Warren Murphy: Mafia Fix

"Hi there, fellow," he said, tossing his homburg onto the fourteen-foot long mahogany table. "Something I can do for you?"

Remo stood up. "Yeah, Hansen. Where's the heroin?"

"It's a terrible problem, the entire problem of drug addiction," Hansen said. "It feeds at the vitals of America and there is no real cure for any of our urban ills until this social cancer is removed from the body politic."

Hansen had walked over by his desk and Remo stepped aside to make room for Hansen in the mayor's chair.

"Yeah, but where is it?" Remo persisted.

"Where is it at? That's the question we continuously hear in the streets of the city. I regard it as an anguished cry for help from those upon whose strength and vigor the city relies for its renewed vitality," Hansen said. "Can there be any doubt. . . ."

As he talked, Remo looked at the vapid, bland face and he knew that Mayor Craig Hansen could no more plot a heroin operation than he could clean a street. He looked closely at his face, all of it seemingly in correct proportions-the right shape-but apparently without a bone in it.

And Remo thought of other faces. Hansen's wife, with her fine Roman lines. And Verillio who, before his own bullet had removed the top of his skull, had worn a face with character and strength. And he thought of Cynthia Hansen and he realized suddenly where that fine Etruscan face had come from, and why Mrs. Hansen had cried so much, and why Verillio had conceded his own death so quickly.

Mayor Hansen had spun toward the window and was staring through the dirty dusty glass at the city -his city-and his voice droned on, "without social strength, no real progress is possible, particularly inasmuch as our real estate tax base. . . ." and he continued on as Remo slipped outside and quietly closed the door behind him.

Remo walked past a startled clerk-typist and toward the door to Cynthia's office. He stepped inside silently and locked the door behind him.

Cynthia was seated at her desk, her head down, still crying, her body racked with sobs.

She wore a black dress that celebrated her body. As Remo stood there and watched her, slowly she realized someone's presence. She looked up and saw him. Shock slowly blasted sorrow from her face.

"You. . . ." she said.

"Me. Your goons last night missed."

And Cynthia, whose tears were for Remo as well as Verillio, turned shock into anger and fear into hatred, snarling, "You bastard."

She stood up and reached for her top right hand desk drawer. Remo knew it would be a gun. But he had no eyes for a gun, only for her breasts and her long waist, and he was on her, rolling her around, away from the open drawer, around the front of the desk. Then his weight was on her. He had her dress up around her hips, she was pinned and Remo was in her.

"Just one for the road, baby," he said.

She hissed at him, "I hate you, you bastard, I hate you."

Remo stayed working at her, pressing into her at her desk. The touch and the contact worked slowly and her fury again turned back to tears, as she said, "How could you? He was my father."

Remo said, "I didn't know."

"You didn't really think that creep inside could sire me, did you?" Cynthia asked. It didn't really seem to call for an answer so instead Remo just kept stroking away at Cynthia Hansen, the daughter of Don Dominic Verillio.

Willie the Plumber Palumbo had coughed savagely several times and paused, leaning on the door of his blue Eldorado, until his eyes cleared and his breath came back. Then he closed the door, not slamming it too hard, and walked around to open the door for Mrs. Hansen.

Even now, now that he knew she had been Verillio's mistress for years, he still felt her tears were excessive. But that was all right in Willie's book. Let her practice, he thought grimly. She'll soon be crying all over again at the loss of a daughter.

He helped Mrs. Hansen up the stairs of her home and turned her over to the mercies of the family maid. Then he went back to his car and began the leisurely drive downtown to City Hall.

Willie had been promoted yesterday and it had been his third shock of the day. First, there had been Gasso. And then Verillio. And then the ultimate shock of Cynthia Hansen telling him that she alone controlled the heroin and that she needed him now to be her number one man.

He had always known that Verillio had had a boss, and probably one in City Hall, but he had always thought it was the mayor, not the daughter. And now that he thought about it, about her tears and her honest mourning, he wouldn't be surprised if there were more to it than just the fact that she was Verillio's partner and the one with the heroin. There had to be something more to it than that.

She was quick, though. He had to admit it. She had done the right things. She had told him to contact the leaders in Atlantic City to tell them the deal was still on. She had told him to get the narcotics cops to finish off Remo Barry. And she had seemed excited when he had told her about the funny machine that tracked down carrots and turnips and poppies. She had even kissed him on the cheek.

No matter. No matter. She was not Sicilian and she was a woman. She was going to remain Willie the Plumber's boss just long enough to lead him to the heroin and then she was going to join her friend, Mr. Verillio, in a very cold grave. In Willie's city, there would be room for only one boss-and he would be it.

But for the time being, he'd have to play it cute, Willie the Plumber told himself as he parked his Eldorado in the lot behind City Hall in a spot reserved for the City Clerk.

He was preparing his opening pleasantry as he rode up in the elevator, and he almost had the words out of his mouth as he used the symbol of his new status, the key Cynthia had given him to her City Hall office. He never got the words out because there she was, dress hiked up around her ass, being humped in front of her desk by that bastard again, that Remo Barry, who Willie thought had been taken care of last night by the narcos.

Willie the Plumber did not believe in using a bean shooter when a howitzer would do. And he did not understand all the niceties of Gasso, Verillio and probably the narco cops. What is more, he didn't care. So he reached into his jacket and pulled out his pistol. Then the man known as Remo turned around and looked into Willie the Plumber's eyes. Remo's eyes were cold and deadly, like brown ice, and Willie the Plumber knew what Gasso and Verillio must have felt just before they died.

Remo moved. Willie's finger froze on the trigger and Remo was at him. Then Remo was throwing his floater stroke which if it had hit could have cut Willie in half.

But unconsciously, Willie the Plumber had discovered one of the great secrets of Oriental combat: the fastest way out of a path is to collapse. Willie collapsed, fainted dead on the floor, and Remo's floater stroke, without a target to use up its energy, continued forward-missing Willie-and all its force, instead of destroying some target, raced back along his own arm. The force was just too much for muscle to take and Remo's shoulder dislocated from its socket. The sudden wrench of pain knocked him out and put him unconscious on the floor next to the twisted body of Willie the Plumber who lay there, terrified and coughing even in his sleep.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Remo shivered.

He felt cold and he forced his mind to quicken his body rhythms and his blood began flowing faster, carrying warmth throughout his body. It was only when he was warm that he realized his shoulder hurt.

He opened his eyes slowly. He was on the stone floor of some kind of factory or warehouse building and it was not just cold in his imagination. He could see swirls of cold air vapour moving slowly across the floor and when he pushed himself into a sitting position he discovered his left arm was useless.