"I wasn't talking about that, Remo."
"What were you talking about?"
"To be honest, Remo, I don't know. Something is wrong. We're not getting the right readings from our sources. I backed everything off to the perimeters of the law firm's business and still our own system doesn't seem to make headway with them. We have a program that checks and analyzes every call they make. It's done automatically, even analyzed by the program itself. But every time their phone system connects to the Midwest it seems to suddenly go blank with an incredible amount of static."
"Like the system you use, Smitty?" asked Remo.
"Something like that, Remo. Except we're the only ones in the world who are supposed to have it. Or know how it works."
"So?"
"So, there's been an even stranger silence from that firm that I can't figure out. It's like that quiet in the jungle before a tiger strikes. Have you ever seen a cat stalk prey?"
"Maybe. I don't know. What are you getting at?"
"I think you're being stalked by someone or something. "
"Why?"
"A hunch."
"Smitty, you don't play hunches. You don't even have hunches. In fact, I wonder if you have feelings sometimes. So how come you're coming up with hunches all of a sudden?"
"Because some of our systems don't seem to be working quite right. Granted, no one has penetrated us. But there is that strange sense of things like in the jungle when the birds stop singing."
"You're going crazy," said Remo.
"Watch yourself, all right?"
"Me and Chiun. Who do we have to be afraid of?"
"Didn't Chiun tell you?"
"Has he made contact with you?"
"I thought it would be a good safety precaution for me to keep in touch with you both."
"Because you think I'm crazy."
"Because I don't know what you're going to do. And it's a good thing I do have contact with Chiun because he thinks that for your own safety perhaps you should take off for a year or two and get out of the country, come back later when things are safer."
"He's hustling you. He wants us to get in on some business elsewhere. Nothing's bothering him. Is that where your hunch came from?"
"No. I'm warning you too. You're being stalked."
"You're both crazy," said Remo, and hung up.
In Folcroft Sanitarium, Harold W. Smith watched the computer screen taking readouts from a network across the nation. He wondered if he were losing his mental balance. After all, he really didn't play hunches and had never trusted them. Yet why did he have this feeling that not only was Remo being stalked, but by something he might ultimately be helpless against? Was the organization going to lose him after all these years? And if so, what would happen to the organization? It had come to rely on Remo and Chiun, perhaps too much.
Harold W. Smith did not like hunches because he couldn't analyze them. He could not explain in hard facts why his senses kept telling him Remo was now up against perhaps the one thing he couldn't handle. And there was no rational evidence for it. He had absolutely no idea of what that one thing was.
In the plush suite of Palmer, Rizzuto it was Palmer who almost threw a chair through the glass case enshrining their old storefront-office desk. "What is that idiot Rizzuto doing? There are hundreds of millions of dollars to be made on that stage. Why is he talking about stinking little Gupta? Forget Gupta. Was Debbie Pattie hurt? If she were hurt we could earn double Dastrow's fee for Gupta."
"I think it was a real accident," said Schwartz.
"How do you know?"
"I don't know," said Schwartz. "I forget what they look like anymore."
"As good as Dastrow's," said Palmer. "But they're more spontaneous, right?"
"Dastrow's are spontaneous. There's nothing more spontaneous than an air disaster. Dastrow's are very spontaneous. That's why we use him. The man is incredibly safe. But so what if this thing isn't his? That doesn't mean we can't clean up anyway. And Rizzuto's sitting on his goddamned hands out there."
"I never thought of rock concerts. What about the Academy Awards? Can you think of the value of an entire auditorium filled with producers, stars, directors, writers?" asked Schwartz. He rubbed his hands. He thought of having the auditorium collapse after the awards were given out so the winning victims would be worth more.
"You mean do an Academy Awards?" said Palmer. "Dastrow asks money up front."
"Give him a contingency fee like we work on."
"Writers aren't worth much," said Palmer. "We don't need the writers. We can do it without the writers. You don't get anything for writers."
"We can say the builders who negligently let that auditorium blow up or collapse or whatever Dastrow does with it, maybe poisons the air or something, we can say their lost lives are robbing our entire civilization of art."
"To say nothing of the studios' incomes."
"Yes, studios. The studios will be good."
Palmer dialed Dastrow's number and waited for the callback. It came about eveningtime as the sun set over the Pacific and Palmer, Rizzuto employees headed home on clogged freeways and Schwartz dozed.
"Listen. The accident in Chicago with the Gupta benefit gave me a great idea, Bob. A truly great idea. A wonderful idea. Instead of some accident with rock stars, what about the Academy Awards? We couldn't pay you up front, but perhaps a contingency-basis sort of thing . . . Bob, are you there, Bob?"
"I'm here," said Dastrow. "I'm just looking at something."
"What do you think?"
"About the Academy Awards?"
"That's right."
"I've already done an entertainment group," said Dastrow.
"You mean the Chicago rock disaster was yours?"
"Uh-huh."
"Are you working with someone else? Is that it? You think we're broke and you're working with someone else," Palmer moaned.
"No. You are the lawyers who work. You're the lawyers who work well with the sort of thing I do. You're the sort of lawyers I can always count on for this sort of work. You're fine."
"Then why did you do Chicago? We never discussed Chicago."
"I am trying to find out how something works."
"How what works?" screamed Palmer. Dastrow was always difficult in his own Midwest hayseed way. But this was impossible.
"What is going to destroy you if I don't."
"Thank you."
"I'm not doing it for you, Palmer. I've never done anything for you. Let's not be confused here. I do things for myself. If they get you, they're going to get me."
"They? Who are 'they'?"
"That's why I returned your call. I thought you might be able to tell me something about them. Most peculiar people I have ever seen. Absolutely strange. If you knew what I know, you would jump out of your windows right now."
"What do you know?"
"I know it's going to be fun, finding out what goes on with these two. I know I'm going to remove them from our lives forever. I know, dear Palmer, how things work."
And Dastrow hung up.
"What did he say?" asked Schwartz.
"He said no to a contingency-fee basis," said Palmer, "and Chicago was his, and no, he's not working with anyone else. You know, Arnold, I think that Midwest hoopie has found out how we work. After all these years, I think I realize he's been using us."
"Can we sue?"
"Go flash your Rolex," said Palmer. "If we were to sue Dastrow, the entire courtroom would turn against us. I guess I should have known that eventually he would have figured out how the legal system works. He figures out everything eventually. Could you imagine if his genius were somehow harnessed for good?"
"It is. He's making us money. We employ people. Our lawsuits help keep corporations more careful. By serving Palmer, Rizzuto Robert Dastrow serves America in ways he may never fathom," said Schwartz.
"Do you honestly believe that nonsense?" asked Palmer.
"Just practicing," said Schwartz.
Robert Das
trow could not believe his calculations. And yet there they were. The Chicago disaster had worked to perfection. Without bodyguards, Debbie Pattie had to use those two who knew how Gupta worked but not how machines worked.
They, in turn, had responded to the disaster in front of them. Dastrow would have been satisfied with a quick leap back to safety, But instead, he got more body action than he could have hoped for.
He got tests of strength. Quickness. Balance. Nervous system, and of course blood-pressure levels and the intricate motor responses that made limbs work, all during the course of extreme stress.
Built into the power lines to Debbie Pattie's guitar were sensors to measure the body responses of those who held them. The lines were coated with thick, sticky conducting fluid to give better readings.
And the most amazing thing appeared to Robert Dastrow, like some strange jewel in an exotic clock that kept time as no other instrument might.
He held the white-and-green paper readouts in his hands, quivering with excitement in the large machine shop he had built underground at his Grand Island, Nebraska, estate. In those black numbers on the coarse paper, he saw evidence of balance that would be more appropriate to a cat than a human. He saw a nervous system respond with a strong, sure precision, as regular and dependable as radio waves from the center of the galaxy, and he saw awesome strength coupled with an unbelievably perfect muscular symmetry.
He glanced around the machine shop. There were more tools and instruments here than in most defense laboratories. The fluorescent lights glittered on the shiny instrument panels. Robert Dastrow felt his mouth go dry. He could think of only one thing seeing these figures, a poem by an Englishman.
"Tiger! Tiger! burning bright, in the forests of the night, what immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?"
Was that what William Blake was talking about? Dastrow had always thought the poet was talking about the basic force of the universe. Did life follow art?
They certainly didn't understand mechanical things. Where did their power come from? From this symmetry? Would they at last use it against Palmer, Rizzuto and in so doing inevitably reach Dastrow himself? And what had kept them from using this force against Rizzuto, the dramatic mouthpiece of the firm?
Was there something in these men that Dastrow had discovered in the workings of nature, and only dimly perceived in his calculations?
He looked at the numbers again. There was no question. As much as he would like to study them, he could no longer afford any such luxury. The numbers meant they had to die. But of course, killing them would pose a special problem. One just didn't plan on collapsing a roof, because these two might well walk away from it. They might walk away from anything. And when they walked away they would walk more quickly to their ultimate destination, which had to be Robert Dastrow himself. Why else would they have been making inquiries in Gupta? Inquiries not as reporters, not as insurance men, not as factory personnel.
But inquiries about Palmer, Rizzuto The two tigers in the night were coming for them, they were coming for all of them. The question was, as it had been from the beginning: Who were they, and how were they going to die? The difference was that now, after reading these reports on how they responded physically, Robert Dastrow had a very good idea.
Remo was on his way back to his hotel room when he saw a car pull up on the dark Chicago street. He could tell from the tense body positions of the men in the backseat of the car that they were going to fire something at him.
He moved fluidly in a lateral motion, and with their normally slow reflexes, the men in the backseat finally caught up with what was going on and jerked toward the direction Remo had been heading. By the time they completed their jerk, Remo was on line with the car and moving toward it, getting there by the time their guns rose.
He rammed them in their solar plexi and then let the two men recover while he chatted with the driver. "Good night for killing, isn't it?" said Remo. The driver swallowed. He started to explain how he really didn't know the men in the backseat. He was just driving along and they happened to climb in. Why, were there guns in there? My goodness, there were indeed. The driver said he was leaving right now. He hated guns.
"Fine," said Remo. "You can go. But I'll keep your kneecaps here on the seat to make sure you'll return."
"Thanks, I guess I'll stay," said the driver.
"Who sent you?"
"You wouldn't believe it."
"I believe," said Remo, repeating an absolutely silly line from a movie he had seen. Some trainer was trying to teach a pupil some physical tricks and he had said that all the person had to do was believe in himself. It was the wrong word. When doing something tricky, belief could get you killed. It was the knowing that a person had to have, not believing one could do something. One had to know it, deep down in the bones and in every little muscle and nerve. And one only knew it when it was so.
"A voice. The voice said there was some money in a bag in a garbage can. The voice said pick it up. It was a down payment. There would be more, when we finished the job."
"Where would there be more?"
"He didn't say. But there was ten grand in the fuckin' bag and that's good enough for a hit, you know. Nothing personal."
When the two gunmen regained their breath, they told the same story. "Nothing personal," they repeated.
"Nothing personal," said Remo, and removed three felons from the population of Chicago with three precise strokes through the skulls into the frontal lobes. When he was done, three foreheads had nice, neat dents in them.
The car smelled of pine deodorizer coming from a statue on the windshield. Remo wiped the knuckle of his right forefinger on the plaid car seat and left.
Before he got two blocks a street gang known as the El Righteous Kanks informed him he was going to die by the knife. There were four of them, each wearing a T-shirt with some absurd symbol. They all had stilettos as sharp as needles and as long as trowels. They were going to dig out his insides, they said. It seemed that they hadn't bathed in weeks. Remo moved upwind. One of the Kanks thought he was trying to escape and blocked his way. He stood upwind. He did not stand upwind long because before he knew what had happened his legs were flying downwind with him attached to them. He collided with a lamppost which did not yield, but his spine did. He fell to the concrete sidewalk like a duffel with the contents hanging out.
"Why do you announce what you're going to do?" asked Remo. The El Righteous Kanks were black. Remo imagined no white man had come into this neighborhood alone before.
"Hey, man. We gotta have some fun. Ain't no one bothered by bein' dead. He gotta know he gonna die. We gon' downput' upside yo head."
"You're going to try to kill me, right?"
"No try, whitey. We do."
"Would you tell me if this is just some ordinary run-of-the-mill mayhem which keeps this area unlivable? Or are you actually doing something constructive like getting paid to kill me?"
"You don' do nuthin', whitey, but stan' there and die. That's what whitey do. He here to die."
"I don't see any whites around here."
" 'Cause dey racists," said the leader of the El Righteous Kanks. "But if we nail one o' dem racists, we kill 'em all."
Remo took another line of reasoning. He applied the apparent leader gently to the lamppost while the other two attacked him. He pressed the other two neatly against the same lamppost until their spines cracked, and then suggested to the leader he would continue the pattern. On the other hand, he might not continue the pattern if he could establish a dialogue.
"Anyone tell you to make a hit on me?"
"A voice. Crazy voice. Tol' us where money was. Tol' us there'd be mo'."
"That's it then, a voice?"
"Ah swear."
"I believe you," said Remo, and dropped the El Righteous Kank leader on top of the pile unharmed. "By the way, where did you get the name Kank? Sounds like some sore."
"It be our black mystery, righteous Islamic."
At the hotel, Remo found out that Debbie Pattie had found new bodyguards and this time Remo only moved through them so as not to injure them. He didn't want to have to carry her electronic gear anymore.
"Little father, something strange is happening. I am being- "
"Attacked by the gun and the knife and the bomb," said Chiun.
"Yeah. How did you know?"
"Look in the other room," said Chiun. "We are fools, I think. Here we are in this insanity called detective investigation, and you await our death."
"They didn't get us."
"They will," said Chiun.
"How can you say that? You know who we are."
"I know who we are. And soon they will know who we are, if they do not already. And once they know that, they can better kill us."
"Are you guys detectives?" asked Debbie. She had switched to black rags instead of yellow and green rags. Remo knew she had her own full-time seamstress to sew the rags together. They were not taken out of dime-store garbage pails but were actually manufactured for her.
"No," said Remo. "We're just trying to find out something."
"I thought you knew it all," she said. She winked at Remo and nodded to the bedroom.
"Bodies in there," said Remo.
"Was that what Chiun was doing? Oh, he's neat. He's beautiful. He's heavy. He's baddest."
"It is her way of attempting to explain perfection; Remo. We must be tolerant of her," said Chiun.
"How are we going to be killed?" asked Remo. He hadn't seen anything that would be a problem. The problem was figuring out how to gather evidence against the super shysters on the Coast, not getting through the day alive.
Chiun raised a finger.
"There has been the gun, and that has failed, correct ?"
Remo nodded.
"And there has been the knife, and that has failed, correct?"
Remo nodded. "And the grenade too, so what are you talking about? No problem."
"If you fail, and fail, and fail, what does that mean?" asked Chiun.
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