"No introductions in order, I see," Remo said. His face brightened when he saw the two other men in the office. "Now, they're more like it," he mentioned to Chiun, pointing.
Sweet's two huge bodyguards were lumbering up out of their chairs. Chiun stood between them and Remo.
"Why don't you have them out front?" Remo chastised the lawyer. "Give them some frayed lawn chairs, maybe a couple of muscle shirts. You know, if he knew what you'd done to this place, Don Fietro would be spinning in his grave right about now." He advanced on the lawyer.
"Stay back!" Sweet ordered, his forehead already breaking out with sweat. "You're trespassing here! I can use force against you!"
"Sounds serious," Remo said. "More force than that?" He jerked his thumb to one side.
Sweet heard two soft thuds hit the wall-to-wall carpet even before his eyes darted right. When he saw what Remo was pointing to, he had to slap a hand over his mouth to keep the alcohol in his stomach.
Chiun stood between Sweet's two bodyguards, his arms upraised. Suspended from each of his extended index fingers was a guard. The Master of Sinanju had snagged each man with a long talon in the soft tissue beneath his chin.
To Sweet, it was obvious that those nails were even longer than they'd seemed on videotape, for neither of his two bodyguards appeared to be doing much in the way of living. Their eyes were already growing glassy. Blood dribbled from their tightly closed lips, splattering the beige carpet.
The sound Sweet had heard was that of their guns striking the floor. The weapons sat useless below their dead, dangling toes.
Like a demented orchestra conductor holding a note too long, Chiun bore the men aloft. When his nails at last withdrew, the two behemoths collapsed into a six-hundred-pound pile of limp Sears polyester-blend suits.
Chiun's hands retreated to his kimono sleeves. Sol Sweet felt his mild arrhythmia knot into the first fluttering fist of a full-fledged seizure. "Anselmo Scubisci!" he gasped, panic dancing across his wide-open eyes. "He tells me what to do. He's serving three consecutive life sentences at Ogdenburg Federal Penitentiary in Missouri. I can drive you to the airport." He tore holes in his pants in his desperation to remove his car keys.
When he held the jangling key ring aloft, he felt a bony hand slap against his own. The keys screamed across the room, embedding deeply in the wallboard.
Sweet was clutching his chest when he looked down.
Chiun had circled the desk and was standing below him.
"Did you or he order the destruction of our home?" the Master of Sinanju demanded in a tone that chilled the very air around them.
Despite the cold frisson up his spine, Sol Sweet's chest still burned. "Neither one of us did," he panted. He was becoming light-headed. Blood pounded in his ears. "Those men acted entirely on their own. Well, for the house-burning part. Not the killing-you part. They were sent to do that. But that was obviously before I knew what wonderful, caring, dangerous people you both are. May I take a nitroglycerine capsule?"
"No," Remo and Chiun said in unison.
"Splendid," Sweet enthused. He pulled his left arm close to his chest. If he held it tightly enough, he almost could dull the horrific pain that was shooting up it.
"Are you the one who's sending all these lunatic hit men in ski masks after me?" Remo asked.
Through the pain, Sol Sweet grew confused. "Hit men?" he asked. "No. Just the ones who burned down your house. Did I mention how terrible I feel about that?"
On the other side of the desk, Remo frowned. The lawyer wasn't lying. Remo had been sure the attacks of the past few days had been the work of whoever was behind Raffair.
Chiun steered them back to the most important topic. "Where are your lackeys, that they might pay for their wicked deed?" His eyes were truth-detecting lasers, boring twin holes into Sol Sweet's whirling brain.
"Here," he gasped, "lemme..." He staggered to his desk. With a shaking hand, he wrote down three names on a yellow legal pad. "They're hiding," Sweet wheezed as he handed Chiun the sheet. "Don't know where they are. But that's them, I swear."
The old Korean accepted the paper. Sweet felt a pinch of relief when Chiun retreated to the other side of the desk.
"Well, if that's all the business we have, I think I'll just call up an ambulance." He forced a weak smile on his suddenly very pale face.
"Not all," Remo said, shaking his head. "What the hell is this Raffair thing all about?"
"Oh, that," Sweet said. Reluctantly, he took his hand off the phone, grabbing again at his burning chest. "Mr. Scubisci has opened up the business opportunities of organized crime to the masses."
Remo looked to Chiun. The old man was interested only in the scrap of paper in his hand. He turned back to Sweet.
"You're doing what with the what now?" he asked.
Sweet leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes weakly. "Lot of people have a lot of money to invest these days. More regular folks are building portfolios. Scubisci is giving the common man the opportunity to invest in what's historically been a very lucrative field."
Remo blinked. He didn't like the sound of where this was heading. Evidently, Smith had been right.
Sweet had his eyes closed tightly now. His face was ashen and his lips were turning blue. Hands pressed over his heart in a mockery of penitence, he panted out the words in labored spurts.
"Raffair exists as a public cover for the Scubisci crime Family, as well as several others. Money generated by stock purchases goes to developing company infrastructure. Raffair expands, investors reap dividends, company grows, new investors come aboard, Raffair expands more." Sweet's too-white tongue brushed his cold lips. "Is this room spinning?"
"No," Remo answered.
"Oh," the lawyer whimpered. "Anyway, with the money we've made already, we've been able to invest in better methods for narcotics distribution, which feeds a host of other ventures, like gambling, prostitution and bribery. Our great success has been passed on to our stockholders."
Remo couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You're telling me ordinary people are buying stock in the Mob?"
"An archaic term," Sweet said weakly. He opened his eyes. "Is someone gonna shut off that damn alarm?"
"How do people even know about all this?" Remo asked. "It's not like you could take out an ad in the Wall Street Journal."
"When the stock's hot enough, word gets around," Sweet said. His ears pricked up as he strained to listen to a sound only he could hear.
"Ah," he sighed, relieved. "They finally shut it off." Eyes rolling back in his head, he collapsed face first on his desk.
"Are you done?" Chiun asked impatiently. He stood near the door, anxious to leave.
"Yeah." Remo nodded. He was turning from Sweet's twitching body when a sudden thought occurred to him. "Oh, crud," he groused.
Quickly flipping the lawyer onto his back, he drummed his fingertips hard on his chest just above the heart. Catching the rhythm of the fluttering attack, he established a counterrhythm that he forced the muscle to follow. The arrhythmia caught, slowed and tripped to a normal pace.
Sol Sweet's eyes rolled open.
"Sorry to interrupt," Remo said, "but I forgot to ask. They said in Boston you got a copy of that tape with us on it."
Sweet nodded numbly. "There." He pointed to a corner closet.
As Remo went over and popped the door, the attorney sat up. The pain was gone in his chest and arm. Even the light-headedness had vanished. His face was flushed as his color returned.
Remo found but one videotape in the closet. Turning, he held it out to Sweet. "This it?" he asked. Sitting on the edge of his desk, the lawyer nodded. "It's the only copy," he promised. "I took it from the direct satellite feed."
"Great," Remo said. "Off you go."
The hard look in the intruder's eyes told Sweet precisely what Remo meant.