High Priestess td-95

by Warren Murphy

  "I'm that way about showers ever since Psycho."

  Kula muttered, "I do not understand much of her words, therefore she is very wise."

  "No doubt her guru was a very wise man," suggested Chiun in a bland voice.

  No one challenged this statement. Least of all Remo.

  As the program wound down, the Most Holy Lobsang Drom Rinpoche remained unconvinced.

  "That is not the Bunji Lama," he said bitterly.

  "Do you distrust what your lazy eyes have seen, Priest?" Kula demanded. "Or what your ears have heard? It is the incarnation, the tulku, the Light That is Coming, himself."

  "Herself," Remo inserted.

  "Is her hair not flame?" Kula went on. "Does she not speak of many past lives?"

  Lobsang Drom hardened his eyes. "I refuse to accept this."

  "But we must go to the Bunji Lama and prove it or disprove it ourselves. The Master of Sinanju would not lie."

  Chiun cast a warning glance in Remo's direction, then came to his feet like a pillar of blue smoke.

  "There is one who can convince you," he said firmly.

  "How?" said Lobsang.

  "The old Bunji Lama. We will consult him."

  All eyes went to the closed steamer trunk, including Remo's.

  Chiun waved toward it, saying, "Remo, you will have the honor of opening the trunk."

  "Pass," said Remo, making a face.

  They looked at him as if he had spoken a filthy word.

  "It is a great honor," Chiun chided.

  "All right, all right." Remo walked over to the trunk. It was not locked. The brass clasps opened easily enough. Remo forced the two halves apart and stepped back from what was revealed with sudden haste.

  It was not the sight of the thing in the trunk that caused him to step back. It was the smell. The interior of the trunk was lined with salt to retard decomposition and hold the odor of decay inside.

  For the trunk contained a mummy. Seated in a lotus position, hands cupped in a lap that was covered by a faded and moth-eaten robe of gold, the Bunji Lama wore lichens and mold where his face should be. His eyes were black pits, and his teeth were exposed between lips that had long ago dried and withered. In his hands lay a bronze object that might have been a very ornate dumbbell.

  "Looks like a midget," Remo said.

  "The Bunji Lama was not yet fifteen when he dropped that body."

  Remo made a face. "Don't you people believe in a proper burial?"

  Lobsang Drom said, "When a Tibetan dies, he is given sky burial. The ragyabas take the corpse to a proper place, and after its bones have been picked clean by vultures, they are interred."

  "Must save a lot of space down at the of boneyard," Remo said dryly. "Not to mention entertaining the kiddies."

  Lobsang Drom regarded him thinly. "How do you bury your dead?"

  "They go into a wood box, and that goes into the ground."

  "Your barley must taste like corpses," said Lobsang Drom.

  Remo looked blank.

  Kula said, "The Bunji Lama always sits in state until his next body is discovered, with his face turned to the south, which is the direction of long life. This is a form of respect for the old body, and there have been times when the old body will help point the way to the new."

  "It is said that the body of the previous Dalai Lama turned his dead face to the northeast after he had been in state for ten days," offered Lobsang. "And it was to the northeast that the new Dalai Lama was discovered."

  "Imagine that," said Remo.

  "We will ask the Bunji Lama if the oracle has truly revealed his present body," announced Chiun.

  The others came to their feet. Remo watched carefully.

  Lobsang Drom faced the mummified remains of the forty-sixth Bunji Lama and said, "O, Light That Was. If the oracle reveals to us the Light That is Coming, as the Master of Sinanju has said, give us a sign, Thrice-Blessed One."

  The old Bunji Lama sat mutely, the shifting colored light from the TV set making shadows crawl in his hollow eye sockets.

  From the TV came the voice of Squirrelly Chicane, "My guru told me that I have a better chance of discovering my true mission in life after I turn sixty."

  "Why is that, child?" asked Poopi Silverfish.

  "Because sixty is the age when a woman becomes a crone."

  "You mean like a witch?"

  "That's just superstition. Throughout history the crone has been a symbol of female wisdom. Upon my sixtieth birthday, I will become wise."

  "Honey," laughed Poopi, "if you look as good then as you do now, they're going to have to put a whole new picture next to the word 'crone' in the dictionaries!"

  And covered by the laughter emanating from the TV, the Master of Sinanju surreptitiously swept a hand into the black steamer trunk and swept it out again.

  The head of the Bunji Lama toppled off his dried stalk of a neck and rolled across the floor to come to a rest under the television set just as Poopi Silverfish said, "Squirrelly Chicane! Girl, I do believe you're gonna find your mission in life."

  "Hark well," cried the Master of Sinanju, "the Bunji Lama has spoken."

  "The Bunji Lama on the screen or the Bunji Lama whose head is on the floor?" asked Remo.

  "Both," cried Chiun. "By rolling his head on the floor, the last Bunji Lama has revealed the long-hidden truth to the incredulous."

  "Incredulous is right," said Remo.

  Quivering from head to toe, Lobsang Drom faced Chiun, bowed once deeply and said, "Master of Sinanju, I should never have doubted you."

  And the Master of Sinanju bowed back, the better to conceal his beaming face of triumph. Tibetans were so gullible.

  "This is a great scam," Kula said reverently, brushing at a tear. "Perhaps the greatest of my life."

  "No argument there," muttered Remo.

  Chapter 6

  The next morning Remo Williams awoke with the sun. He rolled off his sleeping mat, stretched his limbs and went to his walk-in clothes closet. The T-shirts were up on wooden hangers on one side, and his pants on the other. They all looked brand-new, which they were. When one of his T-shirts got dirty, Remo threw it away-if it was a white one. If it was black, he might save it for a rainy day. He only wore black or white T shirts. Plain. No dippy sayings or decorations.

  His pants occupied the other half of the walk-in closet. Remo wore chinos almost exclusively with a preference for tan, gray or black, although the black ones tended to pick up lint and therefore, unlike the black T-shirts, were usually thrown out after a day's use.

  Remo selected a white T-shirt and a fresh pair of black chinos. Remembering that before he had turned in for the night, Chiun had announced that they would seek out the living Bunji Lama on the morrow, he switched to a black T-shirt and gray chinos. No telling when they'd be back, and Remo didn't feel like packing for what might turn out to be only a day trip.

  Clothes on his arm, he walked across the hall to his private bathroom. From behind the closed door came the sound of someone moving around.

  Remo knocked and asked, "Who's in there?"

  A boisterous voice cried, "It is I-Kula!"

  "Water warm enough for you?"

  "It is wonderfully cold."

  "You shower cold?"

  "I was speaking of the well water. It is very cold and sweet when one plunges one's face in it."

  "For an extra thrill, pull the silver handle," said Remo, annoyed that his private bathroom had been usurped. Still, there were sixteen units and each had a bathroom. Finding an unoccupied shower wouldn't be hard.

  Scraping sounds came from the next bathroom. The door was open and Remo peered in.

  Inside, the Most Holy Lobsang Drom Rinpoche was seated beside the bathtub, stark naked, using one of Remo's spare toothbrushes to abrade caked dirt off the skull and shoulders of the dead Bunji Lama.

  "What the hell are you doing?"

  Lobsang Drom stuck out his tongue at Remo in greeting and said, "I am making the old Bunji Lama pres
entable so that he may meet the new."

  "After you're done, don't forget to clean the tub."

  The Tibetan. looked injured. "You are the servant here, not me."

  "Fine. I'll clean the tub if you agree to bathe."

  "I will bathe when the proper time comes."

  "When will that be?"

  "When the new Bunji Lama sits on the Lion Throne. For I took a vow that I would not bathe until that glorious day arrives."

  "You took a vow of nonbathing?"

  "Yes. What do devout Christians do?"

  "Oh, the usual. Mass. Fasting. Celibacy. Bingo."

  "I too have taken a vow of celibacy."

  "When you stop bathing, celibacy stops being optional," said Remo, moving on to the next bathroom.

  From the downstairs kitchen came the sound of Chiun puttering around, and Remo decided his shower could wait. On the way down the stairs he climbed into his clothes.

  The Master of Sinanju did not turn at his approach. Instead, he sniffed the air, wearing a disagreeable expression on his parchment countenance.

  "I see you have not showered this morning," he said in an arid tone.

  "So call me a filthy Tibetan."

  "You are worse than an unbathed Tibetan. You are insolent. I can stand the way you reek, but not your braying."

  "Look, these people are your friends. How can you con them with this Bunji Lama mumbo jumbo?"

  Chiun whirled. "Remo! How can you ask a question like that of me? The one who raised you up from the muck of this backward white land and made you into what no white has ever been?"

  "I meant no disrespect, Little Father-"

  "I do what I must do so that the babies of my humble village are properly fed and want for nothing. If my emperor tells me that an enemy of his waxes great in strength and must be dispatched, do I ask if this enemy truly deserves death? No. I go to the place where he dwells and although it is an unpleasant thing, I do this. For it is the obligation I took upon my frail shoulders when I assumed full Masterhood, as you one day must do. For if we fail in our obligation, no more gold will go to the barren shores of Sinanju, and the people, who cannot fish because the waters of the bay are too cold and cannot plant because the ground is always hard and untillable, will be forced to send the babies home to the sea, which is another way of drowning them so they do not suffer from privation."

  "Look, I know this story by heart."

  Chiun cocked his birdlike head to one side curiously. "And do you believe it?"

  "Not completely."

  "No! What part do you not believe?"

  Remo thought a moment. "All of it."

  "All?"

  "Yeah. I don't think the babies have been in danger of being sent home to the sea in centuries. Maybe they never were. Maybe it's just a story your ancestors told themselves because they did things that were hard to stomach. Besides, you've got so much treasure back at the Masters of the House that you could feed all of Korea on the gold alone."

  Remo waited for Chiun to explode.

  "That is what you truly think?" he asked coldly.

  Remo folded his bare, lean arms in quiet defiance. "Yeah. Sorry. But that's the way I figure it."

  Chiun cocked his head the other way and clucked, "You are learning more quickly than I had imagined you would."

  Remo blinked. "So answer my question. Why are you conning your friends? They take this Bunji Lama stuff very seriously. It's their religion."

  "I do this for a very simple reason."

  "Yeah?"

  Chiun lifted a wise finger. "They have turned to the Master of Sinanju for help-"

  "And-?"

  "And they offered a roomful of gold!" said Chiun, raising both fists to the sky so fast his wide kimono sleeves dropped back to reveal bony pipe-stem arms.

  "I should have known," said Remo. "Look, how about I stay home for this outing?"

  "You would let your adopted father travel across this country in the company of strangers, unescorted?"

  "You just want me to carry your trunks, and you know it."

  "Kula will carry my trunks."

  "What do I carry?"

  "You," said Chiun, returning to his pot of rice, "will carry the burden of making an honored guest of this house carry my trunks."

  TWO HOURS LATER, Remo was carrying Chiun's steamer trunks to the rental limousine idling in the condo parking lot. Since it was a day trip, Chiun had not insisted on bringing all fourteen. He had wanted Remo to carry five, but Remo had put his foot down.

  "There's room in that trunk for maybe four trunks, and that's it," Remo had pointed out.

  "Then I will make do with only four," Chiun had allowed.

  Remo got the fourth one into the spacious trunk and locked it.

  "Why did you lock the trunk?" asked Kula when Remo started back to the house.

  "Because it's full."

  "What about the Bunji Lama's trunk?"

  "Damn! I forgot about that."

  "How could you forget the Bunji Lama?"

  "Believe me, it wasn't easy. But there's no room for him in the trunk."

  "Then he will ride with us."

  "I'll give it a second look. You never know."

  "No, it is only fitting that the Bunji Lama ride with us."

  Remo thought fast and said, "How about if I ride up front?"

  "That is agreeable," said Kula.

  "Good," said Remo, who hoped the glass partition between the driver's compartment and the back was airtight.

  It turned out to be completely airtight. It also turned out that when the Master of Sinanju heard that Remo had insisted on sitting up front, he had dismissed the expensive rental driver so Remo could drive, and personally placed the trunk containing the Bunji Lama in the front passenger seat.

  Remo found this out when he slid behind the wheel and almost gagged. He rolled down the windows, got in again and glared at the Master of Sinanju in the rearview mirror.

  Chiun looked his blandest.

  Remo started the limo, and soon they were humming along the Southeast Expressway, north to Logan Airport. It was normally called the Southeast Distressway, but this morning traffic was flowing smoothly.

  Kula's voice boomed over the passenger intercom.

  "There is no fermented mare's milk in the refrigerator."

  "Remind me to give the limo company people a severe scolding when we get back," Remo said.

  "You live in a very uncivilized country, White Tiger."

  "No argument there."

  "But do not worry. There will be plenty of fermented mare's milk in my personal skyboat. "

  Remo blinked. "You have your own plane?"

  "How did you think I came to this country-on horseback?"

  And everyone laughed at the foolish white dolt whom the Master of Sinanju had kindly taken under his wing in the hope that he would one day become Korean, or close to Korean.

  THE PLANE WAS a pristine sky blue with a silver stripe running along the windows on both sides. It was a 747 and it might have belonged to some exotic airline, except there was no company name and on the tail was the silhouette of a heavy wheel mounted on a pole, from which dangled nine horsetails. Remo knew it was a representation of the nine-horsetail standard of Genghis Khan.

  The pilot and copilot stood at attention at either side of the door. They wore the traditional del of the Mongol nomad and bowed when the Master of Sinanju, Kula and Lobsang Drom stepped from the parked limousine.

  As Remo got the trunks, the pilots yelled at him to hurry up.

  "Hold your horsetails," muttered Remo, carrying Chiun's trunks to the open cargo bay. Once they were stowed, he brought the Bunji Lama's trunk into the cabin.

  Inside it was dark. From the outside there had been the usual rows of windows. Inside, the walls were hung with colorful Mongol tapestries, which also covered the windows. There were no seats, just piles of overlapping rugs on the floor. Here and there were low taborets and chests.

  Remo had been in Mo
ngol felt tents before. They looked exactly like this, except they were round and spacious, with a stove in the center and a stovepipe leading to an open smoke hole in the ceiling.

  There was no stove here, and the ceiling was intact, but otherwise it looked exactly like the interior of a very long ger.

  "Place the Bunji Lama in the spot of honor," Kula called, indicating a gorgeous Oriental rug.

  "And close the door after you," called the pilot from up front.

  Remo did both and found a place on the floor.

  "I'm glad to see you haven't let all that treasure spoil you, Kula," Remo told the Mongol.

  Kula beamed. "You like my skyboat? It has every modern convenience. There is a microwave oven, and through that door behind you there is a flying well."

  "Where are the stewardesses?" Remo asked.

  Kula looked blank.

  "He means the slave girls," said Chiun.

  Kula scowled. "We do not allow Mongol women to fly. Otherwise, they will give birth to two-headed babies and other freaks. Only warriors are allowed to fly."

  "Do American women fly?" asked Lobsang Drom.

  "All the time," said Remo.

  "And what is done with the babies that are born with two heads?" he asked in a puzzled voice.

  "Oh, usually the mother picks the head she likes best and chops off the other one," said Remo.

  "American women are very clever," said Kula.

  "Perhaps the American woman with flame for hair is the Bunji Lama after all," muttered Lobsang Drom as the jet's engines began screaming, setting the wall hangings to shaking and shivering.

  They were airborne a moment later. The rugs and chests shifted until the plane leveled out.

  Lobsang Drom immediately closed his eyes and began moaning one word over and over.

  "Aummm. "

  In one hand he spun something that looked to Remo like a wooden cat-food can on a stick. The turquoise-studded teak can spun and spun. Other than a creaky whirring, it made no noise.

  "How long does this go on?" Remo muttered.

  "It is a prayer wheel," Kula explained. "One writes his prayer on a strip of paper and places it in the wheel. Each time it spins, the prayer goes forth, earning much merit."

  Remo groaned. "This is going to be a long flight."

  Kula blinked. "How many marches to this land called California?"