CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

The private elevator door offered the same type of lock it had on the main floor. Remo reached into his jacket pocket for the keys he had taken from the driver the night before. He glanced back at the garage and saw the Luger.

Remo trotted back to where he had overcome Moesher on the cement floor. He picked up the black gun. Did he need it? Felton would have no doubts about what had happened to Moesher. There would be no reason not to carry the gun now.

Remo fingered the hard black handle with sweat grip. MacCleary had always said: «Don't listen to everything Chiun tells you about guns. They're still good. Carry one and use one.»

And Chiun, when Remo had finally talked to him later, had maintained that guns spoiled the art.

Remo glanced at the barrel, dull, gunmetal blue. Chiun was over seventy years old, MacCleary was decomposing. Remo flipped the gun into a dark corner. Weapons really did take the fun out of it all.

The tubular key, first to the right, then to the left, worked in the elevator door.

Remo pushed the button marked PH. Riding up, he straightened his jacket, wrinkled in the scuffle below. He tightened his tie and in the burnished button panel with only three stops, saw enough of the outline of his head to straighten his hair.

The elevator stopped but the door didn't open. Of course, Remo thought, there was some kind of button to open it. He had ignored what Cynthia had done earlier to open it.

He examined the panel again. Three buttons. Nothing else. His eyes roamed the door, the metal door. Nothing. Back to the panel. He was about to push his hand against the entire door panel to see if it opened by slight pressure, when voices drifted toward the car.

The elevator had been constructed so that a person standing in it when it was at the penthouse level could hear signal commands from the library. Remo hesitated. It was Cynthia's voice. She was protesting. «He is not like that at all. He loves me.»

Felton's voice: «Then why did he take the one thousand dollars I offered him?»

«I don't know. I don't know what you told him, or even if you threatened him.»

«Don't be silly, my dear. He took the money because I told him he would get no more if he married you. He was only after your money, dearest. I was protecting you. Could you imagine what would have happened if you had married him and then found out what he was like? When he took the money, I told Uncle Marvin to take him down and put him on a bus.»

«I don't care. I love him.» Cynthia was sobbing.

Remo did not want to have to tell Felton he was a liar just yet, not in front of Cynthia. Plenty of time for that later. He took out his wallet and leafed through the bills. He had about one thousand two hundred dollars. Smith would have a heart attack.

He rolled up one thousand dollars into a wad and replaced his wallet. He pushed the door's face, and as he guessed, it slid downward and he stepped into the library.

Felton looked as if he had just been kicked in the stomach by a mule; Cynthia as if she had received a reprieve from the chair.

Remo hurled the one thousand dollars on the rug and, forcing himself not to laugh, announced grandly: «I love Cynthia. Not your filthy lucre.»

«Remo, darling,» Cynthia cried, running to him. She threw her arms around his neck and violently kissed his cheeks and lips. Remo stared at Felton through the barrage of affection.

Felton was visibly shaken. He could only return Remo's stare, then blurted out: «Moesher? Where's Moesher?»

«He was going to put me on the bus. Then he decided to go for a spin by himself.» Remo smiled, a smile that was immediately smothered in warm searching lips.

Felton had regained his composure by dinner. They ate by candlelight. James, the butler, served. Felton said it was the maid's night off and he had personally prepared the meal. Remo responded he was overcome by an upset stomach and could not eat a bite.

The preliminaries were over. Both men knew that. And each knew that the only thing left was a showdown between them-a personal showdown. They would both know when the time for that had come. And this was not it. The dinner was like the Christmas Day armistice on the battlefield and Felton played the role of the proud father.

«Cynthia has probably told you we're very wealthy,» he said to Remo. «Did she tell you how I made my money?»

«No, she didn't. I'd be interested in knowing.»

«I'm a junkman.»

Remo smiled politely. Cynthia sputtered, «Oh, Daddy.»

«It's true, my dear. Every penny we have today is from the junk business.» He seemed determined to tell his story and launched into it without urging.

«Americans, Mr. Cabell, are the world's most prolific producers of junk. They annually throw away many millions of dollars of quite good and quite usable merchandise because buying new things is almost a psychological compulsion with them.»

«Like a homicidal maniac or a pathological liar,» Remo offered helpfully.

Felton ignored the interruption.

«I first noticed this during the war years. How Americans, even faced with shortages, would throw away many products which still had a long life expectancy. In a small way, I capitalized on it. I scraped together every dollar I could and bought a junkyard».

«Have you ever been in a junkyard, Mr. Cabell, to buy something? It is impossible. There may be hundreds of what you want around, but no one knows where to find them».

«I decided to bring some organization to the junk business. I hired specialists to supervise the operations. One crew did nothing but buy and recondition old washing machines and clothes dryers. A perfectly good washing machine could be bought as junk for five dollars. We'd fix it until it was as good as new. But instead of selling it back to a private buyer, we put it to work for us. Through the forties, I opened more than seventy-five automatic laundries throughout the metropolitan area-all of them outfitted with junked washing machines and dryers. Because I had no large investment in equipment, I could charge less than any of my competitors. Everytime I heard of a new laundromat opening somewhere, I moved in my junk machinery and opened as near to him as possible. By undercutting his prices, I could put him out of business. Then as he liquidated, I could buy his brand new equipment for a song. This proved very profitable.»

Felton smiled. «That may sound particularly vicious and cruel to you, Mr. Cabell. But this is a vicious and cruel world.»

«I've noticed,» Remo said. Felton went on:

«With junked automobiles, I also feel I have made some contributions to our economy. Perhaps that is a foolish attitude, but each man thinks that what he does is important».

«I operate an auto junkyard in Jersey City. It is the largest junkyard in the world. It is also, so far as I can tell, the only one that is as organized as a department store».

«We roll in a junked car that we have bought for only a few dollars. The car may have been almost totally smashed in an accident, but it's surprising now much remains after even a total loss. The car is moved from section to section of the yard. Usable fenders are removed; windows are taken out; seats are taken out in another section; so are such items as steering wheels and headlights and doors. Each of these items is carefully compartmented, and I would daresay that if you went to this yard and asked for a rear door and trunk handle to a 1939 Plymouth, my men would have it for you in less than five minutes. Of course, for this kind of service, we can charge premium rates.»

Remo nodded and smiled. «Do you think you might have something in stock for my 1934 Maxwell?»

Before Felton could say anything, Cynthia said: «There you go with that silly Maxwell business again.»