"I can't! I don't know nothing, I swear!"
"He doesn't know anything," the man named Lou said, using the coffee machine to help himself to his feet. "Neither do they."
"Oh, really?" Remo said. He opened his hand and allowed the man with the scar to fall to the floor. "What about you? What do you know?"
The man averted his eyes and said hastily, "Me— I don't know nothing either. Uh, none of us does. If Al Martin was flashing a lot of money, we don't know nothing about it."
"And nobody else came into a lot of money?"
"I guess not."
"Why was Martin nervous the past few months?"
Lou shrugged and said, "Maybe he was worried about that crazy kid of his. Maybe he knew the kid was planning to murder him. Who knows?"
"Yeah," Remo said, "Who knows?"
Remo looked around the lounge, where three men were still on the floor and Lou was leaning on the coffee machine.
"You guys better clean up," he said. "Your break must be just about over."
On the way out he had to pass Lou and the coffee machine, so he asked one more question. "Where do you think Al Martin could have gotten a lot of money?"
"Jesus, mister," the guy said, "maybe he made some overtime, or maybe the company gave him some extra pay because nobody died in one of the cars he worked on. You know, incentive pay?"
"Incentive pay," Remo said. "Maybe you can get the company to give you some incentive pay, Lou. You know, to buy a new flask with."
He turned to the other men in the room, said, "Gee, thanks for all your help, guys," and left.
CHAPTER SIX
Remo left the National Motors plant, touching the pretty receptionist in a way she wouldn't soon forget as he returned his badge. Then he grabbed a cab and instructed the driver to keep his meter running and wait for orders.
"Jessir," the Puerto Rican cabbie said, happily switching the meter on.
It wasn't long until the end of the shift. Remo kept his eye out for his old friend Lou. Pretty soon he saw Lou behind the wheel of an expensive-looking sports car, and knew that he'd made the right decision.
"Follow that car," he told the cabbie.
"The jazzy red one?"
"That's the one."
"Jou got eet," the cabbie said, and roared away from the curb.
"Don't lose him, but don't let him know we're here, either," Remo said.
"Don' jou worry."
In about twenty minutes Remo found himself in a neighborhood reminiscent of the one the Martin family had lived in. He watched as Lou pulled his car into the driveway of a neat little house, and then told the cabbie to pull over and wait.
"Jou not gonna keel him, are jou?" he asked Remo.
"No, I'm not going to kill him. Why?"
"If you keel him, it's double the meter."
A law-abiding citizen, Remo thought, "I won't be long," he said.
"Take your time."
Remo approached the house that Lou had gone into and walked to the side, searching for a window to look through. He found himself on a huge patio that had obviously cost a small fortune to build, and peered into the house through a large picture window.
He watched as Lou kissed his wife hello and asked her what was for dinner, and then he saw a kid about fifteen years old come into the room and immediately get into an argument with his old man. You didn't have to be a genius to figure out that Lou was in exactly the same situation that Allan Martin had been in, and he wondered if good old Lou was afraid of ending up the same way.
Making his way back to the cab, Remo knew that his logical next move was to find out where Lou had been getting his money, but he had to do it without arousing any more suspicion about himself.
That meant Smitty.
Remembering a pay phone on the corner next to a small deli, Remo waved the cabbie to keep waiting and walked down the block to the phone. From there he could still see the house while he talked to Smith.
Remo dialed the digits for Folcroft Sanitarium in Rye, New York, and then waited to be put through to Smith.
"It's Remo," he said when Smith came on the line.
"I hope you haven't run into a problem," the lemony voice answered.
"You know us, Smitty," Remo said. "Problems we handle by ourselves. I called to ask you a favor."
"What is it?"
"I need somebody checked out. You'll have to get his name from his license plate number."
"What do you want to know?"
"I want to know where he's getting his money." Briefly, he told Smith what they had found inside the Martin house, then said that he felt that the man named Lou was in the same situation.
"He's showing more money than he should, and I want to know where it's coming from. Feed it into those computers of yours and see what they come up with."
"I'll take care of it."
"Good. I'll get back to you for the answer. There's another thing."
"What?"
Remo told Smith about the cars that were being shipped to New York, New Orleans, and Los Angeles by National Motors.