Remo looked up into the rear-view mirror. The road behind them was empty. He glanced toward Chiun.
"Ahead of us now," Chiun said. "The big, black monstrosity. He just passed us and then pulled to the curb."
Remo slowed down slightly without hitting the brake, glancing at the black Cadillac in which a man sat trying to act nonchalant. Remo looked at his head, the back of his thick neck, as he drove by. Musso, he told himself.
Remo glanced at his watch. Almost six o'clock. Plenty of time before Wyatt would make his delivery. Remo hung a right on the next corner and stepped on the gas. In the mirror, he saw the black Cadillac turn the corner and follow him.
The street was thinned of people now and Remo picked up his speed, barrelling through the town, then out into the flat countryside of truck stops and gas stations. He had seen the place he was looking for the first day he'd come into town with Smith.
The Cadillac was laying back now, a car between it and Remo, and he slowed to get rid of the blocker. The station wagon behind Remo finally pulled out and passed, but the Cadillac stayed nearby, in sight. Then Remo saw the bulb-embroidered sign up ahead: "U-Du-It Car Wash."
It was a one-story cinder block building, really a tunnel open at both ends.
The road was clear both ways. Remo began to sway out into the left lane, cutting his speed and the Cadillac closed the distance between them. Remo kept slowing, watching the approaching Cadillac in the rear-view mirror.
Then, just as they drew almost abreast of the car wash, Remo spun his wheel to the right. His car skidded. The Cadillac driver swerved to avoid hitting Remo and went bouncing off the roadway, turning into the gravel driveway that led to the carwash. Remo gassed his car and pulled up alongside, but slightly behind the Cadillac which was now angled in against the empty car-wash building.
"A regular Mario Andretti," Chiun said. "You must be very pleased with yourself."
"Yes, little father," he said as he opened the door and jumped out.
The driver of the Cadillac was rolling down his electric window-now he hollered out at Remo: "Hey, stupid! What's the matter? You nuts or something?"
He was a big man. Big and thick in the neck; the arm that rested on top of the door showed a heavy wrist and forearm under the sleeve of the pearl-gray suit. His face was lined and hard; his nose a slice of obsidian in his hatchet face; the kind of man, Remo thought, who would kill with an icepick.
"Whyn't you watch where you're going?" Remo called, coming around the front of his car. "You guys in Cadillacs think you own the road."
"Well, what'd you cut me off for?" the other driver shouted.
"Cut you off? Why, you punk," Remo shouted. "If you weren't tailgating . . . get out of that car and I'll put you on your ass!"
The door opened and Musso stepped out. "Mister," he said, "You're asking for trouble." He was big and towered over Remo.
He began to walk toward Remo, slowly, surely, and Remo began to back off. He put his hands in front of him, palms forward. "Now, just a minute, Mister. I didn't mean anything. ..."
"Then you should learn to keep your big mouth shut," Musso said.
He kept coming. Remo was inside the opening to the car wash now, still backing up.
Musso came closer, his eyes glistening with anticipation at the fright and confusion he saw on Remo's face.
Now they were both inside the car wash; it was cool and curiously quiet. Musso reached a hand into his inside coat pocket and slowly pulled out an ice pick whose point was jammed into a bottle cork.
He pulled the cork off, then stuck it in his side pocket. The point of the pick glistened bright and silvery in the stray glints of the late afternoon sun that angled in the front entrance of the car wash.
"Now, wait a minute, mister," Remo said. "An argument's one thing, but you've got no call to...."
"Remo Blomberg," Musso said. "I have a call. I've got all the call I need. Didn't you tell one of my men that if I came back I'd go out in a doggy bag?"
He held the ice-pick in front of him like a street fighter's switchblade, coming on slowly now, his bulk trapping Remo and preventing escape. Remo backed up until he could see from the corners of his eyes that he was standing between the twin chains of the conveyor belt which pulled cars through the car wash.
"You're Musso?" Remo asked.
"I'm Musso."
"I've been waiting for you."
"Good," Musso said, with a smile. "Before I punch you like a railroad ticket, who's behind the earthquakes?"
"I am," Remo said. 'It's my own little shakedown racket. You think I'm going to turn it over to a gang of organ-grinders?"
"That's what I thought," Musso said. Both men were still, now. Remo backed up against the damp strips of cloth hanging from the top of the car wash, marking its entrance, Musso only five feet away from him, the shiny ice-pick weaving back and forth. Over Musso's shoulder, Remo saw Chiun in the front seat of the car, reading a road map.
"How do you do it?" Musso said.
"I tried to tell one of your men. We do it with style."
"Don't give me no smart-ass talk, Blomberg," Musso said.
"It's the truth. Ask anyone. Ask the governor. He's my partner. I took him on as second choice. I tried to interest the Mafia in it first, but they were too busy eating peppers and beating up candy store owners to give a damn. What about you, Musso? You interested? I'll cut you in for one-half of one percent. That ought to give you a fast $137 a year. It'll keep you in ice-picks."
"Keep talking, Blomberg. You're digging your own grave."
Remo glanced at his watch. Time to go.
"Musso," he said. "I don't have any more time to play. The game's over."
He took a step forward toward Musso and Musso lunged with the pick. He Jabbed only air, and then he saw Blomberg's hand close around the blade of the pick and it was pulled out from Musso's hand.
Then Blomberg was behind him, between Musso and his car, and he was waving the pick at Musso, who started to back off. He took one step back and then dove forward at Remo. He saw lights. Then just darkness.
Musso awakened moments later. He was sore and his back was wet. It was dark where he was and he shook his head, trying to clear his vision. He was looking up at the ceiling, lying on his back on the hood of his Cadillac.
He started to rise to a sitting position but then a hand slapped at his throat and he was knocked backward. He turned his head. There was this Remo Blomberg, still holding the pick blade, smiling at him.
"Tell me, something, Musso, did you like your work?"
"Yeah, punk."
"And how about Curpwell? You enjoy killing him?"
"Yeah. As much as anyone."
"Good. This is one for him." And then the ice-pick flashed up into the air and Musso closed his eyes so he wouldn't see it kill him, but it missed all his vital organs. It came down instead through his wrist, and under his wrist it punctured the steel hood of the car. Remo twisted the pick and bent it so Musso couldn't pull it out, and he was nailed there to the hood of his car like a deer in hunting season.
"Think of me in that great car wash up yonder," Remo said.