"Okay," the lawyer said, his hand still clutched to his face. "Here's what you do. Don't go back to the office. Don't go back to your friend's house to get your things. Go to the bank, get as much cash as you can. You don't want to leave any kind of traceable trail for a month. Just come back home and lay lower than you've ever laid low before."
"Sure thing, Mr., uh, Mr...."
"Just come back here," Sweet snapped. "And bring those other two morons with you."
"Okay," Mikey Skunks offered, struggling to mask the confusion in his voice. "But you heard me before when I told you that we didn't kill those two guys, right?"
Fumbling in a dead panic, Sol Sweet slammed down the phone as if it were a living thing. Sitting in his soft leather chair, he could feel his heart thudding in his chest. A congenital heart murmur gave him a fluttering double-beat at moments of high anxiety. Right now it was flapping like a hummingbird.
They'd gotten Paul Petito. Skunks said that the street was filled with cops when they'd tried to go back there.
Time for damage control. They'd shut the Boston office for now. Thanks to Internet trading, the satellite offices were redundant anyway. Ideally, they would move entirely into the electronic realm within the next five years. But there was a monkey wrench thrown into the whole plan now.
Those two men who had entered the picture had first confused and now threatened everything. Including Sol Sweet's life if Don Scubisci was found to be in a less than forgiving mood. And now the idiot hirelings had made matters worse by antagonizing the two men instead of killing them.
Breathing deeply to calm his skipping heart, Sol opened his squeezed-shut eyes.
Don Anselmo Scubisci's newly remodeled office swirled around him in deep mahogany and fresh white paint. One piece of furniture in particular caught Sol's eye.
Fumbling up out of his chair, Sol held his throbbing chest as he stumbled over to the well-stocked bar.
REMO HAULED the Master of Sinanju's trunks from his car to their Folcroft quarters.
Not all of Chiun's luggage had fit in Remo's car. They had been forced to leave some of the trunks in a rented hotel room up in Massachusetts.
"You want it with the rest, Little Father?" Remo asked as he carted the fourth and final trunk into the Master of Sinanju's room.
"Wherever you leave it does not matter," Chiun answered morosely.
The old Korean sat in the middle of the floor, his despondent eyes trained on the painted cinder-block wall. He hadn't even chosen the trunks his pupil was bringing into the room. Before they'd left Quincy, he'd allowed Remo to pick four at random.
Remo put the fourth trunk with the others. They seemed lost without the rest.
"I'll get the other ten shipped down quick as I can," Remo promised.
Chiun's smile was wan. "You are a good son, Remo," he said.
Clenching his jaw, Remo cast his eyes downward. "Yeah," he said guiltily. "You want anything? Tea, maybe?"
"I am not thirsty," the Master of Sinanju. "Besides, I told you that Smith wishes to see you."
Remo's expression darkened. "Screw Smith. The bastard was about to turn us out in the snow. You're more important than anything he has to say." Chiun accepted his pupil's warm tone. "Thank you, Remo," he said. Reaching up, he patted the younger man's hand. "But your presence is not balm enough for me this day. Go, serve your emperor." Chiun cast an eye around the room. "This is a familiar environment."
"Okay," Remo said. "I guess." At the bedroom door, he paused. He couldn't believe what he was about to say. "You want me to run out and pick you up some replacement country CDs?" he offered.
When the fire struck, Chiun's entire collection had been up in his meditation tower.
The old man shook his aged head. "No," he answered. "There will by no joy until vengeance is served. Smith was babbling when I left. I believe he is using his oracles to locate he who commands the Romans who destroyed Castle Sinanju."
Another guilty cloud passed over Remo's face. Saying nothing, he stepped out into the main room. As he closed the door, he cast a final glance at his teacher.
Sitting cross-legged on his tatami mat, Chiun looked old and frail. He made no move to unpack his things. Remo had even had to roll out the mat for him. Around the Master of Sinanju were his four precious lacquered trunks.
Remo closed the door. Alone in the common room, the guilty breath fled his collapsing lungs.
Eyes downcast, he trudged away from the closed door.
REMO'S GUILT HAD ONLY GROWN by the time he reached Folcroft's administrative wing.
It was 7:00 a.m. and Smith's secretary was now at work. Eileen Mikulka looked up as Remo entered the outer room.
"Oh, good morning," she smiled. "Dr. Smith asked me to see you right in."
As the matronly woman stood, Remo wordlessly waved her back to her seat. She gave him a slightly disapproving look for his rudeness as he pushed his way into the Folcroft director's office.
Still at his computer, Smith looked up over the tops of his rimless glasses when the door opened. Remo closed the door with a click.
"Okay, here's the deal," Remo blurted. "Remember those guys I killed in that East African restaurant a couple of months back? Well, I didn't kill all of them. Flash forward to a couple of days ago, and who do I run into on my connector flight back from Puerto Rico but the goon that got away. I thought I took him out of action without killing him this time, but I guess something went wrong 'cause the same thick-neck was in the car last night with the other two guys who burned down our house. I don't know what happened or how he got loose after I put the whammy on him, but the fact is he did and he led the rest of them right to me. So it's all my fault. Me, me, me. I led them to us. And before you ask, no, Chiun doesn't know."
He had hoped the confession would make him feel better. It didn't. And the critical look the CURE director was giving him didn't help matters.
Smith sat motionless behind his desk. Only when Remo was finished did he place his hands to the onyx slab, fingers intertwined.
"You are certain it was the same man?" Smith asked.
"I wish I wasn't," Remo said, the life seeming to drain from him. He dropped onto the sofa near Smith's door. "I figure he must have tracked me from the plane somehow. I took a cab that day."
Smith nodded agreement. "Do you plan to tell Chiun?"
"Eventually. Someday. You know how he is, Smitty. He carps at me when the cable goes out or when it rains more than two days in a row. I don't even want to think about what he's gonna put me through for something that's actually my fault. Especially something this big."
Smith raised a single eyebrow. "This individual you encountered before," he said. "You met him on the New York to Boston leg of your flight?" His hands moved to his keyboard.
"Yeah," Remo said glumly.
As Smith began typing, Remo stuffed his hands gloomily into his pockets. He was reaching for his small stone-carved good-luck charm when his fingers brushed something else.
"Oh, by the way, here's another one for your collection," he said.
He flung the object across the office. It landed between Smith's outstretched hands with a tiny click. The CURE director picked it up.
It was another one of the small white buttons that Remo's attackers had worn. This one was streaked with smears of black.
"I pulled it off the guy who went kerblocey at that counterfeiter's house," Remo told him.
Smith inspected the button. Like the first, the O at the center was bracketed by twin waving lines that nearly met at top and bottom.
"I have had no luck tracing this symbol," he frowned.
"Well, it obviously means something to those guys," Remo said, "because they're blowing off their own heads to protect whoever's behind it."