He waited to be screamed at. To be told he was an idiot and a blunderer. Instead, he was met with silence. For Remo, it was far worse than all the other alternatives combined.
When he glanced up, the Master of Sinanju was still staring at him. The Korean's face had grown utterly flat.
"Aren't you gonna say something?" Remo questioned awkwardly.
Chiun's head began an ominous low roll from side to side. "Words elude me," he intoned thinly. Remo thought he'd braced himself for anything. But the Master of Sinanju's troubling stillness caught him off guard.
"Do something, then," Remo prodded.
"Like what? You are too old to spank and too important to my village to slay."
"I don't know," Remo said. "Maybe a punch in the arm or something. I mean, anything."
Chiun stroked his wispy beard thoughtfully. His slender fingers had not reached the thready tip before Remo felt an increase in air pressure beside him.
He didn't duck out of the way. Eyes closed, he took his medicine, allowing the bony hand to smack him soundly in the side of the head.
Chiun's darting hand quickly retreated to his kimono folds. "That did not help," the old man announced, unsatisfied. He whirled away from his pupil, storming off down the sidewalk.
"Worked for me," Remo grumbled.
Rubbing the side of his head, he trailed the Master of Sinanju down the street.
THE MOTT STREET Community Home stood amid a cluster of seedy brownstones half a city block down from the burning headquarters of the Scubisci Family.
The name made it sound to Remo like the sort of place that had sprung up around the country starting in the sixties. Designed to keep kids out of trouble, all of those places inevitably became a focus for the kind of troubles they were supposed to distract from.
This community home was different, given the fact that its clientele was considerably older than Remo had expected.
"It's an old-folks' home," Remo said when they'd stepped through the Plexiglas front doors. "I am in no mood for your age bashing," Chiun hissed.
As they headed down the hallway to the nurses' station, Remo shook his head.
"I just assumed from the name that it was one of those places where punks go to score drugs. The ones with the pool table with one missing leg and the posters encouraging the joys of prophylactic use among the preteen set." They were at the main desk. "This can't be right," Remo frowned. "Sweet said a Scubisci would be here."
"And why wouldn't one be here?" Chiun said, an undertone of intense displeasure in his squeaky voice.
"Well, I suppose Great-uncle Phineas Scubisci might've been mothballed here twenty years ago," Remo said. "But we're looking for someone a little more current. Someone who knows who's really pulling the purse strings on Raffair, and who maybe knows who these guys are who keep trying to kill me. I assumed it was old Don Pietro's grandson or something, but this is about as far out of the loop as you can get. Let's get out of here."
"Hold," Chiun insisted. He fixed his gaze on the nurse behind the desk. "Does a Scubisci reside here?"
"Room 24A," the woman nodded, pointing down an adjacent hall.
The Master of Sinanju swirled away from the desk.
"This is silly, Chiun," Remo said, hurrying to keep pace with the purposeful gait of the old Asian. "I agree. Therefore let us get it over with quickly so that we can attend to more important matters."
The comingled smells of antiseptics and medications poured from open doorways. Remo hesitated outside room 24A, but Chiun bullied by him.
Inside the small room were two beds. One was neatly made. The covers of the other were a crumpled mess that hung in a tangle off to one side.
An ancient woman sat in a vinyl chair near the window, an unlit cigarette dangling from between her dry lips.
She'd been plump a lifetime ago. Now the empty flesh hung off her shrunken frame like dirty sheets draped across a sagging clothesline.
Her black dress-extra large at one time-was a loose-fitting rag. The woman's ankles were too swollen for shoes. An unused black pair was tucked beneath her chair.
Rheumy eyes looked up as Remo and Chiun entered.
"You got a match?" she threatened.
Remo rolled his eyes. "Chiun, let's go," he whispered.
"Hush!" Chiun insisted. To the old woman he said, "Signora Scubisci?"
The crone pulled the cigarette from her lip. "Atsa me. You gotta match, or no?"
"Sorry, no," Remo answered.
"Eh." She shrugged, lowering the unlit cigarette. "They just take it away from me anyway."
"We beg a moment of your time," the Master of Sinanju said, bowing politely. He motioned to Remo.
"What?" Remo asked from the corner of his mouth.
"Ask her whatever foolishness it is you need to know," Chiun prodded. "And I would appreciate it if you did not draw her a map to the Sinanju treasure house while you are doing so."
Remo felt silly. Obviously, in his last minutes of life, Sol Sweet had had the courage enough to lie. Remo was surprised. The lawyer seemed too scared to offer anything but unvarnished truth.
"Sol Sweet sent me," he began reluctantly.
A light of understanding sparked in her ancient eyes.
"Oh, the Jew," the old woman said. Without another word, she reached for the table next to her chair. It was scarred with the deep black furrows of old cigarette burns.
Resting on the table was a plain manila envelope. A gnarled hand dropped across it. She dragged it across the table, flinging it to Remo. He snatched it from the air.
There was an airmail sticker on the envelope. It was addressed to "A.S. c/o Angela Scubisci, Mott Street Community Home." Along with the zip code and street address was the legend "New York, NY. U.S.A." There was no return address.
"A.S.?" Remo asked, reading the initials. "Anselmo." She said the name with contempt. "He issa my son. Didn't the kike tell you?"
He looked at the woman with new eyes. "He forgot to mention it," Remo said dully.
"Hah," the woman scoffed. "You know my son?"
Remo thought of the day he'd met Anselmo Scubisci. He had been on assignment, sent after the Don's younger brother, Dominic, Angela Scubisci's only other child.
"Only saw him once in passing," Remo said. A hard glint came to his deep-set eyes. "We knew your husband, though."
Both he and the Master of Sinanju had watched old Don Pietro Scubisci breathe his last.
The widow Scubisci pounded a blue-veined hand against her sagging chest. "Oh, my Pietro. Now there was a man who respected family. Even that idiot boy of ours, Dominic-God rest his soul-he knew where hissa loyalty should be. Not Anselmo. He don't respect hissa family."
Remo steered her away from the topic of family. "Sweet said you knew something about your son's backer."
The old woman sighed a pained, raspy exhalation. "It's in there," she said, pointing to the envelope. "All the betrayal. He no respect hissa father. All my Pietro's work, gone. That boy issa no good."
Brow furrowing, Remo tore one end off the envelope. He reached inside, pulling out a single sheet of paper. The printing was in some foreign language.
"Hey, whaddayou doing!" Angela Scubisci demanded.
He ignored her. "I can't read this," Remo said, handing the note off to Chiun.
"Atsa for Anselmo," the woman insisted angrily. "This is the language of the Kingdom of the Two," the Master of Sinanju pronounced.
"Twenty-first-century equivalent?" Remo asked.
"Italy," Chiun replied, displeased at having to use the modern name. He frowned as he read the lines. "There is nothing of interest here. It is merely a note of thanks for some unmentioned success."
"Hmm," Remo said. "Could be from Scubisci's backer. Does it say who he is?"
"It is unsigned," Chiun replied.
"Maybe Smith can track him from this." Taking the note back, Remo stuffed it back in its envelope before shoving it in his pocket. "You know who sent this?" he asked the old woman.