The brighter ones might ask the bright-eyed young men, "Just who is this Baron Nemeroff?" And the young men would smile and invariably answer: "The man who can straighten things out for you."
One of the things that he had been called on to straighten out was a hiding place for an American criminal, fleeing prosecution. He had done it. And then, within a period of two months, three more major criminals had asked him to find them sanctuary. He had.
The western world was in the middle of one of its periodic crackdowns on crime. It occurred to Nemeroff that the solution to the problem of asylum for criminals might be one for his brain to explore.
Then, one night, he had met Vice President Asiphar in a London gambling casino, and all the pieces suddenly fell into place.
The casino arranged for Asiphar to lose, far beyond his means, and Nemeroff had stepped forward to arrange payment of the sweating hulk's debts. That had brought Asiphar into his orbit. He was kept there at the moment with occasional funds and frequent women, always women of the whitest possible skin.
But Nemeroff distrusted the power of women to permanently lock Asiphar to him. The television tapings of the vice president's bed sessions were a precaution, against any inclination by Asiphar to reconsider.
It had taken Nemeroff six months to work out the plan, and another three to win Asiphar fully to his side. The scheme was simple:
Assassinate President Dashiti, install Asiphar as president, and put Scambia under crime's flag.
It was now all ready to go and Nemeroff had sent out 40 telegrams:
"Must meet on matter of extreme urgency. July 17th, Stonewall Hotel, Algiers. Nemeroff."
And all around the globe, in the far-off crime councils, the telegrams were received; men cancelled other appointments and began packing their bags.
And Nemeroff sent a forty-first telegram to a man whose work had highly recommended him. He called him both for his skills and for the impact his presence would have on the leaders from the United States, who were inclined to be suspicious of new ideas. His forty-first telegram went to Jersey City, N. J., to P. J. Kenny.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Remo walked into the lobby of the Stonewall Hotel. The lobby ran the first three floors of the hotel, crowned by a massive crystal chandelier. Dusky-skinned bellhops skittered around the floor, swarming toward Remo and his small bag like a gang of flies.
He shooed them away and held onto the bag, into which he had put PJ Kenny's attaché case.
As he had expected, he had had no trouble at customs. The clerk had glanced at the passport in the name of P.K. Johnson, glanced at Remo who was wearing the horn-rimmed glasses as proof of identity, then stamped the passport.
The lobby was empty, which meant that Remo was early. If the expected swarm of criminal leaders had arrived yet, the lobby would be filled with scarred men in silk suits, with white ties and hats, trying to stare each other down, trying to set up their own pecking order of importance. But the lobby was empty.
Almost.
Seated in a chair near the door-facing the desk, reading a newspaper-was a young woman. Her orange knit skirt was too short; it was hiked up high onto her thighs and as Remo scanned the lobby, he could see the tops of her pantyhose.
The woman had dark hair-but brown not black; her skin was dark too, but it was the darkness of suntan, not race; and her eyes behind giant owl-shaped eyeglasses were a deep green that seemed almost un-earthy against the glowing tan face. Instead of lipstick, she wore a whitish kind of lip gloss that was somehow wildly sexy. Her eyes met Remo's briefly, then dropped back to the newspaper page, and a faint smile played at the edges of her lips.
Remo reluctantly removed his eyes and walked to the desk.
The clerk-moustached, with a red fez-moved forward to greet him, smiling oily. Remo expected him to sound like Groucho Marx.
He did.
"Yes sir, at your service."
Remo spoke loud for the benefit of the girl. "I'm PJ Kenny. You've got a reservation for me?" In the mirror behind the desk, he saw the girl's eyes lift toward the back of his head.
The clerk looked at a list of names under the desk.
"Oh, yessir; yes indeed; yes, we do. Will the gentleman be staying long?"
"The gentleman may not be staying at all. What's the room like?"
"Oh, very fine, sir."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Hotel rooms are always very fine." He hoped PJ Kenny talked like this. "Is there air conditioning?"
"Yes, sir."
"Carpets?"
"Yes, sir," the clerk said, trying unsuccessfully to hide his annoyance at the loudmouthed American.
"I'm sorry if I annoy you," Remo said, "but I'm used to only the best. The finest hotels in Jersey City, New Jersey. I don't stay nowhere but the best."
"This is the very best, sir," the clerk said. He leaned forward. "Your reservations were made by Baron Nemeroff, and any friend of the baron's…" He left the sentence uncompleted, and slammed the silver bell on the desk.
"That's all right," Remo said, waving his hand in dismissal. "Just give me the key."
As he looked up he saw the woman again staring at his back. He wondered if she were interested in him or in the PJ Kenny he was supposed to be. He'd have to find out.
He chased two bellhops. "All right, kids, I'll do it myself."
"Room 2510," the clerk told him, handing him a brass key with a blue glass ornament attached to it by a chain.
"Okay. And if it's not all right, you'll hear about it," Remo said, taking the key.
Instead of walking to the elevators, he went back across the lobby to the chair where the girl sat. He stopped in front of her, his feet only inches from hers, and she looked up over the newspaper, her eyes bemused under the big circular glasses.
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry, miss, but I'm sure I've seen you somewhere before."
She laughed. "I don't think so," and lowered her eyes to the paper.
"Do you always read newspapers upside down?" he asked.
Her face showed shock, but only momentarily. She recovered quickly and said coldy, "It's not upside down." But the damage had been done. That she was willing to panic for a moment, to think the paper just might be upside down, was proof that it could have been, that she hadn't been reading it. She knew it and Remo knew it.
He smiled at her again, trying to disarm her. "I know it," he said, "but I always say that."
"It must be your Jersey City training in diplomacy, Mr. Kenny." She had volunteered a sentence at last. Her voice was delicately British-not clipped and abrupt, but soft and throaty-and Remo had a letch for the way British women talked.
"One thing I learned in Jersey City diplomacy," he said. "Don't give something for nothing. You know my name and hometown. And I don't know anything about you, except…"
"Except?"
"Except that you're lovely."
She laughed softly. "Well, by all means then, we must maintain the balance of power. My name is Margaret Waters and I'm from London and if you really meant that last compliment, you can call me Maggie."
"A vacationer?" Remo asked.
"An archaeologist. Who would vacation here?"
"People from Jersey City."
She laughed again. "You've just gone down in my esteem."
"If you'll let me buy you dinner, I'll try to recoup my losses. That is, if you don't have a roaring date with Ramses II."
"You know," she said, "you're really much more civilized than you appeared to be when you were abusing that clerk." She pronounced it "dark."