The coffee in the Andropolos Diner was good that morning. Black and bitter and when meshed with globs of sugar from the spoon and swilled with cream-the real stuff, not what Andropolos served his regular customers-it tasted rich and good and solid.
"Pie ala mode. Cherry pie with vanilla fudge, Gertie," said Sheriff Wyatt to the counter girl. She was in her late thirties, the hardening result of too many one-night stands with too many customers who asked what she was doing when she got off that night, and too many "nothing muches."
She was Gertie and they told Gertie dirty jokes and she laughed at them. And they pinched Gertie and Gertie might get mad but Gertie getting mad didn't really count because she was Gertie.
Gertie was the woman who heard all the latest smut.
Gertie was also the waitress at Andropolos' who received the highest tips. And Gertie, as Sheriff Wyatt knew, had one hell of a bank account.
Sheriff Wyatt's ham buttocks crowned the red vinyl counter stool, smothering it in khaki-clad flesh that almost hid the stool top.
He rested his elbows on the counter and burped. Gertie brought him the pie ala mode.
"Heard seven people were killed out at Gromuccfs last night," Gertie said. "A baby too. One of the men said that the kid kept crying throughout the whole thing. The whole night. And then it stopped and when they found it, it was dead. It was a girl. Her mother and her father were killed, too. One of her brothers. Only three kids out of that family lived. Those shacks are a disgrace, you know, Wade." ..
"Look," said Wyatt, his beefy face reddening. "I'm gonna eat this pie. And I'm gonna eat this ice cream. But next time when I order cherry pie ala mode with vanilla fudge, I want cherry pie with vanilla fudge. Not vanilla ripple."
Sheriff Wyatt plunged the fork into the vanilla ripple, its prongs making even runnels through the white and brown ice cream.
"You're a bit much, Wade."
Sheriff Wyatt waved the fork in front of Gertie's face, far enough away, however, to avoid any contact with her makeup. Then he would have to get another fork.
"I'll tell you, this may be the third time this year that I've ordered vanilla fudge and gotten vanilla ripple."
"What about the people who were killed, Wade?"
"Serving me ripple instead of fudge ain't gonna bring 'em back."
"You ain't paying for it."
"I'll pay for it. Bring me fudge."
"We're out. You want another flavour?"
"No. Ripple will do."
Gertie, unwounded by combat, stayed near Wyatt.
"They say the wetbacks are talking about death. A lot of it. That they may go back home. That they got their warnings," said Gertie.
Sheriff Wyatt drained his cup. "Good riddance. Whole pack of 'em."
"Who'll pick the grapes?"
"Americans."
"At those wages?"
"Then they'll get machines. Machines don't stink like wetbacks. You can park a machine in a garage. The machine don't want to move in with you or go to the movies with you. Machines'll take orders too."
"Not nowadays," laughed Gertie.
Sheriff Wyatt laughed too.
"That new fellow who bought Feinstein's?" Gertie said.
"Remo Blomberg?"
"Yeah. I saw him this morning on my way to work."
"At five A.M.?"
"Yeah," Gertie said. "He was out on his lawn doing the damnedest exercises I ever saw."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. It was like crazy. I mean, it was dark, so I can't be sure, but it was like he was running fast. Real fast. Faster than I ever saw anybody run. And then it would be like he hit a wall, he changed directions so fast. Like he did it without his legs. Like the cartoons or the old movies. He'd be zipping along here, then zipping along there, then pow, he'd be going somewhere else. Weirdest thing I ever saw.
"And then," she said, "then he lay down on the ground and it was like he was vibrating or something. Then he did the strangest thing I've ever seen. I mean ever. I mean, I've been to the Cowboy and all and I mean ever. He's laying face down on the lawn, and then he's in the air, flipping over backwards. Like a cat. I mean it."
Gertie played nervously with her counter-rag, twisting it and watching Sheriff Wyatt's eyes closely as she told her story.
Wyatt offered his cup for more coffee. Gertie reached behind her to the constantly-heated carafe and poured it. Wyatt added the sugar and real cream.
"What do you think about that?" Gertie asked.
Wyatt beckoned her closer with his fork. He had a bit of information for her.
"He's queer. Fagola. Probably doing ballet."
"No kidding?" said Gertie, shocked. "I'd never believe it."
"You can believe it."
"No kidding," repeated Gertie, quite satisfied with what she had gleaned. She paused. "You know, I know and most of the town knows what really happened at the motel with Feinstein and the other guy. Yeah, I know poisoning and all. It really happened at the motel, naked and all. But they weren't queer, in case you thought so. I know. The two of 'em were with broads."
"No."
"Yeah," Gertie said. "They were doing a real gang number with a bunch of broads."
"In the Cowboy?"
"You know it."
"No."
"Yeah," said Gertie conspiratorially. "With a bunch of broads."
"Oh," said Wyatt dumbly and dropped his fork to his plate. "I didn't know that."
He waited in the diner until he saw Lester Curpwell's silver Rolls Royce pull up in front of the Curpwell building. Let Gertie think whatever she wanted to think. He crossed the street. Wyatt knew how the two men had died. By whose hand. And he didn't like it.
He caught up with Curpwell just in front of the main door.
"I've got to speak with you right away," he said. "Last night was a warning. The earthquake people called me. There are some things we've got to do."
"One thing we've got to do," Curpwell said, "is not talk out here on the street. We'll talk this afternoon. I think it's time that Mr. Remo Blomberg learned about the expenses of owning Feinstein's."
CHAPTER TEN
Sheriff Wyatt himself went to pick up the new owner of Feinstein's. The store had remained open under the vice president's charge, and the new owner had yet to appear there. Curpwell had invited Remo Blomberg himself over the telephone. Wyatt was told to be friendly to sort of let the new man know he was among friends in San Aquino.
Sheriff Wyatt was tired, bone tired, as he drove up the curved driveway to the Feinstein house. Funny. He still thought of it as the Feinstein house. He trudged up the few steps to the front door and rang.
The little gook answered the bell.
"Is the master home?" asked Wyatt.
"Yes," said Chiun, Master of Sinanju, holder of the extreme mysteries of the martial arts, assassin whose labours supported the village of Sinanju in Korea, as his father's labour had supported the village, as his father's father's labours had supported the village, all by renting themselves to those with the money to pay for their services.
"May I speak with him?"
"You are," said Chiun.
"I mean Mr. Blomberg."
Sheriff Wyatt watched. The little gook smiled an amused little smile and bowed. Frail little fellow, thought Wyatt. Funny, he did not invite the sheriff in, so as the little gook began to shuffle off to get his queerio boss, Wyatt stepped into the house behind him.
And suddenly, surprisingly, there was a sharp pain in the sheriff's gut and a blur as if the little old man's hand had come out from behind him with a knife in it, and Sheriff Wyatt heard:
"You were not invited in."
And the little gook hadn't even broken his shuffling stride, and he had left a knife in Wyatt's stomach. Wyatt just knew it, and he was afraid to look. He clutched the searing pain, feeling for the blood he knew must be there.
"Oh, sweet mercy, Jesus, no," moaned Sheriff Wyatt. He felt gingerly around the deep wound. No blood yet. His hand could go no far
ther. He steadied himself against the frame of the door. He groaned, praying that the other white man would find him. Then he heard a voice that had to be Remo Bloberg's.
"Chiun, c'mon, will you please?"
Then the gook's voice. "It is a nothing."
"Well, the sheriff doesn't think so."
"If I had killed him, you would have been upset. But do I get thanks for my thinking of your welfare? No. I get rebuke."
What the hell were they talking about? thought Sheriff Wyatt. It must be a knife that the sneaky little dink had slipped into him.
"Just lean back," said the white man. "Take your hands away from your stomach. That's it. Now keep your eyes shut just the way they are."
Sheriff Wyatt felt an even sharper pain around the wound like a hand slapping, opening the knife wound farther, and then he felt no pain at all. The no pain felt so good that tears welled in his eyes before he knew they were there.
He opened his eyes and looked down for the knife the white man must have removed. But there was no knife. There was no wound. There was no mark on his shirt. A miracle. He always knew Jews knew the mysteries of miracle healing.
"Thank you, thank you," said the sheriff, regaining his composure. "What did you do with the knife?"
"What knife?"
The one the little gook stuck in me."
"There was no knife."
"I know a knife wound when I been wounded. I'm charging that little dink with assaulting an officer with a deadly weapon."
"Do you have any pain?"
"No."
"Do you have a wound?"
"Doesn't look like it."
"Then how are you going to accuse him of sticking a knife in you?"
"There are ways we have," said Sheriff Wyatt, hitching up his gunbelt.
"Look. He never cut you. He just affected nerves beneath the skin. Painful. But harmless."
"Oh," said Sheriff Wyatt, peering past Remo Blomberg at the frail creature standing calmly and quietly in repose near a vase, as if both were moulded from the same frail piece of porcelain. "Listen boy," Wyatt boomed to the elderly Oriental. "Next time you try any of that funny business with stomach nerves and stuff, you had it, boy. Heah? Don't say I didn't warn you."
There it was. Those grins. Those queerio grins on both this Remo Blomberg fella and that gook. Like the grins the day before, when they arrived in San Aquino." Remo glanced at the notches on his gun and just smiled goose-faced at each other like two fagolas.
"That goes for you too, Mr. Blomberg, no disrespect meant, but where would any of you be without the law?"
"Call me Remo," said the young new owner of Feinstein's.
"Sure, Remo," said Sheriff Wyatt.
In the car Wyatt said he was not familiar with Jewish names and what did Remo stand for?
"It's not really a Jewish name," said Remo.
"Yeah, what kind is it then?"
"It's a long story," said Remo. He wore a white sports shirt and blue slacks with Italian slip-on shoes. He felt very relaxed.
"We got time," said Sheriff Wyatt.
"It's a long story I'm not going to tell you," Remo said. Then he smiled.
"Well, sure. If it's personal and all. You'll find out, though, that out here in San Aquino everybody sort of gets to know everybody else's stories. Know what I mean?"
"No," said Remo. And they drove in silence to the Curpwell Building where the night watchman let them in. They went past the rows of desks on the first floor, into a secretary's office that was open, then Wyatt stopped, knocked at the polished thick wooden door with its brass inlays.
It opened and Lester Curpwell IV, in dark business suit with vest and a brave smile warming out of a concerned face, greeted Remo with a big handshake.
"I'm glad to meet you but sorry to meet you under these circumstances," he said.
Remo looked puzzled, although he wasn't. He accepted Curpwell's hand and noticed Wyatt look with contempt at the limp wrist.
"Yes, it's confusing," Curpwell conceded. "I'll explain everything, Mr. Blomberg," he said.
Remo noticed two middle-aged men, one dressed casually and the other more formally, standing at seats around a long, dark conference table with a warm yellow overhead light that made the meeting look like a conspiracy. He knew what would be happening, but he must act surprised, he reminded himself.
"Call me Remo," said Remo.
Curpwell graciously led him to the table and introduced him to a Dourn Rucker-call him Dourn-and a Mitchell Boydenhousen-call him Sonny. He watched their eyes as he offered a limp hand, then another limp hand. They hid their embarrassment with dishonest warmth.
Remo could see Wyatt was giving the ceiling an "oh, no, not another bleeding heart" look. Fine.
Remo eased himself into one of the tan leather chairs surrounding the table. The room tasted and smelled of good wood, fine polish and top grade leather, all put together over a century. People sometimes tried to provide this solid conservative feel in a day and discovered they could not get it. They could buy the tables, the lamps and the leather. Even the fireplace and the portrait behind the desk at the end of the room. But they found they lacked the taste of generations of accepted wealth.
Remo crossed a leg, a bit more gracefully than was necessary. Chiun often warned him against overacting. Chiun, in situations like these, was very much the method school of acting. To play the innocent flower, be the innocent flower. Your claws can always surface.
Remo tried to set the men, something Chiun had been working on him for years. That extra sense of danger, who was a killer and who was not. Chiun sometimes could chart the violence in a man's heart and compute exactly how much would be used.
One night in a restaurant in Kansas City, Chiun had Remo scan the crowd and pick out those who were dangerous. Remo picked three men and couldn't narrow it down any further. Before the night ended, an old woman in a flowered hat tried to kill Remo with a hat pin. The men were harmless.
Chiun had known it was her by instinct.
Now Remo tried. He sat around the table with the four men and he graded them and this time he was sure he was right.
Wyatt might kill somebody by accident. The notches in the gun were for what he thought he should be, not what he was.
Rucker and Boydenhousen appeared like fairly healthy specimens and might, if circumstances led them to it, or if backed into it, kill.
But Lester Curpwell IV, with the fine, graying temples, the honest blue eyes and the strong but warm sympathetic smile of America's nobility. ... He could drive a spike through your retina and not miss a meal.
"We face a serious problem here in San Aquino, Mr. Blomberg," said Curpwell, folding his strong hands together as in prayer. "This is earthquake country, you know."
"That wasn't explained to me when I bought Feinstein's."
"I guess everyone thought everyone else knew. By and large, earthquakes are like any other natural disasters. Things you risk, like getting hit by lightning. A man could, as they say, get killed walking across the street."
"Yes. But in an earthquake, the street walks across you," Remo responded. "And if you have a store, it tears it down."
Remo saw Boydenhousen exchange glances with Rucker, and Sheriff Wyatt extend his manliness to a smothered snort.
"Well, that may be, but earthquakes and tremors are a part of life in California. I believe we've had fewer people killed here by quakes than by car accidents."
"We've had fewer people killed in Vietnam than in car accidents," Remo said.
Remo drummed his fingers. He caught hostility from Wyatt and confusion from Boydenhousen and Rucker. From Curpwell, he got the continued, unruffled presentation. Curpwell was a killer. The earthquakes were his show. No doubt about it.
"Since you feel that way," Curpwell said, "it makes this meeting easier. We are in a position to guarantee you no more earthquake worries."
"Put it in a bottle," Remo said. "I'll drink it."
Curpwell went on to tell the story
: how Sheriff Wyatt had been contacted by people who could sell earthquake insurance. Not payment after damages were incurred by earthquakes, but prevention. And after a demonstration, the leaders of San Aquino had decided to pay. Eight thousand dollars a month, twelve months a year.
"Who are these people who sell the insurance?" Remo asked.
"We don't know," said Lester Curpwell IV. "Sheriff Wyatt delivers the money, but he's never seen them."
"You pay a small fortune to someone for protection and you don't know to whom you're paying it? Is that what I'm being asked to believe?"
"I never see them," insisted Sheriff Wyatt, leaning forward under the yellow light so that his reddish face oranged in its glow.
"What do you mean, you never see them?," Remo said. "They're ghosts? They're little elves? What?"
Wyatt was getting huffy. "I never saw them. They called on the phone. They told me where to leave the money. I left it. That's all," he said heatedly.
"You talk to them on the phone," Remo said. "So they have voices. What are they? Squeaky little Munchkins? Moog synthesizers? Men? Women? What kind of sheriff are you, anyway?"
Wyatt half rose to his feet. "They're men," he roared, "and I hope you have a chance to meet them sometime!"
"This isn't really advancing our discussion," Curpwell interrupted. He explained how the four wealthiest men in San Aquino had to pay the tab. To prevent panic. To keep the area growing. To make the small investment against earthquakes to protect their big investment in the area's growth. All in secret. The quake people demanded secrecy.
"And who decided who would pay?," Remo asked.
"Well, I guess I did," said Lester Curpwell.
"And you own the big banking investment place here, right?"
"Right."
"So you would naturally know who had the money, right?"
"Right."
"And now, because I own Feinstein's, you assume Fm going to fork over $24,000 a year to you," said Remo. When he said "you," he looked directly at Curpwell.
"Not exactly," said Curpwell, looking down at his hands. "You see, because of the Feinstein incident-he had disobeyed instructions and reported the whole thing to Washington-we had a quake last night."
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