Warren Murphy: Blood Ties

"The Dynacar doesn't run on garbage," Remo said. "It is garbage."

"You might say that," Lavallette said.

"You know what else you might say?" Remo said.

"What's that?" asked Lavallette.

"You might say good-bye," Remo said. He took the man's elegantly coiffed head between his hands and shook. Contact lenses flew out of his eyes. False teeth popped from his mouth. His corset snapped and ripped through his shirt in an explosion of elastic.

For only a moment it hurt and then Lyle Lavallette felt nothing else. Remo dropped the unmoving body beside the stripped prototype of the Dynacar and walked away.

"It is done. You have avenged yourself and Sinanju," Chiun called after him.

Remo said nothing. The set of his shoulders told the Master of Sinanju that his pupil was hurting very much inside.

Chiun walked in the other direction. Remo needed to be alone now and his teacher respected that need.

Before either man had gotten a hundred feet from the car, a gang of teenagers came out of the weeds along the roadside and began stripping the car's seatcovers and mirrors and chrome.

An hour later, there would be nothing left but Lavallette's body.

One thing had led to another and the President had not been able to call Smith and now, while waiting to greet this week's ambassador from Zimbabwe, the President was handed a note by an aide.

He looked at it, bolted from the room, and ran to his bedroom, where he picked up the special phone.

"Yes, Mr. President," the dry unflappable voice of Harold Smith answered.

"Now Lavallette is dead," the President said.

"I know, sir. My people did it."

"Your people are out of control. I'm ordering you to-"

"No, sir," Smith interrupted. "I just spoke to my people, the older one. He informed me that Lavallette himself was behind all the shootings. The actual killer is dead too. And the Dynacar is a fake."

"The garbage-powered car is a fake?" the President said.

"It's a complicated story, Mr. President, but that's the bottom line. It was a fake through and through. I'll be getting you a full report. Just a few loose ends left."

"Smith, I have just one question for you."

"Yes, sir?"

"Are you in full control of your people?"

"Yes, Mr. President. CURE is fully operational."

"That's all I need to know. You came very close this time, Smith. I want you to know that."

"I know it, Mr. President. Will there be anything else?"

"Not from me. I think I need a nap. Let Zimbabwe wait."

"Very good, sir," Smith said as the President hung up. Smith returned to his computer terminal. There were only a few loose ends, but for CURE to be back to normal, they had to be resolved. It was almost dark before the answers came.

Chapter 29

Smith and Chiun waited in darkness for Remo to arrive. A brisk wind scattered the red and gold leaves in the graveyard like tiny dead things come to elfin life. Somewhere, an owl made a lonely sound. Remo came up the cemetery walk with a padding silence that made him seem more at home in these surroundings than anywhere else, Smith thought grimly.

"You're late," said Smith.

"So what?" Remo said.

"He is still hurting," whispered Chiun to Smith. "Do not heed his rudeness, Emperor. All will be set right when you give Remo the good news."

"What good news?" asked Remo.

Smith extracted a folder from his briefcase.

"I asked you to meet me here because this is where the whole thing began, Remo. At your grave."

For the first time, Remo noticed the gravestone with his name on it.

"So this is what it looks like. It's not much, Smitty. You could have sprung for an angel on the top."

"It served its purpose," Smith said. "A woman was murdered on this spot a few days ago when she was laying flowers on a grave. The flowers fell on your grave, Remo."

"My grave? Who was she?"

"My research has finally pieced the puzzle together. I was thrown off by the fact that the flowers fell on your grave and that the man who killed the woman, according to ballistics reports, was the same man who was doing the killing in Detroit."

"Who was she?" Remo asked again.

Smith pulled out a sheet of paper and a photograph. "Her name was Maria DeFuria. She was the former wife of a Mafia hit man named Gesualdo DeFuria, a professional well-known for his use of a Beretta Olympic target pistol."

"What does this have to do with me?"

"The emperor is explaining," Chiun said.

"Gesualdo DeFuria was the man you thought was your father, Remo. He was not your father."

"Prove it."

"Here is a copy of a note found at Maria DeFuria's house. You may read it but let me summarize. The note explains that the woman had discovered that her ex-husband had trained their son, Angelo, to follow in the father's profession. But during a team hit, the son was caught and convicted of a murder. In fact, the father was the real murderer and the son only an accomplice in training. Because of the Mafia's code of silence, the son kept quiet and was executed for the crime."

He pointed behind Remo. "They buried him here, in the family plot, next to your own grave."

Remo read the name DeFuria on the stone next to his own.

"You mean the guy buried next to me was executed for a crime he didn't commit, just like I was?" Remo asked.

"A strange coincidence but Wildwood isn't exactly Arlington National Cemetery," Smith said. "This is near Newark after all. Let me finish the story. DeFuria attempted to reconcile with his wife and the truth slipped out about the son's innocence. Maria decided to go to the police with her information. We can only assume the rest. On her way, she stopped to put flowers on her son's grave. DeFuria followed her here. They argued and he shot her and the flowers fell onto your grave."

"But he called himself Remo Williams," Remo protested.

"He had killed his ex-wife and had to leave town. Even the Mafia doesn't like that kind of killing. He knew he was going to need a new name so he picked the one off the headstone where his wife fell. Your name, Remo. If the flowers had fallen on the grave on the other side of yours, he probably would have called himself D. Colt."

"He had all kinds of ID," Remo said.

"Nowadays, if you have a few dollars, you can buy any kind of identification," Smith said.

"But there was a family resemblance," Remo said. "Around the eyes."

"A resemblance," Smith admitted, "but not a family one. You were both in essentially the same business. Too many deaths mark a person. I think you could call it a professional resemblance, not a family one." He paused. "Don't let your feelings cloud your judgment, Remo," he said.

"It is the lesson of the Master Shang," Chiun said.

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't tell me you have forgotten, Remo," said Chiun. "Master Shang, he of the moon rock. I told you that legend."

"Yeah, I remember. What about it?"

"The lesson of the Master Shang lies in this stone which Shang believed he took from the mountains of the moon." Chiun produced the grayish stone from the folds of his kimono. "See?"

"I thought you believed that story," Remo said suspiciously.

"Do you take me for an idiot?" Chiun said. "Any fool knows you cannot walk to the moon. Master Shang should have known that too. But he so desired the Chinese tart that he deluded himself into thinking he could walk to the moon to hold her love. That is the real lesson of the Master Shang. Do not desire something too much, for wishful thinking impairs the sight and not all things are as they appear. You, Remo, deluded yourself into believing that wretch was your father, because you wanted a father so badly. It did not matter to you if he was real."

"Are you trying to tell me that you knew all along that he wasn't my father?" Remo demanded.