Warren Murphy - Mob Psychology

One hand-the left-was clutching a black plastic box.

"That's it," breathed the Maggot.

" I know that's it," hissed Nicky. "Now shaddup and let me do all the talkin'. Okay," he said, lifting his voice. "Let's swap. "

The Jap advanced. As he loomed larger and larger in the light, seeming to make no sound as he moved toward them, Nicky Kix lifted the envelope with one hand and reached out with the other to accept the all-important disk.

"When I've got the disk," he hissed to the Maggot, "you shoot him. In the stomach, not the head."

"I thought the head was better," the Maggot breathed back, beads of dirty sweat popping up on his shiny forehead.

Nicky Kix was speaking through clenched teeth so it would look as if he were smiling.

"It is," he said. "If you wanna clip a guy right off. I just want him down so I can kick the shit out of him while he's squirming and bleeding."

"Okay," said the Maggot, swallowing hard.

The old Jap was now less that five feet away. Then four. Three.

He stopped with less than two feet separating him from the outstretched money envelope. The hard disk came up into the moonlight. Nicky Kix laid blunt fingers on it as longnailed fingers simultaneously snatched away the envelope.

To cover for what was about to happen, Nicky Kix said, "You don't need to count it. It's all there."

"You are Romans," said the old Jap. "I need to count it."

And to Nicky Kix's astonishment, the old Jap blatantly ignored underworld etiquette and riffled through the money.

"Now!" he hissed to the Maggot. "He's gonna catch on. Now!"

"But," said the Maggot, his eyes fear-sick, "I forgot to bring a gun."

That was all Nicky Kix needed to hear. He went for his own weapon.

It was a silenced .22 Beretta. He brought it out of a worn shoulder holster. He was going to put one in the old Jap's stomach and then kick him around the yard as Don Carmine had sanctioned.

Nicky Kix made the gun level with his belt, putting the barrel in line with the old Jap's stomach. As he began to caress the trigger, the old Jap's head came up angrily, his dark eyes flashing. He had discovered the newsprint. Too late now, you old riceball, Nicky thought savagely.

Nicky Kix pulled the trigger.

The resulting scream of terror was bloodcurdling.

A wolfish grin started to warp Nicky Kix's face. Until he realized that the scream had come not from in front of him, but to his immediate right. He looked right.

Vinnie (The Maggot) Maggiotto was doubled over on his feet, clutching his paunchy stomach. He was squirming and stamping his feet and making incomplete footprints in the blood that was dribbling down his pant legs to the ground. Then he fell over and began to kick and writhe like his hairless namesake.

Nicky Kix looked down. He saw that his .22 was pointed in a different direction than his brain had thought it was. A long-nailed hand had redirected it with such suddenness that Nicky never felt his own hand move.

Nicky Kix took a quick step backward, the .22 sliding from the light redirecting touch of the old Jap. He brought the muzzle back in line. And fired.

The old Jap twisted on one foot, the other suddenly stamping down in a different place.

Nicky knew he had missed only because his wayward bullet had struck a silvery spark at a fencepost behind the wily old Jap. He tried again.

The old Jap was quicker. He spun, feinted, and ducked.

Nicky thought he had followed every wily move. He was sure he had a solid bead when he drew back on the trigger. He felt the recoil, heard the dry pop of the cartridge separating, and was rewarded with the sound and spark of a slug ricocheting off the idle nibbler machine.

"You have what you want, cheater," intoned the old man. "Go now and I will let you live."

"Screw you," said Nicky, going for a lucky third shot.

He never got a chance to fire again.

From behind the nibbler a tall lean shape plunged.

Nicky Kix didn't stick around to figure out who this new guy was. He might be packing. And Nicky remembered that his job was first and foremost to get the hard-on disk to Don Carmine.

He jumped for the open door of his idling Dodge. Without closing it, he sent the car screeching into reverse, out the gate, and around and into traffic.

He floored the gas pedal, remembering to close the driver's side door only after he was on Route One.

Back at the Bartilucci Construction Company, Remo Williams watched the Dodge back out of the yard as if chased by a junkyard dog.

"Are you okay, Little Father?" he asked anxiously.

"Why do you ask?" said Chiun, stepping up to the squirming figure of the Maggot.

"I heard shots."

"They became excited," said Chiun, resting a sandal on the twisting head of the Maggot. "And are you not forgetting your duty? You must follow that one."

"I will, I will," Remo said impatiently. "I just wanted to be sure you were all right."

"Of course I am all right," said Chiun harshly, bringing down his foot. The Maggot made a cracking sound with his head and a kind of lamb's bleat with his last breath. A yellowish-red squirt of combined blood and brains jumped from each ear. "I am the Reigning Master of Sinanju. Not some doddering ancient."

"Okay, okay, I just wanted to be sure." Remo started off. He turned suddenly. "You'll be okay until I get back?"

"Be off, callow youth!"

Reluctance in every movement, Remo melted into the darkness.

Out on the street, Remo shook off his lack of resolve. He ran up onto the curving on-ramp and into the humming night traffic of Route One. He knew the fleeing car had to be going south, so he ran south.

Legs pumping, he seemed to float along the breakdown lane. Cars whizzed by, their headlights warming the back of his neck, practically his only exposed piece of skin.

Remo was wearing his silk suit and it was hampering every movement. Still, as he settled into a rhythm, he began to pick up speed. Soon the cars were no longer whizzing by. Remo was zipping past them. His eyes were peeled for the Dodge. He would recognize it from its plate.

A mile clicked by. Remo's hair was flying back, the wind in his face. His new face. No, strike that, he thought. His old face. His first face. He was feeling good. He was running at optimum speed and it was just a matter of trailing the thug's car to its destination.

Except for the Boston traffic, it would have worked.

Remo had gone less than three miles when he realized the occasional speeders and lane cutters were not the exception but the rule.

"They're maniacs up here," Remo growled as he was forced to enter the thick of traffic when a Porsche barreled up the breakdown lane as if it were marked off for his personal convenience.

"Screw this," Remo decided. Three cars behind the Dodge, he picked a flat-roofed yellow-and-silver MBTA bus and maneuvered behind it.

His breathing lowered to keep out noxious exhaust fumes, Remo matched the bus's lumbering speed, only a few inches behind the rear bumper.

When he knew the timing was right, he jumped.

Except for the fact that this was a highway, he might have been a kid back in Newark hitching a ride to the back of a trundling bus. Except Remo didn't stay on the bumper. He went right up the back to the roof.

Up there he stood braced on both feet, like a surfer negotiating the swells. The bus ran smoothly, and Remo had a good view of the Dodge. He grinned. This was going to be a piece of cake.

And because he was standing up in full view, he saw the Dodge take the Melrose exit simply by cutting in front of two lanes of traffic.

Over a dozen cars slammed on their brakes at the same time. Including the bus Remo was straddling.

Amid a cacophony of crumpling fenders and shattering safety glass, Remo was thrown off the bus roof as if pitched from a bucking bronco.