King's Curse td-24

by Warren Murphy

  "I think someone is trying to kill you," said Reddington. "And I don't even know your name."

  "Albert Schweitzer," said Remo.

  "He's lying. It's Remo something. I don't know the last name. He's a lunatic killer. You don't even see his hands move. He's murderous, brutal, cold, and sarcastic."

  "I am not sarcastic," said Remo.

  "Don't listen to that broad," called out Bobbi. "She doesn't even play tennis. She sits around and cries all day. She's a punk loser."

  "Thank you," said Remo. Bobbi raised her right hand in an okay sign.

  "He kills people with his hands and feet," said Valerie.

  "I take it you're a karate master of some sort," said Reddington.

  "No," said Remo, and in this he was honest. "I am not karate. Karate just focuses power."

  "And you use it for self-defense?" Reddington asked.

  "He uses it on anyone in sight," said Valerie.

  "I haven't used it on you," said Remo.

  "You will."

  "Maybe," said Remo, imagining what Valerie would look like with a mouth removed from her face. It would be an improvement.

  "As I said," Reddington explained, "I've come to help. But first I must see your weapons. Are your hands your only weapons?"

  "No," Remo said. "Hands are just an extension of the weapon we all share. That's the difference between man and animals. Animals use their limbs; man uses his mind."

  "Then you're an animal," said Valerie, creating a large wet spot of tears on Reddington's lapel.

  "Just your body, then?" said Reddington musingly. He excused himself for backing away from Valerie Gardner, and she was the first to see the .45 caliber automatic come out of Reddington's neat pinstriped jacket. She realized she was between the gun and the lunatic behind her and all she said was "To hell with it." A man from the Justice Department was making her a shield in a shooting gallery. Her, Valerie Gardner, she had to go and meet the only US Attorney who doubled as a hit man.

  "Go ahead and shoot the damned thing," she yelled.

  "Come on, fella. Is this any way to act?" Remo said.

  "Right," Valerie shrieked, wheeling from Reddington to Remo and back. "Right. That's the way to act. Shoot the damned thing. Get this homicidal maniac before he gets us all."

  "Quiet," said Remo. "I'm going to get to you later." He smiled at Reddington. "We should sit and reason together," he said hopefully.

  Reddington backed off a step, beyond the reach of Remo's arm and leg, so he could not be disarmed by a sudden move.

  "There is nothing to discuss," he said, "with one who has laid hands on the high priests of Uctut."

  "What priests?" said Remo. "Those loonies who were trying to open my chest without a key?"

  "Shoot," shrieked Valerie. "Shoot."

  Reddington ignored her. His eyes seemed fixed on Remo with a cold stare, his lids too icy to blink.

  "Through the ages. there has been Uctut," he said to Remo. "And there have been those of us who have defended him against the desecrators who would do our God evil."

  "Wait a minute," Remo said. "You were the guy standing guard outside the congressman's office when he got it, weren't you?"

  "Yes. And I lifted his heart from his chest myself," Reddington said.

  Remo nodded. "I thought so. I wondered how a flock of two-hundred-pound canaries could have sneaked past a guard."

  "And now it is your turn," Reddington said.

  "Nixon made me do it," Remo said.

  "It is past excuses."

  "Bobby Kennedy?" Remo offered. "Jack Kennedy? J. Edgar Hoover?"

  "It will not do," said Reddington.

  "Don't say I didn't try," Remo said.

  Reddington backed up another step.

  "Shoot, will you?" yelled Valerie. "Off this violent lunatic."

  Reddington held the gun professionally, near his right hip. This was the way taught by the Justice Department to prevent its men from being disarmed by someone just reaching out and slapping or kicking the gun away.

  But for every counter there is a counter, and when Remo went into a sudden move to Reddington's left, Reddington found that the gun could not home in on Remo as it should because Reddington's own hip was in the way. He wheeled to his left to keep the gun on Remo, but when he turned, Remo was not there anymore. He turned - again, this time to the rear, and there he found Remo, but he had no chance to celebrate his discovery with a one-gun salute because the gun, still held properly against his hip, was pushed back above the hip, through his side, past his abdominal cavity, and into the center of Reddington's right kidney, where it came to rest.

  Reddington fell, eyes still iced over.

  "Killer! Killer!," Valerie shrieked.

  "Quiet," Remo said. "You're going to get yours."

  Bobbie looked up from the television set. "Do it now," she said, "Get rid of this twit and let's go out and hit a few. There's an all-night court over on the East Side. Clay court too. I don't like playing on hard surfaces. And you don't get a true bounce on grass. Unless you've got a big serve. If you've got a big serve, then I'd probably give you a better game on grass because it'd slow down your serve."

  "I don't play tennis," Remo said.

  "That's revolting," Bobbi said. "This one was right. He should have killed you."

  "Quiet. Both of you," Remo said. "I'm trying to think."

  "This should be good," Valerie said.

  "Think about taking up tennis," Bobbi said.

  Remo decided instead to think about how much he remembered the boy scout adviser who had come to the orphanage in Newark to start a scout troop. All the orphans over twelve, Remo included, had joined because the nuns had ordered them to. That had lasted only until the nuns found out that the scoutmaster was teaching the boys how to start fires with flint and steel, and three mattress fires in an old wooden building with a flash point somewhat lower than butane gas convinced the nuns to evict the boy scouts and think about affiliation with a 4-H club.

  Remo had never learned how to build a fire with flint and steel. He hadn't been able to steal a lump of flint from any of the other boys, and the little pieces that came in cigarette lighters were too small to get a good grip on.

  But Remo had learned knots. The scoutmaster had been a whiz on knots. Bowlines and sheepshanks and clove hitches. Square knots. Right over left and left over right. Remo thought about those knots. Bowlines were best, he decided. The knot was designed for tying together two different thicknesses of rope and this would come in very handy when he trussed up Bobbi and Valerie with the thick pieces of drapery rope and the thin cord from the Venetian blinds.

  "We'll scream for help," Valerie threatened.

  "You do that and I'll tie a sheepshank on you, too," said Remo.

  He tied up Valerie with bowlines. He tied another drapery cord over her mouth in a gag and fastened it with a clove hitch. It came loose so he changed it to a square knot tied tightly behind her neck.

  "You?" he said to Bobbi.

  "Actually I was planning to be quiet," she said.

  "Good," said Remo, tying her up but leaving off the gag. "The old gentleman is sleeping inside. If you're unlucky enough to wake him up before he chooses to rise, it's going to be game, set, and match point for you, kid."

  "I understand," she said, but Remo wasn't listening. He was wondering what had gone wrong with the clove hitch he had tried to use to tie Valerie's mouth. He tried it again when he packaged Reddington for his Alaskan sabbatical and was pleased when the knots held very tightly.

  It gave him a warm feeling of accomplishment that he kept all the way to the railway station, where he mailed Reddington to Alaska, and on a long all-night walk through Central Park, where he fed a mugger to the ducks, and all the way back to his hotel suite, when he found out that Bobbi was gone.

  She had been kidnapped.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Chiun was sitting in the center of the floor watching television. Valerie was trussed in a corner of the roo
m.

  "Where's Bobbi?" Remo said.

  Valerie mumbled through her gag. "Gree--grawkgra. Neargh, graw, graw."

  "Shut up," said Remo. "Chiun, where's Bobbi?"

  Chiun did not turn. He raised, a hand over his head as if in dismissal.

  Remo sighed and reluctantly started to untie the gag from Valerie's mouth. It was triple-knotted, and the square knots he had used had given way to some other kind of knot Remo had never seen before. His fingers had to pick tightly at the strands of drapery sash before he got the gag off.

  "He did it, he did it," said Valerie. She nodded at Chiun.

  "Shhhhh," Chiun hissed

  "Shut up," Remo said to Valerie. "Where's Bobbi?"

  "They came for her. Three men in the yellow feathered robes. I tried to tell him, but he tied me up again. Pig!" she shouted across the room at Chiun.

  "Kid, do yourself a favor and knock that off," Remo said.

  A commercial came on the television. For the next two minutes and five seconds, Remo had Chiun to himself.

  "Chiun, did you see them take Bobbi?"

  "If you mean was I awakened from my few golden moments of rest by uncalled for intrusions, yes. If you mean when I came out here, did this disciple of the open mouth verbally abuse me with her noise, yes. If you mean-"

  "I mean did you see the three men take the other girl away?"

  "If you mean, did I see three creatures who looked like the big bird on the children's program, yes. I laughed, they were so funny."

  "And you just let them go?" Remo said.

  "This one was making enough noise for two persons, even through the gag that was so ineptly tied. I did not need a second female here to make even more noise. If they had promised to come back for this one, I would have put her outside the door to await them, as if she were an empty bottle of milk."

  "Dammit, Chiun. Those were the people I wanted. We've been looking for them. What do you think we've had these girls here for? In the hope that those Indians would come to us."

  "Correction. You have been looking for those people. I have carefully avoided looking for them."

  "That girl's going to be killed. I hope you're proud of yourself."

  "There are too many tennis players in the world already."

  "She's going to have her heart cut out."

  "Perhaps they will settle for her tongue."

  "That's right. Make fun," Valerie shrieked. "You miserable old man."

  Chiun turned around and looked behind him.

  "Who is she talking to?" he asked Remo.

  "Ignore her."

  "I try to. I came out of my room and I was so kind as to untie her mouth. That proves that even the Master is not beyond error. The noise that came out. So I retied her."

  "And you just let those three yellow ostriches take Bobbi away?"

  "I was getting tired of talking about tennis," said Chiun. "It is a stupid game anyway."

  The commercial ended, and he turned his face away from Remo and back toward the television set, where Dr. Ranee McMasters was congratulating Mrs. Wendell Waterman on her elevation to acting chairman of the Silver City Bicentennial Commission, a post she was hastily named to when the permanent chairman, Mrs. Ferd Delanettes, contracted a terminal case of syphilis, given her by Dr. Ranee McMasters, who was now talking softly to Mrs. Waterman, preparatory to giving her a dose of her own in the twenty-three hours and thirty minutes between the end of this day's episode and the start of tomorrow's.

  "Is there any chance, any slight chance," Remo asked Valerie, "that while those dingdongs were here, you kept your mouth shut long enough to hear anything they said?"

  "I heard every word, freak," she said.

  "Give me a few."

  "The biggest one-"

  "Did you ever see any of them before?" Remo asked.

  "What a stupid question!" Valerie said. "How many people do you see in New York wearing yellow feathers?"

  "More this year than last. They weren't born with feathers, you know. Underneath there are men. They look like men. Did you recognize any of them?"

  "No."

  "Okay, what'd they say?"

  "The biggest one said, 'Miss Delpheen?' and she nodded, and he said, 'You are coming with us.' "

  "And what happened?"

  "They untied her and-"

  "Did she say anything?"

  "No. What could she say?"

  "I'll bet you could have thought of something. What else?"

  "Then they took her by the hands and walked out the door. That one-" She nodded to Chiun, "He came out of the bedroom. He saw them, but instead of trying to stop them, he went and turned on the television set. They left. I tried to call him, and he untied my mouth, but when I told him that she had been kidnapped, he tied my mouth again."

  "Good for him," said Remo. "So you don't know where they went?"

  "No," said Valerie. "Are you going to untie me?"

  "I'm going to sleep on it," Remo said.

  "They went to the Edgemont Mansion in Englewood, wherever that is," Chiun said softly without turning from the television.

  "How do you know that?" Remo asked.

  "I heard them, of course. How else would I know that? Be quiet now."

  "Englewood's in New Jersey," Remo said.

  "Then you will probably still find it there," Chiun said. "Silence."

  "Finish it up," Remo said. "Then put on your tape machine. You're coming with me."

  "Of course. Order me around."

  "Why not? It's all your fault," said Remo.

  Chiun refused to answer. He fastened his gaze onto the small color television screen.

  Remo went to the telephone. His first call to the private line in Smith's office drew a screeching whistle that indicated he had dialed wrong. After two more tries resulted in the same response, he decided the telephone had been disconnected.

  On a chance, he called a private number that rang on the desk of Smith's secretary in his outer office.

  The telephone rang eight times before it was picked up and the familiar voice answered.

  "Hello?"

  "Smitty, how are you?"

  "Remo--"

  Remo saw Valerie watching him. "Just a minute," he said.

  He picked up Valerie by her still-bound legs.

  "What are you doing, swine?"

  "Quiet," said Remo. He put her in a clothes closet and shut the door.

  "Bitch. Bastard. Rotten bastard," she yelled, but the heavy door muffled the noise and Remo nodded with satisfaction as he picked up the telephone.

  "Yeah, Smitty, sorry."

  "Anything to report?" Smith asked.

  "Just for once," Remo said, "couldn't you say something pleasant? Like 'hello' and 'how are you'? Couldn't you do that just for once?"

  "Hello, Remo. How are you?"

  "I don't want to talk to you," Remo said. "I just decided I don't want you to be my friend."

  "All right, then," said Smith. "With that out of the way, have you anything to report?"

  "Yes. The girl Bobbi Delpheen has been grabbed by those Indians."

  "Where did this happen?"

  "In my hotel room."

  "And you let it happen?"

  "I wasn't here."

  "And Chiun?" asked Smith.

  "He was busy. He was turning on his television set."

  "Wonderful," said Smith dryly. "Everything's coming down around our ears, and I'm dealing with an absentee and a soap opera freak."

  "Yeah, well, just calm yourself down. As it happens, we have a lead. A very good lead, and now I don't think I'm going to tell you about it."

  "Now or never," said Smith and allowed himself a little chuckle that sounded like a bubble escaping from a pan of boiling vinegar.

  "What does that mean?"

  "I've finished dismantling this place now. There are too many federal agents around and we're just too vulnerable. We're closing down for a while."

  "How will I reach you?"

  "I've t
old my wife we're going on vacation. We've found a little place near Seboomook Mountain in Maine. This will be the number there." He gave Remo a number which Remo remembered automatically by scratching it into the varnish of the table with his right thumbnail.

  "Do you have it?"

  "I've got it," Remo said.

  "It's odd for you to remember something first try," Smith said.

  "I didn't call so you could bitch about my memory."

  "No, of course not." Smith seemed to want to say more, but no more words came.

  "How long are you going to be up there?" Remo asked.

  "I don't know," Smith said. "If it looks like people are getting too close and that the organization might be exposed, well… we might just stay there."

  Smith spoke slowly, almost offhandedly, but Remo knew what he meant. If Smith and his wife "stayed there," it would be because dead men did not move, and Smith would choose death before risking exposure of the secret organization to which he had devoted more than ten years.

  Remo wondered if he would ever be able to look forward to death with Smith's calmness, a calmness born of knowing he had done his job well.

  Remo said, "I don't want you staying up there too long. You may get to like the idea of vacations. You might retire."

  "Would it bother you?"

  "Who'd pay off my expense accounts? My Texaco card?"

  "Remo, what is that noise?"

  "That's Valerie," Remo said. "She's in a closet, don't worry about her."

  "She's the woman from the museum?"

  "Right. Don't worry about her. When are you going to Maine?"

  "I was just leaving."

  "Have fun. If you want to know where the skiing's good, I know a great guidebook."

  "Oh, really?" said Smith.

  "Right," said Remo. "It tells you all about the illimitable skills and the indomitable courage of the author. It tells you all about the politics of the downslope trade and rips the mask of hypocrisy off the faces of the ski resort owners."

  "I'll be at Seboomook Mountain. How's the skiing there?"

  "Who knows?" Remo said. "The book doesn't get into things like that."

  After hanging up, Remo gave Valerie her choice of options. She could go with them to the Edgemont Estate or she could stay tied up in the closet. If she were anyone else, there might have been a third option. She could be set free on the condition that she keep her mouth shut and not tell anybody anything.