"In back," said a passerby. "It happened up there on the second floor, but everyone is in the back."
In the alley behind the bank, Remo found a police cordon and a small crowd hanging around in front of it. He checked his wallet, leafed through cards identifying him as an FBI man, Treasury agent, representative of the Food and Drug Administration, and a freelance magazine writer. Unlike other cover identifications, every one of these cards were real. There was a listing in every one of these organizations for a man named Remo Pelham or Remo Bednick or Remo Dalton or Remo Slote. The organizations never saw him because he was always on special assignment, but he would always be vouched for if someone checked.
"Pinnacle Magazine," said Remo, flashing the card to a patrolman at the cordon. "Who's in charge?"
It was a dull twenty-five minutes as he listened to the deputy chief of police, who three times repeated the spelling of his own name, explain the gruesome five-man murder. The deputy chief wasn't sure if the motive was robbery because $625 in cash was found in the center of the table under a pile of chips. But it could have been robbery because everyone knew the five bankers always brought $3,000 apiece to their regular Thursday night poker game. It was a thing people didn't talk about much. There were, the deputy chief explained, at least three instruments used in the mass murder. He personally believed one of the instruments was a blunted spear. A chair leg was another of them. They couldn't get prints from the chair yet but don't write that, said the deputy chief.
"The horror of men's minds always astounds me," said the deputy chief and asked Remo if he wanted an eight by ten glossy of the deputy chief taken upon his promotion to that rank.
"You say these guys were hit in the head, shoulders, and chest?"
"Right. One guy's skull was cracked clean through. That's where I got my blunted spear theory. You might want to call this the blunted spear murder case. Did you get my name correctly? I don't see you taking notes." The chief looked at the crowd on the other side of the police lines and waved. "Hi, Hawley, c'mon over," he shouted with a wave, and in a lower voice said to Remo; "Used to be our football coach. Good one, too. Fired him because he wanted to make winners out of spoiled brats. You know, New Yorkers coming over here. Afraid their little Sammy's going to get his big beak broken… don't quote me… well, hello, Hawley."
And the deputy chief introduced Remo to the man, who stood a good four inches above Remo, a broad-shouldered, well-muscled man whose walk aroused Remo's curiosity. It had a certain familiar balance, not quite the way Remo or Chiun walked, but a hint of similar principles.
"This is Hawley Bardwell. Wife works in the bank and he's worried about her safety. Comes here every day since the incident. Hawley, this is Remo Slote. He's a magazine writer."
Bardwell offered his big hand to shake and Remo noticed the man's eyes focus on his wrists. It was a strong handshake and Remo wiggled out of it by collapsing his palm and thrusting his hand into his pocket.
"You don't have to worry, Hawley. Whoever did it is a thousand miles away by now," said the deputy chief.
"I guess you're right," said Bardwell. He was smiling.
"Can I see the bodies?" asked Remo.
"Oh, two were buried right away. Religious thing, you know. The other three are still at the funeral homes. Their burial's tomorrow."
"I'd like to see the bodies."
"Well, that's sort of delicate. The families are having closed coffin funerals. But we have pictures back at headquarters."
"Not as good as the bodies," said Remo.
"I'm a close friend of one of the families," said Bardwell. "Maybe I can help."
"I didn't know that," said the deputy chief.
"Yeah," said Bardwell. "That is, before everyone started forgetting they knew me when I was fired."
"I always supported you, Hawley. I thought you did wonders with what you had. Always supported you."
"Not publicly," said Bardwell.
"Well, not exactly out in the open. I've got my job."
"Yeah," said Bardwell. "C'mon, Mr. Slote," he said to Remo. "I'll show you the bodies that are still above ground."
"You shouldn't take it so hard, Hawley. You'll get another job," said the deputy chief.
"I expect so," said Bardwell. All the way to McAlpin's Funeral Home, he explained to Remo how it must have been a dozen men who killed the bankers, because of the terrible injuries.
"Uh huh," agreed Remo.
McAlpin's was a dark-carpeted, quiet private house, transformed with some neat carpentry into a funeral home.
"They'll be waking tonight. But we can get a good look now because no one's here in the afternoon," said Bardwell.
"I thought you knew the family."
"That's just something I told the chief. He's got balls of tapioca."
The coffin was white ash, polished to a high gloss, and Remo wondered at all the fine furniture that was made just to be planted with an occupant who couldn't care less. The room smelled of Pineclear air freshener, and the two walked up the aisle of dark folding chairs. Bardwell opened the coffin. A man's skull was waxed down the middle with skin colored wax powdered over. Remo pressed down on the wax to see how wide the cavity. His thumb collected powder and he rubbed it away with a forefinger.
"They had to scoop out some of the brains, I hear, just to get the head closed again," said Bardwell. Remo saw perspiration form on his forehead. Saliva collected in a small pool at a corner of his lips.
"I heard there were some people with their shoulders hurt," said Remo. "That's what the papers said. That they were immobilized first at the shoulder and then killed."
"Yeah," said Bardwell in a heavy breathy gasp. "Whadddya think of that head, huh? Isn't that the worst thing you've ever seen? Huh?"
"No," said Remo. "The guy should have used a gun instead of his hands. If he's going to use his hands that way, he might as well use something wild as a gun."
"What wild?"
"You don't need that much in the central forehead. The hand must have gone into it up to the knuckles. You only need a break and a minimum of pressure inside the brain for an instant kill. Sloppy. I bet it was some karate idiot on a spree."
"But don't you think it's fantastic that somebody with a bare hand could do that? Don't ya? Huh? Don't ya?" said Bardwell.
"Inferior," said Remo and he noticed Bardwell smiling and centralizing his balance, and then because he had been trained to, Remo did something wrong because his body did something right. Bardwell's right hand shot out at Remo and Remo took it, but in doing so, he felt a small direct pressure on his left shoulder and Bardwell's hand kept going through and into the shoulder. An insane stroke. A stroke of such incredible, suicidal stupidity that Remo had never seen it before. And what made it so insane was that the power and accuracy required training, but no one would ever train for something like that. It was suicide against anyone with a serious level of competence.
Bardwell's right hand was into Remo's shoulder while at the same time his face, whole head, throat, and heart were open as a gift to Remo's right hand or right leg. It was a here-I-am-kill-me thrust, and Remo's right hand had but a half a foot to go to catch Bardwell's throat, splitting the thorax and driving pieces of it back into the vertebrae. Bardwell had set himself up for his own death just to get in a cheapie shoulder shot. Remo felt the pain in the left shoulder and wiggled the fingers of his left hand. He could still do that. But the arm would raise only slightly.
Bardwell could raise nothing. He lay at the foot of the coffin, his tongue lounging out of his mouth, forced out of his jaw by the pressure from the throat.
"Shit," said Remo. He had found the man who could talk about the death of William Ashley, and he had killed him because he had reacted automatically. It was almost as if the man had been set up so Remo would have to kill him. Now Remo had not only stifled his possible explanation of why Smitty's man was killed, but he also had a body to get rid of. He worked with his right hand, letting his painful left shoulder hang limp.