CHAPTER THREE
For Westerners who get hanged, or shot, or cut to death or freeze in passes that are impassable in winter, there are mournful ballads sung from generation to generation.
For Vinnie the Rock Palumbo, there wasn't even a missing persons report by his wife. When you are married to a Vincent Alphonse Palumbo and he does not return from a "sweet little job" you do not wish law enforcement people to know about it. Because then you, too, may not return from a walk to the supermarket or a visit to relatives.
If you are Vinnie Palumbo's father you do not miss him all that much, because the last time you saw him was eighteen years ago, when he took a pipe to your skull over an allowance dispute.
If you are Willie the Plumber Palumbo, you definitely do not talk about your brother's disappearance, because you have a very good idea what happened to him.
And if you are Vinnie the Rock Palumbo, you make no noise to anyone because you are frozen inside the cab of your Ocean Wheel tractor trailer truck, your body like rock, your eyes ice crystals in your white frosted skull.
It indeed had been a sweet job. Your brother had said: "It's a fast two hundred dollars to drive a truck a couple of blocks."
And you answered: "You're full of crap, Willie the Plumber. How much of it are you taking a walk with?"
"Okay, Vinnie," Willie the Plumber had said, coughing through his cigarette. "Because you're my brother, three hundred dollars."
"Five hundred."
"Five hundred. That's what I'm getting to pay you."
"Five hundred in advance."
"A hundred in advance and four hundred later. Okay? You got your teamsters' card?"
"I got my teamsters' card. And I ain't moving, until I get three hundred dollars up front."
"Okay. Because you're my brother, two hundred fifty dollars up front and for anyone else I'd say no."
So you, Vincent the Rock Palumbo, drive your rig onto Pier 27 one hot August morning and by 4 p.m., the Ocean Wheel container was hooked onto your horse and you drive slowly out. You also notice that people in cars are closing in on you for a tail and a hot dog truck starts to move out.
You notice three squad cars of local bulls in plain-clothes, but you keep a steady pace, and getting no signals from the car in front of you in which your brother sits, you follow it to a warehouse where your truck gets a new paste-on sign calling it Chelsea Trucking. Apparently you suddenly are no longer being tailed.
You wait until dark, then pull out again with the three other trucks following, and this time you are following somebody else, not your brother, in a car ahead. You follow him to the entrance of the New Jersey Turnpike where he signals you to take a cut-off to the new Hudson Industrial Park complex; two buildings and a set of swamps. You are instructed to drive your truck down a ramp into a hole in the ground and wait. You had been told not to pack any weapons, so you brought two, A .38 special in the glove compartment and a .45 under the seat.
You expertly park your rig in the right hand corner of the square pit with the metal and tubular linings. The other men manoeuvre their vehicles next to yours so that you are part of four trucks side by side in the same metal lined pit. You are told to stay in your trucks.
You take out your .45, just in case. You see the driver next to you reach for something also. Behind you, heavy steel doors close off the ramp. Overhead, a roof comes down over the trucks in the pit, in prefabricated sections. You were told to stay where you were, so you do, but get out of your cab to chat with the driver next to you. He tells you he is getting six hundred dollars for the drive. You curse your sonofa-bitch brother, Willie the Plumber Palumbo.
It is dark; there are no lights. Soon the matches wear out. One of the men has a flashlight. You search your cab. No flashlight. For a few blocks, you certainly weren't going to buy one and the truck owners did not provide one.
The driver next to you suggests you open one of the trucks, maybe it's liquor that was hijacked. You say no because the people will be back in a minute and for a ten dollar bottle of booze who the hell wants to blow a few hundred bucks.
The driver next to you says booze would be good now because it's getting chilly in this place. You are dressed for the summer and indeed it is getting chilly. One of the drivers on the other side is banging the sealed section where the ramp was. He is yelling to be let out. Suddenly, you go weak. What if they aren't going to let you out?
That's impossible. You've got the goods. Besides, you've got artillery to enforce it. If they want the goods, they've got to come back.
You start stamping your feet and banging your ribs. You're in a damn freezer. When you get hold of Willie, you're going to mess him up good.
One of the guys says they should shoot their way out and someone further over says this is stupid because they're not only underground but those are freezing coils and if you rupture one of those, you'll be gassed.
So you climb into your cab and start your engine and turn on the heater until you hear a knocking at the window. It's one of the drivers. He says to save everyone from carbon monoxide poisoning, they should all get in one cab and use just one heater.
You say okay and they all pile into yours, four guys crammed into the cab. One of them starts praying. About 6 a.m. by the watch, the truck is running out of diesel fuel so one of the guys says he will go to get more from the other trucks. He doesn't come back. It gets colder in the cab even with the bodies and it's hard to breathe. You draw matches for who is to go to one of the other trucks for fuel. You curse yourself for not taking the fuel at the beginning, but then no one expected to be in there that long. The guy who had parked next to you draws short. You all chip in your shirts, so that he is wearing three summer shirts.
When you open the cab door, you know he is not going to make it, because you can practically cut the carbon monoxide fumes. You turn off the lights because with the engine down, you need the battery as much as possible.
You're alone with one other driver and about noon, shivering shirtless in the cab, he asks you to shoot him. You say no because you have enough sins on your soul already. He begs. He says he'll do it himself if you don't.
You don't and he starts to cry and the tears freeze on his face. You're not feeling anything. If you don't kill yourself and offer this up to God, maybe he'll take you into heaven, or, at least, purgatory. You had always planned to make amends and you vow that if you get out, you're going straight.
And then you are numb all over. You're very sleepy and you wonder why you had always feared death.
Thus ended the ballad of Vinnie the Rock Palumbo.
Oh, Frozen to Death. Oh, Frozen to Death. On a hot August Day in New Jersey.
CHAPTER FOUR
The frail wisp of an aged oriental was named Chiun and Remo Williams watched him with respect.
Chiun stood on top of a chest of drawers near a porthole in the stateroom, a spiral bound notebook in his hand.
He tore out one sheet of paper, then held it at arm's length like a dirty diaper, out over the floor.
He opened his fingers and released the paper and softly said, "go."
The paper fluttered down, sloshing from side to side. When it was four feet from the floor, it stopped, speared on Remo's fingertips.
Remo pulled the torn paper off his fingertips and won a smile from Chiun. "Good," the old Oriental said, the smiling creasing the parchment texture of his face. "Now again."