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"Then begone, callow one."
On his way to the elevator, Remo called back, "Whatever you do, don't let
Esperanza out of your sight!"
"He is safe, never fear."
Remo grinned. "What, me worry?"
Remo took the elevator to the lobby. When the doors opened, he was immediately
confronted by a trio of LAPD cops and a flock of press. Since this was the
private penthouse elevator, there was no disguising where Remo had come from.
"I don't remember letting you pass," the head cop said.
"Funny, I don't remember passing you," Remo said, offering an ID that
identified him as Remo Custer of the Secret Service.
The cop lost his attitude. "Everything all right up there?"
"Shouldn't it be?"
"Guess so."
From that, Remo figured the gunshots hadn't been heard down here. He moved
toward the door. The waiting media, smelling a quote, tried to follow him
through the lobby.
"Have you any statement?" he was asked.
"Get a life."
Remo foiled them at the revolving door. As soon as he was out on the sidewalk,
he gave the door a reverse shove. The door was not meant to go in reverse and
it jammed, trapping three reporters in the glass pie-slice sections, and the
remainder in the building itself.
Remo slipped across the street and into the office building on the other side.
He grabbed the elevator and pressed the highest number, hoping the cage would
take him to the top without his having to transfer.
It got as far as the sixth floor. The door opened, and a long-necked mailroom
clerk rolled a dirty, canvas-sided mail hamper into the cage, practically
squeezing Remo into a corner.
"This going down?" the mail room clerk asked, as the cage resumed its climb.
"This feel like down to you?"
"It feels like up."
"Must be that we're going up."
The mail clerk frowned. "I want down."
"You got up. Tough."
The boy shut his mouth, and started stabbing buttons at random, trying to get
the car to stop.
It finally stopped at fifteen. The clerk got out and reached in to pull the
hamper out of the cage. The hamper refused to budge.
"I haven't got all day," Remo pointed out.
"It's stuck!"
"This is what happens when you get on the wrong elevator."
"I can't leave it," the clerk said frantically.
"Tell you what," Remo said, "you get off, catch the next elevator to the first
floor, and when I get to my floor I'll send this thing down. You can reclaim
it in the lobby. How's that?"
"I can't leave this. It's full of important mail."
"I never heard of mail that wasn't important," Remo pointed out, "but you
can't tie up this elevator until you grow muscles."
The mail clerk was reluctant. Finally he said, "I guess it'll be all right.
Promise to send it right down?"
"Scout's honor," said Remo, lifting four fingers ceilingward.
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The mail room clerk got off. The doors closed, and Remo removed an inhibiting
toe from the metal frame that held the wheels to the hamper.
The rest of the ride was pleasantly uneventful.
On the top floor, Remo pushed the hamper off the elevator, pushed it into a
gloomy corner, and went in search of a way to the roof.
It was a drop-down ladder. Remo pulled it down and popped the hatch.
The body of the sniper had almost finished twitching when Remo reached it.
"Chiun musta been nervous," he muttered, gathering up the body. "They almost
never twitch this long."
The head wobbled as Remo carted it back to the ladder. That was because the
sniper scope, rifle still attached to it, kept swinging with each step.
Down on the top floor, Remo scooped out a bed for the corpse and laid it in
the hamper. He covered it with assorted envelopes and packages. The rifle
stuck up, so Remo simply snapped it off the scope mount and tossed it away,
along with a long mailing tube that kept getting in the way.
That solved the problem.
Whistling, Remo rode the elevator down to the lobby.
The long-necked mailroom clerk was, as Remo had expected, waiting for him
impatiently. His eyes were coals of fear. The worried look on his moist,
twitchy face turned to one of relief when Remo stepped off, pushing the
squeakywheeled hamper. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]