He turned to go. MacCleary was grabbing the doorknob when Smith called him. "Conn."
When MacCleary turned back around, he found a contemplative frown on the CURE director's face. "If you need to trim any of Remo's lessons, do so elsewhere," Smith said quietly. The lines of his forehead formed a V over his thoughtful gray eyes. "Don't allow the other sessions you've arranged for him to cut into his time with Master Chiun." MacCleary allowed a sharp nod. Flipping the doorknob with the curve of his hook, he skulked into the outer room.
Once he was alone, Smith looked over the report of the two dead agents one last time. When he was through he spun his chair around. Through the oneway glass of his office window he looked out across Long Island Sound.
This Maxwell business was the same as all the rest. The risk of death was always there to the men Smith deployed. But in eight years it hadn't gotten easier.
How many other Maxwells were out there? How many more agents could he commit to the field to combat them? How many more would die at his command?
MacCleary seemed to think this Williams had something special. He had seen the young man in action in Vietnam two years previous. MacCleary was impressed. That opinion had had a lot of clout with Smith. After all, Smith knew that Conrad MacCleary did not impress easily.
With Williams aboard, Smith hoped to banish some of the doubts that had plagued him since the start. But they were still here. As always. Haunting his waking soul.
"Will anything we do ever be enough?" Smith inquired softly of the sound.
There were no glad portents in the endless, silent waves that lapped to foam on the jagged shore. Leaving Long Island Sound to tend its eternal business, the director of CURE swiveled wearily back to his patiently waiting computer.
Chapter 8
When he saw the bodies of the two FBI agents, Luigi "Vino" Vercotti nearly blew lunch. A pretty amazing thing, given the cast-iron nature of Vino's stomach.
Vino hadn't gotten his nickname for love of the grape. At least not in the sniffing, sampling and spitting sense of the artsy-fartsy wine-club set. Vino liked to watch while other people drank wine. He especially liked watching while his brother Dino was sitting on the unlucky wine-taster's chest. It was generally at this time that Vino was pinching his victim's nose shut with his pudgy fingers.
Vino liked to drown people in wine. He had decided on this method early on for two reasons. First, it was unique and would doubtless earn him an interesting nickname in New York's Viaselli crime Family, to which he belonged. Second, it was a good cover for murder. Most of his victims were assumed to be drunks who had imbibed too much and paid the ultimate price. No one could argue with the success of his unique method of eliminating enemies of Don Carmine Viaselli. While many of his peers had been on the endless merry-go-round of court, trial, prison and appeal, murder by drowning had kept Vino out of jail his entire adult life.
Not that it was always easy. Sometimes a victim kicked so violently his shoes would fly off. One guy in Hackensack had even busted the window of Vino's Cadillac. Sometimes they bit their tongues bloody or chewed so hard on the neck of the glugging bottle that they bit clean through the glass.
But in the end, death was almost always clean and quiet. That was one of the things Vino Vercotti prided himself on. The neatness with which he went about his chosen work.
Vino Vercotti couldn't help but think of the thirty or so men he had sent to peaceful, drunken oblivion as he viewed the mess spread out across the cold warehouse floor.
There was blood everywhere. None of his victims had gone out like this. This wasn't clean. And judging from the mess that had been made, the men hadn't died quietly.
"What the hell happened with these guys?" groused Dino Vercotti. The younger Vercotti stood next to his brother, face pinched as he eyed the gruesome scene.
"You think I know?" snarled Vino. He was breathing through a handkerchief. "You think I care? I'm thinking how we gonna clean this up, that's what I'm thinking. I got no time to worry about the what here."
The warehouse was stuck out in the middle of New Jersey's swamps. The place was big and drafty. Wind whistled around the rattling windowpanes. Good thing. The cold and the wind kept down the body smells.
Damn, the blood and gore was everywhere.
Vino couldn't believe he'd been picked for cleanup duty. He should have ranked higher than this. Dirty work like this should have gone to guys like Marco Antonio or Emilio Lepido. Bottom-rung dwellers. "That a leg?" Vino asked. "That looks like a leg."
Dino peered close. "Not unless legs got noses." When Vino squinted, he saw nostrils in what he'd thought was a thigh. A pair of squinted-shut eyes were above them.
"Sheesh, this ain't right," Vino complained angrily. "I do neat with my stiffs. Cops clean up my bodies practically send me a goddamned Christmas card to thank me, the stiffs are so neat. I wanna know why I gotta clean up someone else's bodies who ain't even considerate enough to leave a body as neat as I leave a body?"
He would have been annoyed at Dino if his brother had responded to his rhetorical question. As it was, when the reply came from someone other than Dino, Vino Vercotti nearly jumped out of his skin.
"Some lessons are not about neatness," a thin voice said from Vino's elbow.
When the brothers twisted around, they found a man in a black business suit standing between them. The guy was just there. As if he'd been born standing in that spot on the warehouse floor. Except he had absolutely not been standing there all along. There had been no one else in sight when the two Vercotti brothers entered the warehouse a minute before. Vino was sure of it. It was as though the stranger had appeared by magic.
When Vino got a good look at the man's face, his own expression grew harsh.
The man's broad face was as flat as a frying pan. His hooded Oriental eyes were mirthless.
"Are you the guy we're supposed to meet?" Vino asked.
"I am Mr. Winch," the man said, his voice cold. Vino noted that his pronunciation was too precise, too good for someone born and raised in the good old U.S. of A.
"You Vietnamese?" Vino demanded. "'Cause I don't do deals with no Vietcong."
Mr. Winch's flat face hinted at disgust. "Do not be an idiot," he spit. "You two are here to perform a service. Do so quickly, for I have no time to suffer fools."
Vino didn't like the idea of taking orders from some gook who might or might not be Vietcong. But he had been given orders from on high and-he had been told-it was his neck if this Mr. Winch wasn't kept happy. Despite their misgivings, Vino and Dino went to work.
They had been given a special car for this assignment. An old Ford Thunderbird with rusting fins and broken taillights. Dino drove the car in through a garage door, which Vino quickly closed back up. They parked the car in a blood-free spot on the warehouse floor.
Although they knew they'd be on body-cleaning duty, neither Vercotti brother had anticipated such a big mess. Vino pulled out a big leaf tarp which he spread on the floor at the edge of the blood pool. They took a couple of big plastic garbage bags from the trunk of the Thunderbird.
Working down the dry heaves, Vino and his brother set about gathering up the arms and legs. Vino kept his sleeves rolled up to keep his cuffs out of the blood.
As the brothers worked, Mr. Winch slipped into the shadows at the side of the warehouse.
It soon became clear to Vino that there was someone else back there. At one point when he was coaxing a rolling head into a plastic bag with a chunk of broken plywood, Vino caught a glimpse of Winch and his companion.
It was only in silhouette. Mr. Winch wasn't a large man. Whoever he was talking to was smaller than him. Maybe only five feet tall.