Remo Bednick would pay for it.
Without a word, McGurk walked past her and into his office and called three men in different city precincts, and told them to meet him after their day tours, at his Men of the Shield office.
Before going to MOTS in the afternoon, he drove to the house in Queens where Remo Bednick lived. The whole thing would be simple and straightforward, and he looked forward to leading the mission. He told the men he would lead it when they arrived at his office shortly after five.
"When?" one of them asked. He was a tall police sergeant named Kowalchyk. His face was stolid.
"Right now," McGurk said.
"I don't like it," Kowalchyk said. "The whole idea was never do a job in your own city. And here four of us are going out on this one. Why?"
"Because we don't have enough time to wait to get a team in. This guy has found out about us. He can blow the whistle unless we move fast," McGurk lied. He stared blandly at Kowalchyk, eyeballing him until the sergeant looked down at his feet.
"Okay," McGurk said, "anymore questions?"
No one answered.
"All right. We'll do it the way we learned at the firing range. Cross fire, on the click. No mistakes. Take a look at this layout I've drawn up," he said, and reached behind him for a piece of paper on which he had sketched the outlines of Remo Bednick's house in Queens.
Chiun had insisted upon cooking duck. Remo hated duck so he sulked. He sat in the living room watching television, trying to drown out Chiun who was singing in the kitchen.
"Duck contains all the nutrients necessary for life. White American fool does not like duck. Is any further proof necessary of its health-giving qualities? White American fool will be dead at sixty-five. Master of Sinanju will live forever. Why? Because he eats duck. White American fool prefers hamburgers. Here I am, world. White American fool. Quick. Stuff me with hamburgers. Give me mono-mono gluto-gluto. Chemicals. Poisons. With mustard and ketchup on a seeded roll. Plastic seeds. I like plastic seeds. I like chemicals. I like poisons. But I hate duck. Oh, how smart is white American. How clever. Master of Sinanju should feel honoured to know him."
And so he rattled on, and Remo tuned him out and tuned in Harry Reasoner who was just as funny and not nearly so arrogant.
The news had just gone off and Remo had turned off the television when Chiun appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, his white robe swirling about him.
"Dinner is served, Master," he said.
"Thank you," Remo said. "I believe I'll have some brandy with my duck. A full quart. Something cheap and unobtrusive."
"Oh, yes," Chiun said. "Brandy would be very good. It has many additional poisons that one does not get in hamburgers. May I suggest also that you try motor oil after you finish eating?"
"We won't have any motor oil left," Remo said. "Didn't you use it to cook the duck?"
"You are insolent," Chiun said. "The recipe has been in my family for hundreds of years."
"No wonder all of you have become assassins. The heartburn theory of criminal behaviour. That's why the Italians have the Mafia. It's all those peppers they eat."
Chiun jumped up and down like an angry child.
"Your insolence is beyond measure."
"Your duck is beyond description," Remo said, and then, unable to keep a straight face any longer, he laughed out loud.
Chiun's anger faded with the laughter. "Oh, you make sport of the Master of Sinanju. It is wonderful to be so clever."
The doorbell rang. Chiun moved quickly to the front door. "Do not move yourself, oh, good guy-bad guy. Your faithful servant will see who dares intrude upon your world of wit and wisdom."
Chiun moved through the living room, the formal dining room and into a small alcove, and opened the front door. A tall lean man with a stolid face stood there on the first step, looking down at Chiun.
"Remo Bednick?" he asked.
"Do I look like Remo Bednick?"
"Call him. I want to see him."
"May I tell him who is calling?"
"No."
"May I state your business?"
"No."
"Thank you," Chiun said. He closed the door tightly behind him and walked back inside.
Remo was standing near the couch. "Who was it?" he asked.
"No one of consequence," Chiun said. "Come. The duck will get cold."
They sat in the kitchen, digging into the duck, Remo trying to hide his distaste.
Both pretended not to hear the doorbell which brawked incessantly through the meal.
Twenty minutes later, they sipped mineral water.
"Well?" Chiun said.
"The water's great," Remo said.
Braaaawk.
Remo held up his hand. "I'll get the door this time. It might be someone who wants to steal your recipe for duck."
"I see somebody coming," Kowalchyk hissed from the steps. "It don't look like the chink."
"Okay," came a voice from bushes alongside the house. "Everybody be ready."
"Right."
"Right."
Remo opened the door and tried not to laugh. The policeman stood there in plain clothes, his hand near his jacket pocket, slightly turned from Remo, ready to hop down the stairs and begin firing. How clumsy could you get? Remo was beginning to get annoyed with these graceless cops.
"Yeah?"
"Remo Bednick?"
"Yeah."
"Come down here. I've got something to show you."
The cop headed down the stairs. Turning his back on Remo meant that he had help. The bushes. There was someone in the bushes. He listened for a moment. More than one. All right, Remo thought. He moved up close to Kowalchyk, moving with him, in time and in unison, making it impossible for his target to be separated from the policeman's.
At the bottom of the steps, the policeman turned. But Remo was right behind him, and he moved around the policeman, turning him again, and now stood facing his own house, using the cop as a shield between himself and the bushes.
"What is it?" Remo asked.
"Just this," the cop said, pulling his hand from his jacket pocket. The hand had a gun attached. Remo heard a click, like a cricket. He heard pistols cock. The cop in front of him was trying to squeeze the trigger. Remo took the gun from him and cracked him alongside the temple with his elbow. The policeman crumpled and fell, and Remo went for the bushes in a rolling dive. Shots clipped around him.
Chiun was right. Let yourself get annoyed and soon the shelves will be empty. There were police on both sides of him. Both sets of bushes. That's what he got for being careless.
There were two behind the bushes on the left and Remo was on them before they could spin and fire again. They dropped like a jumped-on soufflé, as Remo moved into the two of them with knuckles and hands. Three down. One to go or more? Two shots skidded into the bushes near Remo. Then there was silence. He heard the breathing of only one man. Just one.
Remo went up and over the bushes, across the walk and into the bushes on the other side, and slapped the gun away from the man crouched there.
It was McGurk.
He stood up and faced Remo. Slowly, sadly, he looked down toward the gun that lay at his feet.
"Don't try," Remo said. "You'll never make it."
Remo heard a groan behind him. It was the last dying gasp of the policeman on the walk. Remo felt sick.
"These men cops?" he asked.
"They were," McGurk said.
Remo hadn't wanted this assignment. And now three policemen were dead. Three cops who probably thought they were doing America a service by getting rid of Remo Bednick, Mafia thug. No more. Remo would kill no more policemen. Chiun could, if he wished, make fun of good guys and bad guys, but there were good guys and bad guys. And cops were among the good guys, and Remo had once been one of them.