"This," Remo said, splintering the man's nose into his skull.
Two guns clanked to the floor.
"Tony Marotta," one of the two men left standing said.
"Tony Marotta," the other echoed.
Remo rolled his eyes. "Now, how am I supposed to know you're telling me the truth? I was going to ask one of you over there" he said, patiently pointing out a darkened corner, "and one of you over there!' He motioned on the diagonal.
"That's the truth, mister. Marotta operates in the alley beside the complex. From a hot dog cart."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. You're going to let us go now, aren't you?" No.
"No?" They looked at each other in panic.
"Not unless one of you is Jose and lives on 181st Street."
"I am," they said in unison.
"Good. Then you can both start washing your name off the walls of this complex. You supply the soap and water."
"Can I take my gun?" one of the Joses asked.
«XT *»
No.
"No gun? Hey, man, you crazy? I can't wash no walls without a gun. I mean—"
Remo pinched a nerve cluster in the man's solar plexus.
"... I mean, I will be veiy happy to wash the walls, señor. With no gun. With my tongue,
perhaps. Only please stop with the fingers in the stomach, boss."
"Remember, if I see you and you don't have dishpan hands—"
"We will," they said. Remo watched them scramble up the stairs and out the building before v arranging the bodies in front of the basement door.
"These ought to keep people away," Remo said to Archie. "Just don't move. I'll be back."
"Famous last words," Archie said.
Tony Marotta was where Jose One and J°se Two said he would be, slinking near the slime and stink of the alleyway.
"You Tony Marotta?" Remo said.
"Who wants to know?"
"My name's Remo. I live at the Sister Evangélica apartments."
"You a cop? You got to say if you're a cop. That's the law."
"I bet you know all about the law," Remo said.
"I asked you if you was a cop," Marotta said.
"No. I'm not a cop."
"Okay." Wheezing and reeking of beer and salami, Marotta flipped open the top of his hot dog cart. Inside were dozens of hand weapons, all used. Beside them were neat boxes of ammunition. "Hundred apiece for the rods."
Remo pulled a wad of bills from his pocket. 'Til take all of them."
"What about the ammunition?"
'This'11 cover the ammunition, too."
28
29
Marotta raised his eyebrows. "You got it," he said. He started to unpack the guns from the cart.
"Don't bother with that," Remo said.
"Why not?"
"I need it," Remo said.
'What the hell for?"
"Because I'm not a cop."
"So?"
"I'm an assassin," he said, and crushed Marotta's skull with one hand. With the other he stuffed the gun runner into the cart and snapped the lid shut. "It might even take a day or two to replace you," Remo said with a sigh.
He wheeled the cart to the storm drain two blocks away and tossed it in. "That's the biz, sweetheart," he said as the bubbles from the cart rose to the top of the muddy water.
Inside the complex, pandemonium was still raging. Mrs. Miller was single-handedly picking off a number of gang members of various creeds and ethnic origins. She was an indiscriminate but excellent marksman. Remo decided to start with her.
"Mrs. Miller," he said at her closed apartment door. A bullet whizzed through the wood. "Mrs. Miller, I want to get rid of those hoodlums down there."
"You? What do you think I'm trying to do?" came the reply from behind the door.