All eyes followed.
Remo brought the bills to the left. The pack tracked the movement with their eyes. Some of the men were starting to drool. Continuing leftward, Remo moved over to a front window. With a flick of his wrist, he popped it open. The window shot up, burying deeply in the wooden frame.
He flapped the wad of bills one last time before throwing them out the open window. They caught the breeze like autumn leaves.
"Fetch!" Remo yelled.
Chaos erupted in the Neighborhood Improvement Association. Men shoved and screamed on their way to the exits. Some jumped out the one open window while others smashed the sealed windows with chairs and computer monitors. Screeching brakes and honking horns rose up from Mott Street.
Remo turned from the suddenly empty room. He cast one last glance at the growing wall of flame. Thinking dark thoughts about the men who had set fire to his own home, Remo slipped out the front door into the growing commotion on the street.
Chapter 22
Remo caught up with Chiun on the sidewalk down the street from the Neighborhood Improvement Association. Behind them, men dashed for cash, clogging traffic. The first thread of black smoke was curling into the cold sky.
"Finally," the Master of Sinanju said as Remo trotted up beside him. "Smith can aid us in our quest. Let us hie to his stronghold."
"As long as we're in the neighborhood, let's check out the address Sweet gave up first. It's supposed to be right here on Mott Street."
"If it is not the address of the grape-stompers who burned down my home, then it is irrelevant," Chiun replied.
"We'll get to them, Little Father. Promise," Remo said. "But we're here now, so wouldn't it be easier to get this out of the way now than have to come back?"
A scowl of impatience crossed Chiun's weathered face. "Very well," he relented. "But be quick about it."
Remo used the business card Sweet had given him to steer them to the right address. As they strolled down the sidewalk, the Master of Sinanju glanced at his pupil several times. His brow finally sank low.
"You are hiding something," Chiun announced abruptly.
Remo felt every joint stiffen at once. "What do you mean?" he asked with forced innocence.
"Please, Remo," Chiun droned. "As an actor, you make a truly great assassin."
The guilt was more than Remo could bear. Since there was no good time for this, he decided to get it out of the way.
"You know when you went up to get your trunks?" he began, his shoulders sinking. "That car that drove away?" A deep breath. "I knew one of the guys," he exhaled.
Chiun stopped dead. When he looked up at his pupil, his hazel eyes were narrow slits. "Explain yourself."
For the first time since his earliest Sinanju training, Remo's palms felt sweaty. He wiped them on his chinos.
"Remember how I told you about that guy I met on the plane? The guy I'd seen when we were in East Africa?"
"Spare me your tedious antics," Chiun clucked impatiently. "I did not listen then, and I am not interested now."
Remo took another deep breath. "Turns out the guy from East Africa was one of the guys who burned down our house," he blurted.
The Master of Sinanju's eyes split wide. Stunned white orbs grew large beyond vellum lids. "You led him to us," the old man hissed.
"I guess," Remo confessed. "He must've helped them track me from that video." He hung his head in shame. "I'm sorry, Little Father."
He waited to be screamed at. To be told he was an idiot and a blunderer. Instead, he was met with silence. For Remo, it was far worse than all the other alternatives combined.
When he glanced up, the Master of Sinanju was still staring at him. The Korean's face had grown utterly flat.
"Aren't you gonna say something?" Remo questioned awkwardly.
Chiun's head began an ominous low roll from side to side. "Words elude me," he intoned thinly. Remo thought he'd braced himself for anything. But the Master of Sinanju's troubling stillness caught him off guard.
"Do something, then," Remo prodded.
"Like what? You are too old to spank and too important to my village to slay."
"I don't know," Remo said. "Maybe a punch in the arm or something. I mean, anything."
Chiun stroked his wispy beard thoughtfully. His slender fingers had not reached the thready tip before Remo felt an increase in air pressure beside him.
He didn't duck out of the way. Eyes closed, he took his medicine, allowing the bony hand to smack him soundly in the side of the head.
Chiun's darting hand quickly retreated to his kimono folds. "That did not help," the old man announced, unsatisfied. He whirled away from his pupil, storming off down the sidewalk.
"Worked for me," Remo grumbled.
Rubbing the side of his head, he trailed the Master of Sinanju down the street.
THE MOTT STREET Community Home stood amid a cluster of seedy brownstones half a city block down from the burning headquarters of the Scubisci Family.
The name made it sound to Remo like the sort of place that had sprung up around the country starting in the sixties. Designed to keep kids out of trouble, all of those places inevitably became a focus for the kind of troubles they were supposed to distract from.
This community home was different, given the fact that its clientele was considerably older than Remo had expected.
"It's an old-folks' home," Remo said when they'd stepped through the Plexiglas front doors. "I am in no mood for your age bashing," Chiun hissed.
As they headed down the hallway to the nurses' station, Remo shook his head.
"I just assumed from the name that it was one of those places where punks go to score drugs. The ones with the pool table with one missing leg and the posters encouraging the joys of prophylactic use among the preteen set." They were at the main desk. "This can't be right," Remo frowned. "Sweet said a Scubisci would be here."
"And why wouldn't one be here?" Chiun said, an undertone of intense displeasure in his squeaky voice.
"Well, I suppose Great-uncle Phineas Scubisci might've been mothballed here twenty years ago," Remo said. "But we're looking for someone a little more current. Someone who knows who's really pulling the purse strings on Raffair, and who maybe knows who these guys are who keep trying to kill me. I assumed it was old Don Pietro's grandson or something, but this is about as far out of the loop as you can get. Let's get out of here."
"Hold," Chiun insisted. He fixed his gaze on the nurse behind the desk. "Does a Scubisci reside here?"
"Room 24A," the woman nodded, pointing down an adjacent hall.
The Master of Sinanju swirled away from the desk.