Warren Murphy - Total Recall

"No, not just yet, my friend. Shipping the drugs in the cars couldn't be going on at the plant without somebody in authority being in on it. Who is it?"

Wagner frowned and said, "All we needed was the foreman on the assembly line, and we bought him dirt cheap. They don't pay their workers all that much."

"Boffa."

"Right."

"Then he must have killed Louis Sterling."

"Right again."

A cool customer, that foreman, Remo thought. He must have just killed Sterling and then calmly shown Remo where the body was.

"And that's it?" Remo asked. "That's all you can tell me?"

"What else do you want to know?"

"Who makes the pickups at the other end of the car shipments?" Remo asked.

"That I don't know," Wagner said. "I only know the Detroit end of the business. Moorcock is the only one who knows the whole operation."

"Is that so?"

The cold look in the man's dark eyes sent a chill through Wagner's body, and he knew that he'd just signed his own death warrant unless he could talk his way out of it. "Of course, I could always find out for you," he said quickly. "I could go back to the church and—"

"Forget it, pal."

"No, really, I wouldn't mind—" Wagner stammered, but he could see that it was too late.

"I think it's time for you to join your friends."

"Up on the catwalk?"

"No," Remo said, reaching out for the man's throat. "In hell."

Chiun took Walter Sterling out the way they had come and met Remo in front of the warehouse.

"What about all those men?" Walter asked.

"They won't be coming out," Remo said.

"You killed them all?"

"They would have tried to kill us," Chiun said. "Do not feel sorry for them."

"What are we gonna do now? Go to the police?"

"Not yet," Remo said. "We're going to pay a visit to Mr. Moorcock, and then tomorrow we'll go to the plant and take care of the man who killed your father."

"You know who killed my father?"

"I do."

"Tell me."

"I'll show you… tomorrow, Walter."

They grabbed a cab and took it back to the hotel, where they put Walter Sterling to sleep on the couch.

"Want to go to church?" Remo asked.

"I have a suggestion," Chiun said.

"Let me have it if it's clean."

"Let us wait until morning before we go to the church."

"But that would give Moorcock time to get his shipment to the National Motors factory."

"Correct. We will take care of the factory under the church and then call the police to meet us at National Motors. By the time they arrive, we will have taken care of that too, and we will also have drugs to prove that we stopped a drug shipment."

"I like that," Remo said.

"It will be your job to stay in touch with Detective Palmer."

"Palmer? What for?"

Chiun made a face. "Someone must clean up," he said.

"Hasn't Donald returned yet?" Moorcock asked the man who was standing by the basement door.

"No, sir."

"Has he called?"

"No, sir."

"Donald is supposed to take the shipment over to Boffa at the plant in the morning."

"I can do that, sir. Or one of the others."

"It's Donald's job," Moorcock said with a worried frown. "Something's gone wrong with his meeting with that black dealer. Did he say where the meeting was to take place?"

The other man looked confused because he assumed that Moorcock would know that, and said, "Uh, no, sir, he didn't tell me."

"I suppose I should have paid more attention…. All right, Samuel, I guess if Donald doesn't return, you will have to make the trip to the plant."

"Yes, sir, I will."

"And if Donald doesn't return by tomorrow, I think that some of our men will have to pay a visit to Danny Lincoln and find out why. If he has betrayed us, someone will have to make him pay."

"I'd be happy to do it," the man said.

"And if tragedy has befallen Donald, I will need a good man to take his place."

"Yes, sir!"

"Perhaps you would be able to help me find one, Samuel. We will discuss it," Moorcock said, and then started upstairs.

If Samuel hadn't known from personal experience that the minister had no sense of humor, he would have thought that Moorcock was putting him on.

He wished he were.

Upstairs, Moorcock started making plans to abandon the operation and get away with as much cash as he could. Something had gone wrong, of that he was sure, and it was obviously time to regroup. He could set up operations in another city easily enough, utilizing his contacts once again. This was by no means the end, but it was the end in Detroit. There were a lot of men in his employ, however, who were waiting for their payoff, and he was hoping that he could get away before any of them caught on.

So the decision was made. Tomorrow was his last day in Detroit.

Before turning in for the night, Remo and Chiun briefly went over their plans for the following day.

The next day was Friday, and according to what Walter Sterling had told them, on Friday the Church of Modern-day Beliefs held services in the morning and in the evening.

"The church will be full of people tomorrow morning, then," Chiun said.

"We could wait until the afternoon," Remo said.

"Then we run the risk of not being able to stop the shipment from leaving the automobile factory."

"That's right," Remo said.

"Then we will just have to stay with our original plan."

"Hit the church in the morning, and the plant in the afternoon," Remo said.

"Yes. We will have to try to make sure that no innocent people are hurt at the church—"

"—especially children," Remo finished before Chiun could.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Remo, Chiun, and Walter stood across the street from Moorcock's church as the Friday morning worshipers filed in.

"I don't understand the appeal of Moorcock's new religion," Remo said to Walter.

"My mother always said that it was an alternative," Walter said.

"And your father?"

Walter grinned and said, "My father always said it was a bunch of shit. Boy, if he only knew that we were really working for the minister. He was right, the religion shit was just a bunch of shit."

"Maybe not," Remo said. "I saw people dropping money in those urns he calls collection plates. I think maybe that's how he first financed his drug deals. From the looks of his church, he sure never used the money to make improvements."

"He said that the money would not be spent on commercial things but on intangibles."

"What was that supposed to mean?"

Walter shrugged and said, "Nobody ever asked him."

"He's got a mesmerizing manner, all right," Remo said. "His voice, his eyes— he's probably able to get people to listen to whatever he says, without question."

"People are sheep," Chiun said.

"He knows how to play to people, that's all. That's what every fire-and-brimstone preacher has always been able to do."

"You sound like you admire him," Walter said.

"Not at all, Walter. I just recognize what he is."

"If he had been satisfied with being a minister, none of this would be necessary," Chiun said, "but he used his ability to influence people to go too far. He has caused the death of children such as yourself, and he must be punished."

"I'm not a child."

"Believe me, kid," Remo said, "to Chiun you're a child."

The last person seemed to have entered the church, and they were about to step from cover to cross the street when Walter Sterling pulled them back.

"Oh, no!" he said.

"What's the matter?" Remo asked.

"That woman walking down the block toward the church." the kid said.

"What about her?" Remo asked.

"It's my mother."

"Your mother?"

"If she goes in— I didn't know she attended Friday services. What you and Chiun are planning…"

"Let's see if she goes in," Remo said.