Sergeant Pleskoff went on about the oppression of the Third World as he showed Remo the computer system that made this precinct twenty percent more effective than other New York City police precincts.
"We are an anticrime impact area. This is where the federal government has poured extra money into fighting crime."
"Like what?" asked Remo. He couldn't perceive any crime being fought.
"For one thing, with the extra money we sent sound trucks into the areas reconfirming the identity of Third World youth as oppressed victims of whites."
"You're white, aren't you?" asked Remo.
"Absolutely," said Pleskoff, "and ashamed of it." He seemed proud to be ashamed.
"Why? You had no more say in your becoming white than somebody else does in his becoming black," Remo said.
"Or any other similar lesser race," said Chiun, lest racist Americans confuse their lesser races with the better one which was yellow.
"I'm ashamed because of the great debt we owe to the great black race. Look," said Pleskoff confidentially. "I don't know the answers. I'm just a cop. I follow orders. There are people who are smarter than me. If I give the cockamamie answers, I get promoted. If, God forbid, I should ever let on that a black family moving onto your block isn't a blessing from Allah, I'd be cashiered. I live in Aspen, Colorado myself."
"Why Aspen? Why so far away?"
"Because I couldn't get to the pre-Civil War South," said Pleskoff. "Between you and me I used to root for the Rebels in those Civil War movies. Aren't you sorry we won now?"
"I want to know who killed the old woman, Mrs. Gerd Mueller of Walton Avenue," said Remo.
"I didn't know the FBI dealt in murder. What's federal about a killing?"
"It is a federal case. It's the most important case in the last two hundred years. It is very basic, as basic as the cave. The old and the weak are to be protected by their young men. Until recently, that's been the general mark of civilization. Maybe I've been paid to protect that old lady. Maybe the money she turned out of her pocketbook to pay my salary, your salary, maybe that just owes her that her killer doesn't waltz away to some psychiatric interview, if by some incredible accident he gets caught. Maybe, just maybe now with one little old white lady, the American people say 'enough.' "
"Gee, that's stirring," said Pleskoff. "To be honest, sometimes I want to help protect old people. But when you're a New York City cop, you can't do everything you want."
Pleskoff showed Remo the pride of the precinct, the main battle weapon in the new seventeen-million mass-impact, high-priority, anticrime battle. It was a $4.5 million computer.
"What does it do?"
"What does it do?" said Pleskoff proudly. "You say you want to know about a Mrs. Mueller, Gerd, homicide?" Pleskoff pressed a keyboard. He hummed. The machine spat out a stack of white cards into a metal tray. They fell there quietly, those twenty cards representing twenty deaths.
"Don't look so distraught, sir," said Pleskoff.
"Are those the elderly deaths for the city?" asked Remo.
"Oh, no," said Pleskoff. "Those are the Muellers. You ought to see the Schwartzes and the Sweeneys. You could play contract bridge with them."
Remo found cards for Mrs. Mueller and her husband.
"Homicide? Why is he in the homicide file?" Remo asked.
Pleskoff shrugged and looked at the card. "Okay, I see now. Sometimes you'll have some old-timer who still believes in the old-fashioned direct limited link of victim-crime-killer. You know, the old way, criminal commits the crime, get the criminal? The mindless visceral irresponsible reaction that often leads to such atrocities as a police riot."
"Which means?" asked Remo.
"Which means, this officer, this reactionary racist as an act of defiance against the department and his precinct mislabeled Gerd Mueller's death a murder. It was a heart attack."
"That's what I was told," said Remo. "I thought so."
"So did everyone except that racist. It was a heart attack, brought on by a knife injected into it. But you know how backward your traditional Irish cop is. Fortunately, they've got a union now and it helps enlighten them. You won't find them flying off the handle anymore. Except if it's union business."
"Guess what?" said Remo. "You are about to identify a criminal. You are about to take me to the Saxon Lords. You are going to identify a killer."
"You can't make me do that. I'm a New York, City policeman. We have union rules, you know."
Remo grabbed the lobe of Sergeant Pleskoff's right ear and twisted. It caused pain. Pleskoff smiled because the pain made him smile. Then he cried. Big tears came to his eyes.
"There's a very stiff penalty for assaulting a policeman," he gasped.
"When I find one in this remnant of a city, I promise I will not assault him."
Remo dragged the crying Sergeant Pleskoff from the stationhouse. The patrolmen behind the machine guns threatened to shoot because, in this case, it was legal.
"Don't think you're assaulting some ordinary citizen," yelled one patrolman. "That's a police officer and that's a crime. What do you think he is? Some rabbi or priest? That's a cop. There are laws against doing things to cops."
Remo noticed a large dark stain spread over the blue crotch of Sergeant Pleskoff. A New York City policeman had discovered to his horror that he was going to have to go out in the street after dark.
The night had cooled off. As soon as they were out of the stationhouse, the door bolted behind them.
"Oh God, what have I done? What have I done?" moaned Sergeant Pleskoff.
Chiun chuckled and said in Korean to Remo that he was fighting against a wave, instead of moving with it.
"I won't be the only one who drowns, Little Father," Remo said. And his voice was grim.
CHAPTER FIVE
Twisting an ear just before the tearing point is more secure than a rein. It is also a more effective information-gathering device. Keep the person who owned the ear just barely in pain-it did not have to be a lot of pain-and the person would start answering questions. On obvious lies, start the pain flowing again so that the person himself would make his body into a truth machine. It was not force that was required, but timing.
Sergeant Pleskoff, his right ear between Remo's fingers, thought the streets looked strange at night.
"This is a beat," said Remo. "You're going to walk it now."
Three black forms hovered in a doorway. A young girl called out at the door: "Ma, it's me. Let me in, you hear?"
One of the other dark forms was a young man. He held his hand to the girl's throat. In that hand, he held a cheap dime store saw with a pistol grip.
"That is a crime," whispered Remo, pointing across the darkened street.
"Yes. Bad housing is a crime against Third World peoples."
"No. No," said Remo. "You are not an economist. You are not a housing expert. You are a policeman. See. Someone is holding a saw to that girl's throat. That's your business."
"I wonder why he's doing that?"
"No. You're not a psychiatrist," said Remo and he began to twist Pleskoff's ear to the point of tearing. "Now think. What should you do?"
"Picket City Hall for jobs for young Afro-Americans?"
"No," said Remo.
"Demonstrate against racism?" said Sergeant PleskofE, between gasps of pain.
"No racism there, Sergeant Pleskoff. That's black on black," said Remo. One of the men at the door with the young girl spotted Remo, Sergeant Pleskoff, and Chiun. Apparently he did not think the trio was worth bothering about. He turned back to the door waiting for the girl's mother to open it.
"Aw, right, Peaches," said the older man at the door. It was now time for threats. "We jam de lye up Delphinia's twat. Y'heah? Now you open dat mufu doah and spread yo' beaver 'cause it muvver and daughter night. Bofe of you be pleasured for de night."
"It's apparently a double rape with probable robbery coming up and I'd say a possible murder also," Remo said. "Wouldn't you, Chiun?"
"Wouldn't I what?" asked Chiun.
"Say it's those crimes."
"A crime is a matter of law," said Chiun. "I see two men overpowering a girl. Who knows what weapon she has? No. Crime requires that I judge right and wrong and the right I know is the way to breathe and move and live. So are they right? No, they are all wrong for all of them breathe badly and move half asleep." Thus spake Oliver Wendell Chiun.
"See?" said Sergeant Pleskoff desperately.
"Arrest the men," said Remo.
"I'm one, they're two."
"You have a gun," said Remo.
"And endanger my retirement, my advancement points, my clothing allowance? They're not harming a policeman. That girl is too young to be a policeman."
"Either you use your gun on them or I use it on you," said Remo and released Sergeant Pleskoff's ear.
"Aha, you have threatened a police officer and are endangering a police officer," yelled Pleskoffi and went for his gun. His hand shot down to the black handle and closed on it and ripped the .38 Police Special with the delicious heavy lead slug, creased down the middle to make a dumdum to splatter in his attacker's face. The bullet was not only illegal for New York City policemen, it had been made illegal for warfare by the Geneva Convention. But Sergeant Pleskoffi knew he would only draw his gun in self-defense. You needed it when you left Aspen. He supported laws against handguns because he got advancement points for doing it. What difference did another law make? This was New York City. It had lots of laws, the most humanitarian laws in the country. But only one was in effect and Sergeant Pleskoff was going to enforce it now. The law of the jungle. He had been attacked, his ear had been brutalized, he had been threatened, and that FBI man who had gone bananas was going to pay for it.
But the gun seemed to float out of his hand and he was squeezing empty air. The FBI man, in the too-casual clothes for an FBI man, seemed to slide under and into the gun and then he had it. And he was offering it back, and Pleskoff took it back, and tried to kill him again and that didn't work either.
"Them or you," said Remo.
"Reasonable," said Sergeant Pleskoff, not quite sure whether this would be a proper defense before a police review board. It was just like a shooting range. Bang. The large one dropped, his head jerking like it was on a chain pulley. Bang. Bang. And he blew the spinal column out of the smaller one.
"I meant arrest them, you maniac," said Remo.
"I know," said Sergeant Pleskoff in a daze. "But I was afraid. I don't know why."
"It's okay, ma," yelled the girl and the door opened and a woman in a blue bathrobe peeked out.
"Thank the Lawd. You safe, chile?" she asked.
"De policemans, he do it," said the girl.
"God bless you, officer," yelled the woman, taking her daughter safely inside and bolting and reinforcing the locks.
A strange feeling overcame Sergeant Pleskoff. He couldn't describe it.
"Pride," said Remo. "Some cops have it."
"You know," said Pleskoff, excited. "We could get some of us down at the station house, on our off-hours, to walk the streets and do this sort of thing. In disguises, of course, so we wouldn't get reported to the commissioner. I know the old-timers used to do things like this, stop muggings and stuff, and shoot the shit out of anyone who endangers anyone else. Even if it isn't a cop. Let's get the Saxon Lords."
"I want to find out who did in Mrs. Mueller. So I've got to talk to them," Remo said. "Dead men don't talk."
"Fuck 'em. Shoot 'em all," said Pleskoff.
Remo took his gun away. "Just the bad guys."
"Right," said Pleskoff. "Can I reload?"
"No," said Remo.
"You know, I may not even get into trouble for this. Nobody has to know it was a' policeman who stopped a robbery and rape. They could think it was a relative who shot up those two or maybe they didn't pay a Mafia loan shark. Then there would be no fuss at all."
This idea made Pleskoff happy. He was not sure whether the women would talk. But if word ever got back to the Reverend Josiah Wadson and the Black Ministry Council, then Pleskoff would lose his retirement pay. Perhaps even be fired.
If that happened, maybe he could go independent, offer a novel service of armed men protecting the unarmed. If this idea caught on, why, people without guns might be able to walk New York City's streets again. He did not know what this service might be called but one could always hire an advertising firm. Perhaps "Pro-tecta-Block." Everyone on a block could chip in to pay for it. The men might even wear uniforms to distinguish themselves and let those who might harm people on the block know that there was protection there. It was a whiz-bang idea, thought Sergeant Pleskoff, and the good Lord knew New York City could use it.
Outside a schoolyard of concrete, surrounded by a high cyclone fence, Sergeant Pleskoff saw the dark blue denim jackets of the Saxon Lords. There were twenty or thirty of them moving along the fence. He did not have to read the lettering, even if he could on this dark night. Twenty or thirty dark jackets had to be the denim of the Saxon Lords. At first, he felt a fear of going on this street without their permission. Then he remembered he had a gun he could use. The man who had showed him the FBI Card held the gun for him. Pleskoff asked to reload.
"Those the Saxon Lords?" asked Remo.
"Yes. My gun," said Pleskoff.
"You use it before I tell you, you'll eat it," Remo said.
"Fair enough," said Pleskoff. His mind was feverish with possibilities for his unique Protecta-Block. The men protecting people could carry guns too. Like the one he had. There might even be a snappy name for these men in uniforms who carried guns and protected people, thought the New York City policeman, but he couldn't think of one right then. He filled the chambers of the gun with bullets.
Chiun watched the American policeman, then the group of young men. The young men walked with the confident arrogance of bullies. It was natural for man to herd but when he herded, what he gained in group strength he lost in individual courage.
"Who you?" demanded the tallest, revealing to Chiun and Remo that the gang was really disorganized. When the biggest ruled, it was a sign that physical prowess had to be used to gain leadership, not cunning or agreement. It was the same, then, as a gathering of strangers.
"Who am I, you mean," said Remo.
"Who you? Dat what I axed," said the tall one angrily.
"You want to know who I am. And I want to know who you are," said Remo.
"Dat mans need mannas," said the tall one.
"Manners, right?" said Remo. That's the word he thought it was.
"Let me take him," whispered Sergeant Pleskoff to Remo.
"De sergeant, he shoulda tol' you who de Saxon Lawds is, man. Ah sees de jive turkey, he wif you. We ain' got no street lights cause'a white oppression and 'trocities against de Tird Worl' Peoples. I gone be perfesser English when I learns to read. Head ob de department. Dey gotta has niggas. It's de law. Whole English 'partment, biggest in de worl'. De blacks invent de English, de whites done rob it from dems. You rip off, honkey."
"I'm not sure what you said but I understood that honkey part," Remo said, leveled two right ringers into the tall young man's navel and, finding the spinal column joint, severed it. There was hardly a whoosh from the collapsed lungs. The dark form doubled over, its shaggy head plopping into its pop brand-new sneakers with the Slam Dunk treads and the Super Soul super-sole of polyester and rubber. The sneakers had red stars on the insteps. If the tall young man had still had an operative nervous system, each eye could have seen at microscopic close distance, right under the instep star, the legend that the sneakers were made in Taiwan.
The nervous system also failed to pick up the loud metallic sound of a .45 caliber automatic clacking to the pavement that cool dark morning. The gun had come from the youth's right hand.
"Wha' happen? Wha', man?" The questions came from the young Saxon Lords as their leader stood only up to his waist, and then, in a slow moment, toppled forward in collapse, so
that when he came to rest his legs were neatly pressed on top of him.
"He daid?" came a moaning voice. "De man's do a 'trocity on de brother."
"Shoot," said another. "I ain't seen nuffin'. Just another jive honkey with Sergean' Pleskoff. Hey, Pleskoff, wha' that in you hand?"
"No," said Remo to Sergeant Pleskoff. "Not yet." There were two other guns of smaller caliber in the gang. Remo removed them, with stinging pain, from their holders. After the fourth gang member to fall in pain, the shouts about blood vengeance modified. On the fifth Afro snapping back like a wild dust mop on a tight spring, the tenor of the game changed from threats to obeisance, from master to slave, from macho posturing to "no sirs" and head scratching, and they were just standing here innocent at four a.m., minding their own business. Waitin' to see if some nice white man should come along so they could help. Yessuh.
"Empty your pockets and put your hands up on that fence," said Sergeant Pleskoff. He grinned with delirious pleasure. "I wish I had twenty pair of those things. The kind of things that go on wrists and lock. The whatchamacallits."
"Handcuffs," said Remo.
"Yeah, right. Handcuffs," Pleskoff said.
Remo asked about the house that had been torn down. Nobody knew anything about the building. Remo broke a finger. And very quickly he found out that the building had been in Saxon Lord territories, the gang had hit the Muellers a few times, the man had been knifed, but no one here had done the final one on Mrs. Mueller. Lordy, no. No one here would do anything like that.
"Was it another gang?" asked Remo.
"No," came the answer. Remo broke another finger.
"All right," he said. "Who did Mueller? Who did the old man?"
There were murmurings over exactly which old white man Remo meant.
"De one dat cried, begged, and cried not to slam him no more? Dat white man? Or de one whats bleed de carpets like puddles?"
"The one with the German accent," Remo said.
"Raht. De one dat talks funny," said one.
As near as Remo could determine, there had been two old white men in that building. The Saxon Lords killed the first because he wouldn't tell them where his insulin needle was hidden. The second, seeing that they were about to successfully enter his apartment, threw himself at them.
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