Midnight Man

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“YOU LET HIM GET AWAY.” Smith’s voice was cold as a New Hampshire ski slope on a winter midnight.

“Well, actually, I didn’t see him,” Remo said.

“Then how do you know he showed up?” Smith asked.

“Well, actually, he tried to crush my skull!” Remo said.

“Was he successful?” Smith asked.

“That’s not funny, Smitty.”

“Neither is letting him get away,” Smith said. “I just don’t know how you managed to pull that off.”

“All right. If you want to know. He showed up. I didn’t see him. He tried to kill me. Chiun could have caught him or saved my life. He decided to save my life. I happen to think he made the right decision.”

“I’ll have to think about it,” Smith said. “No identification on those eight men?”

“None. And the Princess Sarra didn’t know them.”

“You believe her?”

“Yes,” Remo said.

“He lusts after her,” Chiun called out from across the hotel room.

“What did Chiun say?” Smith asked.

“He said if he had it all to do over again, he’d save my life again,” Remo said.

Smith let it pass. “What are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to check out Contract magazine,” Remo said. “You placed an ad and the Princess says she placed an ad. I’m going to find out who placed the other ad and see if that’ll lead me to Wimpler.”

“Do you think he’ll still be interested in killing the Emir?” Smith asked.

“Yes. I think it’s not just money with him,” Remo said. “I’ve met him, I told you. And I think he’s into power. He can’t let us stop him from killing the Emir, or his whole idea of his own power goes down the tube. He’ll try again.”

“Interesting theory,” Smith said.

“Everything’s theory until you find out if it works,” Remo said.

“Don’t make me chase you down,” Smith said. “Keep in touch.”

Remo hung up. When he turned to Chiun, the old man was shaking his head. He looked up from his copy of Contract. “These articles are terrible,” he said.

“What’s wrong with them?”

“All they talk about is money and guns. What about the beauty of a perfect assassination? What about the tradition and the history and the glory of the art? This is written by Philistines for Philistines.”

“I know. And you can do better.”

“Who knows better than I?” Chiun said. “So when you go to the offices of these people, find out the name of their editor. You will need it when I finish my story for them.”

“What’s your story going to be about?”

“A civilized assassin in a world of nincompoops. I will call it ‘Chiun Among the Barbarians.’”

“Smitty will love it,” Remo said.

“He can do what he likes,” Chiun said, “but I am not cutting him in. It is bad enough I have to pay you two percent.”

“I thought it was three.”

“Don’t quibble about a few dollars, Remo. It is not seemly.”

Remo found the office of Contract in a rundown building on East 23rd Street between Madison Avenue and Park Avenue South.

The office was on the ninth floor of the building, and giant, silver letters on the wall next to their door blared out the magazine’s name.

But inside, the office was small and shabby. There was a man sitting behind the reception desk who looked as if his only purpose in life was to bite the legs off visitors.

“Yeah?” he growled as Remo entered.

“Is that any way to greet a man who’s going to save your life?”

“Yeah? How you going to save my life?”

“Maybe by changing my mind,” Remo said, “and not doing to you what you obviously deserve.”

“Yeah?”

Remo was beginning to wonder if that was about it for his functional vocabulary.

“I want to look through your records.”

“What for?”

“I want to know the names of your advertisers and which ads have been answered recently.”

“Take a hike. Our records are private,” the man said.

“How many other people work here?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because if there’s anybody else here, I don’t need you and I can shove you into your desk drawer,” Remo said.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t start that again,” Remo said.

The man stood up behind the desk. He was six-foot-six and outweighed Remo by half a ton.

“There ain’t nobody else here right now,” he said with a sneer. “So it’s just me and you, pal.”

He extended a hand toward Remo like a wrestler offering a handlock test of strength.

Remo shrugged. It was better than killing him. Even with a busted hand he could still talk.

Remo joined his right hand to the giant’s left. He exerted no pressure.

“If that’s all you got, pal, you’re in big trouble,” the big man said. Slowly, he began to put pressure on Remo’s hand. Remo neither flinched nor moved.

The giant frowned. “Playtime’s over, buddy,” he said. He exerted what he thought was enough pressure to crush Remo’s hand and drive him to his knees.

Remo didn’t move.

The big man blinked and his forehead was now a map of lines and creases.

“I’m right handed,” he complained.

Remo nodded. They unlocked hands, then locked again, this time with Remo’s left against the giant’s right.

The big man instantly turned on maximum pressure, every bit of energy and strength he could muster.

Remo didn’t move.

Just as Remo decided he would have to crush the man’s handbones into paste, the giant disengaged his fingers from Remo’s.

“All right,” he said. “You win. How’d you do that?”

“Training and clean living.”

“Look, no offense, but you don’t look like you train much.”

“It’s not that kind of training. It’s all done in your head. What’s your name?”

“Hal Barden.”

“You the editor?”

“No. I’m everything but. This is just a two-man sheet. Mark Simons is the editor. He’s inside.”

“You were fibbing me,” Remo said. “Naughty, naughty.”

“I’m still here, so maybe it didn’t work out so bad,” Barden said. “Come on, I’ll take you to the editor.”

Inside the front office was another small cluttered office with another man sitting behind a small cluttered desk, wielding scissors and paste on some yellowed newspaper clippings.

“Mark, this is a friend of mine.” Remo stepped forward.

“Remo Williams,” he said, extending his hand.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Mark Simons, ignoring the extended hand.

Remo looked at Barden who shrugged.

“Remo’s interested in the magazine, Mark. I told him I’d show him around.”

“Go ahead,” Simons said.

“You ever buy manuscripts?” Remo asked Simons.

“Sometimes. If they’re really good. You a writer?”

“No. But a friend of mine is,” said Remo.

“He know anything about assassinations and contract killings?”

“A little,” Remo said.

“Good. Send in anything he’s got. Most of the people who send us stuff have been pulling their pudding for too long. They’re like writing Alice in Wonderland.”

“Thanks. I will.”

Barden led Remo away. “C’mon. Another room back here.”

He led him into another small room that appeared to hold all of Contract’s files.

Barden waved toward a file cabinet. “That’s our ad files. What do you need?”

“I need your ads on killing the Emir of Bislami,” Remo said.

Barden nodded. “Yeah. He was hot in last month’s issue. We had a couple on him.”

“Three,” Remo said. “Can you find them?”

“Sure.” The big man opened the top drawer of the file cabinet and began riffling through envelopes.

“Do you keep a record of who answers?” Remo asked.

“No,” Barden said over his shoulder. “We just forward them to the advertiser. We don’t even open them. That way, we stay out of trouble with the law. Here they are.” He turned and handed Remo a slim manila folder.

It contained the copy for three advertisements and each had the name and address of the advertiser.

The first ad, “Ice an Emir,” was inserted by a John Brown with a post office box in Rye, New York. That would be Smith, Remo realized.

The second ad was “Send a Monarch to the Mortuary.” The ad form announced that it had been placed by Mrs. Jane Smith, with a New York post office box.

Remo handed it to Barden. “You remember anything about this ad?”

Barden looked at it. “Mrs. Jane Smith,” he said. “Boy, do I. Tall, good-looking woman with great red hair. Spoke very elegantly. Like a queen she was.”

That would be Princess Sarra, Remo realized. He looked at Barden with heightened respect. The man had sensed the innate royalty in the Princess, even when she was parading around as Mrs. Jane Smith.

The third advertisement was “Ever Kill an Emir? Check Out the Price.” The record showed it had been placed, and paid for in cash, by a Mr. Riggs who lived in the East Seventies.

Remo jotted the name and address down on a piece of paper.

“I appreciate your help, Hal,” he said.

“Any time. Maybe if you come back, you can tell me about your training.”

“Even better,” Remo said. “I might bring back my trainer with me.”

“That’d be great,” Barden said.

“Wait until you meet him,” Remo said.

As he went to the door, Barden handed him the latest copy of Contract. “Here. A freebie.”

“Thanks a lot,” Remo said. Chiun would be glad to get it.

After Remo left, Mark Simons came out of his office and hit Barden’s desk with his fist.

“Who the hell was that?”

“Hey, he was cool, Mark. You wouldn’t believe how strong that skinny guy is. Some special training and…”

“Who the hell was he and what did he want?”

“Take it easy,” Barden said. “He just wanted to look at some of our ads.”

“What ads?”

“The ones about killing the Emir.”

“And you showed them to him?”

“I wasn’t about to tell him no,” Barden said.

“You’re a moron, Hal,” Simons said and went back to his office. He locked the door behind him.