Next Of Kin td-46

by Warren Murphy

  Then he saw one of the figures in the doorway, a black man in a striped shirt, move. It was more a slump than a conscious movement, lodged as the man was between the other people clustered in the frame of the open door. Remo came closer. The man who had moved now slid to the floor, upsetting the balance of the other figures. In one confusing wave, they all tumbled out the door and onto the porch, where they lay inert as broken glass figurines.

  "Now what the hell is going on?" Remo said as he stepped over the dead bodies of the toppled partygoers on the porch.

  Chiun was inside, frowning, his arms folded across his chest and concealed inside the wide gold brocade sleeves of his robe. "Where have you been?" the old man grumbled, gesturing with a snap of his head at the lifeless forms cluttering the entranceway. "Move this rubble away."

  "That's it, huh?" Remo said, kicking a limp arm out of his way in disgust. "Bump off half the men in the village so old Remo, the clean-up man, can come mop up the mess. Well, let me tell you, I've had it up to here with murders today." He mimed a slash across his throat.

  "And what of me? The rudeness..." Chiun hissed. "Twice in one day have I been coarsely interrupted during the viewing of my beautiful daytime dramas. Emperor Smith, crawling through my window with the agility of a chained bear, is not enough. No. I must also suffer these..." His voice rose to a high-pitched shriek as he jounced up and down in a rage. "... These murderous hellions, shouting 'Hee Hoo Ha Hee' like hysterical monkeys as they went about their dastardly deed. It is a zoo, this sweltering armpit of an island. Vacation? Hah! Prison would be better. Poverty would be better than this."

  "Now, just calm down—"

  "Calm?" Chiun's almond eyes were little hazel o's. "You wish me to be calm— I, who have lost the single thread of beauty in life's tormented fabric? I, whose only pleasure in the dimming twilight of my years has now been shattered beyond redemption?"

  "Will you get to it? What the hell are you talking about?"

  Wordlessly, Chiun glided out of the living room, uttered a small cry of grief, and returned wheeling the television set with its Betamax hookup, which he kept in his bedroom. The blank screen was punctured by a gaping hole, out of which the machine's innards were visible.

  "This," the old man said, choking hoarsely. "The lout did not even have the decency to die properly. Kicking, flailing everywhere like a wild chicken." He thrust his hand speculatively into the hole in the glass, then retracted it, wailing high and stridently. "Oh, never again to gaze on Mrs. Wintersheim's troubled countenance. Never to know the dark secret of Skip the podiatrist. And Rad Rex, the kindest of healers, the finest—"

  "You've seen those shows a million times," Remo said.

  Chiun turned on him, eyes blazing. "And if one sees the Mona Lisa a million times, is it then permissible to destroy her?"

  "I'll go into town tomorrow and get you another set," Remo said impatiently.

  "Tomorrow?" Chiun bellowed. "Tomorrow? What am I to do tonight?" He glared at the broken television. "This is worthless now, isn't it?"

  Remo shrugged. "I guess you could use it for a coffee table if you wanted to..."

  "Worthless. Gone forever, the lovely stories that lived within this magic box." He tossed the set into the air like a tennis ball and whacked it across the room, where it embedded itself in the stucco wall.

  Remo jumped. "Remember what I said, Chiun. Calm. Let's be..."

  "I am calm," Chiun hissed as he strode over to the heap of bodies in the doorway and propelled one of the dead men through the picture window with a crash of shattering glass. "Miserable, destructive wretches," he said. He kicked another into the kitchen. The body came to rest at the base of the refrigerator, which crumpled around it. "They have no respect for property," Chiun said, flinging another limp figure upward with a snap of his wrist. The body shot into the ceiling, where it stuck halfway, its corduroy-clad legs hanging limply down like a grotesque chandelier.

  "Okay, you've made your point. I'll get rid of the bodies," Remo said, quickly pulling two of the dead men out into the yard. Chiun spun another through the back door, knocking it off its hinges.

  "I'm doing it, I'm doing it," Remo shouted from the yard.

  "Never will an old man find peace in these violent times," Chiun muttered.

  An hour later, Remo had dumped most of the dead into the ocean and returned to the wreckage of the villa.

  "Him, too," Chiun said tightly, gesturing with a thumb toward the man in corduroys whose lower half hung suspended from the ceiling.

  "Oh. I forgot." Remo tugged gently at the legs, grunting as he tried to pry the body loose. "Hey, what were these guys doing here, anyway? Did you think to ask before you knocked them off?"

  Chiun sniffed. "Who knows what lunacy impels men who smash televisions?"

  "I mean, were they trying to rob you?"

  The old man paused and gave Remo a puzzled look. "Actually, I think they were trying to kill me," he said.

  "What for?"

  Chiun made a face. "How should I know? The white mind has always been inscrutable. Stupid is always inscrutable."

  "These men are all black," Remo said.

  "Close enough."

  "Well, what'd they do?"

  Chiun rolled his eyes in exasperation. "The usual. They came inside, playing with their knives and guns." lie swept' an open ten-inch switchblade into the bushes with his toe. "They were hooting in that incomprehensible language, and in a moment they had all departed for the Great Void. Except for the one with the dancing feet who smashed my television. By the way, his remains are in the carpet of my bedroom."

  "Oh, come on," Remo groaned. He trotted into the room to see. "This is gross," he called over his shoulder as he picked up the rolled-up carpet. "Couldn't you just kill him and leave it at that?"

  "But he broke my television," Chiun explained. "Just as Mrs. Wintersheim..."

  "Yeah, yeah." Too tired to stand on ceremony, Remo hoisted the carpet onto his shoulder and returned to the living room, where he yanked the other body out of the ceiling, with a shower of dust and plaster. The man in the corduroys tumbled to the floor like a sack of cement. "Well, I can't figure it out," Remo said. "Nobody even knows us here, and this makes three times today that someone's tried to ice one of us."

  "You, too?" Chiun asked in a tone of voice that immediately struck Remo as too casual.

  "Twice," Remo said, eyeing him slowly. "And you know something about it, so speak up. What's going on?"

  "I know nothing." Chiun's fingers twitched toward the plaster-covered body. "Take this mad dog away."

  Something caught Remo's eye. It was lying on the floor beside the dead man, coated with fallen debris. "This must have fallen out of his pocket," Remo said, picking it up.

  It was a plastic card the size of a credit card, only it had no markings on it except for a wide metal band running along its length. "What do you think it is?" Remo asked, turning the card over in his palm.

  Chiun snapped it out of his hand irritably. "Clean up this rubbish first," he said. "Later will we solve the riddles of this ill-mannered island." He tossed the card onto an end table while Remo dragged the corpses outside.

  There was something strange about this night. Remo felt it as he hauled the dead men toward the cold mist of the ocean. He tossed in the rolled-up carpet.

  Well, why shouldn't the night be strange? The day had been weird enough. Smitty, for one thing, with his transparent talk about taking a vacation on an island near the one that Remo and Chiun were on. Harold W. Smith didn't take vacations, not with his employees, at any rate. Then the murder attempts. Two for Remo and one for Chiun. Something was going on here, and whatever it was, Smith knew about it. Remo was here for a reason, although he couldn't imagine what it was. All he knew was that something lurked on this island paradise, something dark and frightening. Chiun was right. Some vacation.

  A rustling sounded in the distance, Remo looked behind his shoulder. Nothing. That was what was strange about this night,
he realized as his eyes moved from the night-blackened coastline to the sky. There was no moon. Sometime in the past hour a cloud cover had blotted out the moon and the twinkling stars that were the only light outdoors at night. Without them, the island was as black as the innards of Hell.

  The rustling sounded again, closer, with the pat-pat-pat of approaching footsteps on the sand. Remo listened. They were coming from the west, the direction he had walked home from. He gathered his thoughts together, trying to remember. West was Fabienne's house and Devil's Mountain and that winding goat-herders' road he had taken with Pierre, and the shipyard with its modern security system...

  The shipyard.

  Now he remembered. When he walked back from Fabienne's, the lights at the shipyard had been off. They had been blazing when he had gone up the winding road with Pierre, but coming back, the place was dark and invisible.

  The steps came closer. Whoever was coming was running. As far away as the runner had to be by the sound of his footfalls, Remo could hear out-of-breath panting. He set down the body he was carrying and squatted a hundred feet or so away. Close enough so that he, with the heightened night vision drilled into him over the years, could see the runner before being seen himself.

  The running figure came forward at full speed, then fell with a thud over the body of the man in corduroys. The runner got up, explored the body briefly, then let loose with a howling, high-pitched scream. A woman's scream.

  Fabienne. Remo ran toward her. She turned tail and dashed madly for the woods, fighting and kicking and squealing like a banshee. She wailed, "No, no!" as Remo finally got her in his grip.

  "It's all right. It's me, Remo."

  "Remo?" She turned hesitantly. "Oh, Remo." She flooded with tears and held onto him. She was shaking wildly. Her breath came in gulps. "He came for me," she shrieked hysterically, the words tumbling from her between long, hoarse breaths. "In the house... after you left... His hands were on my throat... going to kill me..."

  "Hold on," Remo said. "I'm taking you inside. You can tell me there. You're freezing."

  "I had to swim... Sharks... afraid of sharks."

  "Shhh. You're okay now, little girl." He stroked her wet hair to calm her. When she quieted, he picked her up and carried her into the villa. "You just take it easy till we get you into some dry clothes." He stepped carefully over the pile of rubble in the living room and set her down on a sofa. She was still trembling. Her neck was swollen, and thick bruises circled it like a chain.

  Chiun walked in carrying a load of clean towels and a blue silk kimono. "Who is this latest disturbance of the peace?" he asked.

  "The woman I went to see tonight. Looks like whoever came after you and me is going for her, too."

  After a change of clothing and a stiff shot of Sidonie's rum, Fabienne had stopped shaking and was well enough to talk.

  "Thank you," she said, accepting the second glass of island firewater Remo offered her. Her eyes widened as she took in the decimated room. "He's been here, too," she said. She lowered her head in despair.

  "Some were, but they weren't a lot of trouble," Remo said soothingly. He saw her focus on the television planted in the wall and added quickly, "They didn't do that. That's just Chiun's idea of interior decorating."

  "Tell us what happened," Chiun said. Again, his interest triggered Remo's suspicions.

  Fabienne downed the rest of her drink. A lone tear trickled down her cheek. "Oh, I'm so sorry you had to be involved. Both of you."

  "Perhaps we are involved more than you think," Chiun said. "Tell us what you can. Without tears, please."

  "He came for me after Remo left," she said. "I was asleep. He got on top of me and tried to strangle me." She touched the bruises on her neck with a wince of pain. "There was nothing near my bed except for a candle, but it was all I had. I got hold of it somehow and poked him in the eye, I think. He jumped, and I managed to squirm away. It was horrible." She slapped both hands over her eyes, as though trying to erase the memory.

  "Go on," Remo said gently.

  "I got out of the house and ran down the back roads to the shore. He followed me. He was very close. He would have got me for certain if the clouds hadn't come in so quickly. When the moon disappeared, it became dark very suddenly. I backtracked toward the woods, and I heard him stop behind me. I think he became confused when he couldn't see me. So I crouched down behind a rock and listened. He was moving slowly, listening for me, too. Then I saw some stones nearby. I picked up a few of them and threw them into the woods. He followed them, merci à Dieu."

  "And you came here."

  "Not directly. He would have heard me. Instead, I crawled as quietly as I could back to the beach and got in the water. It was totally dark by then. I don't think he saw me, but I went out as far as I dared, just to be sure. Sharks come to these waters at night. I was frightened that one would come after me, but I couldn't risk getting back onto land. I knew he would be looking for me there, waiting. I swam to about a kilometer from here, and ran the rest of the way."

  Remo made a face. "What I can't figure out is, why would this person— whoever he is— want to kill you?"

  She looked at him, her mouth turned downward in bitter irony. "Oh, didn't I tell you? I know who he is. The mute. The Dutchman's servant."

  Remo and Chiun exchanged a glance. "Perhaps you would like to rest," Chiun said. "We have time for these matters tomorrow."

  She nodded. "I suppose you're right. Thank you."

  Remo led her to his bedroom. He came back in a few minutes to find Chiun lost in thought in front of the broken window.

  "I'll be right back," Remo said. "I still have to get rid of one of the guys you sent to Happy Land."

  "Take me to the body," Chiun said.

  Near the shore, Remo picked up the man in corduroys by the armpits. "I've been taking them over to that cliff and tossing them in," he said, nodding toward the darkness. "The water's pretty deep there—"

  "Break his arm," Chiun said.

  "What?"

  "Break his arm. The forearm."

  Remo dropped the body with a sigh. "Now, isn't this going a little far? I mean, maybe they did break your T.V., but the poor sucker's already dead..."

  "Arguments, always arguments," Chiun snapped. "Is it always so difficult for you to fulfill the simplest request? Do you find it so impossible..."

  The arm broke with a snap.

  "Ah," Chiun said. "A little respect, at last." He picked up the dead man's arm and examined the break with his fingers. "Is this your best attack?" he asked crisply.

  Remo rolled his eyes. "Want me to go down to the morgue and practice?"

  "Break the other arm."

  "Aw, come on."

  "Do as I say."

  Remo picked up the other arm reluctantly. "I feel like a ghoul."

  Chiun glared at him, the hazel eyes glinting threateningly in the darkness.

  He broke the second arm with a quick chop. Chiun fluttered over to feel the break. Amid a series of muttered "hmmms" and "ahs," he bounced from one side of the body to the other, scrutinizing the new breaks. "Just as I thought," he declared finally. He dismissed Remo with a wave of his hand. "You may dispose of this carrion now."

  "Wait just a freaking minute. Now that I've broken both arms of a corpse, would you mind telling me what is just as you thought?"

  Chiun sputtered. "I'm sorry, Remo. I try but you just have no brains. Any idiot could see why I asked you to break his arms."

  "Not any idiot," Remo said hotly.

  "To see if your elbow was bent," Chiun shrieked.

  Remo stepped back, dumbstruck. Chiun turned gracefully back toward the villa.

  "Was it?" Remo asked so softly, he could barely hear it himself.

  Chiun cackled from afar. "Yes, of course. Your elbow is always bent." He hooted with delight. He was going to sleep well tonight, very well indeed. He had the proof he needed now. Emperor Smith was a white fool to think that Remo could have killed the men in the photograph
s he carried. Now Chiun could confirm Remo's innocence. Smith could compare the results of Remo's attack and see that they were different from those in the picture. The man who slew those unfortunates in the sunken truck did not bend his elbow when he worked. He did not make small mistakes. Only big ones.

  His biggest was to forward a letter that should have remained locked in the tomb of the past.

  In his room, Chiun rolled out his tatami sleeping mat and prepared for deep rest. He would need it, for tomorrow he would do battle with a ghost.

  A ghost more deadly and evil than any man.

  ?Seven

  Mrs. Hank Cobb gave her husband's arm a squeeze as they strolled in the brisk morning air on the second-class deck of the Coppelia. On the island a half-mile away, graceful palms waved good-bye while the ship's mighty foghorn sounded. As usual when leaving port, Mrs. Cobb cried.

  "There, there," her husband said, patting her hand paternally, even though his lips betrayed a smile of pleasure and pride. "Not a bad second honeymoon, wouldn't you say, Emily?"

  Emily Cobb gently kissed the white-haired, stoop-shouldered man at her side. "Second? I didn't know the first one was over," she said, causing the man she had lived with for twenty-five years to blush like a schoolboy. Together they stood on deck, waving back to the silent palms, their new Sony Trinitron and Swedish Valpox stereo safely crated below.

  Near the ship, something bobbed momentarily to the surface before being engulfed again by the waves. "What's that?" Mrs. Cobb asked, pointing to the object.

  "A log, I think, or a broken telephone pole," Mr. Cobb answered thoughtfully. "Then again, it couldn't be a telephone pole. I haven't seen any of those here. Come to think of it, I haven't seen any trees that big around in the whole darned Caribbean, have you?"

  Mrs. Cobb felt an uneasy wobbling in her stomach. "It... it doesn't really look like a tree," she said hesitantly.