The hall was quiet in the pre-dawn darkness. A table lamp burned at the vacant desk of the night nurse. Remo walked down the hall. He glided silently on crepe soles… 407, 409, 411… no guard. Without breaking stride, he entered the room. He had already made an eyecheck of the hall. But if someone should have been in a shadow, his even stride and quick entry might have confused them as to the room he entered.

He pressed the door closed behind him. He had decided MacCleary would probably have a broken rib from the fall. All he had to do was press one into the heart and no one would think of murder. The room was dark but for a pin light above MacCleary's head. The light reflected off a metal object on the bed. It was the hook. The room smelled of ether. As he moved closer he saw tubes stretching down to the dark form like lines of thick spaghetti.

One leg was in traction. He moved a hand along the warm wettish cast until he felt the plaster around the rib cage. He didn't want to crack it. That would leave signs. He'd have to adjust it, carefully, carefully, the rib cage pivots and…

«Hey, buddy,» came the faint voice. It was MacCleary. «That's a hell of a way to make an identification. You didn't even check the face.»

«Shut up,» Remo said.

«I've got a lead on Maxwell.»

«Yeah, sure. Sure. Just a minute.»

«Okay. You want to finish me without getting the lead, it's your business. But I think you're going to crack the plaster. Bad evidence.»

Why didn't he shut up? Why didn't he shut up? How could he kill him while he was talking and knew what was going on? Remo's hands carefully left the plaster intact. He had to put them back. He had to do it.

«I've got a better way,» MacCleary said.

«Shut up,» Remo said.

«C'mere,» MacCleary said.

Remo glanced at the hook arm. It was free. The other was in a cast. So MacCleary was going to bring the hook from behind when Remo leaned forward. Good. Let him. Then he'd just smash him in the throat, rip out a couple of tubes and to hell with the whole mess. He'd be free.

«Okay,» Remo said. He leaned forward, balancing to catch the hook from behind with the sweep of his right hand.

MacCleary's face was fully bandaged, too. Only his lips showed.

«I couldn't penetrate,» MacCleary said. «But I did get to a man named Norman Felton. He owns the apartment they pitched me out of yesterday. That's Felton with an F like Frank. He's Maxwell's middleman. The syndicate knows him but a lot of them think he's the eliminator. Only the real top guys must know about Maxwell. No wonder we've never been able to get a line on him.»

The hook remained still. Remo concentrated on it out of the corner of his eye.

«I saw Felton for just a minute. It was his penthouse I was thrown out of. This damned hook caught on a couch and he was on me with a couple of goons before I knew it. I got one of them, I think.»

Remo saw the hook rise. He was ready for it but it just fell back down.

«The goons came out of the walls. Watch the walls, they're inhabited. They all slide every which way. Before they came out, I had Felton backed to the garden windows that lead to his terrace. He was scared, but not enough to talk. Call for drugs at a drop, I don't think he'll break with pain».

«Felton's pretty classy. He's a millionaire by now and he uses that as a cover. I don't even think the local bulls know he's in the rackets. He's got only one interest. That's his daughter, Cynthia. She's at Briarcliff, this fancy college in Pennsylvania. Doubt that she knows what Daddy does for a living. I don't know how you could use her but that's a weakness of his. Maybe you could use her to break him.»

The hook moved slightly, but only slightly. Then it was still.

«I guess I screwed up pretty badly. I knew we never should have gone after Maxwell. Not enough facts. That's fatal in our business. But we were stuck with the job. Now you've got to end him. I don't know how, but try something I haven't. I tried to go directly toward him and I'm just another victim».

«Good luck, Remo. Have somebody say a mass for me.»

Remo turned and started to walk away.

«Where are you going?» MacCleary hissed. «You've got to finish something.»

«No,» Remo said.

«For God's sake, Remo, you've got to. I can't move. I'm drugged. They took my pills. I can't do it myself. Remo. You had the right idea. Just pressure the rib cage. Remo. Remo!»

But the door slowly closed on Room 411 in East Hudson Hospital and it was quiet except for the scratching of a hook on a cast.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Remo had been in the bar for hours. The receptionist had muttered something about her husband, finished her drink and left. He was the only one drinking. The bartender just refilled his glass whenever he nodded. A mess of bills soaked up the spilled liquid. The bar was dark and slightly overheated. It was too big and too empty.

Occasionally, the bartender complained about how business had left when the burlesque nearby closed down. It was a tourist bar that had had to go local and couldn't make the switch. Prices were still eighty cents a shot. The bartender never bought one back, as was the custom in New Jersey.

The hospital was about ten blocks away. It was the wrong place to stay, as he had been taught, and it was the wrong thing to be doing. But he was there and he was drinking and he would keep on drinking until he bought a bottle and brought it to a hotel room where he wouldn't be rolled for the cash.

Remo nodded and the glass filled up with a double shot of imported Canadian whiskey. He wouldn't even register at the hotel. He would keep on drinking until he could not think, until he could not feel or know and then he would be rolled undoubtedly and then thrown in jail and then CURE would find him and they would end it all.

They would do a good swift job, as fast as an electric chair, maybe faster. And then the judge's sentence would be carried out and may the Lord have mercy on his soul. Remo nodded again and the glass filled again and some more hills disappeared again and by the white lighted clock over the bar it was one p.m. or something or was it one a.m. or something?

There was sun in the street out there, too much sun and light. People played in the light, didn't they? They were the day people. And the whiskey was good. It was doing its job. «Whiskey,» Remo mumbled, «can contain without taste traces, small amounts of cyanide, any amount of arsenic and various toxic chemicals.»

«What, sir?» the bartender asked.

«Toxic chemicals,» Remo said.

The bartender, whose greasy graying hair gave him the appearance of an Italian count gone broke, said: «No, this is good stuff. We don't lace it. You're drinking the best.»

Remo raised the glass. «To the best. To Chiun.»

«To what, sir?»

«Take the money.»

«All of it?»

«No. Just for the drink.»

The bartender made a sloppy snatch on the extra bill. He'd never pass a CURE test.

«What, sir?»

«Another.»

«You haven't finished that.»

«I will. Come back. Come back. Come back. Come back.» Maybe he should kill the bartender, then he'd be safe in jail. Maybe life. Life. Life. But jail walls didn't stop CURE. Oh, no. Not the team. Protect the team. The team must be safe at all times.

«You played on a team, sir?»

«I played on the best.» Damned stool. Remo grabbed the bar ledge. «No one ever got through the center of the line. I lost three teeth but no one ever got through the center of the line. Ha, ha. Until now. I open the gate for them all.» Oh, Remo, you're so brilliant. You're so smart. I never knew you were so smart. «They're all going through now.»

«Yeah,» said the bartender, making an even sloppier snatch. «They're all going through now.» He had an evil Italian face. It wasn't a Scotch, Irish, Indian, German or who knew what else face, like Remo's beautiful face. It was ugly. Ugly as Remo's face.