"Okay, so now that we've got a home base, we can find out for certain who's behind it."
Smith was staring down at his desk, a sober expression on his gray face. His fingers were resting on his buried keyboard. "We know now," he said evenly.
"Why?" Remo asked. "What've you got?"
The CURE director looked up, his flinty eyes flat. "I know this address," he replied tersely.
Chapter 21
From the outside, the Neighborhood Improvement Association in Manhattan's Little Italy appeared largely as Remo remembered it. After parking his car farther down the block, he and Chiun stopped on the sidewalk in front of the Mott Street entrance. Around them, Chinatown continued to encroach on what had formally been exclusive Italian-American territory.
"Did you not slay the Roman lord who ruled from this ugly castle?" the Master of Sinanju asked. There was little enthusiasm in his voice.
"That was Don Pietro," Remo replied. "Thanks to good old-fashioned Mafia nepotism, his kid took over where he left off. Although Smith says he doesn't technically own the joint anymore. He had to sell it to some dummy corporation for legal expenses or something. Come on."
They mounted the stairs and passed beneath the shiny new Raffair sign on their way through the front door.
They found that the real change had taken place within.
The aroma of tomato sauce and the ancient fuzzy wallpaper were both gone, as was the Old World gloom. Stylish artwork now hung from whitewashed walls.
Several of the downstairs rooms had been opened up. This one big room was filled with fresh-faced young men in long-sleeved dress shirts. They were performing a frantic dance from computer terminals to telephones. To Remo, they looked as if they'd been transplanted to Little Italy from some sterile Wall Street office.
"I don't like it," Remo complained as they passed through the foyer. He looked as if he'd smelled a particularly foul odor. "It had a kind of Untouchables charm before. Look, they even got rid of the guys who used to shoot at you when you walked in," he said, sounding like a kid who'd gone all the way to Disney World only to find that Space Mountain was closed for renovations.
They were past the empty receptionist's desk and had reached the end of the hall where old Don Pietro used to have a private office. Remo was reaching for the door when he felt a bony hand press his forearm. When he looked down at the Master of Sinanju, there was a hard glint in the old man's eyes.
"We are not here for Smith's nonsense," Chiun warned. "We are here to learn who it was that burned Castle Sinanju."
The pang of guilt that had rested in the pit of Remo's stomach since the previous night swelled larger. "I know, Little Father," he said quietly.
His pupil's tone brought the first hint of suspicion to the old Korean's face. He squinted one eye as he examined the younger man. "What is wrong?" he queried.
"Huh?" Remo asked, suddenly alert. "Nothing. Nothing's wrong. What makes you think there's anything wrong?" He quickly changed the subject. "Anyway, our goals mesh with Smith's here. He just wants us to find out who's running the show."
Chiun's expression did not change. "Just as long as you know which is more important."
Remo nodded. Turning from the old man's penetrating hazel eyes, he reached for the closed office door.
The old walnut door had been lovingly sanded and refinished. When Remo's palm touched the surface, the beautiful antique door cracked viciously along one side. A fragmented chunk of wood held the dead bolt and knob in place as the rest of the door screamed around on its twisting hinges. It slammed with a thunderous slap against the interior office wall.
Inside, a harried little man with slicked-back hair sat at a polished oak desk. When he saw Remo and Chiun glide into his office a split second after the door, the tumbler of Scotch whiskey he'd been lifting to his lips slipped from his shaking hand. It struck the desk's surface in echo to the crashing door.
Sol Sweet jumped to his feet, backing against the wall. His gelled hair bumped a picture frame.
"Oh, God, no," Anselmo Scubisci's lawyer breathed.
"No introductions in order, I see," Remo said. His face brightened when he saw the two other men in the office. "Now, they're more like it," he mentioned to Chiun, pointing.
Sweet's two huge bodyguards were lumbering up out of their chairs. Chiun stood between them and Remo.
"Why don't you have them out front?" Remo chastised the lawyer. "Give them some frayed lawn chairs, maybe a couple of muscle shirts. You know, if he knew what you'd done to this place, Don Fietro would be spinning in his grave right about now." He advanced on the lawyer.
"Stay back!" Sweet ordered, his forehead already breaking out with sweat. "You're trespassing here! I can use force against you!"
"Sounds serious," Remo said. "More force than that?" He jerked his thumb to one side.
Sweet heard two soft thuds hit the wall-to-wall carpet even before his eyes darted right. When he saw what Remo was pointing to, he had to slap a hand over his mouth to keep the alcohol in his stomach.
Chiun stood between Sweet's two bodyguards, his arms upraised. Suspended from each of his extended index fingers was a guard. The Master of Sinanju had snagged each man with a long talon in the soft tissue beneath his chin.
To Sweet, it was obvious that those nails were even longer than they'd seemed on videotape, for neither of his two bodyguards appeared to be doing much in the way of living. Their eyes were already growing glassy. Blood dribbled from their tightly closed lips, splattering the beige carpet.
The sound Sweet had heard was that of their guns striking the floor. The weapons sat useless below their dead, dangling toes.
Like a demented orchestra conductor holding a note too long, Chiun bore the men aloft. When his nails at last withdrew, the two behemoths collapsed into a six-hundred-pound pile of limp Sears polyester-blend suits.
Chiun's hands retreated to his kimono sleeves. Sol Sweet felt his mild arrhythmia knot into the first fluttering fist of a full-fledged seizure. "Anselmo Scubisci!" he gasped, panic dancing across his wide-open eyes. "He tells me what to do. He's serving three consecutive life sentences at Ogdenburg Federal Penitentiary in Missouri. I can drive you to the airport." He tore holes in his pants in his desperation to remove his car keys.
When he held the jangling key ring aloft, he felt a bony hand slap against his own. The keys screamed across the room, embedding deeply in the wallboard.
Sweet was clutching his chest when he looked down.
Chiun had circled the desk and was standing below him.
"Did you or he order the destruction of our home?" the Master of Sinanju demanded in a tone that chilled the very air around them.
Despite the cold frisson up his spine, Sol Sweet's chest still burned. "Neither one of us did," he panted. He was becoming light-headed. Blood pounded in his ears. "Those men acted entirely on their own. Well, for the house-burning part. Not the killing-you part. They were sent to do that. But that was obviously before I knew what wonderful, caring, dangerous people you both are. May I take a nitroglycerine capsule?"
"No," Remo and Chiun said in unison.
"Splendid," Sweet enthused. He pulled his left arm close to his chest. If he held it tightly enough, he almost could dull the horrific pain that was shooting up it.
"Are you the one who's sending all these lunatic hit men in ski masks after me?" Remo asked.
Through the pain, Sol Sweet grew confused. "Hit men?" he asked. "No. Just the ones who burned down your house. Did I mention how terrible I feel about that?"
On the other side of the desk, Remo frowned. The lawyer wasn't lying. Remo had been sure the attacks of the past few days had been the work of whoever was behind Raffair.
Chiun steered them back to the most important topic. "Where are your lackeys, that they might pay for their wicked deed?" His eyes were truth-detecting lasers, boring twin holes into Sol Sweet's whirling brain.
"Here," he gasped, "lemme..." He staggered to his desk. With a shaking hand, he wrote down three names on a yellow legal pad. "They're hiding," Sweet wheezed as he handed Chiun the sheet. "Don't know where they are. But that's them, I swear."
The old Korean accepted the paper. Sweet felt a pinch of relief when Chiun retreated to the other side of the desk.
"Well, if that's all the business we have, I think I'll just call up an ambulance." He forced a weak smile on his suddenly very pale face.