"Mr. Chiun to see you, Don," the receptionist called over her shoulder so loudly the Master of Sinanju winced with the gracelessness of it all.
"Send him in," a pleasantly grumpy voice called from an open office.
Head erect, Chiun floated into the room. He bowed to the young man who sat at a corner desk. He looked like a koala bear that had been rolled in brown sugar. Chiun saw that the illusion was helped by noticeable beard stubble. He suddenly noticed the walls. They were covered with posters of famous people. Nearly nude women wrestlers predominated. Chiun averted his eyes from the wanton display.
"Sit down, sit down," the man said diffidently.
"You are Donald McDavid, the famous editor?" Chiun inquired.
"And you must be Chiun. Happy to meet you."
"Chiun, the author," Chiun corrected with a finger.
"Milburn gave me your clips this morning. I've been looking them over. Very interesting."
"You like them?"
"The pictures are nice," Donald McDavid said.
"Pictures?" Chiun asked, wondering if he should have introduced himself as Chiun the author and artist.
He accepted a manila folder filled with magazine clippings. The photographs showed scenes from American films. The copy, however, appeared to be excerpts from a Korean personal-hygiene manual. Was Smith mad? Insulting him with such tripe?
"You do write in English, don't you?" McDavid asked as a curly-haired young man came in with a tray containing a Dr. Pepper and a mug of black coffee.
"Of course," Chiun said.
"Good, because I can't read Chinese, and neither can our readers. They're fussy about stuff like that. We'd get letters."
"This is Korean," Chiun told McDavid as he sipped his coffee experimentally. He fingered an ice cube from his Dr Pepper and plopped it into the coffee. He let both sit.
"I can't read Korean either," he said dryly.
Chiun relaxed. It was amazing. This white was nearly illiterate, yet he edited important magazines. Chiun made a mental note to take the folder with him. He would not have his reputation as a poet sullied by Smith's nonsense.
"Well, I can't tell a thing from these clips, but that's your byline on them, and Milburn says you come highly recommended. So you're hired."
"In my field, I am the best," Chiun assured him. "I've spoken with the publicity people on Red Christmas. They're not real high on letting anyone on set so early. But Bronzini overruled them. So you're in. I've put together some assignment sheets. We'll want an interview with Bronzini, as well as a set-visit piece, a director's profile, and whatever else you can get. See who's on the set when you get there. Talk to them. We'll sort it out when you get back."
Chiun leafed through the assignment sheets. His eyes narrowed when he saw the payment rates.
"Do you publish poetry?" he asked suddenly.
"No one publishes poetry anymore."
"I do not speak of common American poetry, but the finest Korean poetry. Ung."
"God bless you."
Chiun's face expressed indignation. "Ung is its name," he said. "I have recently been composing an ode to the melting snowcap on Mount Paektusan. That is a Korean mountain. It is currently 6,089 stanzas long."
"Six thousand stanzas! At a dollar a word, it will eat up half the yearly budget on one of our magazines."
"Yes," Chiun said hopefully.
"Sorry. We don't publish poetry." McDavid indicated a corkboard on the wall over his desk.
Chiun peered up at it. Rows of cover proofs hung from hooks. The latest Star File cover showed a halfnude white female draped over a spaceship. Beside it was a magazine called Fantasmagoria. A man in a driedskin mask was butchering a young woman on that cover. It looked very real, and Chiun wondered if it was for cannibals. Beside that was something called Gorehound, which Chiun took to be aimed at pit bulls. Or possibly their owners. And next to that was Stellar Action Heroes. "Do people read these?" Chiun sniffed.
"Most just look at the pictures. That reminds me. I'd better give you a few issues so you know our house style. Write in the present tense. Lots of quotes."
Chiun accepted a stack of magazines. He surreptitiously slipped Smith's folder of spurious clippings into the stack.
"I will give these my undivided attention," Chiun promised.
"Fine," said Donald McDavid, reaching for his coffee. He took a sip.
"Ugh. It's cold," he said. He tried the Dr Pepper and pronounced it flat.
Leaning back in his chair, Donald McDavid called through the door, "Eddie, can you get me a milk?"
"Milk is bad for you," Chiun pointed out. "It suffocates the blood vessels."
"I'm working on my first heart attack," Donald MeDavid said. "One last thing. We buy all rights."
"That is your privilege," said Chiun, adding, "My right to vote is yours for a dollar a word."
Donald McDavid burst out laughing as he accepted a glass of milk from his assistant. He sipped it experimentally, made a face, and reached for a salt shaker that stood beside the telephone. As Chiun watched in horror, he salted his milk and drained it down without stopping.
"I'll want your first copy on my desk in two weeks," he said, wiping milk from a nearly invisible mustache.
"In case you are not here then, who is your next of kin?" Chiun asked.
Outside the building, Chiun hailed a taxi. The driver took him to LaGuardia Airport. At his terminal, Chiun counted out the fare in coins.
"What, no tip?" the driver barked.
"Thank you for reminding me," Chiun said. He handed the driver a stack of magazines.
"Gorehound!" the driver called after him. "What the hell am I supposed to do with these?"
"Study them. Learn from them. Perhaps you too may rise to the exalted station where a dollar a word is your lot in life."
Chapter 9
Jiro Isuzu was very, very apologetic.
"So very sorry," he said. He bowed from the waist, his eyes downcast. The wind was picking up, blowing loose desert sand into his dry mask of a face. Remo wondered if his downcast eyes reflected humility or the need to protect them from the abrasive sand. They stood in the shelter of the base-camp tents.
"They acted like they plumb owned the road," Sheryl shouted.
"Japanese extra not speak Engrish," Isuzu said. "I wirr reprimand them in crear terms."
"So what about my car?" Sheryl asked sternly. "Studio wirr reimburse. You may have car of choice. If you wirr accept a Nishitsu wagon, we will throw in furr option package."
"All right," Sheryl said in a half-mollified voice. "But I don't want one of your Ninjas. I hear they tip whenever the wind changes direction."
"Excerrent. And I am again sorry for your inconvenience. Now, if you prease, there is a problem for you to dear with. A correspondent from Star Fire magazine is on way. I did not want press, but Bronzini san insist. Stuck. You take care of this man, okay?"
"Good. I'd like to do something other than the daily Fedex run."
"Shooting schedule moved up, by the way. Camera rorr tomorrow."
"Tomorrow is two days before Christmas. This isn't going to sit well with the crew."
"You forget, crew Japanese. Not care about Christmas. If American crew unhappy, they may find work ersewhere. Firming begin tomorrow."
At that, Jiro Isuzu walked off. His spine didn't waver a millimeter from the vertical.
"What American crew?" Sheryl muttered. "There's Bronzini, the military technical adviser, the stunt coordinator, and little old me." She sighed. "Well," she said to Remo, "now you've met Jiro. Quite a piece of work, isn't he?"
"Nishitsu makes cars?" Remo asked blankly.
"They make everything. And they act like they hung the moon and optioned the sun. Well, I guess I've got a reporter to contend with. See you around the set."
"Where do I find the . . ." Remo looked into his folder. ". . . stunt coordinator?"
"You got me," Sheryl said, starting for one of the striped tents. "Find an A. D. with a
walkie-talkie and ask for Sunny Joe."
Remo looked around. The tents had been set up in a shallow arroyo created by bulldozers. One was still throwing up sand to form bulkwarks against the wind. Men rushed in all directions, like ants. Every one of them was Japanese.
Remo collared one with a walkie-talkie.
"Help me out, pal," he said. "I'm looking for Sunny Joe."
"Sony Joe?"
"Close enough."
The man touched the walkie-talkie clipped to a nickelcadmium belt battery pack and began speaking in rapid guttural Japanese into the microphone suspended before his mouth. He listened to his earphones. The only thing Remo understood was the name "Sony Joe." Finally the man pointed north.
"Sony Joe that way. Okay?"
"Thanks. What does he look like?"
The Japanese shook his head curtly. "No Engrish speakuu. Okay?" Remo took that to mean he didn't speak English.
Remo trudged off in the direction indicated. He peeked into his folder and learned that an A. D. was an assistant director. He wondered how someone could be an assistant director on an English-language film and not speak English.
As he walked along, he kept his eyes open for Bartholomew Bronzini. There was no sign of the world-famous actor. Remo was also surprised to see no cacti. This was scrub desert. Just sand and the occasional dry bush. He looked back and noticed that he wasn't leaving footprints. He decided that someone might notice, so he began walking on the balls of his feet. That way, he left the same impression as a twelve-year-old boy.
Remo climbed a sandhill and was surprised to see a vast panorama of tanks and armored personnel carriers arrayed in a flat area entirely surrounded by fresh sandhills. Men in Chinese military uniforms were wiping down the machines, which had already picked up a dusting of beige sand.
Remo decided that the group of uniformed men who were practicing falls from a nearby hill were stunt men. One of them had to be the one he wanted.
As he approached, Remo saw, behind a flat rock, a man aiming a rifle. The man was white, with a weathered face and sun-squint eyes. He pulled the trigger.
Suddenly one of the Japanese extras clutched his chest. Red fluid gushed from between his fingers. Remo floated to the base of the sandhill and floated around it. He slipped up behind the man just as he squeezed off a second shot.
Remo took him by the back of the neck. He tried to bring him to his feet, but found his arms were only long enough to bring him up to eye level. The man topped him by three heads.
"Give me that," Remo growled, grabbing the weapon. It looked homemade, like an antique.
"What's your problem, friend?" the man demanded.
"I saw you shoot that man."
"Good for you. Now, if you'll give it back, I'll go shoot a few more."
"This isn't how we settle union disputes in America."
"Union! You don't think. . ." The man started laughing. "Oh, this is rich," he burst out.
"What's so funny?" Remo asked. He let the man drop and broke open the weapon. It had a stainless-steel drum magazine on top. Instead of bullets, it contained glass marblelike objects. They sloshed with reddish liquid.
"You are. You think I really shot that guy. That's an air gun."
"A BB rifle can kill if you hit a soft spot," Remo said, lifting out one of the marbles for a closer look.
"Be careful with that. The prop master will have my hide if you break it. That thing is handcrafted. Only sixteen like it in the world."
One of the Japanese extras came down the sandhill. "Sunny Joe. Why you stop?" he called. Remo saw the splash of red that marred his blouse front.
"Wait a minute," Remo blurted out. "You're Sunny Joe?"
"That's what they call me. So who are you?"
"Remo. "
The man called Sunny Joe seemed startled by the name.
"What's your last name?" he asked.
"Durock," Remo said after a pause.
Sunny Joe looked disappointed with Remo's answer. That expression gave way to an annoyed one.
"How the hell long you been in this business, son?" he barked. "Not to know an air gun when you see one?"
"Sorry," Remo said. "With all the union troubles, I guess I jumped to a conclusion."
"No harm done, I guess," Sunny Joe relented. He searched Remo's face as if looking for his soul. "And I can use a paleface. Half these damn Japs can't speak English. Come on. We're doing practice bullet hits. Let's see what kind of moves you got."
Remo followed the man up the sandhill.
"The thing you gotta remember, Remo," he was saying, "is that Bronzini likes to be as realistic as possible. You stand right here. I'll drop back and pop you one. When you take the hit, don't fall, corkscrew. Pretend you're being hit by a sledgehammer, not a bullet. We want real impact up on that screen."
Remo shrugged as Sunny Joe loped back to his shelter. He was a tall man, Remo saw. Nearly seven feet tall, and while he looked imposing, Remo noticed that he had lanky limbs. He was sixty if he was a day, but he moved like a man ten years younger.
Sunny Joe dropped into a crouch and took aim. The gun coughed. Remo's acute vision perceived the red sphere zip toward him. He set his feet.
But Remo had been trained for years to move out of the way of bullets. Even harmless ones. Reflexively he sidestepped the bullet. To cover himself, he twisted and hit the sand. He looked up.
Sunny Joe lumbered up to him, anger on his face. "What the hell happened?" he bellowed.
"I corkscrewed."
"You corkscrewed before the round struck. I didn't see the blood splatter. What's the matter with you? Bucking for an Oscar?"
"Sorry," Remo said, brushing sand off his clothes. "Try again?"
"Right. This time, wait for the round."
As they returned to their marks, a trio of helicopters clattered overhead. Their noise filled the valley floor like jangling scrap metal.
"Damn," Sunny Joe muttered. "They're gonna be doing that all through production. Choppers from the Marine Air Station, I'll bet. Joyboys with nothing better to do than overfly the shoot. They're probably asking themselves which tiny speck is Bronzini. Damn fools."
"They'll get tired of it sooner or later," Remo ventured.
"Sure, they will. But that's just the Mariues. There's an Army proving ground a few miles north, and ol' Luke Air Force Range is due east of here. We'll have F-16's up the wazoo from now till Valentine's Day."
"You don't sound like you enjoy your work much."
"Work, hell, I was retired until the Japs came along. I'm over sixty, man. This industry feeds off youth, even in the stunt profession. I came back to the reservation to wither away, so to speak. Then Bronzini came along and asked to use this part of the reservation."
"This is Indian land?"
"Damn straight. Bronzini has been pulling strings everywhere to mount this production. Had everyone eating out of his hand. Until he slammed into the chief. The chief knew who he was, of course, but wouldn't let on. He said part of the price of letting the reservation be used was my participation. I'm a proud man, but I got this business in my blood, so I said what the hell. I took it. Maybe it'll lead to something."
"You don't look Indian."
"Not many Indians look Indian anymore, if you want to know the truth of it."
"What tribe?"
"You never studied them in school, I'll tell you that much. We're practically extinct. My Indian name is Sunny Joe. It's kind of a tribal nickname, I guess you'd have to say. My legal name's Bill Roam. But call me Sunny Joe. Everyone does. That's Sunny with a U, not an O. Okay, get on your mark."
Remo took his position. This time, when the pellet gun coughed, he closed his eyes. The bullet took him square in the chest. He twisted, fell, and rolled.
"Better," Sunny Joe called out to him. "Now, one of you others give it a try."
None of the Japanese on the sandhill moved.
Sunny Joe got up from his marksman's crouch and tried to make his desires known with sign
language. Finally he took one of the Japanese by the scruff of the neck and marched him to the mark.
Remo thought the Japanese extra was going to punch Sunny Joe in the stomach. He didn't look happy to be manhandled. Remo decided that he was just touchy.
He settled back to watch, thinking that he had a lot to learn if he was going to pass as a stunt professional. Bartholomew Bronzini was surprised to see that the usual IATSE protesters were not picketing the entrance gate to the Indian-reservation location site. He wondered if it had anything to do with the upended tank and the crushed station wagon.
He horsed his Harley around the wreckage and raced up the winding road to the base camp. He didn't bother stopping in front of the production tent. He slammed the Harley through the flap and crashed into a table.
Bronzini leapt free of the bike before it slid into the tent wall. The candy-striped fabric tore with a shivery rip. But no one noticed that, least of all Jiro Isuzu.
Isuzu found himself staring into the wrathful Neapolitan visage of Bartholomew Bronzini, the Bronze Bambino. And there was nothing baby-faced about him today.
"What the hell is going on?" Bronzini thundered.
"Prease to speak in respectfur tone," Jiro said. "I am producer. "
"You're the fucking line producer," Bronzini snarled. "I want to speak to the executive producer."
"That Mr. Nishitsu. Not possible to speak to him. In Tokyo. "
"They don't have phones in Tokyo? Or doesn't he speak English either?"
"Mr. Nishitsu in secrusion. Not a young man. He visit set once camera rorr. You wirr meet him then."
"Yeah? Well, you deliver him a message for me."
"Gradry. What is message?"
"I don't like being conned."
"Not know that word."
"Lied to. You understand 'lie'?"
"Prease to exprain," Jiro Isuzu said stiffly. Bronzini noticed he was not backing down. Bronzini respected that. He lowered his voice, although still angry.
"I was just on the phone to Kurosawa."
"That is breach of protocor. You not directing this firm. "
"Here's a flash, Jiro, baby." Bronzini sneered. "Neither is Kurosawa. In fact, he never heard of Red Christmas. Not only that, but he sounded pretty fucking vague about the concept of Christmas all by itself."
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