As if walking with his hands, Remo followed the creeping feet to another room, where a drop ladder hung down from a square well. The man was creeping to the well.
Dropping his hands, Remo beat him to the ladder.
Remo waited, his face just under the square black hole. His grin widened. He flexed his thick wrists.
Presently a wide-eyed face came into view, a pistol close by. He looked around. His eyes locked on Remo's.
"Boo!" Remo said.
"Yahh!" the man returned, whipping down his weapon.
Remo reached up and pulled him bodily down the steps, making sure his face hit every rung. After the man had collapsed on the floor, Remo took pains to shatter his spine in three places.
Then he yanked the ladder away and stood back as someone spanked the trapdoor back into place. Feet stampeded.
Folding his arms. Remo listened.
"He got Derrick!" a voice wailed. He was one of the top-of-the-stairs guards who had retreated earlier.
"He gonna get us too," the other said. His missing companion. "Why'd we had to move into this damn neighborhood in the first place? I told you it was no damn good. Ain't no malls for three miles!"
"You shut up!" the first voice said tensely.
While they were arguing, Remo zeroed in on their exact location. He reached up and rapped once on the plaster with his fist, asking, "Anybody home?"
"That crazy guy! He's right under us. Shoot the fool!"
A spurt of bullets rained down, creating a salt-shaker-lid effect in a circle of ceiling plaster.
From a safe corner, Remo watched the plaster dust and Spackle rain down.
"You get him?" a muffled voice wondered.
"I ain't sure."
"Better check," the other said cautiously.
"I ain't gonna check! How am I gonna do that?"
"Try putting your eye to one of the holes," Remo called up helpfully.
"He ain't dead! You missed!"
Another bratt of sound chopped bits of plaster the length of the ceiling, peppering the floor. Remo faded out into the hall while the air cleared of settling white dust.
"Try again," Remo suggested. "You almost got me that time."
Two weapons opened up next. They fired as the gunman backed away, Remo's keen eyes spotting the imperceptible trail of bulges on the plaster. Obviously the attic floor wasn't well-shored with timber.
He maneuvered around the chewing bullets to a point where the steady track of bulges seemed to head.
When one pair of footsteps came close, Remo drove a hand up through the crumbling plaster. He took hold of an ankle. He yanked.
An Air Jordan athletic shoe came down through the crumbly hole. So did a howl of fright.
"He got me! Motherfuck got my ankle!"
"He's gonna get both your ankles," Remo warned. "And then your legs. And then your throat."
"He's gonna get my throat!" the man wailed.
Footsteps pounded up. Remo knew what was coming. He let go of the frantic ankle and slid over to one side, ready to dodge in any direction.
The storm of lead doubled the size of the ceiling hole that framed the jerking ankle. The entire leg started to slide down. An exploding kneecap punched through the plaster.
Syrupy red blood began dripping down. The leg quivered briefly as if shaking off a cramp. Then it simply relaxed.
"Oh, sorry, Darnell. Sorry, man," the last remaining voice said. "I was just tryin' to get the dude."
Remo got under the pitiful sounds of contrition and sent both fists through. The plaster heaved up. Scabby sections fell. The man ran around, screaming and firing wildly.
"You ain't gonna get me, asshole!" he howled furiously. "I ain't coming down!"
Bullets peppered the ceiling all around Remo. He wove between the spurts, taking care not to trip over the splintery holes that were collecting in the polished pine flooring.
Upstairs, the gunman was replacing clips frantically. He must have had an arsenal up there because he seemed never to run out of ammunition. Every so often he paused as if listening.
Remo encouraged him to continue wasting his ammunition with a taunting, "Nope, I'm not dead yet," in a mordant voice he had once heard in an old cartoon. "Try again."
Each time, the gunman obliged him with blistering return fire.
Soon the ceiling stopped being a ceiling. Instead, it was now an upside-down moonscape of pocked holes and shattered plaster.
When the holes became as big as portholes, Remo shot the man an encouraging wave.
The man shot Remo back the bird. Then he opened up on the spot where Remo had been.
Remo wasn't there anymore. He had taken up a position directly under the island of plaster on which the man stood.
While the gunman was frantically replacing a clip, Remo reached up and grabbed him by both ankles.
"Yee-ahh!" The shriek was fearsome.
Remo encouraged his terror by mimicking the Jaws theme.
"Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh." Remo mocked ominously.
The replenished weapon began chattering again. Gouts of plaster exploded all around Remo. The floor sprouted holes. But Remo remained intact. Which was more than could be said for his opponent's state of mind.
"You won't take me! You won't take me alive, motherfuck!"
"Done," said Remo, breaking the man's ankles with swift jerks of his thick-wristed hands.
He stepped back.
The gunman was slow to realize what had happened. He began tottering. His jaw dropped. His eyed bugged like white grapes. His nerve-dead feet refused to make allowances for his sudden lack of equilibrium.
Pitching forward, the gunman fell like a big black tree. His head went through an isle of plaster.
Remo caught his face.
"One moment," he said, supporting the man by his twisting head. The gunman hung almost upside down while Remo stomped out a hole in the bullet-riddled floor. A section crashed away.
"Okay," Remo said, stepping back, "you can fall now."
The man went through the hole as if it was made for him. His crazily disjointed feet disappeared last.
Konk!
Remo looked down. The man had landed on his head. He looked dead. His feet angled one way, his broken neck the other.
"Happy now?" Remo called down. And getting no answer, decided his work was done.
Remo floated over the debris that was all that remained of the staircase, like Tinker Bell treading fairy dust. He landed back in the living room.
He gave the broken-necked, snap-footed body a final glance and said, "Baby makes twenty-three."
His acute hearing told him that his own heart was the only one working in the entire house. His work was done. Jane Street belonged to the neighborhood once again.
Remo took time out to scribble a note on a pad by the telephone.
Welcome Wagon was here while you were out, he wrote. Sorry we missed you. Then, whistling contentedly, he sauntered down the porch steps.
Turning right, he shot a cheery wave to the man sitting stiff-spined behind the wheel of the red Camaro. The man declined to wave back. He stared out the windshield as if off into eternity. In a way it was.
He had been number one.
Chapter 3
Kimberly Baynes paraded through Washington National Airport dressed in a flowing yellow dress, her blond hair worn high over her fresh-scrubbed face and tied in place with a bright yellow scarf.
She balanced with difficulty on her black high heels, as if walking on heels was new to her. Stepping off an escalator, she steadied herself momentarily, swaying like a tree worried by a warm summer wind.
"I'll never get used to these things," she muttered in a pouty voice.
Her predicament attracted the attention of more than one male traveler who, upon seeing her heavily made-up face and yellow fingernails, jumped to a natural conclusion.
Cosmo Bellingham was one of those. A surgical-appliance salesman from Rockford, Illinois, Cosmo had come to Washingt
on for the annual surgical-equipment convention, where he hoped to interest Johns Hopkins in his new titanium-hip-joint-replacement line, guaranteed not to "lock, balk, or shock," as the company brochure put it so poetically. Cosmo had lobbied to have the motto stamped into each unit, but had been overruled. Cosmo did not believe in hiding one's light under a bushel.
Seeing the petite young woman floating through the maze of terminals, her bright eyes as innocent as a child's, Cosmo veered in her direction.
"Little lady, you look lost," he chirped.
The blue eyes-wide, limpid, somehow innocent and daring simultaneously-grew brighter as they met Cosmo's broadly smiling face.
"I'm new in town," she said simply. Her voice was sweet. A child's voice, breathy and unsure.
Cosmo tipped his Tyrolean hat. "Cosmo Bellingham," he said by way of introduction. "I'm staying at the Sheraton. If you haven't a place to stay, I recommend it highly."
"Thank you, but I have no money," she said, fingers touching her yellow scarf. "My purse was with my luggage. Just my luck." Her pout was precious. A little-girl-lost pout. Cosmo calculated her age as eighteen. A perfect age. Ripe. Most Penthouse centerfolds were eighteen.
"I'm sure we can work something out with Travelers Aid," Cosmo said. "Why don't we share a cab to my hotel?"
"Oh, mister, I couldn't. My grandmother taught me never to accept rides from strangers."
"We'll put the room on my American Express card until we figure something out," Cosmo said, as if not hearing.
"Wellll," the girl said, glancing about like a frightened deer. "You have a nice face. What could happen?"
"Splendid," said Cosmo, who right then and there decided that he wouldn't be shelling out for a too-polished Washington call girl this year. He was going to have warm fresh-from-the-oven meat. He offered his arm. The girl took it.
During the ride to the hotel, the girl said her name was Kimberly. She had come to Washington to look for work. Things were tough back in North Dakota.
"What kind of work you got in mind?" Cosmo asked, missing completely her Colorado accent. He had never been west of Kansas City.
"Ooh," she said dreamily, gazing out at official Washington passing by, "something that involves people. I like working on people."
"You mean with people," Cosmo teased. "Yes, I mean that." She laughed. Cosmo joined in. The back seat of the cab filled with light, promising mirth.
They were still giggling when Cosmo Bellingham magnanimously checked Kimberly Baynes into the Sheraton Washington.
"Put the little lady into a room next to mine," Cosmo said in a too-loud, nervous voice. He turned to Kimberly. "Just so I can keep an eye on you, of course. Heh heh heh."
Kimberly smiled. She crossed her arms tightly, accentuating her small breasts. As the fabric of her long but attractive dress rippled, Cosmo noticed how thick around the middle she was.
He frowned. He preferred an hourglass shape. His wife was pretty thick around the middle. How could a pretty young thing with such a sweet face have such a tubular body? he wondered.
As the elevator took them up to their rooms on the twelfth floor, Cosmo decided beggars couldn't be choosers. After all, this ripe little plum had practically fallen into his lap.
He cleared his throat noisily, trying to figure out what kind of pickup line an innocent eighteen-year-old would fall for.
"Are you all right?" Kimberly asked in her breathy sweet voice.
"Little something caught in my throat," Cosmo said. "I'm not used to riding elevators with such a pretty thing as you. Heh heh heh."
"Maybe," Kimberly said, her voice dropping two octaves into a seductive Veronica Hamel contralto, "we should stop so you can catch your breath." One yellow-nailed hand lifted, tapping the heavy red stop switch.
The elevator stopped with an unsettling jar.
"I . . . I . . . I . . ." Cosmo sputtered.
Kimberly pressed her warm perfumed body close to Cosmos own. "You want me, don't you?" she asked, looking up through thick lashes.
"I...I..."
"I can tell," Kimberly said, touching his pendulous lower lip. "She wants you too."
"She?"
"She whom I serve." Kimberly's finger ran down his chin, to his tie, and continued south, not hurrying, but not slowly either.
"Huh?"
And in answer, Kimberly removed her yellow scarf with a sudden flick, causing her bound-up hair to cascade downward. Meanwhile, her traveling finger coasted over his belt buckle to the tongue of his zipper.
Cosmo Bellingham felt his zipper slide down as his manhood swelled, rising, behind the loosening prison of cloth.
Oh, my God, he thought. She's gonna go down on me right in the elevator. Oh, thank you, Lord. Thank you.
Cosmo's attention was so centered around his crotch that he barely felt the silken scarf encircle his throat.
For two butterfly delicate hands had taken his stiff member. One was squeezing it rhythmically. The other raked its yellow nails along its entire throbbing length, softly caressing.
Eyes going closed, Cosmo gritted his teeth in anticipation.
The yellow scarf began to tighten slowly, imperceptibly. Okay, he thought, she had a few kinks. He could go along with that. Maybe learn something new to take back to the wife.
Cosmo became aware of a problem when he suddenly couldn't breathe.
The realization that he was being throttled occurred simultaneously with the odd thought.
Who the hell was strangling him? She had both hands on his gearshift, for Christ's sake. And they were alone in the elevator.
Cosmo Bellingham's body was discovered later that afternoon when a hotel maintenance man, responding to an inoperative-elevator call, forced open the doors on the tenth floor, exposing the grease-stained elevator roof. He frowned. The car had come to a stop level with his knees. He was surprised to find the trap door already open. Lugging his toolbox, he stepped onto the cable-snarled platform.
On his hands and knees, he looked down the open trap.
A body lay sprawled below, faceup. Pecker up, too.
The elevator repairman hastily called the front desk.
"Murdered?" the nervous desk clerk sputtered.
"Well," the repairman said dryly, "if he was, he got a hell of a charge out of the experience."
The body was taken out the back way by the ambulance attendants and hustled into the waiting vehicle to spare street traffic the spectacle of a body whose shroud tented up in a place where dead people usually didn't.
Across town, Kimberly Baynes returned to her Capitol Hill hotel, where she quietly paid her next week's hotel bill in advance. In cash.
She was pleased, upon entering the room, to see that the clay image squatting-on the dresser had grown a new arm. This one protruded from its back. It had grown so fast-as fast as it had taken for Cosmo Bellingham to expire-that it had right-angled off the wall like a tree branch veering away from a stone wall.
Kimberly had left a newspaper lying at the statue's feet. Now it lay scattered about the floor as if a furious reader had gone through it for a misplaced item.
One soft white hand clutched a torn piece from the classified section. Another had the upper portion of the front page. Kimberly recognized the photograph of a man who had been in the news almost daily.
"I know whose blood you seek, my lady," Kimberly murmured.
Plucking the other item free, she read it. It was an advertisement.
"And I know how I shall reach this man," she added.
Kimberly Baynes changed clothes in the privacy of her room. Even though she was on an upper floor, she drew the drapes before she disrobed.
When she left the hotel, she was wearing a yellow sheath dress that accentuated her lean waist, lyre-shaped hips, and size-thirty-eight bust.
With the remainder of Cosmo Bellingham's billfold contents she had bought a fresh yellow scarf for her naked throat. The purchase made her feel so much better.
For today, she intended
to apply for her first job.
Chapter 4
No American ever cast a vote for Dr. Harold W. Smith.
It was doubtful that had Smith ever shown up on a ballot, very many people in this age of television campaigning would have voted for the aging bureaucrat. He was a thin Ichabod Crane hank of man with skin the unappetizing color of a beached flounder. His hair was as gray as his face. His eyes yet another shade of gray. And his three-piece suit-definitely not selected with an eye to pleasing the modern voter-was still another neutral gray.
As he sat at his worn oak desk, gray eyes blinking through his rimless spectacles, this gray man unknown to over ninety-nine percent of the American electorate quietly exercised more power than the executive, legislative, and judical branches of the U.S. Government combined.
For nearly three decades, since a promising young president tragically cut down a thousand days into his only term had appointed him to his lonely post, Harold Smith had held forth in his Folcroft Sanitarium office, guarding America and its constitutional form of government from subversion. Under cover of Folcroft, Smith headed CURE, a supersecret government agency that officially didn't exist. Created in the sixties, when the fabric of American society began to burst at the seams, Smith was invested with the awesome responsibility of protecting America through extralegal means.
In order that Smith might uphold the Constitution, his job called for him to violate it as if it were a dishwasher warranty. Where the law stopped, Smith was sanctioned to proceed. When the Constitution was perverted to shield the guilty, Smith was empowered to shred it to punish them.
For the last twenty of those thirty years Smith had relied on a human weapon in his ongoing war. One man, long believed dead, who, like CURE, officially didn't exist. And now that person, the assassin he had code-named "Destroyer," was ranging the forty-eight contiguous states as if he could single-handedly stamp out all lawless elements.
Not that he wasn't making a dent, Smith thought ruefully.
His aged fingers tapped clicking keys. Bar graphs appeared, their data fluctuating like a sound-system spectrograph registering volume. It was late. The benighted expanse of Long Island Sound sparkled behind Harold Smith like a restive bejeweled giant. In Rye, New York, Harold Winston Smith was working overtime.
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