Then she stopped and lay still, her head on Remo's chest. He heaved his chest a little as if he were still sobbing.
"No tears now," she lectured. "What we've just experienced is normal and healthy. Right? Right. Say it. It's normal and healthy."
"It's normal and healthy," Remo said.
"You'd better believe it," she said. "And it's fucking great too."
"Should I say that too?" Remo asked.
"No, that's all right," she said.
"Good," Remo said. "It's never been like this before," he added truthfully, after trying to remember if he'd ever gotten laid before in a closet.
Oh, yeah, there had been once in a closet, but not on a shelf. A shelf would be a separate category, wouldn't it? I mean, you couldn't just say a closet, and mean any kind of closet or anywhere in a closet. He remembered the other time was a walk-in closet with a couch. Now, that's not even like a closet. More like a room. But a shelf, man, was a shelf. It really belonged in the shelf category, not in the closet category. So this, therefore, was a new experience. Right? Say right, Remo. Right. He was still unconvinced. He would ask Chiun when he went home.
"It may never have been like that before," Janet O'Toole said to Remo, "but it will be like that again if you just do as I say."
"I will. I will."
"All right. Don't forget it. And Remo, I'm really glad that I was able to help you get over your problem."
"So am I."
"But now we have to get out of here before anyone returns."
Remo had been thinking that very thing. They dismounted from the closet, and moments later when McGurk returned from downstairs, Janet was at her desk again and Remo was perched on the edge of it, looking at her lovingly, shyly.
"Bednick," McGurk said. "What are you doing here?"
"I was just passing by," Remo said, standing up and turning to face him. "Thought I'd drop in." He winked at Janet.
"You've got no business here?"
"Nope."
"Then clear out. I have to put up with your kind at headquarters. But I don't have to do it here."
Remo shrugged. "Suit yourself." He leaned over to Janet and McGurk, for the first time, noticed the wrinkled front of her blouse, the slightly tousled look of her ash-blonde hair. "See you?" Remo asked her.
"Don't call me. I'll call you," she said softly, but sternly. "Maybe."
Remo blushed, only for her, then turned and walked quickly past McGurk, out into the hall through the large gym room, and into the hall leading downstairs. McGurk watched him go.
"I don't trust that one," he said to Janet. "There's something animal about him. The way he moves. It's like watching a tiger in a zoo who's just waiting for the zookeeper to open the door and throw in food."
Janet O'Toole giggled. "A tiger?" she said. She giggled again. "More like a pussycat, I'd say." McGurk turned and his eyes met hers. For the first time he could remember, she did not look away.
Smith must have him wired, Remo thought. It seemed every time he walked in the door, two minutes later Smith was on the telephone.
"Well?" came the acerbic voice.
"Well, what?"
"Have you anything to report? There were a number of incidents yesterday, in case you hadn't noticed, and our friend in Washington is worried."
"He's always worried," Remo said. "Don't you be like him."
"Things are very grave," Smith said.
"Even graver now," Remo said. "There was another one tonight."
"And you couldn't stop it?"
"Stop it? I helped. I think it was a great idea. Just imagine. Forty cops, running around this country, putting out the garbage for all of us. Like wow, man. That's New York talk, Smitty."
"Did you say forty policemen?"
"Forty."
"That's impossible," Smith said.
"Not impossible. That's what there are."
"It can't be. There are too many missions, too many different places across the country. How could they do all that with only forty men?" He paused. "Perhaps if they had a computer… working out schedules and travel arrangements et cetera? Maybe. Logistically, it's brilliant." Smith was now very much the bureaucrat, impressed by another bureaucrat who had found a new and better way.
"Like that, huh?" Remo said.
"Give credit where it's due. Even to the enemy," Smith said. "Is McGurk the leader?"
"I'm not sure yet. And don't call him the enemy. I think he's doing a necessary job."
"And I wonder, Remo, if perhaps you're not too close to these men? Maybe you're laying down on the job?"
"Only in closets," Remo said and hung up, angry because Smith had said what Remo had been trying not to think. That he was moving slowly because the cops and he belonged to the same fraternities of heartbreak and frustration.
He looked at the telephone.
"You worry, my son?" Chiun said from his position on the floor in front of the couch.
"It is nothing," Remo said.
"No, it is something," Chiun said. "It is more of your good guys and bad guys. You must cleanse your brain of such nonsense."
"I'll work on it."
"Good."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The ruffled blouse of Janet O'Toole was on McGurk's mind all night. He tossed in bed thinking about it. He had no doubt that Remo Bednick had somehow bedded Janet, right under his nose. She had the happy look of the well-laid, and the blouse was just another link in the chain of evidence.
More than crooked lawyers, more than soft judges, more than Mafia thugs, this outraged McGurk. He had always felt sorry for the girl, ever since he'd learned her sad story. And then, somehow, he knew he had fallen in love with her. Every time he had looked at her he winced inwardly, thinking of that fresh young beauty with so much capacity for love going to waste. But now, wasting that love on Remo Bednick, a mob creep, well, that was outrageous.
But that she had, he had no doubt.
After Remo had left the office, McGurk had demanded of her, "What were you two doing up here?"
The old Janet would have rainbowed through pink and purple and vermilion; she would have stuttered, stammered, looked away and finally run from the room in tears. But this Janet looked at McGurk coolly, met his eyes straight on, and said, "I'd break your heart if I told you."
"Try me," McGurk said.
"Too late. I already tried him."
And then she wouldn't talk any more. She dismissed him as if he were a tardy schoolboy and she an angry teacher, and that infuriated him more.
The fury was now full upon him as he lay in bed. The first time he had met Remo Bednick, he had picked out a role for him. Bednick would be one of the men framed for the two killings that the Men of the Shield would solve first-the two murders for which the evidence reposed in McGurk's safe.
But now he put that idea behind him. He made up his mind on what he would do and once he had made up his mind, he put the problem aside and fell immediately asleep. No need to stay awake, to toss or turn. The decision was made: Remo Bednick would die. And McGurk would permit no errors. He would lead this mission himself.
If he had had any second thoughts, they were dispelled the next morning when he arrived at his daytime office in city police headquarters.
With her long skirts and peasant blouses, Janet had become like a piece of furniture. But who was this leaning over the desk, near the computer console? This girl wore a micro-mini of shocking pink, and as she leaned over away from him, the skirt rode up over her hips so that her panties were visible, displaying not only long legs and creamy white thighs, but buttocks clad in pink nylon. When she turned around he saw that she wore a thin pink jersey blouse under which she wore no bra. Her firm young jugs bounced, from no more impetus than her smile, as Janet O'Toole looked at him, and said "Good morning, Bill. Why is your mouth hanging open?"