Warren Murphy: Union Bust

"I might as well do the hit," Remo had said. "It'll be a good break."

So there he was, standing at the doorway of the X-shaped ranch-style home, with two men peering at him from windows right and windows left. He reached into one of the bulging pockets of his trousers and withdrew two plastic envelopes the size of flattened baseballs. They were the heroin packages he had ordered from Upstairs. They were, his little escape tools. Worked correctly, he could stroll away from this house without anyone phoning the police. And, more important, he could do it in the daylight and not miss any sleep. One didn't have to make a little project like this unpleasant.

Remo rang the doorbell. He could feel the eyes on him.

The door opened and a large man in white houseboy coat stood in the doorway, like a surprise wall. A small pistol, probably a .24 calibre Beretta, was rather expertly strapped beneath his armpit, showing only the barest outlines.

"Yes," said the man.

"Good morning," said Remo sweetly. "I've come to kill Mr. Thurgood. Is he in?"

The butler blinked.

"What?"

"I've come to kill Mr. Thurgood. Will you let me in please."

"You're crazy."

"Look. I don't really have all day."

"You're crazy."

"Be that as it may, I can't do my work from out here, so let me in, please."

"You want a glass of water or something, sir?"

Remo transferred both shiny packages to his left hand, and seeing the butler's eyes follow the movement, went for the large man's throat with a free right hand. The flat, knifelike hand was out and back like the flicker of a frog's tongue scoring on a fly. The butler stood, stunned, his eyes wide. He reached for his throat. His mouth opened. It filled with blood. The butler emitted gurgling sounds, then collapsed, struggling for air.

"The quality of help nowadays," said Remo disdainfully and stepped over the butler into the house. It was a beautiful home with sunken living room and polished stone floors and large paintings hung in museum-like profusion. Lovely.

A maid saw the fallen body of the butler and dropped her tray, shrieking. The man who had been at the window on the right came clipetting down a stone hallway, gun in hand. It was a heavy gun, probably a -357 Magnum. Foolish. He should have utilized the distance and gotten off a shot. Not that it would have saved him, but at least he would have died making proper use of his weapon.

The man possibly still did not know that the butler, his throat crushed, had strangled on his own blood. Remo disposed of the gun by snapping the man's wrist with a downchop. Continuing the motion, Remo's elbow cracked into the man's nose, jolting him back. Returning his arm from the blow, Remo jammed the heel of his hand into the broken nose, sending bone splinters into the brain. Zip, zip, it was over like that, and the man tumbled forward like a sack of wet asparagus. Plop.

"Mr Thurgood. Mr. Thurgood. We're being attacked," came a voice. Remo peered down the left hallway. A cowboy hat disappeared into a door. Well, so much for surprise.

"How many?" came another voice. It was deep and resonant with just a faint hint of a wide Boston 'A' floating in the clear western tones. Remo had heard the voice on identity tapes he had gotten from Upstairs. It was Thurgood.

"One, sir. That's why we let him through."

"Dammit. Why didn't the help stop him?"

"Dead, sir." Thurgood and the man in the cowboy hat were obviously talking across the hallway.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," sang Remo.

"Who is he?" asked Thurgood.

"Your friendly neighbourhood assassin," Remo called out.

"The man is mad."

Remo eased down the hallway and spotted a door that moved ever so slightly, like a tremble. The cowboy hadn't entered that door. Thurgood was behind it. Nice. The door was slightly ajar, just a sliver open. Remo, silent, moved against the wall, out of the line of vision afforded by the crack between door and jamb. When he neared the door, he reached a hand far from his body and knocked quickly. Twice.

Two slugs tore through the door and thudded into the wall across the hall, clipping a grapefruit-sized hole in the plaster. Nice pattern.

"Affjh," called out Remo, collapsing to the floor with a thud. He stuck out his tongue crazily and rolled his eyeballs back into his head so that only the whites would show. He heard the door near him open.

"I got him," said Thurgood. Steps, perhaps twenty yards away and coming close. Something hard, metallic, against his temple. Pushing. Rifle barrel. Too much weight for a pistol. Smell of shoe leather. One has remnant of cow dung. Floor cold on back. One standing over the right shoulder. Other standing near hip. Hand on chest. One kneeling. Pressure.

"Still breathing, but faintly. Nice shot, sir."

"Where did I get him?"

"I don't know. I don't see the bullet hole. What'll we tell the sheriff, Mr. Thurgood?"

"That I shot an intruder, of course. What did you expect me to say?"

"He's got something in his hand." Remo felt his fingers unfolded and the two plastic packages of heroin being removed. "It's horse. Yeah. Looks like the powder. It is."

"Dammit."

"Maybe we could say he brought it, Mr. Thurgood. That's the truth."

"No. Flush it down the toilet."

"It's thirty grand worth, at least."

"Flush it. I'm an investment banker, you ninny."

"Yessir."

Remo felt the gun barrel tremble slightly. He could wait no longer. Up came his right thumb, deflecting the barrel as a shot chipped into the stone floor. Following through on the hand motion, his body rose in a single smooth flow. His left hand, whipping like an un-sprung car aerial, caught the fine face of Tucson's leading businessman flat. Like a shot. Splat.

"Ugh," said Thurgood in shock.

Spinning through the blow, Remo brought an elbow up and around to where the cowboy should have been. He was. The elbow caught the armpit, separating the shoulder and driving into the collarbone. The collarbone cracked. The cowboy, ten-gallon hat and cow-manure shoes, went forlornly into the wall and collapsed in pain.

Remo checked the hallway. Clean. He turned to Thurgood.

"Regards from the turned-on generation, sweetheart," said Remo, as two fingers of his right hand drove the testicles of James Thurgood, leading Tucson citizen and heroin financier, into the lungs. On their way, they took a good portion of the intestinal tract, some of which now gushed in a bloody flood from the mouth of the man the courts could not touch. Thurgood lurched forward to spend the last twenty seconds of his life in awesome agony.

The cowboy would live.

"Ooooh," he groaned.

Remo looked around the hall. Where were the bags of heroin? He lifted up the cowboy who emitted a shriek. There they were. Remo knocked the cowboy into them. He waited for the cowboy to regain some clarity of mind. Then he pushed the bags of heroin under the cowboy's nose.

"I think you'll want to get this cleaned up before you phone the sheriff," said Remo. One bag had been torn open. Remo opened the second also. In full view of the cowboy, he sprinkled the white powder along the Thurgood hallway until now unsullied by its touch.

For final measure, Remo sprinkled the last of the heroin over the Thurgood living room, grinding it into the deep pile rug with his heels. He flipped the empty plastic bags to a sofa and strolled to the door.

"So long, shitkicker," he called out to the cowboy and left the X-shaped fortress which had, after all, only one serious flaw in its defence.

It was a pleasant, dry, invigorating day, on which a man could whistle to his heart's content, and the stroll back to Tucson was enjoyable. By the time he reached the city limits, Remo had worked up a thirst. He dropped into a hamburger stand for a cola and 'two with everything, to go. Thanks."