When Joe appeared a few moments later, Remo saw that he obviously didn't share with his brother firefighters a fondness for sweets. Firefighter Joe was tall and thin. His blue T-shirt and trousers looked like collapsed sails. If it weren't for his red suspenders, he would have been tripping on his pants as he walked over to Remo. Like the others, he wore a long mustache that sagged morosely to his chin.
"What can I do for you?" Firefighter Joe asked as he shook Remo's hand. He had no sooner spoken than a bell began ringing loudly throughout the station.
The men at the coffee machine reacted angrily. "Not again," one man complained through a mouthful of sticky Danish.
"It's probably just a whatchamacallit," said another, scowling as he chewed a lemon cruller. "You, know, uh..." He had to think for a second. "A fire."
"Shut it off," Burly Bob griped as he sucked the blueberry goo from the center of a bearclaw. Someone disappeared into the radio room. A moment later, the noisy ringing stopped.
"That's better," Firefighter Joe said. He hitched up his sagging pants. "Now, Bob says you're a mayor?"
Remo nodded. "Mayor Dan Garganzola," he said. "We've got a bit of a budget crisis going on in my town right now. I've had a four-million-dollar surplus in discretionary spending every year for the past five years that I spend, no sweat. But because of some nits in the city council making noise, raising taxes is getting to be a tough sell. Trouble is, I've promised the fire department seventeen new trucks, eight new station houses, two firefighting catamarans and GPS satellite locaters stitched into their infrared union suits."
Firefighter Joe nodded thoughtfully. "So you're looking for, what, an event?"
"I guess," Remo said. "What've you got?"
"First off, we'll handle it for you," Joe said, waving to the other men. "This is our gig, exclusive."
"But I have my own fire department," Remo said. "Don't you just give me the details and I pass the info on to them?"
"No," Joe insisted. "It's ours and ours alone. The deals we cut are almost exclusively with the chiefs or the unions. It's either that or no dice."
Joe had just given him what he wanted most to know. There was only a handful of people involved in this scam.
"Fine," Remo agreed.
"Okay," Joe said. "What we do, see, is we give you a fire. Make it big enough that you have to call for assistance from neighboring communities. That'll give us an excuse to be there. Of course, we'll have been there already, since we're the ones who'll start it for you."
"How do I know they'll send you?"
"Trust me," Joe said. "I've greased enough palms around here to make sure we're the ones who get called. Now a big fire is usually enough for most small towns looking to siphon more dough into the fire department. Warehouse, factory, mall, that sort of thing. Of course, if you want the big one-national media attention and tons of money pouring in from around the country-you're gonna have to sacrifice. A body or two's good. More is better."
"You've done that before?" Remo asked, a slithering coldness creeping into his voice.
"Oh, sure," Joe boasted. There was a smile beneath his huge mustache. "We're all old pros at this."
Joe didn't see the hard look that settled on Remo's face. Smith's information had been accurate.
"For body duty, it's best to hire a couple of guys off the street," Firefighter Joe continued. "Guys who aren't real tight with the union yet and don't mind going out and squirting that wet stuff on fires."
"Water," Remo suggested.
"Yeah, that," Joe said. As he talked, he walked over to a nearby fire engine. "Most of the young guys are still stupid enough to be willing to do the actual fighting-fires part of firefighting. You send them into the building and then seal it off behind them with my own patented method." At the truck now, he patted the gleaming red side. "This'll be what locks the door behind them."
Remo smelled the familiar strong scent in the air. "You filled the water tanks with gasoline," he said darkly. His eyes were flat.
Joe seemed surprised that Remo had guessed their secret ingredient. The special tanks were supposed to be tight enough to mask the smell. The fireman nodded.
"Exactly," he said. "Make it look like we're battling the fire when we're actually feeding it. Afterward, invite the camera crews to watch for five weeks while you sift the ruins for teeth." His smile broadened. "Then sit back and watch the local, state and federal money pour in."
Remo seemed to be soaking it all in. As he looked from Joe to the fire truck to the men gathered around the sweets table, a somber expression took root on his face. He shook his head slowly.
"When I was a kid, Father Hannigan took a bunch of us altar boys to a fire station in Newark," he said softly. "I'll never forget it. The firemen were washing one of the engines out front. They even let us slide down the pole."
"Pete broke our pole," Burly Bob said. He jerked a greasy thumb to a particularly obese fireman. The man's blotchy red face was smeared with confectioner's sugar.
"It was a great day," Remo resumed, not listening. "It was because of that one visit that I knew I wanted a career where I could help people. I almost joined the fire department. But then I figured I could do more good as a cop."
Pastries fell from chubby fingers. All around, the firemen grew rigid, their faces drooping behind mustaches.
"You a cop?" Joe asked thinly.
Remo looked up. "Huh?" he asked. "Oh, no. Not anymore. That was a long time ago."
There was a collective exhale of sugar-scented bile.
"I'm an assassin," Remo supplied. "And officially, I was sent here to kill you guys because you're all guilty of murder and arson. On a more personal note, however, I want it to be known that I'm doing it because you have caused me to lose faith in my fellow man."
As he spoke, Remo noted the not-so-subtle nod from Firefighter Joe. As the lanky man backed up carefully against the truck, Remo sensed movement and heard the sound of wheezing breath behind him. He felt the burst of displaced air as a fat fist was launched at the back of his head.
Remo ducked easily below the blow, turning as he stood.
Burly Bob and Fireman Pete stood behind him. The men were winded from their three-yard walk from the refreshments table. Bob was bracing palms against knees, trying to catch his breath after his unsuccessful assault against Remo. As Remo stood calmly watching the first hyperventilating man, Pete hauled back.
Another fist came forward, this one even slower than the last. Remo leaned away as the big mitt swished by.
"Damn, I gotta start on the treadmill," Pete wheezed.
Remo offered him no sympathy. "Wanna see why they call those handlebar mustaches?" he asked. Without waiting for a reply, he took hold of one drooping fuzzy end of Pete's mustache.
As the beefy man howled in pain, Remo steered him around in a wide circle, slamming him hard against the side of the fire engine. He hit with a clang that left a big-and-tall-size dent in the truck's side. Bells ringing loud in his head, Pete fell to his back.
For an instant, the fireman clutched his face in pain. But all at once, a new idea flashed in his brain. "Ow, my back!" Pete yelled, his eyes growing crafty. "Call the union rep. I have to go on disability."
He tried slipping his hands behind his back, but his great girth prevented him from doing so. He opted to roll histrionically in place like an upended turtle.
"Oh, hell," Remo said, his face growing sour. With the toe of one loafer, he tapped Pete's massive chest.
The fireman's eyes grew wide in shock. Sucking in a horrified gust of air, he clutched at his heaving chest. Face contorting in sheer agony, he opened and closed his big lips like a gulping fish. He went rigid, then limp. When his hands fell slack at his sides an instant later, his face was already turning blue.