"Oh. Okay, then." Remo put down the basket, looking crestfallen.
"So start talking."
"Okay, then. So, I just happened to know that you're a big man around here. I know you've been having some trouble, too, with people moving in on you, like Boss Jorge and the other Mexicans, and I heard you got muscled out of some parts of town and stuff. Then I heard about somebody putting some bad stuff on the street, and some of the stuff is so bad it's killing people and making them go crazy. And I heard people saying it came from the Mexicans and was really hurting their business, and nobody would buy stuff anymore from the Mexicans and so your business was doing nice. I wouldn't have thought nothing of it except that I found out something else."
"Yeah?" Figaroa demanded.
Remo lowered his voice. "The Mexicans are not too happy."
"No shit, Sherlock."
"Boss Jorge's going after you, I heard."
"When? How?"
"Not with men, you know. He's not gonna start a war. He's got a plan that he says will make you a nonproblem for good."
"Huh. That slimeball Mexican ain't got a prayer. How's he gonna do it?"
Remo sat up straighter. "That's what I'm selling, Michelangelo."
Figaroa nodded, then shook his head. He looked at the man across the booth as if he didn't quite believe what he was seeing.
The man who called himself Remo Vu was slim, neither tall nor short. He had dark hair and deep-set eyes that were cold, but the goofy look on his face told you more about who he really was. Michelangelo had noticed the expensive Italian loafers, which were a point in his favor, but Remo Vu was also wearing black Chinos and a black T-shirt. A T-shirt! There's class for you.
"You telling me you want me to pay you, some sleazebag off the street, somebody I don't even know, you want me to pay you for information that may or may not be true."
"Oh, it is true, Michelangelo, I promise."
"You promise? Let me tell you something, Remo Vu, whatever the fuck kind of name that is. I know who you are."
"Really?"
"I seen your kind before, all over the place. A month don't go by that I don't run into another Remo Fucking Vu. And you're all little guys with nothing going for ya except your little schemes and little ideas, and now you're trying one of your little schemes on me. Well, I'm saying no. I'm doing worse than saying no, 'cause I'm going to make sure all the other little maggots know that fucking with Michelangelo Figaroa is a major mistake."
The waitress arrived with a tray of plates and began setting them on the table, frightened and silent. "What is this?" Figaroa asked. "You invite me to a business dinner and you order me hamburger balls, the cheapest entree on the menu? You slap me in the face when you're trying to do business with me? You're just proving my point, Remo Vu. You know what comes next, don't you?"
"No. Do you?"
"Better believe it," Figaroa's voice was low and threatening. "Time for you to start serving as an example for the other maggots."
"Okay. Fine. I give up, Figgy."
That was the last straw. Figaroa was fed up with the smart-ass in the T-shirt, and nobody ever called him Figgy. He pulled out his brand-new toy, glad to have a chance to show it off. The piece cost him a bundle, but it was baddest piece of hardware on the streets of this town.
"Okay, dirtbag, time to talk straight"
"Has Figgy got a new popgun? I'm not impressed, Figgy."
Figaroa's brain boiled. "Look, shit-for-brains, this is a Heckler . It's got twenty rounds in the magazine, 4.6 mm shockers that go twenty-five hundred feet per second. That's like four times faster than a .45-caliber round. Just one of these bullets would rip your heart out through your spine if you were wearing five suits of body armor, which you ain't."
Figaroa couldn't help notice that he wasn't making much of an impression on his audience.
"It's got about as much rise as a .22 pistol," he continued doggedly. "So when I start shooting, it ain't too likely I'm going to get my aim screwed up by the recoil. It fires at a rate of 950 rounds a minute." Figaroa dramatically lowered the front grip and aimed it two-handed at the front of that damn T-shirt. "Now what do you have to say for yourself, smart-ass?"
"I say whoop-de-do, Figgy. Hey, is that thing made out of plastic?"
Figaroa could have explained that the MP-7 was, in fact, constructed using a polyamide material reinforced with carbon fiber. This exotic composite possessed greater tensile strength than aluminum but made the weapon extremely lightweight not even three pounds with a full magazine. But Figaroa was too furious to explain all that, and a second later he was too surprised to say anything.
The machine pistol was no longer in his possession. Remo Vu had it. He actually had a finger in the barrel and was peering at the very expensive weapon with a slight twitch of amusement on his mouth.
Then he pinched the stock of the weapon with two fingers. The entire rear end crumbled.
"I think they should have stuck with steel, don't you?" Remo observed.
Figaroa was now on his third major emotional shift in the past seven heartbeats: his confusion turned to outrage, even as part of his brain was trying to reconcile the impossible thing he just witnessed.
"You can't do that!" Figaroa blurted, not sure himself what point he was trying to make.
"Can. Did." Remo spidered his fingers around the machine pistol, and Figaroa watched it disintegrate as if it were a bread stick.
"You asshole! You know how much that cost me?"
"Chill, Figgy, you'll ruin your appetite. First thing on the menu tonight is a hertz doughnut. Ever have a hertz doughnut?"
Rage and disbelief battling for dominance in his head, Michelangelo Figaroa never saw the hand come at him, fingers pinching his earlobe. And then Figaroa felt pain. Whopping pain. He opened his mouth but nothing came out, and tears rolled down his face-that kind of pain.
"Hurts, don't it?" Remo quipped, then looked expectant.
Figaroa tried to nod, but the pain paralyzed him. He managed to shudder a little.
"I guess you've heard that one. You know, nobody laughs at my jokes," Remo complained. "Now, let's get this first little bit of business over and done with. Listen closely."
Figaroa swiveled his bulging eyes to Remo, which was about all he could do to prove he was listening. "Okay, here's something you'll want to keep in mind," Remo said. "It's about the pain."
Figaroa knew about the pain. His whole existence was pain.
"I made the pain," Remo began.
Figaroa wanted to say "Oh, yes, I understand and I hope you realize I'm being extremely cooperative," but his vocal cords were locked up.
"The important part..." Remo added slowly. Figaroa quivered in anticipation.
"Is that I can make it stop." Figaroa blinked in agreement.
"Now, Mr. Fig, would you like me to make it, ahem, stop?"
More blinking. "Yes? No? Maybe?" Frantic, teary-eyed blinking.
"Okay," Remo said reasonably. "One blink yes, two blinks no."
With more determination than he had ever mustered for anything in his forty-seven years of life, Michelangelo Figaroa blinked just one time.
"Oh. Okay."
Remo let go, and the pain was just gone. Completely. As if it had never been there.
"You wouldn't try anything sneaky?" Remo wondered aloud.
Figaroa worked his jaw and shrugged, amazed and relieved. He was perfectly okay. His ear wasn't even bleeding. He didn't know what Remo Vu had done to him, but it left him without a scratch.
It also left him as mad as hell. "Figgy, I asked you a question."
Figaroa reached for his backup piece but found his second holster empty. A new collection of metal lumps rolled out of Remo's hand. They were all that was left of Figaroa's precious old 9mm Glock.
"You son of a-!"
"Very nice couple from Arizona." Remo took Figaroa by the ear again.