"We step on it right there, in the basement. We got a regular factory down there."
"And then it's doled out to the kids to sell on the streets, right?"
"Yeah, right."
"Kids like Billy Martin and Walter Sterling?"
"Yeah, them and others."
"By 'others', you mean kids whose fathers work in automobile factories?"
"Just some of them. We don't need too many."
"What's their end of it?"
"That's the beautiful part," Wagner said. "They hide the stuff in the fender wells of the cars, and then somebody at the other end picks it up. It works like a charm."
"So what went wrong?"
"Wrong?"
"Why did Billy Martin kill his parents?"
"That was the kid's own doing," Wagner said. "He said his father was starting to get nervous about the drug money and was gonna talk to the cops."
"So why'd he kill his mother too?"
Wagner shrugged and said, "Maybe she woke up at the wrong time, or maybe the old man confided in her. Hell, maybe the kid just wanted to use the opportunity to get rid of both of them at one time."
"And then what happened to him?"
"Well, when he got caught, we figured he'd talk his head off to help himself, so Moorcock gave the order to have him killed."
"After he was bailed out."
"Right. I had one of my boys call that lawyer and make the arrangements to get him out, and then a few of the boys took care of him."
"Who blew up my car?"
Wagner fidgeted on that one. "Well, I went to the rental office and got your name and your hotel and then sent in one of the men to plant the explosive."
"One of the men up on the catwalk?"
Wagner looked up nervously and said, "Yeah, a guy named Jim Burger."
"Good," Remo said. "I'd hate to leave that little bit of business unfinished."
"Can I go now?"
"No, not just yet, my friend. Shipping the drugs in the cars couldn't be going on at the plant without somebody in authority being in on it. Who is it?"
Wagner frowned and said, "All we needed was the foreman on the assembly line, and we bought him dirt cheap. They don't pay their workers all that much."
"Boffa."
"Right."
"Then he must have killed Louis Sterling."
"Right again."
A cool customer, that foreman, Remo thought. He must have just killed Sterling and then calmly shown Remo where the body was.
"And that's it?" Remo asked. "That's all you can tell me?"
"What else do you want to know?"
"Who makes the pickups at the other end of the car shipments?" Remo asked.
"That I don't know," Wagner said. "I only know the Detroit end of the business. Moorcock is the only one who knows the whole operation."
"Is that so?"
The cold look in the man's dark eyes sent a chill through Wagner's body, and he knew that he'd just signed his own death warrant unless he could talk his way out of it. "Of course, I could always find out for you," he said quickly. "I could go back to the church and—"
"Forget it, pal."
"No, really, I wouldn't mind—" Wagner stammered, but he could see that it was too late.
"I think it's time for you to join your friends."
"Up on the catwalk?"
"No," Remo said, reaching out for the man's throat. "In hell."
Chiun took Walter Sterling out the way they had come and met Remo in front of the warehouse.
"What about all those men?" Walter asked.
"They won't be coming out," Remo said.
"You killed them all?"
"They would have tried to kill us," Chiun said. "Do not feel sorry for them."
"What are we gonna do now? Go to the police?"
"Not yet," Remo said. "We're going to pay a visit to Mr. Moorcock, and then tomorrow we'll go to the plant and take care of the man who killed your father."
"You know who killed my father?"
"I do."
"Tell me."
"I'll show you… tomorrow, Walter."
They grabbed a cab and took it back to the hotel, where they put Walter Sterling to sleep on the couch.
"Want to go to church?" Remo asked.
"I have a suggestion," Chiun said.
"Let me have it if it's clean."
"Let us wait until morning before we go to the church."
"But that would give Moorcock time to get his shipment to the National Motors factory."
"Correct. We will take care of the factory under the church and then call the police to meet us at National Motors. By the time they arrive, we will have taken care of that too, and we will also have drugs to prove that we stopped a drug shipment."
"I like that," Remo said.
"It will be your job to stay in touch with Detective Palmer."
"Palmer? What for?"
Chiun made a face. "Someone must clean up," he said.
"Hasn't Donald returned yet?" Moorcock asked the man who was standing by the basement door.
"No, sir."
"Has he called?"
"No, sir."
"Donald is supposed to take the shipment over to Boffa at the plant in the morning."
"I can do that, sir. Or one of the others."
"It's Donald's job," Moorcock said with a worried frown. "Something's gone wrong with his meeting with that black dealer. Did he say where the meeting was to take place?"
The other man looked confused because he assumed that Moorcock would know that, and said, "Uh, no, sir, he didn't tell me."
"I suppose I should have paid more attention…. All right, Samuel, I guess if Donald doesn't return, you will have to make the trip to the plant."
"Yes, sir, I will."
"And if Donald doesn't return by tomorrow, I think that some of our men will have to pay a visit to Danny Lincoln and find out why. If he has betrayed us, someone will have to make him pay."
"I'd be happy to do it," the man said.
"And if tragedy has befallen Donald, I will need a good man to take his place."
"Yes, sir!"
"Perhaps you would be able to help me find one, Samuel. We will discuss it," Moorcock said, and then started upstairs.
If Samuel hadn't known from personal experience that the minister had no sense of humor, he would have thought that Moorcock was putting him on.
He wished he were.
Upstairs, Moorcock started making plans to abandon the operation and get away with as much cash as he could. Something had gone wrong, of that he was sure, and it was obviously time to regroup. He could set up operations in another city easily enough, utilizing his contacts once again. This was by no means the end, but it was the end in Detroit. There were a lot of men in his employ, however, who were waiting for their payoff, and he was hoping that he could get away before any of them caught on.
So the decision was made. Tomorrow was his last day in Detroit.
Before turning in for the night, Remo and Chiun briefly went over their plans for the following day.
The next day was Friday, and according to what Walter Sterling had told them, on Friday the Church of Modern-day Beliefs held services in the morning and in the evening.
"The church will be full of people tomorrow morning, then," Chiun said.
"We could wait until the afternoon," Remo said.
"Then we run the risk of not being able to stop the shipment from leaving the automobile factory."
"That's right," Remo said.
"Then we will just have to stay with our original plan."
"Hit the church in the morning, and the plant in the afternoon," Remo said.
"Yes. We will have to try to make sure that no innocent people are hurt at the church—"
"—especially children," Remo finished before Chiun could.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Remo, Chiun, and Walter stood across the street from Moorcock's church as the Friday morning worshipers filed in.
"I don't understand the appeal of Moorcock's new religion," Remo said to Walter.
"My mother always said that it was an alternative," Walter said.