Warren Murphy: Created, The Destroyer

"Three thousand..." Smith mused.

"Look," Remo said, trying to keep his voice from carrying outside the booth. "We've spent thousands and haven't penetrated that place yet. With just a crummy ring, I'm going to waltz in and you're bitching over a measly three grand?"

"Three grand isn't measly. Just a second, I want to check something. Tiffany's. Tiffany's. Tiffany's. Hmmmm. Yes, we can."

"What?"

"You'll have a charge account there when you arrive."

"No cash?"

"Do you want to get the ring today?"

"Yes."

"Do it by charge."

"And remember," Smith continued. "You've only got a couple of days left."

"Right," Remo said.

"And another thing. When engagements are broken, girls often give the ring back if they're..."

Remo hung up the phone and leaned back against the glass wall. He felt as if someone had drained his intestines.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

It was the first tune Remo had ever ridden across the George Washington Bridge in a taxi cab. When he was a youngster in St. Mary's Orphanage in Newark, he had never had the money. When he was a cop, he had never had the desire.

But just twelve minutes before on Fifth Avenue in New York City, he had hailed a cab and said "East Hudson, New Jersey."

The driver refused at first until he had seen the $50 bill. Then he shut up and drove cross-town to the West Side Drive and directly onto the bridge's new lower deck, which wags called the Martha Washington.

Cynthia kept staring at her 2.5 karat square-cut engagement ring, moving her taut long fingers back and forth like a slow, horizontal yo-yo, giving her eyes the reassurance at multiple ranges that she had fulfilled her prime objective in life—she had gotten her man.

Her normally scraggly hair was coiffured into a sweeping crest that rose slightly above her head, framing her finely chiselled features.

A hint of mascara hid her lack of sleep and seemed to give her a seductive maturity. She wore lipstick in a dark enough shade to be modest, yet feminine.

A ruffled blouse set off her long, graceful swan's neck. She wore a sophisticated brown tweed suit. Her legs, only adequate when bare, were made beautiful by dark nylons. She was dressed to the teeth, and she was beautiful.

She let her ring hand find Remo's palm and leaned against him, whispering in his ear. A delicate fragrance teased Remo's nostrils, as Cynthia said: "I love you. I lost my maidenness, but I won my man."

Then she glanced back at her diamond ring. Remo continued to stare at the approaching Palisades through the bridge's guide wires. A dull, ominous dusk without a hint of sun settled on the Jersey side of the Hudson.

"If you look hard, you can see it when it's sunny sometimes," Cynthia said.

"What?"

"Lamonica Towers. It's only twelve stories, but you can see it from the bridge sometimes." She clutched his hand like a possession.

"Darling?"

"Yes," Remo said.

"Why are your hands so rough? I mean that's a funny place to have callouses." She turned his hand over. "And on the fingertips too."

"I haven't always been a writer. I've had to work with my hands." He changed the subject quickly into small talk, but his mind wasn't on it. His thoughts were of three men under a tarpaulin in the back of a parked Cadillac in Pennsylvania. They were Felton's men, and if Felton knew they were dead, he would know that Remo had done it. Remo's best hope lay in the possibility that the bodies had not yet been found. His thoughts were interrupted by Cynthia exclaiming, "Isn't it beautiful?"

They were driving around a bumpy winding boulevard that rode the top edge of the Jersey Palisades. About a half-mile before them rose the twelve-story white Lamonica Towers.

"Well, isn't it?" Cynthia insisted.

Remo grunted. Beautiful? He had been operating less than a week and had already made enough mistakes to blow the whole operation. That beautiful building would probably be his tomb.

He had killed three men, impulsively, foolishly. Killed like a child with a new set of toys he had to use. Surprise, his most vital weapon, he had squandered. After MacCleary, Felton must have suspected someone would try to reach him through his daughter. He sent those three to protect against it. And Remo had killed them. Even if the bodies had not yet been found, the failure of the three men to report back to Felton might have already triggered his nervous warning system.

Remo should have taken the money from the three men and gone directly to Lamonica Towers with it, professing love for Cynthia and asking Felton if he had sent the three men. That would have been his entrance and Felton would not have been ready for an attack.

Remo looked left, into the dark mist settling over New York Harbour. Felton must have his defences set now. The minute Remo left Felton's daughter, even for a package of cigarettes in a store, Felton would be on him. A man who would so strenuously protect his daughter's hymen would not scar her memory with her suitor's blood. As long as he was with Cynthia, Remo was safe. But when he left...

"I love you too," Cynthia said.

"What?"

"You just squeezed my hand. And I said I love you too."

"Yes. Of course. I love you." Remo squeezed her soft hand again. If he could use Cynthia as a shield, right up until he got Felton alone, got him where he could get a lead to Maxwell, maybe he had a chance.

"Darling," Cynthia interrupted his thoughts.

"Yes."

"My hand. You're hurting it."

"Oh. Sorry, honey." Remo crossed his arms in front of his chest as he had seen Chiun do many times. He felt a thin smile capture his lips. Chiun had a saying for this situation, in his sing-song Oriental manner: "Poor situation is a situation of the mind. There are two sides and until the encounter is terminated, there is no such thing as a poor position to a man who can think for both sides."

It had seemed foolish when Chiun, his parchment face wrinkling slightly, had repeated it over and over. But now it made sense. If Felton could not kill him with Cynthia present, it was Felton who would be helpless, Remo who had the first move. And if he found it impossible to get Felton alone without henchmen protecting him, he could always ask for a father and son chat with Cynthia present. Remo could do it away from the Towers where the walls moved and no one could really be sure he was alone. And Cynthia might be able to support his request to keep Felton's servants and henchmen out of it.

Remo could suggest a dinner at a restaurant. Cynthia had a wild liking for eating out. Of course, as a witness, she would have to be eliminated. CURE disapproved of witnesses.

Remo suddenly noticed Cynthia was staring hard at him as if sensing something. He blanked his mind with metered breathing lest an emotional answer to a question he was sure would come would ruin everything. Chiun had once said: "Women and cows both sense rain and danger."

"You look so strange, darling," Cynthia said. Her voice had a chill edge to it. Her head was cocked as if seeing a new stroke in an old painting.

"Just nervous about meeting your father, I guess," Remo said, softly brushing her shoulder with his as he moved, dominating, close to her, keeping her blue eyes trapped in his stare. He kissed her and whispered, "No matter how it goes, I love you."

"Don't be silly," Cynthia said. "Daddy will just love you. He'll have to, when he sees how happy I am. I am happy. I feel beautiful and lovely and wanted. I never thought I'd feel this way ever."

Cynthia was wiping the lipstick smears from his lips when the cab stopped at Lamonica Towers.

"Well, honey, let's meet your father," Remo said.

"You'll love Daddy," Cynthia said. "He's really very understanding. Why, when I phoned from Philadelphia and told him he was going to meet his future son-in-law, he was really pleased. 'Bring him right over,' he said. 'I want to meet him very badly.' "