"Criminal activity in Boston has actually increased. We think they're up there. Somewhere. Maybe a lead can be developed at IDC."
"I'll give it a shot," said Remo, again looking at his face.
"These eyes are fine," he said doubtfully, as if trying to convince himself.
"I agree," said Chiun, sniffing a peony as if it were the most beautiful flower in creation.
Which caused Remo's eyes to fly back to the mirror. They were wide and round as they looked back at him. He realized that fright was making them that way. He squeezed his eyelids tight. Suddenly they looked definitely oblique.
Remo spent the next ten minutes trying to work his eyes into a natural shape, neither too round nor too narrow.
His face began to hurt again.
Chapter 20
Wendy Wilkerson was living in fear.
To be more precise, she was working in fear.
Ever since the disappearance of Vice-President in Charge of Systems Outreach Antony Tollini she had wondered if she would be next. She took the week following Tony Tollini's disappearance off.
No one had complained, which was not surprising. As director of product placement, she was even less important than the VP in charge of systems outreach-a position so new that no one at IDC knew what the person holding the job was supposed to do.
Since no one knew what Tony Tollini was supposed to be doing for Bold Blue, he had not yet been missed either.
After a week and a half, Wendy Wilkerson decided it was safe to return to work. She needed her check.
It was strange, thought Wendy, lunching on a peeled apple and plain yogurt in the relative security of her dimly lit office, how the higher-ups seemed oblivious to the entire mad mess.
She could understand how Tony's absence could go virtually unnoticed, his biweekly salary checks piling up on his secretary's desk. This was the south wing, where upper management never ventured.
But why, after two fruitless police visits, had the absence of the missing programmers and customer-service engineers not been questioned? It was as if as long as the bottom line remained relatively constant, the board of directors didn't care.
Wendy shivered inside her immaculately tailored business suit, wondering if Tony were alive or dead. She was sure he was dead. There was no other explanation for why they hadn't come for her too. Tony was a corporate weasel. He would have handed her up to the Mafia to save his own skin in no time flat.
As she pared a wedge out of a Granny Smith apple, there came a timid knock at her inner office door.
"Yes?" said Wendy.
"Miss Wilkerson, there is a man here who would like to speak with you."
"About what?" Wendy asked, her heart stopping. It was Tony's personal secretary.
"About . . . about Mr. Tollini."
The precise wedge of Granny Smith apple poised on the point of being swallowed, Wendy's mouth was suddenly dry. She tried to swallow the apple, her mind racing.
They were here!
Just as the apple wedge went sliding down her slippery esophagus, Wendy's throat constricted. The apple wedge wandered off-course, producing a sputtering paroxysm of coughing.
Wendy began hacking.
"Miss Wilkerson! Miss Wilkerson! Are you all right in there?" demanded the secretary.
"What's going on?" a hard male voice demanded.
"I think she's choking," cried the secretary, rattling the doorknob, which Wendy had taken the precaution of locking.
The door exploded inward, propelled by a cruel-faced man with dark recessed eyes and wearing an expensive silk suit.
His hard face tight and grim, he came toward Wendy with such ferocity of purpose that she tried to scamper into the safety of the desk well.
A hand got the shoulder of her tailored business outfit and pulled her back into her seat.
Wendy would have pleaded for her life, but she couldn't get anything past her spasming windpipe.
She wondered for a wild minute what would kill her first, the blocked airway or the terrible Mafia executioner who had come to rub her out.
With undeniable strength, the man lifted her up onto the desk and laid her across the blue blotter, upsetting her yogurt. He pulled her head straight back by her red-gold hair while his other hand reached for her midriff.
She closed her eyes, hoping the apple would kill her before she was violated. After she was dead, he could do anything he wanted. Just please, not before.
The sound was like a gentle slap. But it made Wendy's abdomen convulse so hard she saw stars. All the air spewed out of her lungs.
The apple wedge jumped from her yawning mouth and came down to splatter on her forehead.
"Okay," said the Mafia enforcer. "You can sit up now."
Wendy declined. The fact that she could breathe again only meant she was going to suffer at the mafioso's hands.
"I said, you can get up now."
"Perhaps she needs a drink of water," suggested the secretary helplessly.
"Go get some," said the Mafia enforcer, his voice less harsh now.
Wendy opened her green eyes. The face that looked down at her had the deep-set eyes of a skull. They were flat and dead, with no trace of warmth.
"What are you going to do to me?" she asked.
"Ask you some questions."
Wendy sat up. His voice was direct but nonthreatening. "Who are you?" she asked.
"Call me Remo."