Warren Murphy - Missing Link

Before she could ask another question, Remo had jumped feet first through the open window. She expected to hear the scream of a falling man, but there was no scream, only silence. And something prevented her from going to the window to look out.

Instead, she got up out of the bed quickly, turned on a light and began to toss her few clothes into her overnight bag. She had given up the name of Earl Slimone, but she was still far ahead of Remo. She could clean the assignment up and be gone, before he ever caught up to her again.

She stopped for a moment in the middle of her packing. There was something else she could do that would buy time too.

She looked up a number in the Boston telephone directory and dialed it.

"Hello, is this Mr. Slimone's home? You don't know me, but I just want you to know that some-

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one is planning to attack Mr. Slimone tonight at his home."

She paused and listened.

"That's right," she said. "His home in Boston. The man will be there soon. His name is Remo."

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Remo called Smith from an outside phone booth in Copley Square.

"Have you found the woman?" Smith asked.

"Yes," Remo said. "Don't worry about her. Who is Earl Slimone?"

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "What about Earl Slimone?" Smith asked.

"That's who she was on her way up here to see," Remo said.

Chiun appeared outside the booth. He motioned to Remo that he should jog up and down while talking to Smith. Remo shook his head. Chiun jogged up and down in place, to demonstrate.

"I'm damned if I'm going to be hopping up and down in a telephone booth," Remo said. Chiun shrugged. Smith said, "Who asked you to hop up and down in a phone booth?"

"Forget it," Remo said. "What about Slimone?"

'That complicates everything," Smith said. "Slimone is a banker with mob connections. A federal grand jury was getting ready to investigate his role

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in financing the last presidential campaign. And . . . oh, no."

"What?" Remo asked.

"Another grand jury was looking into Billings and what he might have had to do with financing his brother-in-law's campaign."

"Then there's our connection," Remo said.

"It's worse than that," Smith said.

"Why?"

"Suppose that Billings was the conduit for mob money into the presidential campaign. And now Billings turns up missing. You see what it might mean?"

"No," Remo said.

"It might be the thing we feared. Maybe the president himself is behind the disappearance. Maybe Slimone didn't just kidnap Billings so he wouldn't talk—maybe the president ordered the kidnapping."

"Well, you worry about things hice that," Remo said. "All I want to do is track the guy down. Where's Slimone's place up here?"

He waited while Smith consulted CURE's computers, and then the agency head was back on the telephone with an address in the Back Bay section of Boston.

"Thanks, Smitty. I'll keep you posted."

Remo hung up and stepped outside the booth. Chiun said, "You will never amount to anything if you do not practice."

"Can it, Chiun. I've got other things on my mind."

"This Bobby Jobby Billings?" Chiun asked.

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"Bobby Jack. Yeah."

"Does he pay us our wages? Does he pay the small tribute that goes to my village?"

"No."

"Then who cares about him?" Chiun asked. "Really, Remo, you have to talk to Smith about the assignments he gives you. Using you to gallivant around the countryside looking for some noisy fat person is like using a surgeon's scalpel to cut firewood."

"A job's a job," Remo said. "It keeps me busy."

"And so does cutting firewood keep a scalpel busy. But when you need the scalpel for surgery, it does not perform well anymore."

"Are you saying I could be losing my edge?"

"You might be," Chiun said. "Now if you were to undergo a vigorous program of training and exercise, I could probably keep you in some kind of reasonable condition. It would be an effort, but I might be able to."

"Forget it."

"You could start with running in place," Chiun said.

"Never."

"Think about running in place," Chiun said.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

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T

"Where is his apartment?" Chiun asked as they stood across the street from the fourteen-story apartment building that housed Earl Slimone.

"Top floor, of course," Remo said.

"Of course," Chiun said. It was an oddity, he thought, that people believed that height gave them security. "We should go in through the top."

"I've been up and down a building already tonight," Remo said. "You're not going to wear down my tired body just so you can get your hands on my gold medals. Well go in the front door."

Inside the front door, they were met by a doorman. Remo noticed that he had a scar over his right eye and that he needed a shave.

"Can I help youse guys?" he said.

"Yes. We're calling on Earl Slimone," Remo said.

"At this hour?" the doorman said. He rubbed his bristly face with his hand.

"Well, obviously at this hour," Remo said. "Who do you think you're talking to? The ghosts of Christmas Past?"

"They expecting you?"

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"No, but I'm sure you'll straighten all that out," Remo said. .

The doorman seemed to think for a moment. "All right. You can go up. Use the center elevator." He pointed to a bank of elevators twenty feet down the hall.

Remo pressed the up button. The right elevator door opened. He and Chiun started to step inside but were halted by a shout from the doorman.

"I said use the middle one. That one don't go all the way upstairs."

"Okay," Remo said. He and Chiun waited, with the doorman standing behind them, for a full minute before the center elevator arrived.

The door opened and the doorman pushed them from behind. They allowed themselves to stumble into the elevator where they were faced by two more men, needing shaves but not needing guns. Each man carried a heavy .45 automatic in his hand.

"You Remo?" one of them asked.

"That's right."

"Good. We been waiting for you.™

Remo was surprised. Then he realized. Jessica Lester had blown the whistle on them. That was one he owed her.

"You going to kill us here?" Remo asked.

"No. We gonna talk to you upstairs and then kill you," one of the men said.

"Is Slimone here?" Remo asked.

"Naah, he ain't here."

"Where is he?"

"Hey, you ain't asking no questions around here. You're gonna be answering questions. You just

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don't come in here and start asking questions like that."

"Do you know where he is?" Remo said.

"No. Nobody tells us nothing."

Then we don't need you," Remo said. The elevator had risen" smoothly and quietly. It was slowing now as it reached the fourteenth floor penthouse. Without turning, Remo waved his hand behind him and the two automatics were knocked from the .men's hands and dropped onto the carpeted elevator floor. As the men scrambled down to pick them up, the elevator door opened. Chiun stepped outside and Remo hit the down button. He stepped out quickly. The two men had their guns in then-hands again and were raising them toward Remo. He kicked into the elevator with his right foot. Tap, tap. The guns were knocked loose again. Remo stepped outside and the elevator door closed behind him. The elevator started down.

He and Chiun waited a moment for the elevator to clear the floor. Using his fingers as chisels, Remo drove his hands into the opening between the two doors. He pulled the doors apart and held them open.

Chiun moved in alongside Remo and flashed out his left foot at the inch-thick steel cable on which the elevator rode. The cable shuddered, then threaded and snapped. Remo looked down at the roof of the elevator car as it began to plunge down the shaft. He heard the shouts of the men. He took his hands from the door and let them close quietly behind him.