"Look, dingbat, it's bad enough I'm stuck with you and that Teflon jumpsuit you're wearing without listening to your cockeyed fashion tips," Remo growled. "Hurry up."
According to Tortilli's source, the man they were looking for was someone the director knew-if only vaguely. As he turned to the packed bar, his dull eyes narrowed. He looked from pasty face to pasty face.
"I don't think I see him," Tortilli said in a disappointed tone.
"Your pal seemed sure he'd be here," Remo insisted. As he spoke, he rotated his thick wrists impatiently.
Quintly was still glancing from face to face. "You really could hear him, couldn't you?" He grinned, impressed. "You know, we should really talk about me writing your life-" He stopped dead. "Got him," Tortilli announced abruptly.
With laserlike precision, Remo honed in on the director's line of sight.
The man was a burly slacker in red flannel. He sat alone at a cheap plastic table on the other side of the bar.
"I don't know, man. He's kinda big." Tortilli frowned. "You might have trouble wasting this one. Whaddaya think?"
When he turned, he found that he was talking to empty air. Quintly glanced back across the room. It took him a minute to spot Remo's white T-shirt. When he finally found it, he was surprised that Remo was already halfway across the bar. He was gliding through the dense throng like a silent spirit. Though people crushed in all around him, he seemed no more substantial than air.
Tortilli shook his head, impressed.
"How much for your life story, man?" he said in wonder. He ordered a rum punch from a passing waitress and quickly found a seat of his own, settling in to watch the floor show.
IN THE COUNTERCULTURE environment of poseurs and criminal wanna-bes, Chester Gecko was the real deal. All 211 pounds of him.
In an age where nearly every high-school student got a diploma and a pat on the head, regardless of academic achievement or lack thereof, Chester had failed to meet even the basic, lax requirements for graduation. Twice forced to repeat his senior year at Bremerton's Coriolis High School, he was finally thrown out after his geometry teacher made the mistake of asking him to demonstrate the use of a protractor in front of the class. It was eight years later, and the woman still used makeup to mask the scars on her cheek.
Chester had been in trouble with the law nearly all his life, but thanks to a criminal justice system that sometimes seemed even more hesitant to deal with unruly elements than the public education system, he had yet to do any major time. It was actually a shame, really, for Chester was the type of individual who would have been happier in prison than he was in civilized society.
Whenever he stopped in the Dregs, people instinctively knew to steer clear of Chester Gecko. He was easy enough to avoid; a burly, slouching figure with ratlike eyes, Chester drew more flies than friends. He generally sat alone at his table, practically daring someone to approach. And in five years, no one ever had.
Until this day.
Chester was sullenly sucking at his beer when he saw the skinny guy show up with Quintly Tortilli. Chester didn't like Tortilli anymore. Mr. Bigshot didn't answer his mail. Besides, he'd seen the director in the Dregs before, so it was easy enough to lose interest.
He glanced away for a second. When he looked back, the stranger with Tortilli had disappeared. Just like that. Vanished. As if the floor had opened up and swallowed him whole. Chester assumed he'd ducked back out the front door. But when he returned his bored attention to the dance floor, he saw something that made his stomach twitch. A few yards away, Tortilli's companion was melting out of the crowd.
That was the only way Chester could describe it melting. It was as if he didn't exist one moment and in the next had congealed into human shape.
Chester blinked. And in that infinitesimally brief instant when his eyes were closed, the stranger materialized in the chair across from his.
Chester jumped, startled. He quickly recovered. "Get lost," he grumbled, forcing a gruff edge to cover his surprise. With a flick of his neck, he shifted his dirty brown bangs from his forehead. He took a swig from the half-full beer bottle clutched in his big hand.
Across the table, Remo nodded. "After I've killed you," he promised. "Now, there's an easy-"
"What?" Chester Gecko snarled, slamming his bottle to the table.
"Hmm?" Remo asked.
"What did you just say?" Chester demanded.
Remo frowned, confused. "About what?"
"Did you just threaten me?"
"Oh, that. Yes." That settled, Remo continued. "Now, there's an easy way and a hard way to do this."
"Go pound sand," Chester growled. Stuffing his bottle back in his mouth, he took a mighty swig.
"I see we've opted for latter," Remo mused, nodding.
And as Chester pulled the bottle from between his lips, Remo's hand shot forward.
Too fast for Chester Gecko to follow, the flat of Remo's palm swatted the base of the bottle, propelling it forward.
It skipped out of Chester's hand, launching back into his stunned face. As Remo's hand withdrew, Chester suddenly felt a great tugging just below his eyes, as if something were pulling on his nose. When he reached for the source, he found his beer bottle dangling from the tip. It hung in front of his slack mouth.
He snorted in pain. Beer stung his nostrils. He gagged, spitting out the liquid.
"I'd gobba kill you," Chester choked. But when he looked up, Remo's eyes were cold. Frighteningly so.
"Bet you I can fit your whole head in there," Remo said evenly.
The confidence he displayed was casual and absolute. And in an instant of sharp realization, Chester Gecko knew that this thin stranger with the incredibly thick wrists was not joking.
Chester held up his hands. "Dno," he pleaded. The bottle on his face clacked against his front teeth. He yelped in pain, grabbing at his mouth.
"Okay, let's establish the ground rules," Remo said. Reaching over, he gave the bottle a twist. The pain was so great, Chester couldn't even scream. His eyes watered as his bottle-encased nose took on the shape of a flesh-colored corkscrew.
"Those are the ground rules," Remo said, releasing the bottle. "Understand?"
Chester nodded desperately. The dangling bottle swatted his chin with each frantic bob of his head. Remo's expression hardened. "Who hired you to butcher that girl?" he asked.
Chester felt his breath catch. Yet he dared not lie.
"I don gno," he admitted. "Phone caw. Don gnow who he wath." He fumbled to twist the bottle back to its starting point.
Remo frowned. Another phone call. The same method that had been used to hire Leaf Randolph. "How'd you get paid?" he pressed.
"Potht offith boxth," Chester said. Blood streamed from his encased nostrils, dribbling into the bottom of the bottle. The golden liquid was taking on a thick black hue. This time, Remo remembered the question he had forgotten to ask at Leaf's apartment. "How much?"
"Pive hunred thouthanth."
Remo thought he had misheard. He made Chester repeat the amount. He found that he wasn't wrong. Chester Gecko had been paid five hundred thousand dollars to butcher a woman and stuff her torso into an orange crate.
It was a lot of money. An insanely Hollywood amount.
Remo's thoughts instantly turned to Cabbagehead's wealthy backers. That much money would have been chump change to any one of those men.
Chester had told him everything of value. He just had one question left.
"You know who killed that family in Maryland?" he asked.