Warren Murphy: Killer Watts

"Dammit, what did you do that for?" he complained.

"I had my orders," Ennio sneered, the words a challenge.

"So did I," Remo protested. "Did you even stop to think-did you even care that someone other than you might have had orders, too?"

"..."

"This is just swell," Remo continued, unmindful of Ennio's dumb expression. "That's Hy Solomon, I presume. Or was."

Ennio had actually begun to feel guilty for a moment. He shook away the sensation.

"Hey, it ain't my fault. I was just doin' like I was told, dat's all." He crossed his arms defiantly, but his gun got in the way. He remembered why he had the gun in the first place and pointed it at Remo.

Remo frowned. "Dammit, dammit, dammit!" he snapped.

His instructions from Upstairs had been explicit. No fuss. Few deaths. Solomon alive. So far, he had a major fuss, bodies up to his armpits and one dead Mob accountant.

"My boss wanted me to get him out alive," Remo griped as he stared angrily at the corpse.

"He was the top accountant or something for the whole Patriconne crime family. He could have brought down everyone in Rhode Island."

"My boss told me I should kill him for the same reason," Ennio replied. "Only if there was trouble," he added.

Remo looked at him, face puckering angrily. "How much do you know?" he demanded. Ennio suddenly appeared horrified.

"I don't know nuthin'," he admitted.

"You'd better get an education fast," Remo warned. "Because you're going to turn state's evidence."

"No way," Ennio insisted. "I do what I'm told and I don't rat out nobody. Ain't you never heard of omerta?"

As he spoke, he waggled a finger at Remo. It rattled. Remembering his gun once more, he again aimed it at Remo.

Remo wasn't up for an argument. Things had gone horribly wrong on this assignment. He had no choice but to improvise.

He plucked the gun away. Ennio was left grasping at air. Grabbing Ennio by the scruff of the neck, Remo dragged the big man back up to the roof, where he dropped the thug to his back. He pressed a foot against Ennio's chest to keep him from scurrying away. As the mafioso wiggled beneath his loafer, Remo reached over the building's side and pulled up the nearest section of wire he'd severed.

Remo lashed the wire around one of Ennio's fat ankles. He rolled the man to the edge of the building. Remo paused, holding the man in place at the edge of the precipice. The soft wind toyed at the gangster's dark hair.

"One last chance," Remo offered. "Testify or fly."

Ennio looked at Remo. He glanced down at the darkness below. His breathing was ragged. Sweat glistened across his face, accompanied by a nervous reddish rash.

"Screw you," Ennio panted.

Remo shrugged. "Bombs away."

He gave Ennio's belly what seemed like a gentle push. The Mob killer rocketed out into the alley like a startled pigeon.

He hung there impossibly for a moment, suspended in air directly across from Remo. All at once the bottom seemed to drop out from beneath him. He dropped.

Ennio fell only two stories before the wire dug into his ankle.

"Ouch! Ouch! Son of a bitch! Ouch! Dammit!" His head bounced half a dozen times against the wall.

Above, Remo leaned his chin on one hand. He jiggled the wire, causing the mobster's thick head to bounce a few extra times. In all, he was suspended above the alley for no more than sixty seconds. But they were the most horrifying sixty seconds of Ennio's life. He was upside down. Blood rushing to his head. Swinging, bouncing. Six stories of nothing between him and the too-solid alley far below.

When Remo dragged him up over the edge of the building a minute later, the Mafia killer looked to be coated in sweat. Much of what seemed like perspiration was actually the wetness of his released bladder, which had run up and around his greasy hair while he was dangling in space.

"Enjoy your flight?" Remo asked sweetly as he dumped Ennio back to the rooftop.

"Oh, man... Oh, man..." Ennio panted. On hands and knees, he attempted to kiss the roof's surface. Something was in the way. He kissed anyway.

"Get off my shoes, you idiot," Remo complained, kicking Ennio away from his loafers. "Change your mind?"

Crawling, the gangster peered into the terrifyingly deep shadows of the alley. When he looked back into Remo's eyes, he saw that they were far darker and much more menacing.

"Shit, yeah," Ennio gasped. Still on his knees, he nodded so hard gravel from the roof became embedded in his chin.

"Good," Remo said. "I'm holding you to that. Remember. You go back on your word-" he pointed to the space between the buildings "-next flight you take is one-way."

As Ennio Ticardi began vomiting his last meal onto the surface of the roof, Remo slipped back over the side. He was gone before the first spurt of linguine hit the cold black tar.

Chapter 3

Chiun, Reigning Master of the House of Sinanju, awesome custodian of five thousand years of accumulated secrets of the most feared and respected assassins ever to tread the dirt of the earth, was content.

It was a feeling with which he had little experience. Chiun savored the rare sensation.

He was a wizened Asian with skin like ancient parchment. A brilliant gold brocade kimono decorated his frail frame. Two white-turning-to-yellow tufts of hair clung in impossibly delicate clusters to the taut tan skin above each ear. A third thread of hair jutted from his bony jaw. The wisp of hair at his chin quivered as the old Korean repeated the lines of his favorite Ung poem.

"'0 spider spinning web, in strands. O insect snared, flutter flitter. Spider, insect.

Insect, spider.

Consume in Nature's endless Beauty Cycle.'"

A single, perfect tear appeared at the corner of one deceptively young hazel eye as the Master of Sinanju pictured the spider twirling endlessly in its web of Life. The tear rolled down his parchment cheek as he continued to repeat these same lines over and over. In the best Ung, whole sections were repeated as many as six thousand times in order to achieve the desired result of perfect unity between poem and soul. Chiun was on his four thousand and fifty-first repetition of this same beautiful verse.

As he recited, suffused in the beauty of the words intoned, the front door of his condominium opened.

"Chiun, I'm back!"

Remo. In a state of bliss, the Master of Sinanju ignored his pupil's braying voice.

...... insect snared, flutter flitter......

A moment later, Remo stuck his head around the door. He was puzzled to see Chiun sitting immobile on his reed mat in the center of the livingroom floor. "Didn't you hear me?" he asked, stepping into the room. "I'm home."

Chiun did not look his way. He continued reciting his poetry undaunted.

"Are you crying?" Remo asked, suddenly worried. When Chiun still didn't respond, Remo listened for a moment. The light finally dawned. "Pee-yew," he said once he'd caught a few words.

"I'd cry, too, if I had to listen to that Ung crapola. What are you up to, the millionth verse?"

"'...Nature's endless Beauty Cycle.' Visigoth!" The last word didn't seem to be part of the poem. Remo had heard the spider poem more times than he cared to remember and he didn't once remember any references to Visigoths. He asked Chiun about this.

" '.. . spider spinning, web in strands.' Heathen!

'O insect snared, flutter flitter.' Vulgarian!

'Spider, insect,' barbarian!

'Insect, spider,' oaf!

Hater of beauty who ruins even the most elegant of lyrics with his fat, stomping white feet and his stupid, loudmouthed, loutish interruptions!"

Picking himself up on bony knuckles, Chiun spun away from Remo. He dropped back down facing away from his pupil. Staring at the wall, the old Korean continued to recite his poem.