"But it's the same thing, right?"
"Wrong," Remo said, pushing the governor back in his high-backed brass-studded seat. The governor did not resist. The novelty of having his hands fused to a batch of bobbing balloons was overwhelming the natural fear response.
He looked up, for the first time seeing Remo's face. He took in Remo's dark, deep-set eyes, his thin, insolent mouth, and the full black hair topping an angry expression.
His eyes were attracted to the red stitching over the tunic pocket of Remo's Chicken Wire uniform. The stitching said: "REMO WILLIAMS."
"That name . . ." the governor began.
"Sounds familiar?" Remo prompted. "It's my name, although I haven't used it much in, oh, maybe twenty years or so.
"I can't quite place it," the governor admitted.
"You signed my death warrant last month," Remo said, his voice going from upbeat to flint-edged in a breath. "Come back to you now?"
The bone-white pallor that settled over the governor's face told Remo that it had.
"You got a call from a guy named Norvell Ransome," Remo went on. "He told you that unless you pulled the strings that bumped my execution to the top of the list, he'd tell the world that you were in bed with every drug trafficker north of Medellin."
The governor's response was so political that Remo almost laughed in the man's suddenly sweaty face.
"Of course, I know nothing about these baseless allegations. "
"Yes, you do. And you know I escaped before they could strap me into the electric chair. You're probably wondering how I know all this."
"All what?"
"Norvell Ransome-the late Norvell Ransome, I should say-was temporarily in control of an organization called CURE. You probably never heard of CURE." ,
"I categorically deny ever hearing that name."
"Good answer. Pat. Saves me a lot of boring chitchat. CURE was set up back in the early sixties to take care of guys like you. Corrupt politicians. Crooked union bosses. Cops on the take. Judges on the make. The man who was selected to head CURE-never mind his name-ran it for years as a clearinghouse for domestic intelligence. CURE would tip off the authorities, and the bad guys would go to the slammer. But CURE wasn't enough. You see, there were too many guys like you. So it was decided, to deal with them more directly. That's where I came in."
"If you have legal authority to arrest me," the governor of Florida said sternly, "I must insist on seeing your credentials."
Remo did laugh at that one. "Sorry, pal. I'm outside of legal authority. I'm what is known as an enforcement arm. Unofficially, I'm an assassin. I never liked my job description, but those are the cards I've been dealt."
"Assassin?" the governor said weakly.
"You see, when you signed my death warrant, here's what you didn't know: I was already dead. Not dead-dead. Officially dead. I was strapped into an electric chair up in New Jersey, about twenty years back. When I woke up I wasn't dead. I was working for CURE. I didn't like it, but it beat going back to death row.
"Until, of course, I did go back to death row. That in itself is a long story. The short version is that my face was plastered all over the front page of the National Enquirer. My cover was blown. My superior saw the thing and keeled over into a coma. The President had to replace him. He picked your friend Ransome. Only Ransome was a bad apple. He sandbagged me in my sleep, wiped my memory clean back to my death row days and shipped me off to your charming little death row. It was his way of getting me out of the way."
"That story is so bizarre I cannot believe it," the governor said tensely.
"Actually, it wasn't Ransome's scheme," Remo said. "It was my superior's wacko idea of a retirement program. Send me back to where I came from. No one would know any different. Except while I didn't remember CURE, I did remember Sinanju."
"Krazy Glue?"
"I can see why you went into politics. You have the attention span of a pollster. Nope, not Krazy Glue. I already explained that. Sinanju is out of Korea. It's a martial art.
"Like karate?"
Remo frowned. "If it were like karate, your hands would be sacs of shattered finger bones instead of painlessly welded together. Comparing Sinanju to karate is like comparing your rubber ducky to a swan. Guess which one is the swan?"
The governor looked at his hands.
"You can separate them, can't you?"
"Search me," Remo said cheerfully. "No one I've ever done this to has lived long enough to request the operation. That's one thing about Sinanju. Even when you know it, you don't really know it. It taps into something inside you that you can't explain. You can only show."
Then it sank into the governor's mind.
"You're here to assassinate me."
"No," Remo corrected. "I'm here to execute you. Kennedy was assassinated. Gandhi was assassinated. You, you're a slimy crook who opened your state up to the scum of the earth. You take money so the cocaine kings can sell their junk on the streets you're supposed to protect. Nope. You get executed."
"I have money," the governor said quickly.
"Take it with you," Remo said coldly, reaching under the governor's blue jawline. He pressed with his thumb and forefinger and the governors mouth locked in the open position.
"The thing is," Remo said, lifting the governor out of his chair by the throat, "I've never done a governor. Judges, yeah. Foreign heads of state, from time to time. I think I did an assemblyman once for arson. Never a governor."
Remo looked around the room.
"You don't have a microwave around here, do you?"
The governor shook his head frantically. An "uh-duh" sound came out of his open mouth. Remo squeezed tighter and the sound ceased.
"Just as well," Remo said absently. "I hear they don't work unless the door is closed. Even if your head fitted inside, it wouldn't cook."
The governor tried to pull away. Remo transferred his hand to the back of the man's neck. With the other, he pulled the balloons from the governor's frozen grasp. They floated to the ceiling as they toured the room.
"It's too bad there isn't an electric chair in a closet somewhere," Remo said. "I think that would be appropriate, don't you? No answer. I guess you agree. Now, let's see. What are some of the popular methods of capital punishment? Hanging? No. Lethal injection? You'd need a syringe. Besides, I hate needles. Gas is out. This office doesn't look airtight. In fact," Remo added, noticing the windows for the first time, "it's kind of stuffy in here. What say we get some fresh air? Might help us think."
The governor's feet made tiny steps as Remo led him to one of the windows. Down below, traffic flowed noisily. Remo unlatched the window and shoved up the sash. A breath of lung-clogging humid air wafted in.
"Smells bracing, doesn't it?" Remo asked brightly. "Here, you look kinda pale. Suck down a good whiff."
Remo forced the governor's head out through the window. He rested the man's bobbing Adam's apple on the casement sill.
Holding it there, Remo continued speaking in a thoughtful voice. "Let's see. Firing squads are passe. I don't carry a gun, anyway. Or a knife. I think we're running out of options. Maybe you have an idea?"
The governor tried to shake his head. Remo felt the muscular spasms through his sensitive fingers.
"What's that?" Remo asked. "A guillotine? Now, where are we going to get a guillotine? What's that you say? Improvise? With what?" Remo leaned closer.