The swinging door hit Lhasa Nilsson in the middle of the back and he was propelled forward a few steps toward the bed on which Philander sat. He pulled himself up short, turned to the waiter, who had stopped, speechless, inside the doorway, and squeezed the trigger of the small .25 caliber revolver. A hole opened in the waiter’s throat like a red flower opening to greet the sunshine. The waiter’s eyes widened. His mouth worked as if he were going to talk, to impart one last piece of wisdom. Then he fell forward onto the rug.
Nilsson moved forward quickly and kicked the door shut. “Get him under the bed,” he snarled.
Barenga moved quickly, hoisting the pudgy waiter by the armpits. “Philander, you help me,” he said, his voice dripping hurt.
Philander hopped up from the bed and grabbed the dead waiter’s feet.
“Man, you didn’t have to do that,” Philander complained to Lhasa Nilsson.
“Shut up,” Nilsson said. “We’re going to have to hurry now. The waiter will be missed. Take off his jacket before you put him away.”
Barenga began to open the buttons.
“Tell me,” said Nilsson, “do you wear any trousers under that ridiculous sheet you parade around in?”
Barenga shook his head.
“All right, then, take off his pants too.”
Barenga and Philander stripped the waiter and finally Barenga stood up with jacket and trousers over his arm. Philander rolled the waiter’s body under the bed and straightened out the bedspread so it was neat again and would discourage anyone from a random look under the bed.
“Which of you wants to play waiter?” asked Nilsson.
Barenga looked at Philander. Philander looked at him. No one spoke. Being asked to be a waiter was as bad as being asked to tap dance on a watermelon rind.
“One of you has to wheel this cart of food up to Room 1821. Now which one’ll do it?”
Barenga looked at Philander. Philander looked at him.
As Barenga looked at Philander, he heard that frightful click again and it froze him in his position. And then the hissing thwap of a shot, and then the first spurt of blood out of Philander’s left temple, before Philander dropped to the floor.
“I think he was too stupid to pass for a waiter,” Nilsson said as Barenga turned toward him. “Now you put on the uniform and do it fast. We don’t have much time.”
Barenga decided he would take no more time than was absolutely necessary, thus proving to Nilsson his loyalty and absolute trustworthiness. In twenty-two seconds he had peeled off the dashiki and put on the uniform jacket and pants.
Nilsson finished rolling Philander under the overcrowded bed and turned to inspect Barenga.
“I believe most waiters wear shirts,” he said. “I’ve never seen one before wearing a jacket over his bare skin.”
“I ain’t got no shirt,” Barenga said. “But if you want, I’ll look for one,” he added hurriedly.
Nilsson shook his head. “Never mind,” he said. “The sight of the jacket should do all right. Let’s go.”
They rode up in an empty service elevator. At the eighteenth floor, Nilsson stepped out and looked both ways before motioning Barenga to follow him.
Barenga moved out slowly onto the carpeted floor and began to wheel the car along the hallway, a respectful three paces behind Nilsson. He was a cold mu-fu, this blond, kinky honkey. Barenga was going to keep an eye on him. He didn’t act right. He was too quick to pull that trigger. Man, like he was dedicated. He had that look in his eyes like one of those social workers, man, that was always going to do everything and fix everything and make everything right, man, ’cause they had all that love, you know, love. They were so goddamn sure of themselves, man, they was like dedicated, like the minister of the Abyssinian Church, and then at knifepoint, you asked one of them for a penny, and suddenly, they realized everything wasn’t going to be as easy as they thought. At least the smart ones learned that. The stupid ones, who were more numerous, never learned nothing. But this cat was funny like, because he knew plenty, but he still had that dedicated look.
Barenga stopped pushing the cart and stepped forward to Nilsson, who had beckoned him with a crooked finger. “Now you knock on the door and when you get an answer, tell them Room Service. When the door opens, I’ll handle everything else. You got that?”
Barenga nodded.
CHAPTER TEN
ONLY A FEW FEET away, another man nodded.
Separated from Nilsson and Barenga by the wall of the apartment, Chiun pressed a button, turning off the last of his favorite afternoon television shows. He settled back into full Lotus position and allowed his eyes to close.
Remo, he knew, had gone to look for the intrusive wench. He would no doubt find her; that she could vanish was really too much to be hoped for. That would be simple and in America life was never simple.
It was a very strange country, he mused, as his eyes closed gently. Chiun had worked for too many emperors to believe in the superiority of the masses, but in America the masses were right. Everyone could live in happiness if only people would respect everyone else’s right to be left alone. That was all the masses wanted in America, to be left alone. It was the one thing they never got, he reflected. Instead, they got social tinkering, and the tensions and troubles that tinkering caused.
How unlike Sinanju, the tiny village that Chiun was from but had not seen in years. Yes, it was poor by American standards but the people were rich in many ways. Each lived his own life and did not try to live another’s. And the poor, the aged, the weak, and the children, they were cared for. It did not require social programs, politicians’ promises, and long speeches, just the income from the skills of the Master of Sinanju. For over a thousand years the village had hired out its Master as an assassin, and his labors supported those in the village who could not support themselves.
This was Chiun’s responsibility. As he sat with his eyes closed, his mind on the edge of sleep, he thought it had been just and fair, a rich and honest life. The Master of Sinanju had always performed his missions, and the emperors he had served had always paid. Now his “emperor” was Dr. Smith, the head of CURE and Remo’s employer. Dr. Smith also paid.
Why could America not handle its social problems in the same efficient way it handled its need for assassins and their skills? But that would be simple, and simplicity was not the white man’s way. It was not their fault; just that they had been born defective.
Chiun heard the knock on the door but decided not to answer it. If it was Remo, he could get in. Anyone else would be looking for Remo or the girl, and since neither of them were here, there was no point in opening the door to say that when a closed unanswered door could deliver the same message.
Rap! Rap! Rap! The knocking was louder now. Chiun ignored it more, if that were possible.
“Hey. This here is Room Service,” a voice brayed from the hallway. Rap! Rap! Rap!
If the man hammered on the door long enough he would eventually get tired, perhaps so tired that for sustenance he might eat the food he was carrying. That would be punishment enough. Chiun dozed.
In the hallway, Lhasa Nilsson put a hand on the doorknob and turned it. The door opened noiselessly.
“No one here,” he said. “Bring the cart and we’ll wait.”
“Why bring the cart?”
“Because it gives us a reason to be inside. Bring the cart.”
Chiun had heard the door open, had heard the voices, and as Nilsson and Barenga entered the apartment, he rose and turned to face the two men.
Nilsson saw the last part of Chiun’s fluid rise from the floor and the way he turned. Something he recognized in it made him move his hand close to his jacket pocket, where he kept the small revolver.
“Hey, old man, why don’t you answer the door?” Barenga growled.
“Quiet,” Nilsson commanded. Then to Chiun, he said, “Where is she?”
“She has gone,” Chiun said. “Perhaps to join the circus?” He folded his hands in fron
t of his light green robe.
Nilsson nodded; he watched Chiun’s hands move, slowly, without threat, carefully.
“Check the rooms,” he told Barenga. “Look under the beds.”
Barenga headed for the first bedroom while Nilsson returned his eyes to Chiun.
“Of course, we know each other,” Nilsson said.
Chiun nodded. “I know of you,” he said. “I do not think you know me.”
“But we are in the same trade?” Nilsson said.
“Profession,” Chiun said. “I am not a shoemaker.”
“All right, profession,” Nilsson said with a small smile. “Are you here to kill the girl too?”
“I am here to save her.”
“Too bad,” Nilsson said. “You lose.”
“There is a time for everything under the sun,” Chiun said.
Barenga came out of the bedroom. “That one’s empty,” he announced, and went to the next bedroom.
“It is good you have such efficient, intelligent help,” Chiun said. “A young house like yours needs assistance.”
“A young house?” Nilsson said. “The Nilsson name has been famous for six hundred years.”
“So too was that of Charlemagne and other blunderers.”
“And who are you to be so officious?” Nilsson asked.
“It is unfortunate that you are so obviously the youngest of your family. Your elders would not need to ask the identity of the Master of Sinanju.”
“Sinanju? You?”
Chiun nodded and Nilsson laughed.
“I can’t understand your arrogance,” Nilsson said. “Not after what my family did to your house at Islamabad.”
“Yes, you are the youngest,” said Chiun. “Because you have learned no lessons from history.”
“I know enough history to know that the army we supported defeated the army you supported,” Nilsson said. “And you know it too.”
“Masters of Sinanju are not foot soldiers,” Chiun said. “We were not there to win the war. Tell me, what happened to the pretender you put onto the throne?”
“He was killed,” Nilsson said slowly.
“And his successor?”
“Killed, too.”
“And did your history lessons teach you who then assumed the throne?”
Nilsson paused. “The man we deposed.”
“That is correct,” Chiun said. “And yet you say the House of Sinanju was defeated? By an upstart family only six hundred years old?” He laughed aloud, a high piercing cackle. “We should always lose thus. We were to protect the emperor and maintain his throne. A year later when we left, he was still alive, his throne still secure. His two enemies had met sudden death.” Chiun extended his arms to his sides as if administering a blessing. “Pride is a good thing for a house to have, but it is dangerous for its individual members. They stop thinking and live on pride instead, and he who lives on pride does not live long. As you will learn.”
Nilsson smiled. His right hand came away slowly from his pocket, holding the automatic revolver.
Barenga reentered the room. “Whole place empty,” he said.
“Fine,” Nilsson said, his eyes not moving from Chiun’s. “Sit down and be quiet. Tell me, old man, how did you know me?”
“The House of Sinanju never forgets those it has fought. Each master is taught their motions, their characteristics. Your family, for instance. As it was with your forebears, it is with you. Before you move, you blink your eyes hard. Before you put your hand to your pocket, you clear your throat.”
“Why learn that?” Nilsson asked. “What good can it do you?” He now aimed the pistol squarely at Chiun’s chest, across the eight feet of livingroom carpet that separated them.
“You know that,” Chiun said. “Why ask?”
“All right. It’s to learn your enemy’s weaknesses. But then why tell the enemy?”
Barenga sat against the wall, watching the conversation, his head swiveling, as if he were watching a tennis match.
“One tells the enemy to destroy him. As with you. Even now, you worry about your ability to pull that trigger without blinking your eyes. That worry will destroy you.”
“You are very sure of yourself, old man,” Nilsson said, a slight smile playing at his face. “Is that not the kind of pride you said could destroy a man?”
Chiun straightened to his full height. He still was a head shorter than Lhasa Nilsson. “For anyone else, perhaps,” he said, “but I am the Master of Sinanju. Not a member of the Nilsson family.” His contempt, crisp and unmistakable, triggered fury in Nilsson.
“That is your hardship, old man,” he said. His finger tightened on the trigger. He tried to concentrate on Chiun who still stood, unmoving, in the center of the floor. But his eyes. What would his eyes do? Nilsson felt the first nudge of doubt creep into his brain. He tried to block it out, but could not. So he squeezed the trigger, but as he did, he realized he had blinked. Both eyes had shut tightly, an ancestral curse handed down through the ages. He did not have to see to tell his bullet missed. He could hear it chip off the plaster wall. He did not have to be told that he would never get another chance to fire. Suddenly, he felt the pain in his stomach and felt his body drifting away. All because of a blink. If only he could warn Gunner.
Before he died, Lhasa Nilsson gasped, “You are lucky, old man. But someone else will be coming. Someone better than I.”
“I shall greet him with kindness and respect,” Chiun said. Those were the last words Lhasa Nilsson ever heard.
Those were the last words that Abdul Kareem Barenga ever wanted to hear, “Feet, get moving,” he yelled, and, wailing like a flute at midnight, he ran to the front door of the apartment, yanked it open and raced off down the hallway.
Remo had been worried. He had found no trace of Vickie Stoner. No one had seen her, no cabbie, bellhop, policeman, no one. Already he and Chiun had mucked it up, and right at the moment, he had no idea where to look. The girl had been so spaced out while Remo had been with her that he could not recall anything she might have said that offered a clue to where she might go.
Losing the girl made him angry; not knowing where to look for her made him more angry. Neither factor really had anything to do with Abdul Kareem Barenga, but it was Barenga’s bad luck to be the unfortunate vessel that received Remo’s displeasure.
When the elevator door opened on the eighteenth floor, Remo stepped out and was overrun by Barenga, who charged the elevator as if leading his Black Liberation Army of Free Africa to free samples at the welfare office.
“Calm down,” Remo said. “What’s the hurry?”
“Honkey, move on over,” said Barenga, who had occupied his time waiting for the elevator to arrive by clawing at the closed elevator door. “I gotta get out of here.” He tried to push Remo from the empty elevator.
Fully annoyed now, Remo grabbed the elevator door with one hand and refused to move. Barenga pushed, but he might as well have been pushing at the base of the Empire State Building.
“What’s the hurry, I said?”
“Man, you get out of here. There’s a crazy yellow man back there gonna kill us all, you not careful. Man, I gotta get me a cop.”
“Why?” Remo said, suddenly cautious, wondering if Chiun’s television shows had run late this day.
“ ’Cause he just killed a man. Oooweee. He just hop across that room and he move that foot like magic and that man die. He just up and die. Ooooweee. Too many people getting killed today. I gotta get me a cop.”
His eyes rolled wildly in his head and Remo saw that Barenga would not settle for just a cop. A cop, a hundred cops, the state police, the sheriff’s office, the U.S. Attorney, the FBI and the CIA. If they all came in now to protect Barenga, wearing full battle dress and marching in close order, he would still be in a state of panic. Remo needed no more complications this day. Nothing resolved complications faster than death.
“You do that,” Remo said. “You go get a cop. Tell them Remo sent you.” He ste
pped back out of the doorway and as Barenga reached forward to tap a button, Remo drove a hard right index finger into the black man’s clavicle. By the time Barenga hit the floor, Remo was humming, busily working on the elevator control panel. He found the electrical cable cutoffs and shredded the wires with his fingers, so that nothing would work on the elevator, except the force of gravity. He backed out of the car, reached in through the open door, and tapped two wires together, then jumped back. The elevator unlocked itself and started down with an intensifying whoosh. Remo looked through the still-open door, down the shaft, as the elevator picked up speed on its way to the subbasement.
He could feel warm air circulating around the back of his neck in the wake of the runaway elevator. He continued to watch until he saw and felt the elevator crash at the bottom of the shaft. Its walls crumpled as if made of typing paper. Cables slithered down and fell on top of the car. Heavy clouds of greasy dust coughed up.
Remo stepped back, rubbing his hands briskly. He felt better now. Nothing like a little tussle with an intellectual problem to clear the troubled mind.
He felt so good that he was able to ignore Chiun’s rantings about an upstart offspring of an upstart house insulting the Master of Sinanju. Remo just quietly shoved Lhasa Nilsson’s body into a closet for safekeeping until he could figure out a way to shame Chiun into disposing of it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BIG BANG BENTON HIT the button that activated his recorded theme music, waited for the engineer’s gesture that signaled that his microphone was dead and he was off the air, then stood up and waved to the twenty-five girls who were observing his small studio from behind protective soundproofed glass.
He rubbed a hand over his head, careful not to mess up the expensive woven hair piece, stretched himself luxuriously, then motioned again. The girls responded with cheers and eager waving of their own.
Benton stepped forward toward the glass, an awkward, pear-shaped man, thumping heavily on the heels of his blue Cuban boots. As if on signal the girls, most of them in their early teens, ran forward. They pressed their faces against the glass like hungry urchins on Thanksgiving, and Benton could hear their squeals when he ran his fingers through his hair again. He lowered the almost black smoked glasses he wore until they perched on the end of his nose, and he leaned his face forward to the glass, careful not to press his body against it because it might crush the rolled satin flowers on his purple and white satin shirt.
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