Italians: the image of a people addicted to crime is an improper one and should not be accepted by CURE members. Italian-Americans have one of the lowest crime rates per capita in the United States. The existence of organized crime and its heavy participation by those of Italian descent distorts the picture. There is a cultural trait, however-a mistrust of authority-which appeared during the 1940's. This was brought over mainly by the Sicilians, a people often occupied by foreign powers. The image of the Italian criminal has been enhanced by news coverage of the fewer-than-three hundred, who participate in the upper echelons of organized crime.

In other words, they got caught. Remo remembered the lecture almost in toto. He remembered too much. The glass filled again.

«Just a minute,» he said, grabbing the bartender's hand. «That was poorly done.» He slapped the hand and three wet bills dropped to the puddle.

«You made the mistake of keeping the area wet so the bills stick together. Keep it dry. Dry is the secret. You have greater manipulation with the dry object. Here watch this.»

Remo took a few dry tens from his pocket. He made a fast snatch that marvelled the bartender, then quickly stuffed the bills in the bartender's shirt pocket. «See. Dry.»

The bartender grinned with an embarrassed smile and shrugged with his palms turned upward. An Italian gesture.

Remo slapped his face. The crack echoed through the empty bar. The man stumbled back against a shelf of bottles. They jingled but didn't fall. He clasped his left hand to his right cheek.

«Never try such a sloppy job on me again,» Remo said. The man waited a few moments, breathing hard and staring at Remo who smiled and nodded. Then the bartender checked the bills in his pocket and found they were gone. The customer's hands had just moved too quickly. Even drunk, the speed had been blinding.

«Muscles. I'm training your muscles. Want to try again?» Remo offered the dry bills, but the bartender just backed away.

«I oughta call the cops,» the bartender whined, moving toward a part of the counter that Remo judged held the bar stick.

«By all means, do that,» Remo said. «But first another double, my clumsy man of the untrained muscles.»

«One double coming up,» the bartender said as he moved back to Remo. He kept close to the bar with his left hand beneath it, an advertisement of a weapon. By the time he reached Remo, his pace and balance telegraphed that he would bring some sort of stick up in an arc over the counter toward Remo's head.

The bartender stopped, the stick came in a sweep. As fast as it moved downward, Remo's hand moved upward. His hand smashed against the middle of the stick, stopping it, but acting as a pivot against which the top of the stick kept moving. The stick cracked and the bartender quickly yanked his swinging hand to his chest. The vibration had stung.

Remo nodded for another drink and from then on he was not disturbed. Maybe he could tour the country, doing tricks. Then CURE would be more hesitant about killing him.

Hell with it. He was sentenced to die by a judge and he was going to die. A good thought occurred to Remo. He let himself down from the stool and went to the men's room. When he got out, he slumped into a booth and motioned the bartender who brought his drink and all his money. There wasn't a cent missing. Remo gave the man a ten spot.

At first, the bartender refused to accept it, but then slowly, cautiously, conceded to Remo's whim. «For your honesty,» Remo insisted. Then he began his serious drinking.

He came to at the same table. Someone was shaking his shoulder. The bartender was yelling, «Don't touch that guy. He's murder,» and the shaking continued.

Remo looked up. The bar was darker. His head felt as if it were closing in a vise, his stomach existed only by the pains in it. And he was going to puke. And the shaking stopped.

Remo glanced up, briefly up, mumbled thanks and stumbled to the bathroom where he dry-heaved for an eternity until he saw an open window. Standing on his tip toes, he sucked the fresh air into his lungs in a rapid pace, then faster and deeper until his body was consuming twice the amount of oxygen a running man consumes. Into the base of the groin, hold, out full, the whole essence of your being out, into the base of the groin, hold, out full, the whole essence…

His head still ached when he normalized his breathing. Remo splashed some water on his face, combed his hair, and rubbed the back of his neck. He would walk in the fresh air for an hour or so and then eat, something like… like rice.

The bartender and the man who had shaken him awake were talking as he picked up his money from the table.

«You recover pretty fast, Johnny,» the young man said, shaking his head. «I thought you'd crawl out.»

Remo forced a smile. He said to the bartender: «Anything I owe you?»

The bartender backed away, his hands raising slightly in a defensive position. He shook his head. «No, nothing. Everything's fine. Fine.»

Remo nodded. The bartender seemed too scared to have checked his papers. They had been in order and the thin strip of tape on his wallet had not been disturbed, when he checked his cash.

«I hear you're full of tricks,» the young man said. «Karate?»

Remo shrugged. «Ka-what?»

The young man smiled. «From what I heard, you were doing karate tricks in here this morning.»

Remo glanced outside. It was dark. The light from a newspaper office's sign shone into the street. He must never reveal himself like that again. He'd be remembered at the bar, maybe for a long time.

«No, I don't know anything like that.» He nodded to the young man and the relieved bartender. «Well, good night,» he said and headed toward the door.

He heard the bartender mumble something about his being «a wild one,» and the young man answered: «Wild? What about the guy who cut his own throat at the hospital this morning? Only one arm and that one with a hook on it and he still cuts his own throat. I mean if a man wants to kill himself…» Remo kept on walking.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The local newspaper had it in detail. «Man Kills Self on Second Try; Jump Fails, Hook Works.» They didn't leave out anything.

The man, a mental patient from a New York sanitarium which thought him sufficiently cured for outpatient treatment, had jumped yesterday from a twelve-story building on Avenue East, police said.

They said he was guarded round the clock with no one allowed in the room. «Miraculous,» said doctors about the way he allegedly ripped open his own throat with the hook that replaced an amputated hand.

«It's amazing he could do that,» a hospital spokesman said. «He was in traction and it must have taken tremendous effort for him to get that much pressure behind the hook. Where there's a will, there's a way,» the spokesman alleged.

Detectives Grover and Reed said flatly, «It was suicide.»

Meanwhile, another suicide victim was recovering in the Jersey City Medical Center. Mildred Roncasi, 34, of 1862 Manuel Street…

Renio dropped the damned paper in a trash can. Then he hailed a cab. That nut, MacCleary. That idiot That fool. That damned fool.

«What's holding you up now?» Remo asked the driver. The cabbie leaned over the back seat. «Red light» he said.

«Oh,» Remo answered. And he was quiet as the cab let him off at St. Paul's Church, where he completed an errand, then hailed another cab that took him to New York.

Remo didn't sleep that night. He didn't rest in the morning. He just wandered until he reached the telephone booth at 232nd Street and Broadway in the Bronx. A stiff, chill, autumn wind blew across Van Cortland Park. Children played in the drying grass. The sun was orange and setting. It was three p.m. He stepped into the telephone booth and shut out the wind. A group of Negro boys were scrimmaging in motley uniforms. They banged away at each other and piled on. Remo's attention rested on a small boy with no helmet but his kinky hair. Blood ran from beneath his left eye. An apparent knee injury forced him to hobble when he jogged to the line from the defensive huddle.