his multiple failures to eliminate the man who had decimated MIR's ranks, he had but one chance left to succeed. Otherwise, she would have her revenge against Rodriguez himself. The general suspected he'd only lasted this long because she was distracted by other matters these past few days.

Their numbers were far fewer now. The men from the first attacks in New York and Boston were dead. The later assault near Raffair headquarters on Mott Street had resulted in the first MIA soldier in the history of the revolutionary organization. After that soldier was gone, there weren't many left. Which was why the general himself had been forced to lead the last of his troops on this final campaign.

Rodriguez checked his watch. They should be in place by now. If the men he was after showed themselves here-and according to the information she had supplied, they would-the brave soldiers of MIR would be ready for them.

The window had fogged up again. Grabbing the torn Jennifer Lopez T-shirt, General Rodriguez wiped himself a squeaky tactical display field on the front windshield of Detroit's finest People's Combat Wagon.

"HE STILL THERE?" the gruff voice demanded.

"Yeah," said another from the shadows beside the office window. "He's wipin' off the window again."

Inside the Miami Raffair office, the three men were piled against the shadow-drenched wall. Thanks to Holy Pauli, they'd already gotten the word out of New Orleans. With another three Scubisci soldiers dead, the Gabinetto brothers were taking no chances.