He slapped a face and took a gun and jammed it into his belt.

  “Ooooh, shit, that hurt.”

  “Good,” Remo said. “Try this.”

  He slapped again, then turned and kicked a behind and took another gun.

  “Son of a bitch,” the boy snarled. He was ten years old.

  “Naughty, naughty,” Remo said. He slapped the boy alongside the ear. “No cursing in school.”

  The boys spun around on the rooftop, like puppies looking for a hidden piece of meat that they could smell but not see, afraid to fire for fear of hitting each other, and Remo moved among them, hitting, smacking, slapping, spanking and collecting guns.

  “Hey. That fucker’s got my gun.”

  “Mine too.”

  “Anybody got a gun?”

  Smack

  “Mustn’t go calling names, big mouth,” Remo said. “I’ll send you to the principal’s office.”

  “Who’s got a gun?” someone cried, in a voice that bore more anguish than it was possible to experience in eleven years.

  “I have,” Remo said. “I’ve got them all. Isn’t this fun?”

  “I’m getting out of here. Fuck Kaufperson. Let her do her own dirty work.”

  “You get away from that door,” Remo said, “while I put these guns away.”

  The biggest boy on the roof, thirteen years old, got to the door and yanked. One second he was yanking, the next instant he was sitting on the gravel-topped roof, the sharp small stones pressing into his rear.

  “I said stay away from that door,” Remo said. “And no peeking for the guns. That’s not the way you play huckle buckle beanstalk.”

  Remo slipped the top grate from the ventilator shaft and dropped the small handguns in the top. He heard them slide and then thump below, as the first one landed, then the clicks as the later ones landed atop other guns. He didn’t know where the chute led, but wherever it ended was exactly seventeen-and-one-half feet away, his ears told him.

  Behind him, he heard whispering. It was meant to be too soft for him to hear.

  “The door’s jammed. I can’t open it.”

  “All right, we’ll rush him.”

  “Yeah. Everybody jump him. Stomp him in the balls.”

  The boys huddled around the door as Remo walked back. They were able now to make out his silhouette even in the dark. Remo saw them as if it were light.

  “Can all of you see all right?” Remo asked. “No? Let me fix that.”

  The boys nearest the door felt nothing except a brush of air by their faces, then they heard a thud and a ripping sound and then a splash of light as beams shone on the roof from a hole Remo had just torn open in the metal door with his bare right hand.

  “There,” said Remo backing up. “That’s better, isn’t it?” He smiled at the boys. His teeth glinted gravestone marble white in the dim light, and there was not a sound as the boys looked first at him, then at the hole in the door.

  “Attention, class,” said Remo, wondering how Sister Mary Elizabeth would have handled this bunch back at the Newark orphanage. Probably with a ruler across the backs of their hands, and Remo had a hunch it would still have worked. It was decades of time and social light years away from Sister Mary Elizabeth and her corporal methods of teaching, but Remo guessed that if she had had these children when they were smaller, they would not now be huddled frightened on a roof with a man they had just tried to murder.

  “You’re probably wondering why I called you all here,” Remo said. “Well, at the Board of Education, we’ve been getting bad reports on you. That you’re not doing your homework. That you don’t pay attention in class. Are those reports true?”

  There was only sullen silence. From the darkness, Remo heard a half-whispered, “Go fuck yourself.”

  Remo singled out the whisperer for a blinding smile. “That’s not exactly the answer I was looking for,” he said, “but we’ll get back to that. All right, now, what is the capital of Venezuela? Anybody who knows speak right up.”

  Silence.

  Remo reached forward to the nearest two faces and slapped them hard, across both cheeks with his left and right hands.

  “You’re not trying, class. Again. The capital of Venezuela?”

  A voice ventured: “San Juan?”

  “Close, but no cigar,” said Remo, who did not know the capital of Venezuela but knew it was not San Juan.

  “All right now, all together, the square root of one-hundred-sixty-eight. Come on, don’t be shy. The square root of one-hundred-sixty-eight.”

  He paused. “Nobody knows. Too bad. You don’t know arithmetic, either. That’ll have to go into my report to the Board of Education.”

  He smiled again. “Let’s try grammar. Is ‘walking’ past tense or an infinitive?” asked Remo, who would not know either if it was mailed to him in an envelope.

  “Hey, mister, can we go home?”

  “Not while class is in session. What kind of child are you, wanting to miss out on your education? ‘Walking.’ Past tense or infinitive? Don’t all speak at once.”

  There was deathly silence on the roof. Remo could hear only the worried shallow breathing of ten frightened boys whose decision to jump him and stomp him had evaporated when he put his bare hand through a steel door.

  “I’ve got to tell you that this is probably the worst response I’ve had in all my years in the classroom.”

  “You ain’t no teacher.” It was the same voice that had told Remo to fuck himself.

  “Oh, you’re wrong,” Remo said. “I am a teacher. True, I didn’t go to teachers’ college to avoid going to Vietnam. That explains why I’m not wearing jeans and peace buttons. But I’m a teacher. For instance. You…come out here.”

  “Me?” said the same voice.

  “Yes, dummy, you.” The boy, the oldest and biggest, got to his feet and shuffled slowly forward. Even with the light behind the boy, Remo could see his animal eyes, sizing up Remo, thinking maybe about a quick kick to the groin to disable Remo or at least to put him down.

  “I’ll prove I’m a teacher,” Remo said. “Like right now, you’re thinking about trying to kick me. So go ahead.”

  The boy hesitated.

  “Go ahead,” Remo said. “Here. I’ll turn around. That’ll make it easier.” He turned his back on the boy. The boy paused, leaned back and jumped into the air, both feet aimed at Remo in a two-foot flying kick right out of the UHF televised wrestling matches.

  Remo felt the pressure of the feet coming near him, turned and leaned back just far enough so the feet stopped an inch short of his face. He grabbed both feet in his hands and dragged the boy to the edge of the roof. He tossed him over, hanging onto the struggling boy by one ankle.

  When the boy realized that he was hanging, head downward, fifty feet above the pavement and that his only support might let him go if he fought, he stopped struggling.

  Remo turned to the other boys. “Here’s your first lesson. No matter how good you are, there’s somebody better. That’s true—except for one person in the world, but that doesn’t matter to you. So before you get smart-assed again, you better think about that. Your second lesson is that you’re too young to be in this business. Now, one at a time, I think I’m going to put you over this roof so you get a taste of what dying slow is like. Would you like that, class?”

  There was silence.

  “I can’t hear you,” Remo called.

  “No. No. No,” came scattered voices.

  “Good,” Remo said. “Except you mean, ‘No, sir,’ don’t you?”

  “No, sir. No, sir. No, sir. No, sir.” More voices this time. Remo looked over the edge of the roof at the boy who lay still. “I didn’t hear you,” Remo said.

  “No, sir,” the boy said. “Pull me up. Please. Pull me up.”

  “Let’s hear you say it again.”

  “Please pull me up.”

  “Pretty please?”

  “Pretty please.”

  “With sugar on it?”

  “With sugar on it.”

  “Good,” said Remo, He raised the boy with one simple upward move of his right hand, as if there were a yoyo attached to it instead of a one-hundred-twenty-pound boy. On the street below, he saw Sashur Kaufperson’s Mercedes and realized he had been spending a lot of time on this roof.

  The boy came over the railing and Remo dropped him onto the roof headfirst. The boy scurried away, crablike, afraid to get up without permission, but more afraid to stay close to that madman’s feet.

  “All right, class,” Remo said. “Your final lesson of the evening. Every one of you bastards will be in school tomorrow morning. You’re going to be nice and polite and say yes, sir and please and thank you. You’re going to do your homework and you’re going to behave yourselves. Because if you don’t, I’m coming back to rip your frigging tongues out. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.” The answer this time was a shouted roar.

  “All right. And remember. I know your names and your schools, and I’ll check on you. When I do, I hope you won’t have done anything to make me mad.”

  “We won’t. We won’t, sir. No, sir, we won’t.”

  “Good,” said Remo. “And now I think it’s past your bedtimes and you young fellas ought to be getting home. Would you like that?”

  “Yes, sir,” in unison.

  “All right,” said Remo. He walked to the locked door.

  “And just so you don’t forget me.”

  Remo put both his hands into the hole he had smashed into the metal door, twisted his arms in opposite directions, setting up a rhythm in the metal. When it was vibrating in ways it was not made to vibrate, he leaned back and ripped the door down its side, almost like ripping the flap off an unsealed envelope.

  The roof was suddenly bathed in light. Remo stood there looking at the boys, holding the door in front of him as if it were a waiter’s tray. He smiled. For the first time, all the boys could see his face clearly. He made it not a nice face to look at.

  “Don’t make me come after you,” he said.

  “No, sir.” One final shout and then the boys were running down the stairs, down toward the street, and home.

  Remo watched them go, then tossed the door off onto another part of the roof.

  He smiled. If those kids were scared now, they should have tried lipping off to Sister Mary Elizabeth.

  Remo went to the side of the building and over and down to the street. He used a light telephone wire running down the side of the building to, steer himself. The wire was too light to hold his weight, but Remo did not put his weight on it, not pulling downward, but using it instead to slow him as he moved bouncingly off the wall, back to the wall, out again, each time dropping four or five feet.

  Below him he saw Sashur Kaufperson getting into her Mercedes. She was pulling away from the curb when Remo got to the car, pulled open the door and slid into the passenger seat.

  “Hi,” he said as she looked at him in panic. “That’s the one thing I always liked about teaching. The short hours.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SASHUR KAUFPERSON HAD DECIDED to come clean. She hadn’t been telling Remo the truth, the whole truth. Well, not exactly.

  When she had told Remo that Warner Pell was the boss of the kids-for-killing operation, she had indulged in a slight mental reservation. Pell was her boss, but she knew he was not the head man. She had no idea of who the head man was.

  She had been telling the truth when she said that Pell had panicked when the heat was put on and had threatened to hand her up to the authorities.

  She had been shocked, stunned, frightened, but she had never entertained the thought of having one of the children kill Pell. At least not until she got a telephone call.

  The caller was Pell’s boss, the head of the operation. She did not know the man, who did not identify himself.

  Remo groaned in disgust as Sashur kept driving.

  “I have had just about enough of this almost-but-not-quite and I’m not sure and some secret voice over the phone. Who was the guy?”

  “I’m coming to it, Remo,” she said. “First, he told me to have Alvin eliminate Pell. He said it was the only way to save myself.”

  “And so at great sacrifice to yourself, and even more to Pell, you did it,” Remo suggested.

  “Your being sarcastic doesn’t help,” Sashur said.

  “Gee, I’m sorry. I must have lost my manners back there when those kids were trying to kill me.”

  “You have to understand. I didn’t train those little bastards; Pell did that. He taught them hand-to-hand fighting and weapons and other stuff. God knows what.”

  “And you just took roll call every morning?”

  She shook her head as she made a left-hand turn.

  “I’m a qualified psychologist. Pell had me work with the children on discipline, the need not to talk. I had to motivate them.”

  “You did great,” Remo said. “I can’t remember ever seeing such motivated children.”

  Sashur pulled the car to the curb and stomped on the footbrake.

  “I’m telling you the truth,” she blurted out. “Why don’t you just kill me now and get this all over with? I’m too tired to hold it all in, and I’m tired of worrying. And I’m tired of trying to explain it to you without your listening.”

  Her shoulders heaved and her face went down against the steering wheel and she wept.

  “Stop it,” Remo said. “I hate women who cry.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said and sniffled. “I’m just so tired. So tired of all this…the lies, the deceit, the…I’m so tired.”

  Remo patted her shoulder consolingly. “Come on. Calm down. Just tell me what happened.”

  She shook her head, as if splashing away tears, and began to drive again, checking carefully in her rearview mirror before pulling into the roadway.

  “Anyway, I helped Pell train by doing motivation work on the children. Then one day I got a call. I told you, this was just after Pell said he was going to make me the scapegoat.”

  “And?”

  “It was a man I never heard before. He didn’t give his name. But he told me just what I was doing and what Pell was doing and then he let me know he was Pell’s superior. And he told me that if I wanted Pell kept quiet, I would have to do it myself. Otherwise, I would go to jail. Oh, Remo, it made me sick. But I had to do it. I was afraid. So I told Alvin to shoot Pell.”

  “They listened to you? When Pell was their trainer?”

  “But I was their motivation expert. They believed in me.”

  “And?”

  “That’s it,” said Sashur.

  “Not quite,” Remo said. “What were you doing with those kids tonight?”

  “Oh,” Sashur Kaufperson said. “I nearly left out the most important part. The man who called me about Pell? Well, he called me about you and the Oriental earlier today. He told me you two would be coming, and I should have you killed. But this time I wouldn’t do it. No, I wouldn’t do it.”

  “Did you tell him that?”

  “No. I just made like I’d go along with anything. But as soon as I got off the phone with him, I called the police and told them I needed protection. From you two. I thought you were killers.”

  “Me? A killer?” Remo asked.

  Sashur smiled. “That’s what I thought. And then you came to my apartment and right after that the police I had called broke in and they let me out of the closet.”

  “And you still don’t know who this big boss is? The one who phoned you with your orders?”

  “No, I do. I do. I just found out tonight.”

  “Who is it?”

  “I saw him on television,” Sashur said. “Maybe you saw him too. General Haupt. I’d know that voice anywhere.”

  “Good. I’ve got business with General Haupt,” Remo said.

  · · ·

  Remo had, of course, been aware of the car following them. The steady illumination of the interior of Sashur’s car by headlights reflected in the rearview mirror, vanishing momentarily whenever they made a turn, then resuming was such a tipoff Remo hadn’t even bothered to turn around to look. So Remo was not surprised that as Sashur parked in front of his motel, the car behind them pulled around and nosed into the curb in front of them.

  “Oh, balls,” said Sashur.

  “What?”

  “It’s George.”

  Remo saw the man getting out of the gray Chevrolet and recognized George as Sashur’s boyfriend who had tried to follow them the night before, when they were leaving Sashur’s apartment.

  He was standing now alongside Remo’s door.

  “All right, you, get out of there.” His voice was an attempt at a growl but too high-pitched to sound anything but playful. It was a puppy’s bark.

  “Sure,” said Remo through the partially opened window.

  Sashur restrained him with a hand on his arm. “Don’t go,” she said. “He’s got an awful temper. George, why don’t you just get out of here?”

  “I’m tired of your cheating on me,” George whined. Remo noticed he was a fattish man, who moved sloppily on his feet. As he talked to Sashur, he was swaying from side to side impatiently.

  “Cheating on you?” she said. “Even if I were, which I haven’t been…”

  “Very good,” Remo said. “Subjunctive mood. Condition contrary to fact.” He turned to George. “Would a woman who was cheating on you be cool enough to say ‘if I were’ instead of ‘if I was’?”

  “If I were, which I haven’t been,” Sashur repeated, “how could it be cheating? We’re not married.”

  “Name the day,” said George.

  “Any day but today,” Remo said. “She’s going out of town with me today.”

  “Okay, fella, that’s it for you. Get out of there,” George said.

  “I was just coming,” Remo said. He pushed open the door and moved lightly onto the sidewalk. George backed up to make room for him.

  Sashur leaned across the seat to call, “Watch out for him, Remo.”

  Remo looked at George and saw his eyes were glistening brightly. He had tears in his eyes.