Remo encouraged him to continue wasting his ammunition with a taunting, "Nope, I'm not dead yet," in a mordant voice he had once heard in an old cartoon. "Try again."
Each time, the gunman obliged him with blistering return fire.
Soon the ceiling stopped being a ceiling. Instead, it was now an upside-down moonscape of pocked holes and shattered plaster.
When the holes became as big as portholes, Remo shot the man an encouraging wave.
The man shot Remo back the bird. Then he opened up on the spot where Remo had been.
Remo wasn't there anymore. He had taken up a position directly under the island of plaster on which the man stood.
While the gunman was frantically replacing a clip, Remo reached up and grabbed him by both ankles.
"Yee-ahh!" The shriek was fearsome.
Remo encouraged his terror by mimicking the Jaws theme.
"Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh." Remo mocked ominously.
The replenished weapon began chattering again. Gouts of plaster exploded all around Remo. The floor sprouted holes. But Remo remained intact. Which was more than could be said for his opponent's state of mind.
"You won't take me! You won't take me alive, motherfuck!"
"Done," said Remo, breaking the man's ankles with swift jerks of his thick-wristed hands.
He stepped back.
The gunman was slow to realize what had happened. He began tottering. His jaw dropped. His eyed bugged like white grapes. His nerve-dead feet refused to make allowances for his sudden lack of equilibrium.
Pitching forward, the gunman fell like a big black tree. His head went through an isle of plaster.
Remo caught his face.
"One moment," he said, supporting the man by his twisting head. The gunman hung almost upside down while Remo stomped out a hole in the bullet-riddled floor. A section crashed away.
"Okay," Remo said, stepping back, "you can fall now."
The man went through the hole as if it was made for him. His crazily disjointed feet disappeared last.
Konk!
Remo looked down. The man had landed on his head. He looked dead. His feet angled one way, his broken neck the other.
"Happy now?" Remo called down. And getting no answer, decided his work was done.
Remo floated over the debris that was all that remained of the staircase, like Tinker Bell treading fairy dust. He landed back in the living room.
He gave the broken-necked, snap-footed body a final glance and said, "Baby makes twenty-three."
His acute hearing told him that his own heart was the only one working in the entire house. His work was done. Jane Street belonged to the neighborhood once again.
Remo took time out to scribble a note on a pad by the telephone.
Welcome Wagon was here while you were out, he wrote. Sorry we missed you. Then, whistling contentedly, he sauntered down the porch steps.
Turning right, he shot a cheery wave to the man sitting stiff-spined behind the wheel of the red Camaro. The man declined to wave back. He stared out the windshield as if off into eternity. In a way it was.
He had been number one.
Chapter 3
Kimberly Baynes paraded through Washington National Airport dressed in a flowing yellow dress, her blond hair worn high over her fresh-scrubbed face and tied in place with a bright yellow scarf.
She balanced with difficulty on her black high heels, as if walking on heels was new to her. Stepping off an escalator, she steadied herself momentarily, swaying like a tree worried by a warm summer wind.
"I'll never get used to these things," she muttered in a pouty voice.
Her predicament attracted the attention of more than one male traveler who, upon seeing her heavily made-up face and yellow fingernails, jumped to a natural conclusion.
Cosmo Bellingham was one of those. A surgical-appliance salesman from Rockford, Illinois, Cosmo had come to Washington for the annual surgical-equipment convention, where he hoped to interest Johns Hopkins in his new titanium-hip-joint-replacement line, guaranteed not to "lock, balk, or shock," as the company brochure put it so poetically. Cosmo had lobbied to have the motto stamped into each unit, but had been overruled. Cosmo did not believe in hiding one's light under a bushel.
Seeing the petite young woman floating through the maze of terminals, her bright eyes as innocent as a child's, Cosmo veered in her direction.
"Little lady, you look lost," he chirped.
The blue eyes-wide, limpid, somehow innocent and daring simultaneously-grew brighter as they met Cosmo's broadly smiling face.
"I'm new in town," she said simply. Her voice was sweet. A child's voice, breathy and unsure.
Cosmo tipped his Tyrolean hat. "Cosmo Bellingham," he said by way of introduction. "I'm staying at the Sheraton. If you haven't a place to stay, I recommend it highly."
"Thank you, but I have no money," she said, fingers touching her yellow scarf. "My purse was with my luggage. Just my luck." Her pout was precious. A little-girl-lost pout. Cosmo calculated her age as eighteen. A perfect age. Ripe. Most Penthouse centerfolds were eighteen.
"I'm sure we can work something out with Travelers Aid," Cosmo said. "Why don't we share a cab to my hotel?"
"Oh, mister, I couldn't. My grandmother taught me never to accept rides from strangers."
"We'll put the room on my American Express card until we figure something out," Cosmo said, as if not hearing.
"Wellll," the girl said, glancing about like a frightened deer. "You have a nice face. What could happen?"
"Splendid," said Cosmo, who right then and there decided that he wouldn't be shelling out for a too-polished Washington call girl this year. He was going to have warm fresh-from-the-oven meat. He offered his arm. The girl took it.
During the ride to the hotel, the girl said her name was Kimberly. She had come to Washington to look for work. Things were tough back in North Dakota.
"What kind of work you got in mind?" Cosmo asked, missing completely her Colorado accent. He had never been west of Kansas City.
"Ooh," she said dreamily, gazing out at official Washington passing by, "something that involves people. I like working on people."
"You mean with people," Cosmo teased. "Yes, I mean that." She laughed. Cosmo joined in. The back seat of the cab filled with light, promising mirth.
They were still giggling when Cosmo Bellingham magnanimously checked Kimberly Baynes into the Sheraton Washington.
"Put the little lady into a room next to mine," Cosmo said in a too-loud, nervous voice. He turned to Kimberly. "Just so I can keep an eye on you, of course. Heh heh heh."
Kimberly smiled. She crossed her arms tightly, accentuating her small breasts. As the fabric of her long but attractive dress rippled, Cosmo noticed how thick around the middle she was.
He frowned. He preferred an hourglass shape. His wife was pretty thick around the middle. How could a pretty young thing with such a sweet face have such a tubular body? he wondered.
As the elevator took them up to their rooms on the twelfth floor, Cosmo decided beggars couldn't be choosers. After all, this ripe little plum had practically fallen into his lap.
He cleared his throat noisily, trying to figure out what kind of pickup line an innocent eighteen-year-old would fall for.
"Are you all right?" Kimberly asked in her breathy sweet voice.
"Little something caught in my throat," Cosmo said. "I'm not used to riding elevators with such a pretty thing as you. Heh heh heh."
"Maybe," Kimberly said, her voice dropping two octaves into a seductive Veronica Hamel contralto, "we should stop so you can catch your breath." One yellow-nailed hand lifted, tapping the heavy red stop switch.
The elevator stopped with an unsettling jar.
"I . . . I . . . I . . ." Cosmo sputtered.
Kimberly pressed her warm perfumed body close to Cosmos own. "You want me, don't you?" she asked, looking up through thick lashes.