“So what do you do, grandpa?”
The old man picked up a rifle, then looked around the porch until he found a small stone.
“Watch,” he said.
He tossed the stone high into the air, far to the left of the spot where he had seen the boar. The stone came down, easily onto a patch of grass, but the boar’s supersensitive hearing picked up the sound, and the animal bolted, to the right, away from the sound of the stone. His flight took him past a slim break in the trees, and as his body passed the opening, Grandpa De Chef put a bullet in the beast’s head.
“That’s how, Ferdie,” the old man said. “You make the target commit itself to an empty threat. And then when it’s committed, you make the kill.” He smiled down at the boy. “Maybe you don’t understand it now, but someday you will. No matter what your momma says.”
“Come on, pal, I don’t have all night.” Remo’s voice brought Hunt back to where he was.
Without hesitating, without analysis, he brought his right arm back and then fired it forward at Remo. The stone on his fingertips leaped from his hand first, moving toward Remo but two inches to the left of Remo’s head.
The second stone, propelled from the palm of Hunt’s hand, was only a foot behind, aimed toward Remo’s right, so when he ducked away from the first stone, the second would catch him squarely between the eyes.
Hunt smiled, and then the smile changed to astonishment, and then fear.
There was a thud ahead of him and a scream. The first stone had passed Remo’s head and buried itself into the forehead of one of the pink-robed guards who stood behind Remo. The man screamed and crumpled.
Remo had not moved a fraction of an inch, and the second stone moved toward the right side of his head, outside the intended target line, and then Remo flicked up his right hand and caught the stone in the air between thumb and forefinger.
Remo looked at the stone, then back at Hunt.
“Sorry, pal. I told you, you should’ve stuck to plates.”
Hunt backed away. “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”
“That’s the biz, sweetheart.”
Hunt turned and ran down the ramp, toward the brightly lit stadium, and Remo took a few steps after him, then saw up ahead of him the television cameras grinding away.
He stopped. He could not chance being seen on television. Hunt now was in the infield, running toward the bandstand. He glanced once back over his shoulder as he ran.
At that moment, Maharaji Gupta Mahesh Dor stood inside the dugout, shielded from view by a cordon of pink-robed men.
Remo waited, and Hunt turned again. This time, Remo let fly the stone in his right hand. Hunt saw it coming at him, threw up his right hand to block it, and the stone smashed into his hand, cracking the fingers with the force of a hammer, and driving the stone and flesh and finger-bone into Hunt’s forehead.
Hunt fell. Two persons who saw him fall screamed, but suddenly their screams were overwhelmed by the roar of the faithful, as the maharaji stepped from the dugout and trotted lightly across the field toward the bandstand.
“Blissful Master. Blissful Master.” The stadium resounded with the screams. Hunt’s already dead body lay partially under the back of the bandstand, and the two persons who had seen him fall convinced themselves they were mistaken and joined the chanting for Dor.
Remo turned back to the door. The pink-robed guard knelt over his companion who had been felled by Hunt’s first rock. Remo moved past him and into the room beyond.
Winthrop Dalton, V. Rodefer Harrow III, and Cletis Larribee looked up.
“Say, fella, what are you doing here?” asked Dalton.
“Which one of you is expendable?” Remo asked.
“He is,” said Dalton, pointing to Harrow.
“He is,” said Harrow, pointing to Dalton.
“I pick you,” said Remo to Harrow, crushing his skull into his jowls.
“Hey, fella,” said Dalton, looking at Harrow’s collapsing body. “No need to work your hostility out on us.”
“Where is he?”
“Who?”
“The swami.”
Dalton pointed to a closed-circuit television set on the wall. It showed Maharaji Gupta Mahesh Dor acknowledge the applause, and step forward to a microphone.
“He’s out there,” said Dalton. “And we have to go now, so if you’ll just get out of our way.”
“Who are you?” said Remo to Cletis Larribee. “How come you don’t say anything?”
“He’ll have plenty to say in just a few minutes,” said Dalton. “And if you must know, he is the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency.”
“What’s in the suitcase, pal?” Remo asked Larribee.
“Watch the television,” said Dalton huffily. “You’ll see it all on there in a few minutes. Come, Cletis, time to go.”
Dalton took a step toward the door and then took no more steps as his Adam’s apple found itself inextricably entwined with his spinal column. He fell to the floor on top of Harrow.
“You’re ‘the big thing’ that they’ve been talking about, aren’t you?” said Remo.
Larribee, too terrified to speak, could only nod.
“But you’re not going to say anything tonight, are you?” said Remo.
Larribee shook his head rapidly from side to side. His voice came back. “Don’t worry, pal. I’m not going to say anything.”
“Look around you,” said Remo, gesturing toward the two bodies. “And don’t forget. I’ll be watching you.”
Larribee nodded. “I won’t forget. I won’t forget.”
“And I’ll take the briefcase,” said Remo.
“Those are state secrets in there,” said Larribee.
“You can have them back as soon as you’re done.”
On the bandstand before national television, Maharaji Dor was finished detailing the support for his simple message of bliss and happiness that he had gained all over the world, and even from one of America’s heartland religions, the Baptists.
“But even more encouraging, even more proof that mine is the way, even a greater display of the power of the truth, is the next man I will introduce to you. A man who knows the secrets of government will tell you about that. Will tell you the truth about your government, and then he will speak about divine truth.”
He turned and saw Larribee coming up the steps of the bandstand.
“Ladies and gentlemen, listen now to this message from the deputy director of your country’s Central Intelligence Agency. My friend and follower, Cletis…uh…Cletis is how I know him.”
He waved his arm toward Larribee in a gesture of greeting. There were a few boos, a few small smatterings of applause. Mostly the audience sat stunned.
Larribee, looking neither left nor right, brushed by Maharaji Dor and took the microphone. He gazed out over the crowd. He saw the thousands of faces. He realized millions more were watching on coast-to-coast live television.
He put down the microphone, then remembered Remo’s hard eyes, and raised it to his face again. He opened his mouth and, softly, began to croak:
What a friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and grief to bear.
As he moved along the old gospel song, his voice grew stronger. He closed his eyes to imagine himself back in the choir loft of the Monumental Baptist Church at Willows Landing.
What a privilege to carry,
Everything to God in prayer.
Maharaji Dor jumped forward and ripped the microphone from Larribee’s hand.
“And now you know,” he screamed into it. “You can’t trust the CIA.” He threw the microphone to the wooden floor of the bandstand. The loud crack resounded through the stadium.
“I’m going home,” Dor shouted. “I’m going back to Patna.” He stamped his foot like an angry child. “You hear me? I’m going back.”
“Go back, you bum,” came a shout from the audience.
“Yeah, go back, you bum. Who needs you?”
The stadium became a crescendo of booing, as Remo moved up to where Chiun and Joleen stood.
At the same moment, Elton Snowy, who had carefully worked his way through the infield carrying his bogus bag of chicken, came around the platform. He saw his daughter.
“Joleen,” he shouted.
She looked up. “Daddy,” she yelled with happiness.
Snowy came running toward her, and she threw her arms around him. He tried to hug her back, but the bag of bombed chicken was in the way.
“Here, pal, take this,” he said to Remo, thrusting the bag to him.
Remo shrugged, took the bag, then opened Larribee’s briefcase and stuck the bag inside. He snapped the briefcase shut again.
“I missed you so much,” Snowy said.
“Me, too, Daddy.” She stepped back. “Daddy, I want you to meet the man I love.”
Snowy looked over her shoulder at Remo. Remo shrugged, a who-me shrug. Joleen turned around and waved her hand toward Chiun. “He is my real master,” she said, “And I love him.”
“Joleen, honey,” said her father. “I love you. You know that.”
She nodded.
He brought a right hand up and punched her crisp on the chin. The girl collapsed in his arms. “But you ain’t marrying no dink.” He lifted the girl in his arms and began to walk toward one of the stadium exits.
“What did that mean?” Chiun asked Remo.
“That’s racism, Chiun,” Remo answered.
“Racism? I thought racism was something to do with baseball.”
“No. He just doesn’t want his daughter to marry a Korean.”
“But how will you white people ever improve yourselves if you don’t marry up to yellow?” asked Chiun.
“Damned if I know,” said Remo. He and Chiun turned, walking in the direction that Maharaji Dor had stomped out in. But when they reached the ramp, Remo saw Larribee still standing behind the bandstand, looking lost and frightened.
“I’ll catch up to you,” said Remo, and he went back to Larribee.
“Good show,” said Remo.
Frightened, Larribee could only nod.
“Here’s your briefcase. I think you ought to go home,” said Remo.
Larribee nodded again, but did not move. He seemed paralyzed, rooted to the spot.
“Oh, hell,” said Remo. “Come on.” He took Larribee’s arm and pulled him toward one of the stadium exits, moving him quickly through the swirls of confused, angry people now anting their way across the stadium playing surface.
After Larribee was safely in a cab on his way to the airport, Remo slid back through the flow of people to the ramp leading to the maharaji’s office.
Except for the bodies of Dalton and Harrow, the first office was empty. The door to the inner office was closed, but as Remo approached it, the door was flung open. Chiun stood there.
“Remo,” he said. “I am going to Sinanju.”
“I told you, as soon as we’re done, I’ll try to get it arranged again.”
He moved into the room as Chiun said, “No. I mean I am going now.”
Remo looked at him, then at Maharaji Dor seated behind the desk, then back at Chiun, who said, “I am joining his employ.”
Stunned, Remo was silent a second, then said: “Just like that?”
“Just like that,” said Chiun. “I will have my daytime dramas beamed in by satellite. He has promised. And I can visit Sinanju frequently. He has promised. Remo, you didn’t get a chance to really know the beautiful people of India, or to see the loveliness of the Indian countryside.” He looked at Remo expectantly.
Remo looked back, then said coldly: “If you go, you go alone.”
“So be it,” said Chiun.
Remo turned and walked away.
“Where are you going?” asked Chiun.
“To get drunk.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Remo was no longer really a drinker.
Six bartenders in San Francisco could swear to that.
In the first bar, he had ordered a shot of Seagram’s, and when the bartender brought it, he had raised it to his mouth to slug it down, but the smell had wafted into his nostrils and he could not make himself drink the liquor. He had paid the bartender and left, and next door in another tavern, ordered a beer, and when it came, he had raised it to his lips, but its smell gagged him, and again he paid and left, leaving the drink untouched.
Four more times he tried, but the Sinanju disciplines were too strong to be broken that easily, that recklessly, and besides over each glass, he heard Chiun’s lecturing voice:
“Alcohol is for pickling things that are dead. Or people who wish to be.”
Or: “Beer is made from a grain that only cows can consume, and even they need two stomachs to manage the task.”
So instead, Remo walked the night, angry and sad, hoping that someone would try to mug him, preferably an army company, so that he would have a way to work off his fury.
But no one did, and Remo walked the entire night before returning to his suite, overlooking a golf course near Golden Gate Park.
He looked around, hoping to see Chiun putter out from the bedroom, but the apartment was empty and echo-still.
Then the phone rang.
Remo had it to his ear before the first ring stopped.
“Good work, Remo,” Smith said.
“Oh, it’s you.”
“Yes. Everything seems to be under control.”
“Well, I’m glad. I’m really glad for you,” Remo said. “You don’t know how glad.”
“Except there’s one thing. Larribee was blown up this morning in his car, driving to his home in Washington.”
“Good for him. At least he found a way out of this mess.”
“You had nothing to do with it?” Smith asked suspiciously.
“No. I just wish I had.”
“All right. By the way, you’ll be interested in knowing. That security leak that I thought we had in Folcroft? Well, it turned out to be just an underpaid little computer clerk. Seems he followed the maharaji, and one day just couldn’t restrain himself and pumped a message into the computer. Very amusing, but really nothing…”
“Smitty,” Remo interrupted.
“What?”
“Go piss up a rope.”
Remo slammed down the telephone. He looked around the apartment again, as if Chiun might have sneaked in while he was on the phone, but the silence was total, overpowering, so strong it rang in his ears, and Remo went over to break the silence, and flipped on Chiun’s portable color television set.
The transistorized set broke instantly into picture and sound. It was the morning news, and an announcer with a smile said:
Maharaji Gupta Mahesh Dor held a press conference this morning in the Holiday Inn in San Francisco and announced that he will never again set foot in America.
This came on the heels of last night’s highly publicized Blissathon in Kezar Stadium, which turned into a noisy, violent fiasco in which at least three persons died, victims of mob violence.
The announcer’s voice faded and then came film of Dor’s press conference, and when Remo saw Dor’s fat face with the incipient mustache, he growled, deep in his throat, drew back his right fist, and…
Tap, tap, tap.
Remo stopped. There was a tapping on the door. The sound was familiar, as if it were made by long fingernails.
Remo’s face brightened, and he brought his right arm to his face to brush away moisture that he had not realized was there.
He opened the door. Chiun stood there.
“Chiun. How are you?”
“How should I be? I have come for my television set. I didn’t want to leave that.” He brushed by Remo and entered the room. “See, already you are using it, wearing it out while my back is turned.”
“Take it and get the fuck out,” Remo said.
“I will. I will. But first I had better check it. Not that I think you would steal anything, but, well, one never kno
ws with Americans.”
As Remo watched, Chiun stood alongside the set, laboriously counting the knobs, and then counting them again, and then leaning over the vented back of the set and peering inside to examine machinery that Remo knew he did not understand. Occasionally he went “hmmmm.”
“I should have killed that fat-faced creep,” said Remo.
Chiun snorted and continued his inspection.
“You know why I let him live?” Remo asked. “Because I knew this time you were serious, and he was your new employer. And I wouldn’t make a hit on your employer.”
Chiun looked up, shaking his head sadly. “You are crazy,” he said. “Like all white men. I am sick of whites. That girl was in love with me, and that lunatic with the bag of chicken punched her. And here I thought, it was only baseball that was racist. And Smith. And…”
“Screw it. I should have finished that frog. If I ever see him again, I will.”
“Typical white thinking. Doing something in such a manner as to cause more harm than good. Do you know that Indians get very upset when Indians die in foreign lands? Particularly rich Indians. And yet you would go ahead, just like that, poof, and kill him. Well, fortunately you will not commit that folly. I have killed him, and in such a way that sloppiness will never be attached to the name of Sinanju.”
Chiun folded his arms and stared challengingly at Remo.
“But I just saw him alive. On the television set.”
“Nothing ever sinks into the white racist mind. When a hand strikes the right point in the neck, is the person dead?”
“Yes,” said Remo.
“No,” said Chiun. “It means that the person is going to die. He is not dead yet. It takes time for the brain to be disconnected from the rest of the body. Some blows are fast. Some blows are slower, and death takes longer. Like long enough for him to return home to India, before he dies of bad kidneys.”
“I don’t believe it,” Remo said. “You would have had to make that kind of stroke without his knowing about it.”
“And you are a fool. Have you learned nothing? If a man gets a bump, and then nothing happens immediately that day, he assumes it is healed and was nothing to worry about. You can bump into someone openly and inflict that kind of wound. And in two days there will be no pain, and in two months he will be dead. Any fool could learn that. Any fool but you, that is. Remo, you are a disgrace. A pathetic incompetent desecration of the name Sinanju. I saw you last night using a stone on that Frenchman whose family was trained by my family. A disgrace. A fiasco. Rubbish.”
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