Sweetman took the other cyclists off their wheels with a nice crack.
"Home run," said Remo, but Chiun refused to look. Sweetman's helmet went skittering across the gutter. One cyclist lay flattened, the other rose groggily to his knees. One cycle dizzily circled the street and ended in an abandoned doorway. The other tumbled and stopped nearby, its gas tank spilling fumes and dark liquid in the gutter. Remo saw his human bat had a wild Afro, a cone twice the size of the helmet.
"Hi," said Remo, looking down at the Afro. "My name is Remo. What's yours?"
"Mufu," said Sweetman.
"Mufu, who sent you?"
"No one send me, man. Get yo mufu hands off'n me. Ah rack yo ass."
"Let's play school," said Remo. "I ask you a question, and you give me a positive answer with a sweet cheerful smile. All righty?"
"Mufu."
Remo walked the cyclist upside down to the spilling gas tank, where he dipped the Afro into the liquid, sloshing the head around. Then he walked his charge back to the cyclist getting to his feet.
"Got a light?" said Remo.
He saw a switchblade knife come out of the jacket and with his toe lacked it away.
"Three points," said Remo, who was in a scoring mood. "Field goal." And with the same foot coming back on its heel, he shattered an ear drum. "That's for not listening," said Remo. "I want a light."
"Don't give da man no match. My fro's been gaso-lined."
"Fu yu mufu," said the cyclist with the bleeding ear.
"You talking to me?" said Remo.
"No, to de nigger, Sweetman," said the cyclist, and he struck a match.
Remo lifted Sweetman higher. The hair caught like a torch, burning up to the eyebrows.
"Who sent you?" asked Remo.
"A as in apple, B as in boy, C as in cat," cried Sweetman.
"What's he talking about?" asked Remo.
"School. He learning de alphabet to get his degree from de teacher's college. He din wan take no easy course like Afro studies. You don't have to count fo that. Or spell or know de alphabet."
"Arghhh," cried Sweetman as his brain stopped working. Which was just as well. He had never gotten past F as in fly, even in his senior year in high school.
Remo dropped the legs.
"And you, my friend, who sent you?"
"No one send us. We do it for fun."
"You mean you'd kill somebody and not get paid for it?"
"We just funning."
"Your funning interfered with my conversation. Do you know that?"
"Ah sorry."
"Sorry isn't enough. You don't go interfering with people's conversations in the middle of the street. It's not nice."
"Ah be nice."
"See that you do. Get your friends out of here."
"They dead."
"Well, bury them or something," said Remo, and he stepped over the charred head of the writhing body and joined Chiun on the sidewalk.
"Sloppy," said Chiun.
"I was in the street. I worked with what I had."
"Sloppy, careless, and messy."
"I just wanted to be sure they weren't part of the Divine Bliss Mission."
"Of course. Play in the streets. Visit holy houses. Anything but taking your benefactor to his home. Even your emperor orders it, but, no, you must play your games. And why, I asked myself, must someone to whom I have given so much, refuse me a simple visit to my birthplace. Why I asked myself. Why? Where have I gone wrong in his education? Is it possible that I am at fault?"
"I can't wait to hear the answer," said Remo. The door was heavy wood with a small glass circle in the center of it. Remo knocked.
"Was I at fault, I asked myself. And being scathingly honest, I came to the conclusion, that, no, everything I gave you was perfect and right. I had performed miracles with you. This I admitted to myself. Then why does my pupil still do improper things? Why does my pupil still deny me a simple little favor? In being harsh with myself, sparing no criticism, I was forced to the following conclusion. Remo, you are cruel. You have a cruel streak."
"You really know how to tear yourself down, Little Father," said Remo.
An eye appeared in the glass hole, and the door opened.
"Quickly, inside," said a young girl with a grace of freckles under her pink scarf. The scarf blended into a light, clear robe. A silver line was painted on her forehead. Chiun noted the silver line carefully, but said nothing.
"Quickly, the cyclists are out again."
"The guys in the jackets?" said Remo.
"Yes."
"You don't have to worry about them." Remo pointed to the last cyclist stacking his comrades against the curb.
"All praised be the Blissful Master. He has shown us the way. Come everyone, look at our deliverance." Faces crowded around the young girl, some with silver lines, some without. Chiun looked at every silver line.
"The Blissful Master will always show the way," the girl said. "Let the doubting hearts be stilled."
"The Blissful Master didn't do it. I did it," said Remo.
"You worked through his will. You were only the instrument. Praised be the Blissful Master. His truth is manifest. Oh, there were doubters when we bought this house. There were doubters who said this neighborhood was unsafe. But the Blissful Master said we should get an abode that fit our purse, mindless of where it was. And he was right. He was always right. He has always been right and will always be right."
"Can we come in?" asked Remo.
"Enter. You have been sent by the Blissful Master."
"I was thinking of joining you," said Remo. "I came to find what you're about. You have an arch-priest for this place, don't you?"
"I am the arch-priest of the San Diego Mission," came a voice from up a stairwell. "You are the men who made the street safe, correct?"
"Correct," said Remo.
"I will see you and make the way ready for you if you will but rise above your doubts."
"We will be starting an introductory lesson soon," said the girl.
"They will have a private introduction. They have earned it," said the voice.
"As you will it," said the girl, and she bowed.
Remo and Chiun climbed the stairs. A man whose face was a remnant of a losing fight against long-ago acne greeted them with a short bow. He too wore a pink robe. Remo could see his hair had been shaved from the front of his head. He wore sandals and smelled as if he had been dipped in incense.
"I am a priest. I have been to Patna, there to gaze with my own eyes upon perfection. There is perfection on earth, but the Western mind rebels against it. Your very act of coming here shows you recognize the rebellion within you. I ask a question: What happens in rebellion?"
Chiun did not answer; he was staring at the silver streak down the priest's forehead. Remo shrugged. "You got me," he said.
They followed the priest into a room that had a dome of pink plaster material. In the center of the dome hung a golden chain, and at the end of the chain was a four-sided picture of a fat-faced young Indian boy working on his first mustache.
Pillows were stacked against the corner. A deep-piled rug of intricate red and yellow designs covered the floor. The priest continued:
"What happens in rebellion is two parts, at least two parts set in opposition. They harm each other. Every person who does not believe he can be unified within himself, who fights against his passions, is in rebellion. Why do you think you have passions?"
"Because he is white like you," said Chiun. "Everyone knows whites can't control their passions and are invincibly cruel at heart, especially to their benefactors."
"All people have the same passions," said the pock-faced priest, sitting down beneath the picture of the fat-faced kid. "All men, but for one, are alike."
"River garbage," said Chiun. "White Western river garbage."
"Why do you come here, then?" asked the priest.
"I am here because I am here. That is the true unity before you now," said Chiun.
"Ah,"
said the priest. "You understand then."
"I understand the tides are favorable in the harbor of San Diego, but that it is very difficult to launch a submarine here on the second floor of this building."
"Talk to me," said Remo. "I'm the one who came to join."
"We are all made perfect," said the priest, "but we have been taught imperfection."
"If that were the case," said Chiun, "babies would be the wisest among us. Yet they are the most helpless among us."
"They are taught wrong things," said the priest.
"They are taught to survive. Some are taught better than others. They are not taught ignorance as you contend. And these passions you talk of as so holy are merely the basic thrusts of survival. A man taking a woman is survival of the group. A person eating is survival of the body. A person afraid is survival of the person. Passions are the first level of survival. The mind is the higher level. Discipline, properly pursued, brings together all rebellion into perfection. It is long, it is hard, and when doing it properly, learning it properly, man feels small and inadequate. That is how we grow. There has never been a shortcut to anything worthwhile." Thus spoke the Master of Sinanju, in truth, even as he looked at the silver marking.
Remo looked at Chiun and blinked. He had heard this before and had been taught it during many years. He knew it as well as he knew his being. What surprised him was that Chiun would bother explaining these things to a stranger.
"I see surprise upon your face," Chiun said to Remo. "I say these things for your benefit. Just so you do not forget."
"You must think I'm pretty dippy, Little Father."
"I know passage to Sinanju waits for us in the harbor, and we are sitting here with this." A graceful hand opened toward the priest, who sighed.
"Your way is the pain and inches and small costly victories over your own body," said the priest. "Mine is the immediate true enlightenment that even your own bodies will verify. We have three proofs first. One, the Blissful Master exists, therefore he is. He is reality. We do not ask you to accept anything that is not reality. Two, he, through his ancestors, has existed for many years. Therefore it is not just one of myriad passing realities. And, third, and finally, he grows. Like the infinite universe, we expand each day and each year. These then are the three proofs."
"They'd work just as well for air pollution," said Remo. Chiun was silent. There was no more need to banter words with the robed one.
"There is a pool of eternal and original force that your mind has been clouded from. This is because of your improper teachings. We simply, through the perfection of the Blissful Master, return you to that pool, show you the way to realize the truth about yourself. First. Close your eyes. Close them. Tightly. Good. You see little white lights. Those are the infinite lights in fragments. You have robbed yourself of the pure stream of life. I will give you the pure stream of life."
Remo felt fingertips press against his closed eyelids. He could feel the priest's heavy breathing above him. Smell the meat on his breath. Smell the sweat of his struggling body. The small globules of light that all people see when they close their eyes quickly and then look behind their eyelids, became a pure and relaxing line of light, unbroken and restful. It would have been very impressive, had not Chiun shown him something similar and more restful many years before, a simple exercise that was taught to children in Sinanju who were unable to nap properly.
"Wonderful," said Remo.
"Now that we have given you some power of release, we give you more. Say to yourself, 'my mind is at peace, my body is at rest.' Say it with me. My mind is at peace, my body is at rest. Feel yourself become one with the light. You are the light. You are pure. Everything that comes to you and from you is pure. You are good. You are good. Everything about you is good."
Remo heard very light footsteps enter the room. A soft linen quietly touched the carpeted floor. Another set of feet. More linen. Normal hearing would not have picked it up. The priest was setting them up for a surprise.
"Open your eyes," said the priest. "Open."
Two girls stood before them, naked, smiling. On the right, a mulatto, on the left a blonde, more blond on her head than elsewhere. Their only garments were silver lines painted down their foreheads.
"Americans," said Chiun. "Typical Americans."
"Do you think that is wrong? Do you think the body is wrong?"
"For Americans it is just fine," said Chiun. "How grateful I am that you have not infected Korea with your ways."
"Biggest whores in the world come from Korea, Little Father. You told me that yourself."
"From Pyongyang and Seoul. Not from decent places like Sinanju."
"Whore is a word that pollutes a thing that is good," said the priest. He clapped his hands and the two girls walked before Remo and Chiun. They lowered themselves to their knees. The blonde slipped off Remo's loafers. The mulatto tried to get beneath Chiun's robes, but the longer fingernails were always where her fingers were, darting to the palms of her hands, touching her fingertips, and pushing so that in face-twisted frustration she was forced to withdraw her hands and shake them out.
"They feel as if they've been in an ant's nest," she said.
"It is all right," said the priest. "Some cannot be helped. It happens to the old…"
Chiun looked around the room confused. Where was the old person this priest talked of?
The blonde took off Remo's socks and kissed the soles of his feet.
"Is that bad?" asked the priest. "Have you been taught that that is evil?"
The blonde brought her body closer to the feet and rubbed her breasts against Remo's soles. He could feel her getting excited. With his toes, he unexcited her, and with a squeak, she blinked out of her passion.
"Perhaps you prefer boys," said the priest.
"Girls are fine. I just don't have all that much time. I wish to join."
"Even before the body enlightenment?"
"Yeah."
"There are forms, you know. We provide you all your wealth and sustenance. You no longer have to worry about where your next meal will come from or what you have to eat. We provide all. In return, you must divest yourself of all your worldly goods."
"I'm wearing my worldly goods," said Remo.
"He has what you can never have," Chiun said to the priest. "What you can never take from him. The only true possession that lasts. What he knows in his mind and his body. And being unable to understand what he understands, you can never take it from him."
"Ah, so you think I'm pretty good, Little Father," said Remo.
"I am thinking you are not so low as this rut-faced pig's ear."
"Invincibly ignorant," said the priest to Remo. "I'm afraid your father, he is your father, isn't he, you call him father, I'm afraid there is nothing I can do for him."
"The worm never helps the eagle," said Chiun.
"I am but a new priest. We have priests who would, with their hands, turn you into molasses so that you would beg for mercy. They come from the Vindhya Mountains."
"Do they have the silver mark on their heads, like you and the girls?" asked Chiun.
"Yes. That is the mark of honor among the followers of the Blissful Master who have been to Patna. And those priests are most fearsome. They would teach you the error of your ways."
"When did they leave the mountains?" asked Chiun.
"When the grandfather of the Blissful Master told them to come. It was another proof of his perfection, his coming and his truth."
"They just left those mountains as free as you please?" asked Chiun.
"With singing hearts."
"Without even a caution?" asked Chiun.
"With praise for the Blissful Master."
"Just because he said they could leave, they just walked down into the valley? Into Patna? Out in the open?"
"Yes."
"Who is your Blissful Master that he would tell anyone they could go anywhere they wish? Who is he? How dare he?"
"He is perfection
."
"You are faulty of mind and face," said Chiun. "Bad news he has given us, Remo. Bad news."
"What is it, Little Father?"
"I will tell you later. First settle your business with this roach. Ah, it is sad. An assassin's work is never done."
Remo talked to the priest. As a recent convert to the wisdom of the Blissful Master, Remo explained he had come to hear the truth. And since priests always told the truth, Remo wanted to know the truth about the upcoming event. The big one.
"Ah, the big one. It will be the biggest," said the priest. He clapped his hands, and the girls put on their robes and left, the blonde casting a betrayed look at Remo.
"I saw what you did in the street out there to the gang of toughs," said the priest. "Even if you have no wealth, we can use your services. We have many people who just give services. We have them in high and important places. We have them in the middle ages and the young ages. You would be surprised to learn who is with us."
"Try me," said Remo.
"That is secret."
"No, it's not," said Remo, and he was proven right for with a face squinting in pain, the priest told of all the important people he knew who belonged secretly to the Blissful Master, and Remo remembered every name. There were others too, the priest said, but he did not know their names. Honest and don't hurt me anymore, I don't know their names, he told Remo. Nor did he know the exact nature of the big event about to happen, but the Blissful Master was coming to Kezar Stadium in San Francisco.
Remo said he thought he might have been too harsh. He was going to be reasonable. He would reason with the priest.
"If you don't tell me exactly what's going to happen at that stadium, I'm reasonably going to separate your head from your shoulders."
"I don't know. I don't know. I swear to God, I don't know."
"Which God?"
"The real one."
Chiun stepped between them, and with hands moving like the flutter of butterflies, dispatched the priest on the neck.
"He does not know. Do not waste your time. We have work to do."
"You didn't let me finish with him. I told you we'd go to Sinanju afterward. I have my job to do also."
"We are not going to Sinanju. That is the sad news. I have other work to do. Older work. Indians have memories like sieves. In four hundred years, they forget everything. Everything. We must delay our return to Sinanju, jewel of the West Korean Bay, pearl of cities, vessel of beauty."
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