Warren Murphy - Murder Ward

"Well, take a look then. Come on out and look."

"I know without looking. Whatever those bodyguards used to look for is not there."

"How do you know that?"

"Remember the men at the bottom of the elevator shaft?"

"Don't remind me of that."

"Well, their eyes weren't slanted."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that your engine is as safe now as it is ever going to be. C'mon, shut the trunk, and let's take a look at your house."

On the way to the Wilberforce home, a seven-room white Colonial with green shutters and an infinitesimal lawn now occupied by a strip of gray Scranton snow, Wilberforce wanted to know from his new employee what he had meant by the men's eyes and how he got into the car when the door was locked.

"The lock doesn't work," said Remo. And this was slightly honest because the lock no longer did work, now that Remo had broken it.

"Now about the eyes?"

"It has to do with multiple attacks as opposed to singular, which allow defensive reaction time. The men were Western and therefore singular."

"I see. That explains it," said Wilberforce. He had spent eighteen years working for the government and had become expert at appearing to understand things.

Mrs. Wilberforce took one look at her son's companion, standing there in the snow without an overcoat, and asked Nathan David where he had met this person.

"Sort of an employee, Mummy. He's making a study of my department in an effort to determine why we do things so well."

"He does things well," said Mrs. Wilberforce, looking down at Remo, "because he was brought up well. If everyone were brought up well, this country would work well."

"May I come in?" asked Remo, skirting the massive person in front of him.

"You there," barked Mrs. Wilberforce. "You did not have permission to enter. Go back to the doorway."

Remo checked the living room, an overly neat expanse of overstuffed furniture, unworn old rugs, ugly ceramic lamps and doodads.

"I said, out of my house until you have permission. You there, you're not listening to me."

The dining room was another grotesque collection of early American furniture, well preserved.

"Either you're out of this house in one minute or I call the authorities. The authorities, young man. The authorities."

The kitchen had a gas-stove, one 1940s refrigerator, and more doodads. Something meaty was cooking for supper. Remo heard the galumphing stride of Mrs. Wilberforce behind him. He stepped left, the mass of humanity went with the step and he calmly walked out of the kitchen to the stairs. Mrs. Wilberforce's room was another clutter; the bed was single. Her son's room looked like a Wall Street law office with an oak post bed in it. There was a guest room as inviting as a dungeon and two bathrooms.

Remo skirted Mrs. Wilberforce climbing up the steps by hopping over the railing mid-stairway. Nearby was the basement door. In the basement he found exactly where the next attack would take place. The oil burner.

According to Smith, there had been an attempt on Wilberforce's brakes earlier. Tonight it had been an elevator out of service. The pattern of simulated accidents would probably continue at least one more time. And a wooden house with an oil burner was just fine. Night would be ideal. Fire begins in the basement, cutting off the bottom floor escape. Wilberforces asleep upstairs. Nice, thought Remo. For people who worked with gadgets.

There would not be another attempt this evening; the men were Western. He had known they were Western even before he had heard them in the hallway. He could smell them. One, he had seen later when looking down the shaft, had been black, but contrary to some Western opinion, the odors of black and white were identical. People smelled of what they ate and the attackers had been three heavy meat eaters. Their pores reeked of it. Beef, beef and beef. Sometimes Remo wanted a hamburger, remembering its delicious meaty taste and thinking of the onions and the tomato ketchup, and how good it would be to eat one again. But now when he got close to the smell, he was repulsed. He had smelled that odor in the dark hallway and taken the three men, using one as the bumper to guide the other two into the shaft whose very openness Remo had heard. He finished the one he used as a bumper with a simple brain stroke. If he had just thrown him still alive into the shaft, one of the other two might have cushioned his fall.

Granted he should have saved one. But there would be another attempt on Wilberforce, and in the hallway of the federal building, Wilberforce would have been a nuisance, and might just have wound up falling into the open shaft himself. Remo would wait for the next attempt, follow it to its source, find out what was what, report to Smith and return to his rest period without Wilberforce being any the wiser, other than being relieved of a time-study man he didn't want in the first place.

"You down there. If you're not out in five seconds, I will phone the police. Do you hear me?" It was Mrs. Wilberforce.

Okay, it was the boiler. Tomorrow night or the next. Not tonight. Remo glided up the basement steps, underneath Mrs. Wilberforce's outstretched arm. He gave the massive corseted rump a little pat as he passed her and heard a yell of horror, as if he had disembowelled someone.

"Aaarrrrghhh," yelled Mrs. Wilberforce. Nathan David hid behind the couch. Had Remo's pat done that? He skirted the large flailing arms to get a better view of Mrs. Wilberforce's rump. It seemed in fine condition. Not even a thread was disjointed. And he knew for sure it had been just a pat.

Remo moved around a knee kick, and to make sure of what he had heard he gave the fanny another pat.

"Aaarrgghhhh. Animal. Pig. Animal. Rape!" yelled Mrs. Wilberforce.

"Merry Christmas," said Remo and, moving inside a left hook, gave Mrs. Wilberforce a wet kiss on the cheek.

"Good night, Nathan David," said Remo. He left the Wilberforce house filled with good cheer.

CHAPTER FOUR

"I don't like fire," said Anthony Stace, also known as Anselmo Stacio and, to many people who had never met him and knew neither of his names, as "Mr. Big."

In Scranton, Mr. Stace was president of Stace Realty, a director of the First National Agricultural Bank and Trust Company, chairman of the United Charities, and the man to see if you were starting a fund drive for your church or club. Mr. Stace was rarely known to say "no."

In another level of Scranton, Anselmo Stacio kept tight and orderly control of the numbers, sports gambling, trucking, several labor unions and a goodly share of those sorts of loans where the repayment was seven dollars for five per week and the collateral was your body—its health and well-being.

It was said by those very few who knew both his roles that Stacio did more good for the community than Stace. Stacio kept the white powder out of Scranton and its environs. Heroin, he had said, tended to create disorder and in disorder people often wanted drastic change. Since things were very profitable the way they were, both Anthony Stace and Anselmo Stacio wanted very little change. Especially since they had created a brilliant financial relationship.

As director of the First Aggie, Stace had access to large amounts of capital. As Don Anselmo, Stacio had access to high-yield investments. For at seven-for-five per week, Stacio could put Stace's money to work in loans that far outstripped the yields of Xerox and Polaroid. The First Aggie was a loan-shark funnel and at times banked half the state's under-the-counter loans. First Aggie had more money "on the street" in the area than the Federal Reserve Board.

It was a fine working relationship for the one man with two names, until a piddling assistant director of the Internal Revenue Service began collecting data. And what was worse, this piddling assistant director, Nathan David Wilberforce, was an unreasonable man.