Smith had also had another requirement: he wanted to know what Matesev was after. Remo had said that was simple. Rabinowitz.
"But why does he want Rabinowitz? No one can figure that out. A simple Russian citizen is not worth all this." So there were two things to do that morning. Matesev first, Rabinowitz second, get them both before one did in the other.
At Rabinowitz' apartment, he saw workmen carrying out furniture.
He asked where it was going. The workmen refused to say anything and warned him that if he knew what was good for him, he would keep his mouth shut and his eyes closed.
Remo said that was an unkind way to respond to a simple question. The movers said if Remo knew what was good for him, he wouldn't ask those kinds of questions. Besides, they didn't have to answer. There was nothing that could force them.
So Remo offered to help them with the moving. He moved a large couch by grabbing one leg, and held it perfectly level with complete ease. Then he used the other end of the couch to play with the movers.
"Tickle tickle," said Remo, coaxing a large mover's rib with the far end of the stuffed white couch. He coaxed the mover up into the truck. Then he coaxed him to the front of the truck. Then he coaxed him against the front of the truck. Remo was about to coax the mover through the front of the truck when the mover had something very important to say to Remo.
"Great Neck, Long Island. Baffin Road. He's got an estate there. But don't mess with him."
"Why not? I like to mess."
"Yeah. You don't see how we're haulin' this furniture? You don't see it?"
"No, I don't see a scratch on it," said Remo, dropping the couch and giving the load its first scratch. With a crash.
"Yeah, well, when you see movers not even getting a scratch on furniture, you gotta know it's for racketeers. No one who can't break your arms and legs is going to get furniture moved this nice. Mafia."
"Rabinowitz. That doesn't sound Italian. I always thought you had to be Italian."
"Yeah, well, that ain't what I just heard. This guy's got more funny names than anyone I know. One guy calls him Carli, one calls him Billy, and another calls him Papa. And I wouldn't want to be alone in an alley with any of those guys. So you tell me. Is he Mafia or is he not Mafia? I don't care if the guy's got a name like Winthrop Winthrop Jones the Eighth. If you got the thugs around you like he's got, you're Mafia."
And so Remo had gotten the new address of Vassily Rabinowitz, and went out to the Long Island estate to await the attack of General Matesev's men. It was a large estate with high brick walls and a big iron fence at which two very tough-looking men stood guard.
"I'm looking for work," said Remo.
"Get outta here," said one of the guards. He had a big lead pipe on his lap, and under his jacket he had a .38. He allowed the bulge of the gun to show, no doubt considering it an effective deterrent. He had the sort of pushed-in face that let you know he would happily use either weapon.
"You don't understand. I want work and I want a specific job. I want yours."
The man laughed and tightened his ham fists around the lead pipe. He started to push it at Remo's chest. He hardly saw the thin man's hands move, but suddenly the pipe was doubled in half.
"Sometimes I wrap it around necks," said Remo, and since the man looked on with some incredulity, he showed him how. Remo bent the gray lead pipe around the man's thick neck like a collar, leaving a little bit extra for a handle.
The other man went for his gun, and Remo put him quickly to sleep by glancing a blow off his skull, causing reverberations that would not allow the brain to function.
He tugged the pipe along with him, down the long brick path to the elegant main house with the gables and dormers, and guns sticking out of them.
He tugged the guard a good quarter-mile to the door of the main house. Yellow and red tulips, the flowers in full blossom, made a bright pattern against the red brick. Newly trimmed grass gave a rich earthy smell to this walled haven on Long Island. The door opened and was filled with a hairy man.
"I want his job," said Remo, nodding at the guard whose neck was still encased in the lead pipe.
"You do that?" asked the man. Remo nodded.
"He do that?" asked the man. The guard nodded.
"You're hired. You're in my regime. My name's Johnny Bangossa. My brother Carli runs this family. There's no one more important after Carli than me."
"And what about Rabinowitz?"
"Who is that Jew?" asked Johnny. "I keep hearing about him everywhere."
"I heard he owned this place," said Remo.
"Maybe he was the one what sold it to us," said Johnny Bangossa.
"But his name's on the furniture and address here."
"That guy gets around," said Johnny. "But my brother Carli says he's all right. He says nobody should hurt him for nothing."
"I see," said Remo. But he didn't.
The entire first unit had failed. The second unit was useless, and the third did not know where to go.
General Matesev smiled slightly and took a sip of coffee. The men had to see he was not panicked. The worst thing a commander could do to men behind enemy lines was to let them succumb to fear. They had enough tension already. Many of them had been living with it for years. Perhaps much of it had dissipated after awhile, but now they all knew they were going to have to fight their way home and something had gone wrong.
What Matesev would do now would earn him the awe of his men. Ordinarily when something went wrong a Russian commander would punish someone. Nothing bad could happen without someone being at fault.
Matesev merely looked at his coffee intently and asked what kind it was. He was in the back of what looked like a large refrigerator truck that was really his headquarters. It could easily hold thirty men and all the equipment they would need. It had been waiting for him with one of his units.
"I don't know, sir," said one of the men hastily.
"Very good. Very good. But we now have a very serious problem. Very serious."
The men nodded gravely.
"How do we get enough of this wonderful coffee back to Russia to last us a lifetime?"
Everyone in the back of the sealed truck suddenly burst into laughter.
"All right," he said. "Back to our problem. Unit One didn't fail. Neither did Unit Two. Our friend Vassity Rabinowiiz failed. He failed to be there. Now, we have a day and a half to find out where he is. That should be no problem. But what I want you good fellows to think of is how we can get this coffee back with us."
Matesev knew Moscow would not accept such levity, but Moscow was helpless. They wouldn't have wasted this last group on this mission if they could have done it with anyone else. The problem with secreting entire units within America was that once the unit was used, it could never be used again.
But Matesev did not tell his men how alarmingly bad the news got. His reports came in that Rabinowitz had somehow gotten himself involved with local criminals and now was beginning some sort of an empire. This was the Kremlin's worst fear. No one cared whether Rabinowitz controlled all the narcotics in America, or the world for that matter. That was not what frightened those at the parapsychology village who knew his power.
Their worry was where he would stop, because once he had a taste of criminal power, he most certainly would want more and more and no one would be capable even of delaying him. The time to get him was when he was alone, before he used his powers to create followers.