Remo frowned. "Isn't it where they sneak things like billboards and soda cans into movies? Kinda like hidden advertising. "
Wendy Wilkerson's green eyes went as wide as if they had detonated. She grabbed Remo's arms in shock.
"You know! I mean, are you sure? Where can I verify this? Oh, my God. In six horrible months you're the first person who has had so much as a clue."
Remo shook off the grasping claws and said, "Let's stick with the subject. Okay, you've been exiled to the dipshit wing of IDC. Where does the Mafia come into this?"
Wendy Wilkerson folded her arms under her breasts, hugging herself. "Tony was made VP of systems outreach. You should have seen him that first week, with a stack of dictionaries, trying to figure out his job description. Finally he gave up. He decided to make things happen, hoping something would click."
"And?"
"Nothing did. At first. We were having lunch one day in his office, just commiserating. You know?"
"Sure. I commiserate all the time. Keeps me from nodding off."
Wendy nodded understandingly. Remo rolled his eyes.
Wendy went on. "The firm had been taking a beating. They announced a new policy. Market-driven. It was revolutionary. Unprecedented. Before this, IDC created systems and then tailored them to customer needs. But the market was too soft to go on that way. The board decided that the customer should dictate his own needs and IDC should try to fill them. Amazing, huh?"
"Isn't that just another way of saying the customer is always right?" Remo asked.
Wendy blinked. "I hadn't thought of that. Maybe it wasn't so revolutionary, after all."
"Guess not," Remo said dryly.
"Anyway," Wendy continued, "Tony and I were discussing the impact this would have on us. I had been watching the Geraldo show that morning. He had on these horrid people from the witness-protection program. Former hitmen and informers. They all wore silly hats and wigs and fake beards."
"Sounds like every other episode," Remo remarked.
"Geraldo asked one if he wasn't afraid of the Mafia catching up to him one day, and the man laughed, you know. He scoffed at the idea. I still remember what he said. He said, 'The Mafia can't do nothing to me. They're still back in the fifties. They got no computers. They cant run license plates. They can't even file their taxes by electronic mail.' The man was very smug about it."
"You don't mean-"
Wendy's green eyes grew reflective as bicycle flashers. "As a joke, I repeated this to Tony. I said the Mafia is a hundred billion-dollar-a-year organization. They need computers. They need faxes. They need word processing. It was a joke, you know? I was just trying to break up the monotony of our corporate exile."
"Don't tell me-"
Wendy nodded. "Tony didn't think it was a joke at all. He immediately saw the possibilities. And he had this uncle, whom he barely knew.
"Uncle?"
"Uncle Fiavorante. He was big in California. Now he's in New York, running things down there."
"Not Don Fiavorante Pubescio?" said Remo, jaw dropping.
"I think that's the name."
"Let me get this straight. The Mafia didn't come to IDC. IDC went to the Mafia?"
"Shhh," said Wendy. "Not so loud. The board still doesn't know. "
"They don't?"
"They always ignore the south wing until it generates revenue or screws up completely. Tony went to his uncle, got an agreement to participate in a pilot program, and the uncle picked Boston as they first city to try out the program."
"LANSCII?"
"That's right." Wendy frowned in surprise. "How did you know? It's supposed to be a trade secret."
"Word is getting out," Remo said dryly.
"Tony had the programmers come up with a super-userfriendly software. It was kind of a joke. Easier to use than VMS. They named it after Meyer Lansky, the old-time mob financial genius."
Remo snapped his fingers. "I knew I'd heard the name before."
"Everything was going fine until the Boston hard disk crashed. It took all their bookkeeping records. Can you imagine those people? Not making backup copies? What could they have been thinking of?"
"Oh, I don't know," said Remo airily. "Maybe they didn't see it as data."
Wendy frowned. "What else would it be?"
"Evidence. "
Slow realization made Wendy Wilkerson's features go slack.
"Oh. That's right. They would see it that way, wouldn't they?"
"Up in Boston, you get hard time for possession of backup copies," Remo said.
"No need to get smart. This is serious."
"This is loony tunes," Remo snapped. "Let me see if I can piece the rest together. When the disk crashed, Tollini sent people to fix the disk. Only it wouldn't fix. And they never came back. How did he keep all those missing people from attracting too much attention?"
"He only sent south wing CE's. When they started to balk, he hired fresh faces off the street, and then shredded their resumes and denied they had ever shown up in the first place. What were the police to do? This is IDC."
"Their jobs, for one thing."
"Oh, I know it sounds horrible," Wendy said quickly.
"It is horrible. People have died."
Wendy threw up her hands. "I know. But what could we do? Tony hoped to get it straightened out, and then he was going to take the pilot program to the board. A foothold in a billion-dollar-a-year business enterprise. They would have made him a board member for sure."
"You don't mean to tell me the IDC board would have signed on to servicing the Mafia?" Remo asked.
"Why not? They're an untapped market and we're marketdriven. Besides, we have a saying here. IDC can do no wrong. Corporately speaking, of course."
"One last question and I'll leave you to the horrors of sixtywatts bulbs and brown-bagging it."
"You mean you're not going to rub me out?" Wendy said in surprise.
"Maybe next visit," Remo said dryly. "Any idea where this Boston outfit is now?"
"No. And I'd rather not know."
"Spoken like a true corporate tool."
"You probably consider that an insult, right?"
Chapter 21
Harold Smith sat in stunned silence as Remo Williams finished his account of Wendy Wilkerson's story.
Remo lounged on a long couch by the Folcroft office door, which was closed. Chiun stood off to one side, coolly ignoring his pupil.
"IDC actually approached the Mafia?" Smith blurted when he finally found his tongue.
"That's what she told me," Remo said. "I'd say that's reason enough to shut them down for good."
Smith shook his gray head. "No. Not IDC. They're too big. Besides, this is a clearly rogue operation. The board appears not to be involved."
"From what I heard," Remo said dryly, "the board doesn't exactly go out of its way to police their own backyard."
"We must locate the current Boston Mafia headquarters," Smith decided.
"What's the big deal? You've got your handy computer. Get on it."
"It is not possible, I am afraid. If I had a phone number, I could enter their system. But we have no idea where they are. And believe me, I have been searching. Wherever they are headquartered, it is not an obvious place."
"Okay. Then Chiun and I will go to Boston and start turning the town upside down. We fish out a few wise guys, shake them up, and get them to lead us to the main nest.
Smith fingered his immaculately shaven chin in thought. Behind the transparent lenses of his rimless glasses, his weak gray eyes were reflective.
"If we go in and destroy them, even to the last man, that would not be enough," Smith said.
"Of course it would," snorted Remo.
"Silence, round eyes," snapped Chiun, addressing Remo for the first time. "Of course it would not be enough."
"Oh, yeah?" Remo growled turning. "Since when are you against solving a problem by laying waste to an enemy?"
"When my emperor gleans a better way," Chiun retorted. "Tell the round eyes, Emperor. Bestow upon him the virtue of your brilliant sunlight."