Warren Murphy - Murder's Shield

"Any of what?" Remo asked as they resumed walking.

Milken rubbed his fingers together indicating money.

Remo nodded.

Commissioner O'Toole had a head shaped like an egg if an egg could be weak. He looked like Tweety the Canary, but with sadder eyes. When he was informed by Captain Milken that Remo was thinking of entering politics as a businessman, he gave him his theories on law enforcement.

These theories encompassed constitutional rights for suspects, police community relations, greater awareness on the part of a police force for the community it served, and more responsiveness to the hopes and aspirations of minorities.

"How about improving the odds on staying alive?" asked Remo.

"Well, our officers are instructed to use their weapons only in the most dire emergencies and to account for every act of police violence committed."

"No," said Remo, "I'm not talking about the odds for muggers. I mean for people who have committed the great crime of going out at night. What are the odds? Have you improved those?"

"Well, we're living in troubled times. If we increase the responsiveness…"

"Just a minute," interrupted Remo. "Thirty years ago, was your department responsive?"

"Well, no. Not at all. They had yet to be enlightened by the new techniques that…"

"Yeah, well maybe all those unenlightened cops had something to do with people being safer."

"Sir," the commissioner said huffily. "We can't go back to yesterday."

"Not if you don't try."

"I wouldn't want to. That's reactionary."

"Attaboy, label it and put it away. You've got a frightened city out there and if you think another human relations course is going to stop one holdup, then you've got smoke coming out of your ass."

The commissioner turned, signifying that the interview was over, and Captain Milken nervously led Remo Bednick from the office. No racketeer had ever talked to a commissioner like that. He couldn't wait until Bednick had left headquarters, before running to tell McGurk about the confrontation.

But McGurk seemed curiously disinterested, and showed no more curiosity than if Milken had been talking about the dead.

CHAPTER NINE

Dr. Harold W. Smith stared out the one-way glass window of his office in Folcroft Sanitarium. The Long Island Sound was out there. It had risen suddenly as tides will do. No matter how much he expected the tide to rise, its sudden engulfing height always surprised him a little.

Time and tide wait for no man. And neither did CURE or a nation's problems. Smith did not wish to turn around, to have to look at that map again, the big map on the screen across the office.

It was a map of a place he loved very much, but now it was like looking at his mother in the hospital. He had loved his mother very much too, but when she was riven by cancer he could not look at her and he secretly wished that she would die so she wouldn't be in pain any more and he could remember her as a beautiful woman. But that was when he was a boy, and now he was a man who remembered his mother in her hospital bed, frail and desiccated but still his mother.

He spun in his chair and looked at the map of the United States.

Red nodules dotted the East Coast. Each represented an identifiable killing from this organization that had mushroomed like a cancer. And now two solitary lumps had appeared in the western part of the country. And suddenly, time had become critical.

The thing was growing geometrically now. The next jump might be an army, and with that army there would be the first real threat of a police state-particularly if the army decided to seek a political arm.

Smith smiled wanly to himself. How many of those men had enlisted in the secret police army to shape America into some personal fantasy of purity? Why didn't they understand that a police state was the most corrupt of all forms of government?

Smith looked carefully at the map. At a distance, it seemed that the pattern of dots emanated from a central point in New York City. Well, he had committed his reserves there. Remo Williams, the Destroyer, was on the mission. That is, if he was on the mission… if he had gotten over his silly reluctance to go against policemen.

Smith spun back toward the Sound and looked at his watch. Time for Remo to call. He waited five more minutes, and the phone beeped once, lightly.

"Smith here."

"Remo."

"Anything?"

"I think I lucked out. You ever hear of the Men of the Shield?"

"No."

"It's some kind of police organization," Remo said. "I think it might be the framework of what we're looking for."

"Any names?"

"The head of it is an inspector named McGurk."

"Have you contacted him?"

"Yes," Remo said. "I've got him on my personal pad. I'm supposed to see him next week with another instalment."

"Remo, we don't have that kind of time. Is there any way you can step it up?"

"I can try," Remo said disgustedly. Smith never had any appreciation of a good job, quickly done.

"By the way," Smith said, "you seem to have gotten over your… er, earlier feelings in this matter."

"Sorry, Smitty, I haven't gotten over anything. Right now, I'm out gathering information for you. If the time comes when more than information is necessary, well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

"Call in tomorrow," Smith said, unnecessarily. Remo's answer was a click as he hung up.

Smith replaced the receiver and spun back toward the Sound. It lapped at the shores of the sanatorium. Was it his imagination or was the tide receding? Dr. Smith peered carefully out the window. No, the tide was not coming back from the big rock on the beach. It hadn't reached it yet; the tide was still rising.

CHAPTER TEN

"Make him an offer he cannot refuse."

Don Mario Panza dismissed his consigliore with that instruction. He had been generous. He had been polite. He had been respectful. In troubled times like these, with some of his closest business associates dying in so many mysterious ways, he had been more than generous with the stranger who had moved into his territory and was suddenly paying policemen.

Don Mario Panza had been generous to the point of carelessness and he was not a careless man. There was a new person in Queens who paid off an entire precinct. He also purchased cars and furniture with cash. It was an obvious sign that he wished to get rid of money not to be reported to the Internal Revenue Service.

Remo Bednick was obviously in some business that affected Don Mario. But what? The betting was the same. The numbers were the same. The union business the same. The meat business was even better because no one had to pay the contracts to that Wyoming fellow, Hardesty. And for narcotics, in Queens it was not a business. Not really a business. One even helped to keep it to a minimum. So what was this Remo Bednick doing with an entire precinct on his pad?

Don Mario had been respectful. He had sent an emissary suggesting a friendly meeting. Businessmen should talk, no?

And to this Remo Bednick had said, "Not now, fella, I'm busy."

So Don Mario, being a patient and reasonable man, sent another emissary. A capo. The capo had explained who he was and who Don Mario was and how Don Mario might possibly help him, how in times like these one needed allies.

"I need another dark sock," this Remo Bednick, this .90-calibre peszonovante had said. He had been putting on his shoes. "That's what I need. Another dark sock."

"I would like an autographed picture of Rad Rex, the wonderful actor who plays Professor Wyatt Winston, noted nuclear physicist in 'As the Planet Revolves,' " the Oriental servant had said.

The capo had repeated the request. And later, upon questioning the capo, Don Mario explained that these men did not wish socks or pictures but were making light of the capo. The capo's face burned with anger, but Don Mario said, "Enough, we cannot afford unnecessary trouble. I will take care of it."