Midnight Man

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SLITS WILSON LIKED MIDNIGHT in Manhattan. It was the time he usually did his best work.

He had earned his nickname with a knife, cutting slits in other people’s bellies, and he was proud of it. He also earned his living with that knife and didn’t live too badly, when he wasn’t vacationing as a guest of the state.

But this was a chance to end those trips to jail forever. It was his big score, and if it came off all right, he would have enough money to set himself up with a couple of women. A couple of foxes working the street for him could really start pulling in the green. Then he could branch out. A little numbers business. Eventually, a little high class drug dealing.

But first this job. The dude wanted some other dude taken out, and there were five big ones in it for Slits. The dude told Slits to make sure he had enough help. Now, how many brothers would it take to ice one honkey?

But the man was paying and the man insisted, so Slits got hold of three others, and now they were waiting across from the big apartment house for one white dude to come marching out into their arms.

Willie the Whip was Slits’ main backup man. He was the first one Slits thought of bringing in on this job. Willie wasn’t bad with a knife, either, although Slits thought his slambang technique lacked style. Willie was Slits’ age, 26, but where Slits was short and stocky, Willie was tall and reed-thin.

Willie had volunteered his brother-in-law, Tailor Taylor. He got his nickname because when he wasn’t mugging old ladies, he worked in a dry-cleaning store. Slits hoped that he wouldn’t screw things up.

Number four man in the quartet was Big Louie. Louie was five-feet-nothing when he stretched, but he was the meanest, baddest thing Slits knew. Except for himself.

“You jus’ do what I tell you, hear?” Slits instructed. “This just one guy, but the man say he a bad ass, so we gonna be careful.”

“Gotcha.”

“Raht.”

“Cool.”

“Now he gonna come out that door. Me and Willie be on up here, Louie and Tailor be down there. If he come this way, you come in behind him. If he go your way, me ’n Willie be behind him. Dig?”

“Gotcha.”

“Raht.”

“Cool.”

“Now I cuts him first, see, ’cause it be my job. Then he be yours. Make sure we gets his wallet so it look like he was took off. And then when we done, you gets a hundred each. Dig?”

“Gotcha.”

“Raht.”

“Cool.”

“Take yo’ positions,” Slits said.

· · ·

The carefully contrived plan, the high point of Slits Wilson’s intellectual life, had one flaw.

It handled Remo if he turned left or if he turned right. But Remo came out of the apartment building and without pausing, walked directly across the street, leaving behind him four very confused young men.

As their leader, Slits knew he had to improvise, if this whole deal wasn’t going to get out of hand.

He went running across the street toward Remo.

“Hey, hey. Stop. Hey, hey,” he called.

Remo stopped and looked at him. He saw three other young men fall in and start crossing behind Slits.

“What do you want?” Remo asked.

“Got a match?” Slits said, thinking quickly.

“Where’s your cigarette?” Remo asked.

Still thinking quickly, Slits said “I musta dropped it.”

“Then you don’t need a match.”

“Dammit, honkey, I needs a light,” Slits said. He was not about to be dissuaded from a good plan just because of some uncooperative honkey.

“Rub your head on the sidewalk,” Remo said. “That should give off a spark.”

Slits saw the other three coming up on them now so he whipped out his knife.

“I gonna cut you,” he said.

The dude didn’t even look scared. “Why don’t you talk right?” he said. Then the dude’s hand moved faster than he could follow and his blade was gone.

“Shit, mah blade. Willie!” he called.

Willie jumped forward, nervously waving the blade in his hand. Suddenly, he felt something hit his hand and the blade cut a narrow furrow in Slits’ cheek.

“Sheeeit,” Slits yelled, grabbing his face. “You cut me, you turkey.”

“It weren’t my fault, Slits. Honest.”

“Shut up and cut him!” Slits yelled. “You too!” he yelled toward Tailor and Louie.

Slits watched what happened next with wide eyes, not really believing it.

Tailor made a stabbing motion at the honkey and suddenly the honkey wasn’t there. Tailor and his blade kept going until the blade buried itself to the hilt in Willie’s stomach. Willie’s scream cut through the silent midnight in Manhattan like an icepick piercing soft bread. While Tailor stared in horror at Willie’s body slipping to the ground, Slits saw the honkey pick Tailor up and toss him head first through the windshield of a parked car.

Louie charged the dude from behind with his knife, but then the dude wasn’t there. He was behind Louie. He tapped Louie on the shoulder and when Louie turned, the honkey jabbed him in the stomach. With his finger. Louie went down and Slits knew somehow, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, that Louie was never going to get up.

Where was his blade? Slits looked around the ground, anger overwhelming his good sense. Gonna cut that dude. Gonna cut him good.

Just as he got his hand around the hilt of his knife, he couldn’t breathe. Something had him by the throat and he felt as if his throat had closed up tight. Then he saw the honkey’s face in front of him, as if it were floating in a haze. The honkey was saying something, asking him a question.

“Who sent you?” the honkey was asking. Sheeeit, Slits thought. I don’t even know nobody’s name. Just a white guy.

He tried to say I don’t know, but it came out like “Ahdun” and then he remembered the knife in his hand and he swung it around, but before it reached anything, the steel band around his throat tightened up even more, and he could feel his brain exploding, and he dropped the knife onto the sidewalk. And then fell to join it.

Remo looked down at the body. He hadn’t really wanted to kill the man, but his reaction had been automatic. Also, Remo’s reactions had been slow and he had been stupid.

Chiun was right as usual. Remo had allowed himself to be affected by a woman and it had altered his reactions.

He looked at the three men on the ground and at the still feet of the man stuck through the windshield. Just run-of-the-mill, New York thugs. Bag-grabbers and lady-beaters.

But who? And why?

He stepped back and looked up at the penthouse window of Princess Sarra, suspicions invading his mind.

Had she set him up?

A man watched the action from down the block. He shook his head. He had known they would screw it up.

He watched Remo walk toward him. He lounged against a car, lit a cigarette and waited.

When Remo was thirty feet away, he stepped away from the car, pulled out a pistol, took careful aim, and fired once.

And missed.

Impossible, he thought.

He fired again. He couldn’t have missed at this range, but the man didn’t even try to duck. He just kept coming straight on.

He fired four more times. The man was still coming toward him. He swung his gun at the man’s head, but the man seemed to get out of the way of the blow without really moving.

Then Remo was on him. He felt hands on his throat. He snapped the knife out of its wrist spring. He jabbed at the man’s eyes.

Remo slid below the blow, but then he heard the spine crack. Disgusted with himself, he let the man drop to the sidewalk.

Remo looked down at him. A white man. He bent down and felt the man’s jacket pocket.

Good. A white man. With a full wallet. Remo took the wallet and started jogging back to his hotel room to tell Smith.

But his mind was still on Princess Sarra.