"Who was he?" said Remo.
"The man who saved your life," said Dr. Harold Smith.
"You're a real sonuvabitch, you know that, Smitty," said Remo.
"Do you think anyone else could run this organization?"
"No one else would want to," said Remo. "Guy saved my life, huh? Hmmm."
"Yes, he did."
"We pay off nice, don't we?"
"We do what we have to. Now get out of that silly nightgown. You're due in Chicago in a few hours. No labour leader ever wore a costume like that."
CHAPTER FIVE
Remo followed the directions. He would meet Abe Bludner, president of Local 529, New York City, at the Pump Room in Chicago for breakfast. Bludner would be a squat, bald man with a face like a pocked watermelon.
Bludner, according to reports from Upstairs, had a stormy union record. He began driving at 15 with a forged license, became a shop steward at 23 when he singlehandedly fought off five company goons with a bailing hook, at 32 became the numbers bank for all barns (truck warehouses) in his local, and became president at 45 in an intra-local political battle that saw his predecessor lose by three votes in a case that wended its way through the courts for four years until the next election. Bludner won the second election handily and had been president of the local ever since. From time to time some of his drivers broke their arms when they accidentally fell into crowbars. Usually these crowbars were attached to Abe Bludner. From time to time trucking outfits would damage themselves when colliding with a crowbar. That is, the president or the treasurer or the vice president in charge of the terminal operations would find himself with very uncomfortable fractures. More often than not, the employer was the one who initiated the violence by hiring gangsters. Gangsters always met crowbars. After a while gangsters stopped coming.
From time to time many employers saved themselves the expense of renting hoodlums and dealt directly with their labour antagonist. They did this with envelopes. Fat envelopes. The proceeds of this corporate largesse often found its way to drivers whose hospital insurance had run out, drivers' children for whom the local's scholarship fund could not provide enough, and drivers who could not quite make a down payment on a mortgage. No member of the local was ever laid off for more than a day, and only one driver who belonged to the union was ever fired for cause. He had, for the third time, rammed a tractor trailer into the side of the barn while drunk.
Bludner pleaded with the owner to give the driver a non-driving job. The owner refused. Abe Bludner pointed out that the driver had four children and a wife. The owner refused. Abe Bludner said the driver had enough problems already. Wouldn't the owner reconsider? The owner would not. The next day, the owner saw the folly and hardheartedness of his ways. He wired the president of Local 529 that he had changed his mind. He would have come personally, dictated the owner, but he would not be out of hospital for a month and even then doctors were not sure if he would ever walk again.
Abe 'Crowbar' Bludner ran his local with a tight hand, an open pocket, and a heart as big as all outdoors—if you did your work and kept you face relatively clean. He was said to have never made a serious mistake.
Abe Bludner knew better. He had not seen fit to include the US Government in his list of beneficiaries from the gift envelopes. The US Government appeared not to know this until the day before the 85th annual convention of the International Brotherhood of Drivers.
Then Abe Bludner discovered that the Internal Revenue Service was deeply grieved at being excluded from his largesse. But Abe Bludner could set things right again, said the man 'from IRS.' Abe Bludner could show the bigness of his heart, by giving a young, deserving man a job with his local, by making this newcomer a business agent for Local 529 International Brotherhood of Drivers, New York City.
Abe 'Crowbar' Bludner outlined why this was impossible. A man had to be elected business agent according to union bylaws. His other men would resent someone coming in off the street and taking a major job. Abe Bludner had power because he didn't do such foolish things—things that would antagonize the very people he depended on for his power. So the IRS would have to ask for something else.
The something else, as it turned out, would be ten to fifteen years at the Lewisburg Federal Prison. Abe Bludner asked the name of his new business agent.
"Remo," said the supposed representative from IRS.
"Johnny Remo, Billy Remo? What Remo?"
"Remo is his first name."
"All right. That is a nice first name. May I have a last name to put in the union records."
"Jones."
"A lovely last name. I used it once in a motel."
"So did I," said the man supposed to be from the IRS.
Thus it was that on this sunny morning Abe Bludner waited for his new business agent and delegate to the convention.
He did his waiting with two other officials of his local who in other businesses would be called bodyguards. Remo saw them in a booth, sitting at a table laden with food, little cakes, glasses of beading orange juice, and cups of steaming black coffee.
Remo could smell the bacon and the home-fries from twenty feet away. So could his trainer, Chiun, who had been assigned by Upstairs to personally supervise his pupil's diet.
"I knew I shouldn't eat a hamburger, what I didn't know was that I couldn't," Remo had said.
"Could and should are the same things for the wise man," Chiun had said. "I have taught you the pathetically basic rudiments of offense and defence. Now I must teach you to eat."
And that was Chiun's assignment. As they approached the Bludner table, Chiun's face contorted in contempt for the awful smells of the food. Remo's mouth filled with delicious overwhelming desire. Perhaps he could sneak a roll.
"Mr. Bludner?" said Remo.
"Yeah," said Bludner, a crisp, brown morsel of home-fry caught in the corner of his lips.
"I'm Remo Jones."
Bludner tore an end off an onion roll and dipped the soft white interior into the golden, flowing egg yolks. He lifted the roll, dripping yellow over the brown crust dotted with white onion chips toasted black at their corners. Then he mouthed it, swallowing the roll morsel whole.
"Yeah, well, good to see ya," said Bludner without enthusiasm. "Who's he?"
"He's my nutritionist," said Remo.
"What's the clothes he's wearing?"
"It's a kimono."
"Well, sit down. Have you eaten yet?"
"No," said Remo.
"Yes," said Chiun.
"Well, have you or haven't you?" said Bludner.
"Yes and no," said Remo.
"I don't know what that means," said Bludner.
"It means I've eaten but it doesn't feel like it."
"Well, sit down and have a coffee and Danish. I got your union credentials with me. This is Paul Barbetta and Tony Stanziani, stewards and delegates to the convention."
There was a round of handshakes in which Stanziani attempted to crush Remo's hand. Remo watched the dark-eyed hulk squeeze almost to redness in face. Then with simple compression Remo strained Stanziani's thumb. He did this not because Stanziani had squeezed hard. Actually it would have been good for Remo to be thought of as weak. No, Remo hurt the thumb because of the Danish he could not have. Golden Danish in rings with brown chips of almonds and cinnamon filling. Rich cheese Danish, with creamy white, pungent rilling. Cherry Danish with sweet red sauce.
Stanziani, despite his sudden pain, was really lucky he had a hand to take back.
"Ow," said Stanziani.
"I'm sorry," said Remo.
"You got a tack in your hand or something?" Stanziani blew on his thumb.
Remo opened his palms to show that nothing was in them.
"You guys want Danish and coffee?" said Bludner. "I got a special Danish I make right here at the table. I'll be making it myself. It's called a "Dawn Danish." It's very nice. Named after my wife."