Warren Murphy: Union Bust

"It is the height of arrogance to fling your chances of survival into the lap of the goddess of fate, demanding that she perform what you will not. This arrogance is always punished."

Remo eased out of his shoes. He rewrapped the crowbar. There was no blood. He leaped to a small overhang and held with one hand. Working with feet forward and one hand behind it, he slithered up the curved wall. His free hand was used as a foot now because two feet were better for grabbing than one free hand. In the other hand was the evidence against Bludner.

Suddenly walking sounds, hollow, leather, clicking walking sounds came towards him. Two men. Remo pressed against the wall. His blood rushing headward, but unlike ordinary men he could sustain this pressure and function for three hours.

"Hey, Johnny. One of those idiot driver delegates left his shoes."

"They should have been picked up by cleaning. That contractor we use is getting sloppy. I mean it. Sloppy. You never should have hired him."

"What's this "you" jazz? We both hired him."

"You recommended him."

"And you said "Okay.""

"I said "Okay" because you recommended him. I'm not going to listen to your recommendations anymore."

They stood directly beneath Remo, a bald head and a grease conglomerate swirled in such a way as to hide impending departure of hair. This was very evident to anyone who wanted to cling upside down directly above a grease-coated head.

"I recommended the drivers. You want to give back their money?"

"So one of your recommendations finally turns out all right. What do you want, a medal?"

"I want a little appreciation. You know any other outfit that would pay for a place like this on a day they're not using it?"

"Yeah, anyone else who signed a contract and at three in the morning said they weren't going to use the place that day."

"They could hold up the final payment. They could talk deal. They could talk settlement. The people I rent to pay in full, anyway."

"When you rented at the last minute, I was the one who told you to go ahead. I was the one who, with two pathetic months, broke the contract for that horse show."

"Because I got you the drivers, dumbell. For the drivers I'd break a contract with God."

"For five cents you'd break a contract with God. He could fall down right now and you'd break a contract for five cents."

It was as good a time as any to collect his shoes. The drivers would not be meeting in the giant hall that day, and there was no point getting Abe Bludner indicted for murdering a circus or a basketball team or whoever was there when the vibrations, unaided by Remo, would determine that the beam would fall.

Remo dropped gently, missing the greasy head.

"My shoes, please," said Remo indignantly. He grabbed the shoes from the startled men and handed the greasy-headed one the paper-wrapped crowbar. The paper was still flecked with blood.

"And here's your crowbar. You shouldn't leave it lying around. People could trip over it and get hurt."

"On the ceiling?" asked the bewildered men.

Remo slipped into his shoes. "Anywhere," said Remo. "Carelessness cannot be excused."

And with that he was back into his shoes and walking briskly down a corridor towards anything that resembled an exit. He had wasted his effort, as Chiun had said he would. The crowbar would not be needed now. It was as useless as the Maginot Line. Besides, one didn't need a crowbar when one was going to die.

Gene Jethro listened as the Pig, his arm getting a fresh bandage from Sigmund Negronski, explained how it had all happened. The Pig was awash in sweat despite the even chill of the air-conditioned basement of the new building.

"I had it set good. In the lobby like you told me. Twenty-seven guys including me. I was in your third layer central. The first layer was in the lobby or facing it like we planned. You know, rooms surrounding the lobby and the stairs we used for first layer and beginning of second. And the third, I placed it myself because I was in it. I mean I was really careful. The registration desk, I had a guy behind. I had 'em waiting just right, and the guns concealed and every man knew what he was supposed to do. The first layer was the dining room right, the registration clerk center and the…"

"Go on. Go on," said Jethro.

Negronski gently taped the bandage and eyed Jethro. The smiling confidence was no longer there. The joyous manipulation of men was no longer in the face grown suddenly old. Deep lines clouded his face. He worked a white handkerchief in his hands. He was wearing yesterday's clothes. He had not changed them. Negronski took both joy and pity in Jethro's condition. He fervently wished that they could return to the Nashville local and wrestle with pensions, threatened layoffs, and jurisdictional disputes. A jurisdictional dispute would be good now. Of jurisdictional disputes, he knew. This was all strange.

"Okay," said the Pig. "So I got Connor up close to the door as the first layer right. He would fire the first shot. And he's good. He hunts a lot and you know his rep. Like he's made of bones. He's the best man for that first…"

"Get to it. Get to it, dammit," said Jethro.

"Connor misses. He's three feet from the guy and he misses. The first time in his life and he misses. Bang. And nothing. This Remo creep moves like he ain't even been touched. Good-bye, Connor. Like three feet and…"

"Dammit, Pig. Get on with it."

"Then he goes through the first layer right, and he's into and partially through the second layer, and fast. I mean you think you know fast. You think you've seen fast. You think Gale Sayers is fast. Gale Sayers is a cripple. Bob Hayes is a slug. And shifty? Willie Pep is a plodder. Muhammad Ali walks on his heels."

"Get on with it, Pig!"

"'Okay, okay. I'm telling ya what went wrong."

"You're telling me why you're not responsible for what went wrong, not what went wrong."

"I did what ya told me."

"Go on. Go on, damn you."

"Yeah, well, okay. Then he starts to really move. I mean move. Sometimes you don't see him, he's so fast. I swear on my mother's grave, you don't see him he's moving so fast. And I try to get off a shot. Other guys try to get off shots, and pretty soon we're shooting back at the people who are shooting at us. And then we're in a fire-fight with ourselves and we don't even see this guy Remo get away."

"That's what I thought, Pig."

"It wasn't our fault, Mr. Jethro. Honest."

Jethro sulked. He turned away from Negronski and Pigarello. He twisted the handkerchief, looked at it a moment, then threw it into a wastebasket.

"You're going to have to wait here, Pig."

"You ain't gonna do a job on me, are you?"

"No. No. I don't think so."

"Whadya mean ya don't think so? I mean what is that? You don't think you're gonna kill me. I mean, what is that?"

"That, my dear fat New England friend, is where it is at."

"You ain't gonna kill me, you shit-kicker," said the Pig. He grabbed a chair. "You've had it, pretty boy. We ain't in your little room now, shit-kicker. You get yours now. I seen what McCulloch did to you before he went into that room, and you ain't in that room now." The Pig advanced on Jethro and Negronski went for the chair. With massive, hairy arms the Pig nipped Negronski aside.

"Stay out of this, Siggy. This is me and Jethro."

Like a lumbering truckload of gravel, Pigarello moved on Jethro, the heavy oak chair raised above his head as if it were light as matchsticks. Negronski raised himself and saw the chair move towards Jethro's head.

But Jethro was standing in a strange position, not like when they'd have to face an occasional challenge in a Nashville bar, but like a peculiar old man with a spine injury. The toes were pointed in. The hands outstretched and curved loosely. The wrists stiff. The face impassive and free of hate, as though listening to a column of tax figures.