"As long as we're in the neighborhood, let's check out the address Sweet gave up first. It's supposed to be right here on Mott Street."
"If it is not the address of the grape-stompers who burned down my home, then it is irrelevant," Chiun replied.
"We'll get to them, Little Father. Promise," Remo said. "But we're here now, so wouldn't it be easier to get this out of the way now than have to come back?"
A scowl of impatience crossed Chiun's weathered face. "Very well," he relented. "But be quick about it."
Remo used the business card Sweet had given him to steer them to the right address. As they strolled down the sidewalk, the Master of Sinanju glanced at his pupil several times. His brow finally sank low.
"You are hiding something," Chiun announced abruptly.
Remo felt every joint stiffen at once. "What do you mean?" he asked with forced innocence.
"Please, Remo," Chiun droned. "As an actor, you make a truly great assassin."
The guilt was more than Remo could bear. Since there was no good time for this, he decided to get it out of the way.
"You know when you went up to get your trunks?" he began, his shoulders sinking. "That car that drove away?" A deep breath. "I knew one of the guys," he exhaled.
Chiun stopped dead. When he looked up at his pupil, his hazel eyes were narrow slits. "Explain yourself."
For the first time since his earliest Sinanju training, Remo's palms felt sweaty. He wiped them on his chinos.
"Remember how I told you about that guy I met on the plane? The guy I'd seen when we were in East Africa?"
"Spare me your tedious antics," Chiun clucked impatiently. "I did not listen then, and I am not interested now."
Remo took another deep breath. "Turns out the guy from East Africa was one of the guys who burned down our house," he blurted.
The Master of Sinanju's eyes split wide. Stunned white orbs grew large beyond vellum lids. "You led him to us," the old man hissed.
"I guess," Remo confessed. "He must've helped them track me from that video." He hung his head in shame. "I'm sorry, Little Father."
He waited to be screamed at. To be told he was an idiot and a blunderer. Instead, he was met with silence. For Remo, it was far worse than all the other alternatives combined.
When he glanced up, the Master of Sinanju was still staring at him. The Korean's face had grown utterly flat.
"Aren't you gonna say something?" Remo questioned awkwardly.
Chiun's head began an ominous low roll from side to side. "Words elude me," he intoned thinly. Remo thought he'd braced himself for anything. But the Master of Sinanju's troubling stillness caught him off guard.
"Do something, then," Remo prodded.
"Like what? You are too old to spank and too important to my village to slay."
"I don't know," Remo said. "Maybe a punch in the arm or something. I mean, anything."
Chiun stroked his wispy beard thoughtfully. His slender fingers had not reached the thready tip before Remo felt an increase in air pressure beside him.
He didn't duck out of the way. Eyes closed, he took his medicine, allowing the bony hand to smack him soundly in the side of the head.
Chiun's darting hand quickly retreated to his kimono folds. "That did not help," the old man announced, unsatisfied. He whirled away from his pupil, storming off down the sidewalk.
"Worked for me," Remo grumbled.
Rubbing the side of his head, he trailed the Master of Sinanju down the street.
THE MOTT STREET Community Home stood amid a cluster of seedy brownstones half a city block down from the burning headquarters of the Scubisci Family.
The name made it sound to Remo like the sort of place that had sprung up around the country starting in the sixties. Designed to keep kids out of trouble, all of those places inevitably became a focus for the kind of troubles they were supposed to distract from.
This community home was different, given the fact that its clientele was considerably older than Remo had expected.
"It's an old-folks' home," Remo said when they'd stepped through the Plexiglas front doors. "I am in no mood for your age bashing," Chiun hissed.
As they headed down the hallway to the nurses' station, Remo shook his head.
"I just assumed from the name that it was one of those places where punks go to score drugs. The ones with the pool table with one missing leg and the posters encouraging the joys of prophylactic use among the preteen set." They were at the main desk. "This can't be right," Remo frowned. "Sweet said a Scubisci would be here."
"And why wouldn't one be here?" Chiun said, an undertone of intense displeasure in his squeaky voice.
"Well, I suppose Great-uncle Phineas Scubisci might've been mothballed here twenty years ago," Remo said. "But we're looking for someone a little more current. Someone who knows who's really pulling the purse strings on Raffair, and who maybe knows who these guys are who keep trying to kill me. I assumed it was old Don Pietro's grandson or something, but this is about as far out of the loop as you can get. Let's get out of here."
"Hold," Chiun insisted. He fixed his gaze on the nurse behind the desk. "Does a Scubisci reside here?"
"Room 24A," the woman nodded, pointing down an adjacent hall.
The Master of Sinanju swirled away from the desk.
"This is silly, Chiun," Remo said, hurrying to keep pace with the purposeful gait of the old Asian. "I agree. Therefore let us get it over with quickly so that we can attend to more important matters."
The comingled smells of antiseptics and medications poured from open doorways. Remo hesitated outside room 24A, but Chiun bullied by him.
Inside the small room were two beds. One was neatly made. The covers of the other were a crumpled mess that hung in a tangle off to one side.
An ancient woman sat in a vinyl chair near the window, an unlit cigarette dangling from between her dry lips.
She'd been plump a lifetime ago. Now the empty flesh hung off her shrunken frame like dirty sheets draped across a sagging clothesline.
Her black dress-extra large at one time-was a loose-fitting rag. The woman's ankles were too swollen for shoes. An unused black pair was tucked beneath her chair.
Rheumy eyes looked up as Remo and Chiun entered.
"You got a match?" she threatened.
Remo rolled his eyes. "Chiun, let's go," he whispered.
"Hush!" Chiun insisted. To the old woman he said, "Signora Scubisci?"
The crone pulled the cigarette from her lip. "Atsa me. You gotta match, or no?"
"Sorry, no," Remo answered.
"Eh." She shrugged, lowering the unlit cigarette. "They just take it away from me anyway."
"We beg a moment of your time," the Master of Sinanju said, bowing politely. He motioned to Remo.
"What?" Remo asked from the corner of his mouth.
"Ask her whatever foolishness it is you need to know," Chiun prodded. "And I would appreciate it if you did not draw her a map to the Sinanju treasure house while you are doing so."
Remo felt silly. Obviously, in his last minutes of life, Sol Sweet had had the courage enough to lie. Remo was surprised. The lawyer seemed too scared to offer anything but unvarnished truth.
"Sol Sweet sent me," he began reluctantly.
A light of understanding sparked in her ancient eyes.
"Oh, the Jew," the old woman said. Without another word, she reached for the table next to her chair. It was scarred with the deep black furrows of old cigarette burns.
Resting on the table was a plain manila envelope. A gnarled hand dropped across it. She dragged it across the table, flinging it to Remo. He snatched it from the air.
There was an airmail sticker on the envelope. It was addressed to "A.S. c/o Angela Scubisci, Mott Street Community Home." Along with the zip code and street address was the legend "New York, NY. U.S.A." There was no return address.
"A.S.?" Remo asked, reading the initials. "Anselmo." She said the name with contempt. "He issa my
son. Didn't the kike tell you?"
He looked at the woman with new eyes. "He forgot to mention it," Remo said dully.
"Hah," the woman scoffed. "You know my son?"
Remo thought of the day he'd met Anselmo Scubisci. He had been on assignment, sent after the Don's younger brother, Dominic, Angela Scubisci's only other child.
"Only saw him once in passing," Remo said. A hard glint came to his deep-set eyes. "We knew your husband, though."
Both he and the Master of Sinanju had watched old Don Pietro Scubisci breathe his last.
The widow Scubisci pounded a blue-veined hand against her sagging chest. "Oh, my Pietro. Now there was a man who respected family. Even that idiot boy of ours, Dominic-God rest his soul-he knew where hissa loyalty should be. Not Anselmo. He don't respect hissa family."
Remo steered her away from the topic of family. "Sweet said you knew something about your son's backer."
The old woman sighed a pained, raspy exhalation. "It's in there," she said, pointing to the envelope. "All the betrayal. He no respect hissa father. All my Pietro's work, gone. That boy issa no good."
Brow furrowing, Remo tore one end off the envelope. He reached inside, pulling out a single sheet of paper. The printing was in some foreign language.
"Hey, whaddayou doing!" Angela Scubisci demanded.
He ignored her. "I can't read this," Remo said, handing the note off to Chiun.
"Atsa for Anselmo," the woman insisted angrily. "This is the language of the Kingdom of the Two," the Master of Sinanju pronounced.
"Twenty-first-century equivalent?" Remo asked.
"Italy," Chiun replied, displeased at having to use the modern name. He frowned as he read the lines. "There is nothing of interest here. It is merely a note of thanks for some unmentioned success."
"Hmm," Remo said. "Could be from Scubisci's backer. Does it say who he is?"
"It is unsigned," Chiun replied.
"Maybe Smith can track him from this." Taking the note back, Remo stuffed it back in its envelope before shoving it in his pocket. "You know who sent this?" he asked the old woman.
Unable to move, she sat glaring at the two strangers.
"No," she snarled. "They never tell me. I only know itsa from Napoli." She tipped her head. "Whassa you name?"
Remo figured it would do no harm to answer. "Remo," he admitted.
Her angry features softened. "Atsa good name," she said, nodding. "Paisan. I bet you don't turna you back on you family."
"Oh, I can tell you stories," Chiun offered coldly.
The widow Scubisci paid no attention to the old Korean.
"You work for that Jew, Sweet?" she asked Remo.
"No," Remo said. "And that anti-Semitism must make you the belle of the ball on mah-jongg night. Let's go, Chiun."
"You take that Jew-boy out, didn't you?" Angela Scubisci called as they walked away.
When Remo turned back, her eyes had grown crafty.
Remo thought of how he'd left Sol Sweet, picture frame hanging around his scrawny neck. "Actually, I sort of put him in," he admitted.
She tipped her malevolent witch's face forward. "You goin' after Anselmo now, ain't you?" she cackled. Clapping her wasted hands, Angela Scubisci grinned, flashing black gums and a sorry trio of sharp brown teeth. "You get him for what he do to his poor father's memory," she said happily. "He think it's enough he get that kike lawyer of his to pay for me to stay here. He tella me he have me thrown out if I don' pass on his filthy, traitorous mail." Her Halloween smile broadened. "You getta him good now, Remo." She seemed delighted to say his name. "Him and those Napoli bastards."
"Napoii?" Remo asked. "Naples, right?"
Angela Scubisci spit on the shabby floor. "Don' talka to me about those diavola tonno." She spit again, wiping drool from her chin with the back of one ancient hand.
"What's wrong with Naples?" Remo asked. This time, the widow Scubisci tried to spit at him. He twisted and it slapped viciously against the ratty wallpaper.
"Chiun?" Remo asked, confused. The old man stood near the door.
"She is Sicilian," he explained with growing impatience. "Clan warfare has divided both provinces for generations."
"And my Anselmo has got on his knees for them Napoli dogs," Angela Scubisci snarled. "Iffa my Pietro was alive, it woulda been different. The family always come first to him." She raised both hands above her head. Loose black sleeves rolled back to reveal flesh-draped biceps. "Oh, if he wassa here now, I'd make him some of the fried peppers he love so much. And after he eat, he woulda have one of his caporegime shoot that traitorous boy of his right inna the face."
"Must've missed a lot of Mother's Days," Remo commented aridly to Chiun.
"I am not interested," Chiun hissed. "Now come. We have dallied here long enough." In a whirl of kimono skirts, he ducked back into the hallway.
Remo looked once more at Angela Scubisci. The old woman's withered hands were still upraised. Sitting in her chair, she was stretching toward the ceiling, muttering soft invocations.
"Oh, Pietro," she intoned, her hopeful, damp eyes turned upward, "thissa fine boy gonna pay back Anselmo for what he done to poison your memory."
She waved her prayerful arms from side to side. At the door, Remo thought of all the schemes of old Don Pietro that CURE had been forced to thwart, of all the innocents who had fallen victim to the evil old man.
As he slipped through the door, he called back to the ancient widow of Pietro Scubisci, his tone icy cold.
"If you want to get to your husband, lady, you're reaching in the wrong direction."
Chapter 23
"Anselmo Scubisci's not the top dog after all, Smitty," Remo announced. He was on a pay phone in the lobby of the retirement home. "Sounds like he's running things from jail for somebody else."
"To you know who?" Smith asked.
"Nope. Mrs. Scubisci didn't know."
"Mrs. Scubisci?" Smith questioned.
"Or Mother Scubisci, depending on which one of her Riff Raff Sam relatives we're talking about. Weird thing, Smitty, but I was just thinking she's one of the few members of that family I've met that I haven't killed. Not that the temptation wasn't there."
"I found her to be charming," the Master of Sinanju disagreed. He was standing at Remo's elbow. He seemed to be attempting by restless expression alone to hurry the conversation along.
"I'm not surprised," Remo said to Chiun. "She's the first mom I ever met who opted for capital over corporal punishment." To Smith, he said, "The nasty old battle-ax wants us to ice her own son. She's pissed at him for throwing in with some foreign investor for Raffair."
Chiun shook his head testily. "Not just any foreign investor, Emperor Smith," he called. "The man he has taken up with is from Naples."
With his last word came a phlegmy sound from down the hall. A fresh wad of spit flew out the door of Angela Scubisci's room.
"I'm glad I'm not in charge of mop duty around here," Remo commented. "Anyway, Chiun's right. She wasn't upset that junior was a murderous son of a bitch, just that he'd gone into business with someone from the dreaded N-province."
"I understand why," Smith said. "It is an odd arrangement, given the fact that the Scubisci Family has its origin in Sicily."
"Sicily, Naples-I still don't know what the big deal is," Remo said.
"There is a very old rivalry between crime interests in both cities. Although it exists now throughout Italy, Sicily is the traditional home of the Mafia. The branch from which the Scubisci Family extends is quite strong there."
Remo didn't know how it came to him. But at Smith's use of the word now, something sparked in his brain. He felt his hand tighten on the receiver.
"Now," he stressed, stunned at his own deduction.
"What is it?" Smith asked, curious.
"You said exists now," Remo said excitedly. "What about before? Like years ago?"
"I do not follow."
"Remember East Africa? The defense minister there made a deal w
ith some kind of old Italian crime syndicate. Dinty Morra or something like that."
An instant's hesitation on the other end of the line as Smith picked up the thread. "Camorra," he announced, the shock of realization in his steady voice.
It was during CURE's last crisis. Renegade forces within the government had threatened to turn the African nation of East Africa into a haven for crime. The defense minister of that country had made a deal with an old rival of the Mafia thought to have been extinct since the early part of the twentieth century. Camorra. This underground syndicate intended to use nuclear devices to decimate the ranks of the visiting crime lords, hoping to assume dominance of the world's crime scene.
Remo and Chiun had thwarted their plans, and the secret fraternity had scuttled back into the shadows. In the intervening months, Smith had been unable to locate them, and they had made no more noises of their desire to expand beyond Italy's borders. Until now.
"Is it possible?" Smith asked. He was still amazed that something like Camorra had evaded detection for so long.
"You tell me," Remo answered. "I've got a letter here from Italy. By the sounds of it, Scubisci was getting stuff sent to his mother and his lawyer was bringing it to him."
"Bring the letter to Folcroft," Smith said crisply.
"I was gonna FedEx it," Remo said. "And anyway, Chiun says it's just some kind of congratulations thing. It might not be anything."
"I will not know that until I see it."
"C'mon, Smitty. Chiun's itching to go after the guys who torched our house. Besides, the note's in Italian. You don't know Italian."
"Actually, I do know some," Smith said. "And Master Chiun will be able to fill the gaps in my knowledge. As for the men responsible for burning your home, I have had no luck. There have been no credit-card usages by Fungillo since yesterday. Aside from a large cash withdrawal in his name from a Boston ATM a few hours after you saw him flee the scene, he has disappeared. At least electronically."
Beside Remo, the Master of Sinanju's face grew dark. "You confessed to Smith before me?" he hissed.
When Remo offered a sheepish shrug in explanation, the old man exhaled disgust. He marched away from his pupil and took up a sentry position at the main doors, glaring malevolence at Mott Street. The activity outside had grown since their arrival at the retirement complex.
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