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."I'm asking.Do you think you could cream the old gook, or don't you?""Well." he smiled."Yeah.I think I could.Sure."Page 20ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlThen he looked at Remo."Oh, I get it.You look out for the old guy, don't you.I lay a finger on Pops here, and you step in and brain me, right?""Brain him, Remo," Chiun said."He could use a brain.""Hey, watch it, you old goat—""I won't lift a finger," Remo said."Even if I kill him?""Be my guest.""Be his guest," Chiun said.Remo touched Chiun's shoulder."Don't kill him, okay?"Chiun's jaw tightened."You are impossible," he said."And you're dead," the shoemaker said.He advanced on the frail-looking old man and circled him, his fists held in front of his face."You could at least put your hands up," he said with a smile."Why?" Chiun asked."You have never seen hands?""You sure your friend ain't going to step in?""Absolutely sure.He has embraced nonviolence.""And you haven't, right?" He laughed."That is correct," Chiun said."Okay, then.This is for what he done to me." He poked a mean right at the old Oriental.It missed.And then there was a blur of yellow satin and a sputtering of breathing sounds, and then Chiun was standing in his former position, hands tucked inside the sleeves of his gown, his face serene.Beside him lay a spheroid shape banded by a braid of arms and legs."Is he dead?" Remo asked."No," Chiun said with disgust."It is breathing.It will continue to breathe.That is all."Arcadi touched the mass with his toe.It rolled away."What a cluck," he said."Want to talk?" Remo asked."Yeah, sure." Arcadi's voice was heavy with resignation."You're taking over the operation, I suppose.""What if we are?""Then welcome to it.I'm sick of it anyway.Business.Poot." He spat significantly toward the blob of inert tissue that was the shoemaker."Not good?"Page 21ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html"Not good? You kidding? You're looking at a ruined man.You think there's any living in hookers and numbers? That's all I got left.Ready for the poor farm, that's what I am.""Hookers and numbers? I'm talking about heroin," Remo explained."You and everybody else.Heroin." He looked up nostalgically, savoring the word."Horse.Smack.Dope.H.Heroin used to mean something," he said through misty eyes."Secret cargoes by sea.Special cars with the stuff built into the doors.Airline stews with a little stash up their bazonkas.""Yeah," Remo sighed."Junkies screaming.Narcotics raids.Teenage girls turning to prostitution to support their habits.""You got it," Johnny Arcadi said with a dreamy smile."Them were the days." He snapped out of his reverie with tight-lipped resolution."That's all ancient history now.""What's ancient history?""As if you don't know.""Maybe I do and maybe I don't," Remo hedged."Come on.""You come on, Arcadi.The whole country's blasted to the gills.On heroin."Arcadi snorted in contempt."What's that supposed to mean?""Jeez, you guys are even dumber than you look," Arcadi said.No wonder you got picked to close me down.You don't know nothing." He walked slowly to the far wall of the warehouse and lifted up a wooden crate."Allow me to explain to youse."He tossed the crate on the floor with a crash of splintering wood.Out of the broken sides slid a fat five-pound plastic bag filled with white powder.Arcadi picked it up."This here," he said, raising the bag to shoulder level as if demonstrating a product on television, "is your standard street heroin.Properly adulterated so as not to encourage OD's by addicts, since everybody knows junkies are pigs when it comes to dope and will shoot up as much pure heroin as cut heroin and will die, thereby diminishing the number of customers.""Can the lecture, Arcadi.""Please.I am making a point," Arcadi said, his brow furrowed eruditely."Since this is not pure heroin, it was valued last week at approximately one hundred and sixty thousand dollars.Not the treasure of the Sierra Madre, Maybe, but a living." He shrugged."Why last week?" Remo asked."Ah, yes.A good question.Why do I say that last week this little packet was worth a hundred sixty thousand smackeroos?" He squeezed the bag with both hands until his face turned red and his teeth clenched and his limbs shook, and finally the packet burst open with a spray of white dust that coated the Page 22ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlwarehouse floor
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