"Wait!" he begged. He leaped from desk to chair, away from Remo. "Where's Anselmo getting the cash for all this?" He waved an index finger all around. "The Scubisci Family's been broke for years. Anselmo's been spending it like water these past few months. Believe me, I don't come cheap, either. I think there's someone behind-" He stopped in midsentence.
An odd sensation had just flitted under his rib cage. Different from anything he'd ever experienced before.
"Oh, my," Sweet said, inhaling sharply.
"Someone other than the Dippy Don's behind this?" Remo asked. He was thinking of the men who'd attacked him. If Anselmo Scubisci wasn't responsible, maybe this other individual was.
Still squatting on his chair, Sweet fumbled in his pocket, producing a small business card. He flung it at Remo. "Scubisci...24A...answer ...questions..." His voice grew more labored as he looked down in utter confusion at his own chest. The pain was back, worse than ever. "What's happening?" he gasped.
"Hmm?" Remo asked, glancing at the card. "Oh, that," he said as he pocketed it. "'That's just your heart exploding."
Sweet looked up in abject horror. At that precise moment, the struggling muscle in his chest swelled and burst, flooding his thoracic cavity.
Face contorting in a rictus of excruciating death, he fell backward. His chair rolled into the wall, and his head smashed into the heavy Monet print that hung over the desk. Lawyer, picture and chair crashed to the floor. The glass shattered, and the frame settled about the rounded shoulders of Sol Sweet.
Remo tipped his head as he examined the attorney, conjoined in death with the French countryside, "I don't know much about art, but I know what I like," he said dully.
"Can we go now?" the Master of Sinanju complained.
"Yes. No, wait." Remo glanced around the room. "A fire for a fire," he said in a low voice.
Remo found a wastebasket next to the desk. He filled it with computer paper from an idle printer. Pushing the wooden desk against a wall, he sat the wastebasket on the floor in the desk's foot well. He lit the paper with a lighter collected from one of the dead bodyguards. Once the fire had started, he smashed the lighter on the desk's surface.
As an afterthought, he tossed the incriminating video into the burning basket.
"Now I'm ready," he said coldly.
When they left the office, the surface of the desk had already flashed to life, igniting the wall behind it.
Smoke and flames were spitting out the door as they crossed the foyer. The young men in starched white shirts continued to race around the open room, oblivious to the fire that was rapidly engulfing the small back office.
"Let's get them out of here," Remo said.
"Why?" Chiun sniffed. "If they are in league with the villains who burned our home, let them also blister on the pyre that will consume those malefactors."
"If we can get them out of here, maybe they'll jam the street enough that this place'll burn to the ground before the fire trucks can get through." Bracketing his mouth with his hands, he took a deep breath. "Fire!" he yelled into the bustling room.
Although he was certain many of the men had heard, there was no reaction. They continued to switch from computer to phone, lost in the electronic roller coaster of day trading.
Remo tried yelling again, louder this time. Still no reaction. By now, the flames were licking out of Don Pietro's old office and up the hallway.
"I have been through one inferno already," Chiun said, peeved. "If you want this one, you may have it." The old man spun and darted out the front door.
Smoke was pouring in from the hall, hovering in ominous clouds beneath the fluorescent lights of the big room. Obviously, the men knew now that something was wrong, yet their adrenaline-fueled greed held them in place. Remo decided that he needed to find something that would motivate them even more than fear for their lives.
Fishing in his pocket, he pulled out a fat roll of hundred-dollar bills. He flapped the cash in the rolling clouds of smoke.
At first, there was no reaction. But all at once, a face turned his way. It was followed by another, then another.
Like a herd of gazelles on a scent, the entire crew of traders soon had heads in the air, sniffing the aroma in the smoke. The room grew very still. All was silence save the crackle of flame at Remo's back. Remo moved the bills to the right.
All eyes followed.
Remo brought the bills to the left. The pack tracked the movement with their eyes. Some of the men were starting to drool. Continuing leftward, Remo moved over to a front window. With a flick of his wrist, he popped it open. The window shot up, burying deeply in the wooden frame.
He flapped the wad of bills one last time before throwing them out the open window. They caught the breeze like autumn leaves.
"Fetch!" Remo yelled.
Chaos erupted in the Neighborhood Improvement Association. Men shoved and screamed on their way to the exits. Some jumped out the one open window while others smashed the sealed windows with chairs and computer monitors. Screeching brakes and honking horns rose up from Mott Street.
Remo turned from the suddenly empty room. He cast one last glance at the growing wall of flame. Thinking dark thoughts about the men who had set fire to his own home, Remo slipped out the front door into the growing commotion on the street.
Chapter 22
Remo caught up with Chiun on the sidewalk down the street from the Neighborhood Improvement Association. Behind them, men dashed for cash, clogging traffic. The first thread of black smoke was curling into the cold sky.
"Finally," the Master of Sinanju said as Remo trotted up beside him. "Smith can aid us in our quest. Let us hie to his stronghold."
"As long as we're in the neighborhood, let's check out the address Sweet gave up first. It's supposed to be right here on Mott Street."
"If it is not the address of the grape-stompers who burned down my home, then it is irrelevant," Chiun replied.
"We'll get to them, Little Father. Promise," Remo said. "But we're here now, so wouldn't it be easier to get this out of the way now than have to come back?"
A scowl of impatience crossed Chiun's weathered face. "Very well," he relented. "But be quick about it."
Remo used the business card Sweet had given him to steer them to the right address. As they strolled down the sidewalk, the Master of Sinanju glanced at his pupil several times. His brow finally sank low.
"You are hiding something," Chiun announced abruptly.
Remo felt every joint stiffen at once. "What do you mean?" he asked with forced innocence.
"Please, Remo," Chiun droned. "As an actor, you make a truly great assassin."
The guilt was more than Remo could bear. Since there was no good time for this, he decided to get it out of the way.
"You know when you went up to get your trunks?" he began, his shoulders sinking. "That car that drove away?" A deep breath. "I knew one of the guys," he exhaled.
Chiun stopped dead. When he looked up at his pupil, his hazel eyes were narrow slits. "Explain yourself."
For the first time since his earliest Sinanju training, Remo's palms felt sweaty. He wiped them on his chinos.
"Remember how I told you about that guy I met on the plane? The guy I'd seen when we were in East Africa?"
"Spare me your tedious antics," Chiun clucked impatiently. "I did not listen then, and I am not interested now."
Remo took another deep breath. "Turns out the guy from East Africa was one of the guys who burned down our house," he blurted.
The Master of Sinanju's eyes split wide. Stunned white orbs grew large beyond vellum lids. "You led him to us," the old man hissed.
"I guess," Remo confessed. "He must've helped them track me from that video." He hung his head in shame. "I'm sorry, Little Father."