Warren Murphy: Union Bust

"Not too well."

"It went well enough. I felt vibrations of rifle fire through the floor."

"Oh that. Yeah it was a three, three, three that took a Scarlet Ribbon."

"Why are you wounded?"

"I started the Ribbon late."

"Never before," said Chiun, "has so much been given to so few who used it so little. I might as well give my instructions to walls as to a white man."

"All right. All right. I'm wounded. Lay off."

"Wounded. A minor flesh wound, and we make it into the great tragedy. We have more important problems. You must rest. We will flee soon."

"Run?"

"That is the usual word in the English language tor run, is it not?"

"I can't go, Chiun. I have work. We can't run."

"You are talking silliness and I am trying to rest."

"What happened at the building, Chiun?" Remo asked.

"What happened at the building is why we must run."

Dr. Harold Smith got the report late in the morning, at 10.12. The phone line was activated ever hour at twelve minutes past the hour. From 6 a.m. Eastern Standard Time until 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, this was done with direct link to Smith. If he were not in his office, a tape recording would be accepted. Into this tape recording Remo would read the message as best he could in medical terms. Thus, if the message were discovered by others, it would only be a doctor reading in an odd hour report.

At 10.12 when the buzzer on his phone rang, Smith knew from the very first words that the plan would be the extreme one.

"My alternate plan didn't work," came Remo's voice.

"All right," said Dr. Smith. "You know what to do."

"Yeah."

And that was it. The phone was dead, and four of the nation's leading labour leaders were going to die.

"Damn," said Dr. Smith. "Damn."

If the system could not tolerate collective bargaining, then maybe the American system was just false. Maybe the patch-up work CURE did only delayed the final outcome. Maybe business and labour were supposed to function as warring, hostile giants, with the public whipsawed in between. After all, Dr. Smith knew, business had a history of doing just what the unions were trying to do now. It was called cornering the market, and that was considered the height of business acumen. Why should the unions not be allowed to do the same?

Dr. Smith spun to view Long Island Sound, deep and green and going far out into the Atlantic. Perhaps there should be a sign, "You are leaving the Sound. Now entering the Atlantic." But there were no signs, either on the Sound or in life. It was wrong for the unions to blackmail the nation like this, just as it was wrong for businessmen to corner the market in a certain commodity and drive up its prices. He must begin to work the agency towards stopping that sort of crime. And so, staring at Long Island Sound, Dr. Harold Smith planned to enact a piece of American legislation. Without votes. Without writing. Without immediate public knowledge. But he would enact it somehow, someday: it would be illegal for corporations to corner the market and drive up the price of food. And he would not stop at using 'The Destroyer," just as he had not hesitated to use him today.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Remo slipped the wrapped crowbar with Bludner's fingerprints on it into the back of his pants. Then he put his shirt over it, and a jacket over that. He surrounded the crowbar with muscle, cushioning it between his shoulder blades, keeping the metal rod positioned on top and hidden behind the jacket. The forked end of the crowbar nestled right behind his reproductive organs, following the curve of his body. An X-ray would have shown a man sitting on a curved bar.

A good tap on his back would, Remo knew, cause him great pain. He walked somewhat stiffly to the door of his hotel suite.

"I'll be back."

"You are going to that building?" Chiun said in caution.

"No," said Remo.

"Good. When you return I will tell you why we must run. If I did not have to stay here and watch over an impetuous youth," said Chiun. 'I would leave now. It is no matter, however. We will leave later, after you expend your wasted energy."

"It will not be wasted, little father."

"It will be wasted, but feel free to indulge yourself. Amuse yourself."

"This is not amusement, little father."

"It is not work, Remo. It is not productive, mature work."

"I am going to set things right which must be set right."

"You are going to indulge yourself in wasted effort. Goodnight."

Remo exhaled his frustration. One did not reason with Chiun. For all his wisdom he could not know the threat of four unions joining into one. For all his wisdom he was wrong this morning.

The lobby was aswarm with police, newspapermen, photographers, TV cameras. The ambulance drivers had left, most of them headed for morgues.

Rocco 'the Pig' Pigarello was perspiring under the television lights. His arm was bandaged, undoubtedly the result of a bullet from one of his own men.

"Yeah. These crazy men were shooting at us for no reason. It was an assault against organized labour by gangsters."

"Mr. Pigarello, police say all the injured and dead were union men." The newscaster held a microphone to Pigarello's face.

"Dat's right. We had no way to defend ourselves. There must have been twenty, maybe thirty wid guns."

"Thank you, Mr. Pigarello," said the television newscaster. He turned to his cameraman.

"That was Rocco Pigarello, a delegate to the International Brotherhood of Drivers' convention here in Chicago, a union that has been severely hurt today in an outburst of senseless violence."

Remo watched Pigarello's eyes. They spotted him. The Pig went to a police captain. He shot Remo a furtive glance. Remo smiled at the Pig. The Pig suddenly forgot what he was going to say to the captain, and Remo walked from the hotel out into the busy morning street through a corridor of police barricades. People gawked over the barricades, they leaned from windows across the street, they stood on tiptoes on the opposite sidewalk.

A bright blue Illinois sky covered it all—with, of course, a layer of air pollution sandwiched in between. Remo hailed a cab to the convention hall.

The driver talked about the horrible killings in the hotel, how Chicago wasn't safe anymore, and how everything would be fine if only the Blacks left Chicago.

"Blacks weren't involved," said Remo.

"So in this one incident," said the driver, "they weren't involved. Don't tell me that if we didn't have coloureds the crime rate wouldn't drop."

"It would drop even faster if we didn't have people," said Remo.

The convention hall was, strangely, all but deserted. No uniformed guards to take delegates' tickets, no vendors preparing for special bars with the early tubs of ice, no last-minute scurrying of workers giving the microphone system a last-minute check. No one was even placing the day's agenda on the seats as they had done every day since Monday.

Even the gates were locked. At the third gate, Remo decided to stop looking for someone to let him in. He walked in, right through the crowd-proof, locked gate. His footsteps echoed down the dark, deserted corridors that smelled freshly cleaned. The stands exuded a faint yesterday's-beer odour. The air was cool yet without freshness. A lone worker stood on a ladder installing a light bulb. Remo stayed in the shadows enough not to be recognized but not enough to appear suspicious.

"Hi," Remo said, walking on as though he belonged in the deserted corridor.

"Hi," said the workman.

Remo scampered up to the top tier and paused. He was two aisles away. The banner was still and flat.

"Welcome, International Brotherhood of Drivers." Not a ripple. The crowds would change that. The body heat would change that. Yet even with no one inside the huge structure, it should get some air currents. Perhaps too many doors and windows were closed on the outside. Remo ducked back into the corridor and came out perfect. Fifty feet above him was the joint of the beam that stretched across the huge dome of the hall. He eased the crowbar from the back of his pants with the protective paper still on it. An edge of the paper was smeared with his blood. The wound had coagulated, but apparently not fast enough to keep the paper dry. He checked the crowbar, looking for the glistening hint of his own blood. He did not want blood on the crowbar to complicate things. It should be a very simple crime. Abe 'Crowbar' Bludner had somehow un-riveted the beam and was stupid enough to leave the crowbar. The police, desperately in need of a suspect for the murder of four union officials, would gratefully and rapidly pick Bludner. Blood would be a minor complication that might set their minds to working on other angles. Not that he would be implicated, but as Chiun had said, fools and children take chances.