His father was still penniless, still trading his genitalia for meals, still apologetic to Isaac that he could not provide him with all the things a young boy should have in life. Isaac only smiled.
Then came the second world war and suddenly his father's fortunes improved.
While he had no money of his own, his life had been spent with the international moneyed set and in a war of shifting alliances and backroom power plays, access to the moneyed class was important, important enough for Count Nemeroff to become a sought-after man.
He became a messenger, a negotiator, a promoter for all sides.
He ran guns to Spain, inventing the technique of selling the same shipment to both sides, then leaving the shipment in the middle of the field equidistant from both camps, letting the two sides fight for them. He sold information to the British; he arranged for opium to be gotten into Europe from China; he dealt with the American Mafia to make inroads into Italy's government.
And in 1943, he died of a massive cerebral haemorrhage.
Governments on both sides mourned; they were truly grieved. He was indispensable; was able to do for governments the things government could do not for themselves. How could he be replaced?
They had not counted on young Isaac, however. He had been a good student. He kept track of the names and the power and the predilections of the people with whom his father had dealt and at his father's graveside, even as the old count was being shovelled into earth, he let it be known that the Nemeroff family would still be doing business at the same old stand, in the person of the fourteenth Baron Nemeroff.
They scoffed at first; he was too young. But as their problems mounted and grew more complex, at last—in desperation—they turned to Isaac. And he delivered, even better than his father had done.
But where his father had been content to work for cash, for money on the barrelhead, Isaac was not. He already had money; he sought power-power to do things, to build things.
From France, in return for a favour, he demanded a controlling portion of a chemical factory, whose operation was critical to the late war effort and for which he had managed to make available the raw materials.
From Germany, he accepted part-ownership of a munitions factory, and so widespread was his influence that when Germany lost the war, his claim to ownership was not disputed by the allies.
His empire spread. At nineteen, he was not only a millionaire many times over, but a conglomerate-controlling scores of businesses and with influence in scores more.
He had selected those businesses with care. The chemical factory in France would one day handle the processing of heroin; the German munition's factory would provide guns for guerrilla wars, and non-traceable weapons for those willing to pay the price.
He was driven by a lust never to be poor again, and, beyond that, to have power. Power that no stroke of bad luck-no matter how long, no matter how deadly-could diminish. He would never be in the position of grovelling as his father had grovelled before those painted women whose money was able to cover their shallowness and stupidity. This Baron Isaac Nemeroff would never accept an envelope.
He never had to. And when peace came and governments no longer had need of his power and influence, he looked for a new field of endeavour to replace war. He selected crime.
He would never steal again; he was beyond that. But he would become an ombudsman for international crime. If there was a problem to be solved, he would solve it.
If weaponry were needed, he could produce it. If political influence were required, he could exert it. If judges had to be made to see the light of sweet reason, he could give them very good and ample reasons to do so. When drug shipments were bogged down because of periodic governmental crackdowns, Nemeroff could move them.
He was not in crime, but he was of crime. He refused to accept the label of criminal. He told himself he was a management analyst, providing a service to the highest bidder. And while it was unlikely, he told himself he would have done the same job for any legally-established government which had retained him.
He rarely dealt with any criminal leader directly. But it seemed that most problems of and for crime had a way of ending up on the desk of some obscure company in this city or that. And behind the desk, a bright-eyed young man would promise to "look into it," and within only a few hours, he would report back to his client that "Baron Nemeroff said that you may have it," or "Baron Nemeroff said to do it for you as a favour." Heroin would move, guns would be produced, judges would be bribed and crime would move on as smoothly as before.
The brighter ones might ask the bright-eyed young men, "Just who is this Baron Nemeroff?" And the young men would smile and invariably answer: "The man who can straighten things out for you."
One of the things that he had been called on to straighten out was a hiding place for an American criminal, fleeing prosecution. He had done it. And then, within a period of two months, three more major criminals had asked him to find them sanctuary. He had.
The western world was in the middle of one of its periodic crackdowns on crime. It occurred to Nemeroff that the solution to the problem of asylum for criminals might be one for his brain to explore.
Then, one night, he had met Vice President Asiphar in a London gambling casino, and all the pieces suddenly fell into place.
The casino arranged for Asiphar to lose, far beyond his means, and Nemeroff had stepped forward to arrange payment of the sweating hulk's debts. That had brought Asiphar into his orbit. He was kept there at the moment with occasional funds and frequent women, always women of the whitest possible skin.
But Nemeroff distrusted the power of women to permanently lock Asiphar to him. The television tapings of the vice president's bed sessions were a precaution, against any inclination by Asiphar to reconsider.
It had taken Nemeroff six months to work out the plan, and another three to win Asiphar fully to his side. The scheme was simple:
Assassinate President Dashiti, install Asiphar as president, and put Scambia under crime's flag.
It was now all ready to go and Nemeroff had sent out 40 telegrams:
"Must meet on matter of extreme urgency. July 17th, Stonewall Hotel, Algiers. Nemeroff."
And all around the globe, in the far-off crime councils, the telegrams were received; men cancelled other appointments and began packing their bags.
And Nemeroff sent a forty-first telegram to a man whose work had highly recommended him. He called him both for his skills and for the impact his presence would have on the leaders from the United States, who were inclined to be suspicious of new ideas. His forty-first telegram went to Jersey City, N. J., to P. J. Kenny.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Remo walked into the lobby of the Stonewall Hotel. The lobby ran the first three floors of the hotel, crowned by a massive crystal chandelier. Dusky-skinned bellhops skittered around the floor, swarming toward Remo and his small bag like a gang of flies.
He shooed them away and held onto the bag, into which he had put PJ Kenny's attaché case.
As he had expected, he had had no trouble at customs. The clerk had glanced at the passport in the name of P.K. Johnson, glanced at Remo who was wearing the horn-rimmed glasses as proof of identity, then stamped the passport.
The lobby was empty, which meant that Remo was early. If the expected swarm of criminal leaders had arrived yet, the lobby would be filled with scarred men in silk suits, with white ties and hats, trying to stare each other down, trying to set up their own pecking order of importance. But the lobby was empty.
Almost.
Seated in a chair near the door-facing the desk, reading a newspaper-was a young woman. Her orange knit skirt was too short; it was hiked up high onto her thighs and as Remo scanned the lobby, he could see the tops of her pantyhose.
The woman had dark hair-but brown not black; her skin was dark too, but it was the darkness of suntan, not race; and her eyes behind giant owl-shaped eyeglasses were a deep green that seemed almost un-earthy against the glowing tan face. Instead of lipstick, she wore a whitish kind of lip gloss that was somehow wildly sexy. Her eyes met Remo's briefly, then dropped back to the newspaper page, and a faint smile played at the edges of her lips.
Remo reluctantly removed his eyes and walked to the desk.
The clerk-moustached, with a red fez-moved forward to greet him, smiling oily. Remo expected him to sound like Groucho Marx.
He did.
"Yes sir, at your service."
Remo spoke loud for the benefit of the girl. "I'm PJ Kenny. You've got a reservation for me?" In the mirror behind the desk, he saw the girl's eyes lift toward the back of his head.
The clerk looked at a list of names under the desk.
"Oh, yessir; yes indeed; yes, we do. Will the gentleman be staying long?"
"The gentleman may not be staying at all. What's the room like?"
"Oh, very fine, sir."