"Don Fiavorante Pubescio. I want you to deliver a message to him."
"What's the message?"
"Cadillac Carmine Imbruglia is cheating on his rent."
"Who's Cadillac Carmine Imbruglia?" Remo wanted to know.
"The Boston don."
"How'd you find out his name?" Remo asked, interested.
"He foolishly listed himself on a payroll spreadsheet under the title of 'crime minister.' "
"Catchy. And your snooping computers caught him ripping off his own people, huh?"
"Not exactly," Smith said flatly. "Even as we speak, I am doctoring the LANSCII data base to show conclusive skimming of LCN profits for diversion into the Boston don's pockets."
"You play pretty hard ball, Smitty."
" I play to win," said Smith, hanging up. He reached for his Zantac, hoping there was enough left to quell his sour stomach.
Chapter 30
In his black walnut alcove in Little Italy, Don Fiavorante Pubescio waited for word from his soldier.
"He should have called back by now," he said worriedly. "This thing should have been done by this time." He took a sip of lukewarm ginseng tea. It tasted bitter.
But not as bitter as the taste of betrayal, he reflected.
Don Fiavorante would not have believed it, but the proof lay before his eyes. Computer printouts. Unmistakable computer printouts. They had been laid on the walnut table by a soldier from Boston who called himself Remo Mercurio.
"Check 'em out," had said the soldier, of whom Don Fiavorante had not heard.
He had only to glance over the bottom-line figures to see the truth. Don Fiavorante looked up, his placid gentlemanly expression unchanged.
"You have done me a good turn, my friend," said the don, meeting the hard gaze of Remo Mercurio with his own frank regard.
"Skip it," said Remo casually.
"The contract is yours, if you want it."
"I don't. "
Don Fiavorante's manicured hands had lifted questioningly. "That is it? You want nothing in return?"
"You have Don Carmine clipped," Remo had replied, "and I'll have all I want."
"Perhaps you would like to take his place, eh?"
"I'm available," said Remo coolly.
"Ah, now I understand. I will consider this. Once the irritant has been removed from the scene. Go now. With my blessing."
And so Don Fiavorante had sent one of his own soldiers to do the necessary but regrettable.
The plan was perfect. Don Carmine was moving heroin through commercial courier delivery services. The soldier would appear in the guise of a UPS deliveryman, the better to enter the LCN building without difficulty.
But there had been no call. What could have happened? wondered Don Fiavorante in the coolness of his walnut alcove.
Chapter 31
When Carmine Imbruglia read of the fate of Nicky Kix and his fellow soldiers in the Boston Herald, he threw the paper across the room and howled, "They were ready for us. Someone tipped them off?"
"But who?" asked Bruno the Chef, his face characteristically blank.
"I dunno. I dunno. Let me think."
Carmine Imbruglia screwed up his face into a homely knot. He chewed on one knuckle.
"I see two possibilities here," he said, swallowing a fragment of dry skin. "One, it was that Tony. He was the only one who knew we were makin' a move, except you and me."
"What's two?" said the Chef quickly, hoping to steer his don away from the delicate subject of personal loyalty.
"Two is if we can't make more money to pay off Don Fiavorante, we gotta figure out a way that Don Fiavorante gets less."
"Don Fiavorante don't think that way."
"Maybe," said Don Carmine slowly, "Don Fiavorante shouldn't think at all."
Bruno (The Chef) Boyardi's dull eyes grew very, very worried as Don Carmine got to his feet and strode over to a bank of windows along one side of the LCN conference room.
His knotted expression melted into one of open surprise as his gaze went through the dark windows.
"Look what we got here!" he said.
"What?" asked Bruno the Chef, peering out.
He saw a step van the color of dried mud.
"It ain't got no markin's," growled Don Carmine.
"Sure, it has. See the little gold shield on the side?"
"Looks like a fuggin' badge," muttered Don Carmine. "Can you make out the letters?"
"U . . . P . . S."
"The military! They sent the fuggin' army after us," howled Don Carmine, lunging for his tommy gun. He yanked back the charging bolt and waited.
When a man in a drab uniform identical in color to the step van's paint job emerged from the driver's side, Don Carmine opened up through the windows.
The racket was calamitous. Glass shards cascaded like glacial ice letting go. Smoking brass shell casings sprinkled and rolled about the floor.
Struggling to hold the bucking muzzle on his target, Don Carmine Imbruglia laughed with whooping joy.
"Take that, army cogsugger! You ain't takin' Cadillac Carmine, the Kingpin of Boston!"
"I think he's dead," said the Chef when the drum ran empty.
"Sure, he's dead," Carmine said, smacking the smoking weapon lustily. "This is a tommy. A good American weapon. It kills better than anythin'."
"Maybe we should get rid of the body," suggested Bruno the Chef, watching it bleed with vague interest.
"Get rid of the truck too. Dump it in the river. That's why I picked this joint. The river's a great way to get rid of dead guys. "
"Okay, boss," the Chef said amiably, starting for the door.
"But make fuggin' sure you dump it on the Boston side of the river," Carmine called after him. "Let the Westies catch the blame."
"They don't call them Westies up here, boss. They're Southies. "
"Westies. Southies. Irish is Irish. Hop to it. And when you're done, get that Tony in here."
"Right, boss."
Chapter 32
The Master of Sinanju examined the patient in the bed.
He was old. His bone structure whispered of the Rome of Caesar's day. His skin was waxy and yellow as old cheese.
"What is his illness?" Chiun asked Harold Smith.
"Poison. "
"Ah, the stomach," intoned Chiun, who in deference to his antiseptic surroundings wore ivory white. He looked about him. A doctor in Harold Smiths employ stood off to one side, looking concerned and even puzzled. They were in the hospital wing of Folcroft Sanitarium.
"He is in an irreversible coma," the physician said defensively. "There is nothing you can do for him. I told Dr. Smith that."
The Master of Sinanju ignored the quack's obvious ravings and examined the machine that forced the comatose unfortunate's lungs to pump, and touched lightly the clear tubes that provided unhealthy potions.
Without a word, he began ripping these free.
This brought the expected reaction from the physician. Seeing his barbaric machines desecrated, he made protest.
"You'll kill him! The patient must have his intravenous liquids. "
The Master of Sinanju allowed the lunatic to approach, and with a deft movement snatched up one of his waving forearms and inserted a clear tube into it.
The doctor's face acquired a perplexed dreamy expression and, made docile by the poisons that were supposed to cure the sick, he allowed himself to be seated in a nearby chair.
"Are you certain that this will work?" asked Harold Smith anxiously.
"No," said Chiun gravely.
"Then why are you-?"
"There is nothing to lose," said Chiun, shaking his hands clear of his white sleeves. "This man has been pampered by machines until his will to function has been lulled into a lazy sleep. If he dies, he dies. But if he is to recover, his body must be convinced that this will happen only if it struggles for life."
And before Harold Smith could protest, the Master of Sinanju abruptly plunged his long fingernails into the exposed wrinkled pot belly of the patient.