"Sir," Remo interrupted. "Where do I meet MacCleary? He's supposed to accompany me on my first assignment."
Smith looked down at the cup. "You'll meet him at the hospital. He's the victim."
Remo's breath slipped out. He stepped back a pace on the soft carpeting. He couldn't answer.
"He's got to be eliminated. He's near death, in pain, and under drugs. Who knows what he'll say?"
Remo forced out the words. "Maybe we can make a snatch?"
"Where would we bring him?"
"Where you brought me."
"Too dangerous. He was carrying identification as a patient at Folcroft. We've already received word from the police in East Hudson where the fall occurred. There's a direct link to us now. One of the doctors told the police the patient was emotionally disturbed and as far as we know the East Hudson cops have closed it out as an attempted suicide."
Smith swirled the cup. Remo assumed he saw something in the tea. "You will, if he's still alive, question him on a Maxwell. That's your second assignment."
"Who's Maxwell?"
"We don't know. He provides the New York syndicate with what we believe is the perfect murder service. How and where and when we don't know. You will end Maxwell as quickly as possible. If you don't do it in one week, don't look for any more communication from us. We may have to close down and reorganize elsewhere."
"Then what do I do?"
"You can do two things. You can continue after Maxwell. That's optional. Or you can settle down for a while in New York. Read the personals in the New York Times. We'll reach you when we have to through them. We'll sign our messages 'R-X'-for prescription, for CURE."
"And if I succeed?"
The man placed the cup of tea on the desk without turning around. "If you succeed within a week, it'll be business as usual. Take a rest and keep your eyes on the Times. We'll reach you."
"What do I do for money?"
"Take enough with you now. When we contact you again, we'll get more to you." He rattled off a telephone number. "Remember that number. In emergencies-only in emergencies-you can reach me directly on that line between 2:55 and 3:05 each afternoon. At no other time."
"Why are you telling me to hole up if I miss Maxwell?" Remo had to ask the question. Things were moving too fast.
"The last thing we want is you looking up and down channels and then driving into Folcroft one day. So you blow the Maxwell mission. One mission, one training center, it doesn't really matter. But this organization can't be exposed. That's why your first assignment on MacCleary is a must. It's a link to us and we've got to break that link. If you fail in that one..." The man's voice tailed off. "If you fail in that one, we'll have to get you. That's our only club. Also you know that if you talk to anybody, we'll get you. I promise that. I'll come myself. MacCleary's in the hospital as Frank Jackson. That's it. Goodbye."
The man turned to shake hands, then apparently thought better of it and folded his arms. "No sense making a friend in this business. By the way, make it a fast job on MacCleary, won't you?" Remo saw the man's eyes were red. He left for Room 307.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The two East Hudson detectives rode quietly up in the Lamonica Towers elevator to the twelfth floor, the penthouse level.
The silence of the elevator's rise seemed to stifle their speech. Detective Sergeant Grover, a round ball of a man, showed the end of a dead cigar and watched the numbers flash by. Detective Reed, "Long Gaunt Reed" as he was known to the homicide squad, ran a pencil along markings in a small black notebook.
"He had to fall from at least the eighth story," Reed said.
Grover grunted assent.
"He wouldn't talk."
"You fall eight stories, you going to talk?" Grover asked. He touched the immaculately polished button panel with a pudgy, hairy finger. "No, he ain't gonna talk. He ain't gonna say nothing. He ain't gonna even make it to the hospital."
"But he was able to talk. I heard him say something to one of the stretcher men," Reed said.
"You heard. You heard. Get off my back, you heard." The blood rushed to the folds of Grover's face. "So you heard; I don't like this whole business. You heard."
"So what d'ya want from me?" Reed yelled. "It's my fault we gotta speak to the owner of Lamonica Towers?"
Grover wiped at a smudge on the polished button panel. They had been a team nearly eight years and both knew the danger of Lamonica Towers.
It was a luxury apartment house fit for the most exclusive sections of New York, yet the builder had chosen East Hudson. He had brought the town $4.5 million worth of taxable real estate, twelve stories high. Lamonica Towers balanced the municipal budget and lowered the taxes of the townspeople. It was a political asset that had kept one party in power for nearly a decade. It rose, white and splendid, among the gray three-story dwellings that huddled at its base.
And the mayor had issued strict instructions to the police force:
-A prowl car was to circle the towers twenty-four hours a day. No policeman was to enter without the permission of the mayor himself. Any emergency call was to receive top priority.
-And if Mr. Norman Felton, the owner, who lived in the 23-room penthouse should call headquarters, the East Hudson Police Department was to be at his service-after the department had first notified the mayor, who might be able to do something personally for Mr. Felton, whose political contributions were generous.
Grover rubbed a coat sleeve across the panel and stepped back to survey his shining. The smudge was off.
"You should've reached the mayor," Reed said as the elevator doors opened.
"I should've. I should've. He wasn't home. Whaddya want?"
A red flush rose to the surface of Grover's puffy cheeks. He gave the panel a last inspection, then left the elevator and stepped onto the deep pile of a dark green foyer carpet. When the elevator doors closed, he suddenly realized there was no button to call it back.
He nudged Reed. They could only go forward to the single white door ahead of them with a large metallic eye in the center. The door was ridgeless and without handles.
The well-lit foyer was like a windowless gas chamber except they couldn't even spy a hole for a pill to drop through into the acid.
The foyer bothered Reed least of all. "We didn't even reach the chief," he grumbled.
"Will you shut up?" Grover asked. "Huh? Just shut up?"
"We're gonna be busted sure as you're born."
Grover grabbed a handful of Reed's wide blue labels and whispered fiercely: "We have to do it. There's a body downstairs. I know these rich people. Don't worry. We'll be okay. There's nothing the chief can do. We got the law behind us. It's okay."
Reed shook his head as Grover knocked on the white door. The rap was muffled, like flesh coming against solid steel. Grover removed his hat and nudged Reed to do the same. Reed fumbled with his black notebook but managed to hold on to his fedora. Grover chomped on the butt of the cigar.
The door opened quickly but quietly, sliding to the left, revealing a black-frocked butler, tall and imposing.
They were sorry for disturbing Mr. Felton, Grover told the butler, but they must see him. A man was found on the sidewalk in front of Lamonica Towers. There was reason to believe he fell from one of the apartments.
Grover and Reed suffered under the butler's stare for a moment. Then he said: "Please step inside."
He ushered them into a large room the size of a banquet hall. The detectives didn't even notice the door quietly slide closed behind them. They gaped at the rich white drapes partially shielding a fifty-foot long picture window. A dark, richly upholstered couch ran the length of a side wall. The room was illuminated by indirect white lighting that seemed like a diffused spotlight for an art exhibit. Modern paintings, each in a different striking setting, surrounded the room like sentinel reminders that two high school graduates had entered a different world from East Hudson.