Summit Chase td-8

by Warren Murphy

  He folded the paper lengthwise, stood against a wall next to a potted palm and began to read the main sports story on the back page. He would outwait them.

  He hadn't long to wait. The two men sidled up to him and Remo decided they were not policemen; they moved too well.

  Both were tall. One was Italian-looking and lean. The other was burly, his skin tended toward yellow and there was a trace of the epicanthic fold over his eyes. Remo thought, Hawaiian maybe, Polynesian somehow. Both men had the same kind of eyes, humourless, somehow always connected with the profession of crime-either solving it or committing it.

  Remo knew the eyes well. He saw them every morning when he shaved.

  He felt something pressed against his side, just above the right hip, something hard.

  "I know," he said, "don't do anything stupid, I've got a gun stuck in my ribs."

  The Hawaiian, or whatever—who held the gun—smiled. "Smart guy, are you? That's good. Then we won't have to tell you anything twice."

  The other man took up position in front of Remo, screening him from the view of the rest of the lobby.

  "What is it you want?" Remo asked.

  "We want to know who you're working for." This time the Italian-looking one spoke. His voice was as brittle as his features.

  "The Zingo Rollerskate and Surfboard Company," Remo said.

  The gun jabbed into his ribs hard. The burly one said, "Now I thought you were going to be smart. And instead you're being stupid."

  "You must have the wrong guy," Remo said. "I tell you, I work for the Zingo Rollerskate and Surfboard Company."

  "And your job is to dress up like a priest and to visit jails?" the burly one asked. He was about to go on when a look from the other silenced him.

  So they knew. So what? If they were cops, they would have brought him in. Since they weren't, it wasn't likely anyone was going to care much about what happened to them.

  "All right," Remo said, "you got me. I'm a private detective."

  "What's your name?" asked the man with the gun.

  "Roger Willis."

  "That's a funny name for a detective."

  "It's a funny name for anyone," the Italian said.

  "Did you come here to make fun of my name?" Remo said, trying to sound outraged.

  "No," the Italian said. "Who are you working for?"

  "He's a European," Remo said. "Some kind of Russian."

  "His name?"

  "Nemeroff," Remo said. "Baron Isaac Nemeroff." He watched their eyes carefully for any sign of reaction. There was none. So they were just lower-echelon goons who would know nothing, who could tell him nothing. Suddenly, he resented their wasting time which he could better spend at the zoo.

  "Why'd he hire you?" the Italian said.

  "I don't know. Probably let his fingers do the walking through the yellow pages. It pays to advertise. He sent me a letter. And a check."

  "You still got the letter?"

  "Sure. It's up in my room. Listen, pal, I don't want any trouble. This was just a simple talky-talk job. If it's more than that, just let me know and I'll get the hell out of it. I don't need any headaches."

  "You be a nice boy, Roger, and you won't have any," the Hawaiian said. "Come on." He jabbed Remo with the pistol before putting it back into his pocket. "We're going up to your room to get the letter."

  Remo looked at him carefully, and noticed two things. First, they planned to kill him. No doubt about it. Second, the burly one had hazel eyes. And that was interesting.

  Remo was happy that they wanted to go to his room. He had wanted to get them out of the lobby, where things could get crowded and messy, causing the hotel management to complain. Smith might even hear about it.

  He turned and led the way toward the elevator and calmly jabbed the up button.

  When the doors opened, he stepped in first. The two men took posts on either side of him; the oriental type on his left, slightly behind him. Remo knew the pistol was pointing through his pocket at Remo's left kidney. He was really interested in those hazel eyes.

  So far as he knew, only one type of oriental had hazel eyes: Koreans.

  On the eleventh floor, he led them carefully down the hallway to his room. He took the key from his pocket, then stopped.

  "Listen, I don't want any trouble. I don't want you to think I'm pulling a fast one. My partner is inside."

  "Is he armed?" the Italian one asked.

  "Armed?" Remo laughed and watched the burly one's face. "He's an eighty-year-old Korean. He was a friend of my grandfather's."

  At the word Korean, the yellow-skinned man's eyes had narrowed. So he was Korean. Hey, Chiun, guess who's coming to dinner?

  The Italian one nodded toward the door. The Korean took the key, opened the door quietly, then pushed it back. It swung open and the handle hit the door with a thud. Chiun was still seated in his white robes on the floor, watching television. He did not turn. He made no sound; he did not acknowledge the intrusion.

  "That him?"

  "Yeah," Remo said. "He's harmless."

  "I hate Koreans," the yellow-skinned man said, his lip twisting in an involuntary rictus.

  He preceded Remo into the suite. Remo was surprised at how sloppy the two of them were. Neither checked the bedrooms, the bathrooms or the closets. If he had wanted to, Remo could have hidden an Army platoon in the suite, but these two incompetents would not have known.

  The one with hazel eyes stood in the middle of the living-room floor, Remo behind him, the Italian behind him.

  "Hey, old man," the Korean called.

  Chiun did not move, but Remo saw his eyes lift in the mirror, scan the scene behind him, then lower to the television screen. Poor Chiun. A tired old man.

  "Hey. I'm talking to you," the burly man roared. Chiun studiously ignored him and the big man went around in front of him and pulled the tape cartridge from the television set.

  Chiun rose in the one smooth motion that always impressed Remo. Every time he tried to copy it, he wound up facing in a different direction. Chiun did it automatically. Some things never deteriorated with age.

  Chiun looked at the big man. Remo realized he had seen the hazel eyes and recognized a countryman.

  "Please return my television program," Chiun said, extending a hand.

  The big man giggled. His face contorted in a mask of hatred and he spoke to Chiun in a babble of Korean that Remo could not understand.

  Chiun let him speak, let him wear himself out, and then said, quietly, in English: "And you, you piece of dog meat, are unworthy of the blood that flows in your veins. And now, return my television program. I, the Master of Sinanju, command it."

  The big man's face blanched. He said, slowly, "There ain't any Master of Sinanju."

  "Fool," Chiun's voice roared. "Half-caste ape. Do not tempt me to feed my anger."

  He extended his hand again for the tape cartridge.

  The Korean looked at Chiun's hand, then at the tape, and then with a snarl, grabbed the plastic cartridge in both hands and snapped it in half, as if it were an ice-cream stick, and dropped the two pieces to the floor.

  He hit the floor before the pieces did.

  With a roar of rage, Chiun was in the air, his foot planted deep into the Korean's throat, and the big man crumpled down in a heap, his hands slowly relaxing in death.

  Chiun had recoiled in the air, curving his body, so now he landed on both feet, facing Remo and the Italian, his fists curved into hand maces at his hips, his weight balanced on the balls of both feet, a pictorial study of the perfect weapon.

  Remo heard the Italian gasp, then he felt the rustle of clothing as the hood went for his gun.

  "Do not exert yourself, little father," Remo said. "This one is mine."

  The gun came out quickly, but Remo's elbow moved even more quickly, blasting backward into the man's sternum. The bone splintered under the force and the Italian should have let out a "whoomph" of air from the impact, but he didn't because he was dying. He sta
ggered backwards, seemingly drunk, the gun waving irrelevantly around the room, and then his eyes opened wide in a look of horror. His feet stopped moving, the hand that held the gun slowly opened, dropping it onto the floor, and then he fell, heavily, his head cracking against an open closet door, but by then it was too late for him to feel it.

  Remo bowed to Chiun. China bowed back.

  Remo nodded his head to the dead Korean on the floor. "I guess he wasn't impressed by your credentials."

  "He was a fool," Chiun said. "Trying through hatred to punish his mother's sin with a white man. When her only sin was her execrable taste. Aah, such fools."

  Then he looked at Remo and his eyes dropped sadly in a parody of helplessness. "I really feel poorly today," he said. "I am very old and very weak."

  "You are very devious and very lazy, as befits the true Oriental," Remo said. "We each get rid of one."

  "But look at the size of him," Chiun protested, motioning to the fallen Korean. "How could I?"

  "Necessity is the mother of invention. Call MotherTruckers. They move anything."

  "Insolent," Chiun said. "That my years of training have produced not a thoughtful, kindly human being but a spoiled, self-indulgent white man." It was Chiun's supreme insult.

  Remo smiled. Chiun smiled. They stood there, smiling at each other, like two life-sized porcelain figures.

  Then, Remo remembered something.

  "Wait here," he said.

  "I have an appointment with the beautician?" Chiun asked.

  "Please. Just wait here."

  "I will leave only if Father Time comes to claim my frail shell."

  Out in the hall, Remo saw what he was looking for. An empty laundry basket stood near the freight elevator. He looked around, made sure no one was in the corridor, and pulled the empty basket back to his room.

  He closed the door behind him. Chiun smiled when he saw the wheeled cart.

  "Very good. Now you can handle both of them."

  "Chiun, you take advantage of my basic good nature. I'm tired of picking up after you."

  "It is a nothing." Then Chiun was bent down, picking up the pieces of the tape cartridge, looking at them sadly. Then he spit contemptuously at the Korean.

  "So much hatred," he said.

  "We contribute our share," Remo said.

  "I," Chiun said, his voice plumbing the depths of hurt. "Whom do I hate?"

  "Every one but Koreans," Remo said. Glancing at the burly man, he said, "And some of them too."

  "That is not true. I tolerate most people. But hatred? Never."

  "And me, little father? Do you tolerate me too?"

  "Not you, my son. You, I love. Because you are really a Korean at heart. The kind of sturdy, brave, noble, thoughtful Korean who would clean up the mess of these two baboons."

  Remo cleaned up the mess.

  He put the two bodies into the laundry cart and then stripped the sheets from the sofa bed. He tossed them on top of the bodies and pushed the cart into the hall.

  At the end of the hallway was the laundry chute. When he tipped up the cart, the sheets and bodies tumbled into the chute and down the slide. He waited until he heard the dull thud, far below. If the Palazzo laundry was as efficient as its room service, the bodies wouldn't be discovered for a week. He pushed the cart into a broom closet and went back to his room, whistling. He felt good. The events of the last few minutes had seemed to perk Chiun up. And that was well worth the effort.

  Chiun was waiting for him, back in the room. He motioned to Remo to sit on the couch, and then he sat on the floor before Remo, looking up at him.

  "You have been worried about me?" he said.

  "Yes, I have, little father," Remo said. There was no point in lying. Chiun would always know. "You have seemed to be… to be losing your zest for life."

  "And you worried?"

  "I worried. Yes."

  "For causing you that worry, I apologize," Chiun said. "Remo. I have been the Master of Sinanju for fifty years."

  "None could have been finer."

  "That is true," Chiun said, nodding, placing his fingertips together. "Still, it is many years."

  "It is many years," Remo agreed.

  "I have thought in these past few weeks that perhaps it is time for the Master of Sinanju to retire his sword. To let a younger, better man take his place."

  Remo started to speak, but Chiun silenced him with a pointed finger.

  "I have thought of who would replace me. Who would labour so that my village would be supported? So that the poor of Sinanju would be fed and clothed and housed? I could think of no Korean who could do it, who would do it. I could think only of you."

  "It is a great honour you pay me," Remo said, "just in speaking the words."

  "Silence," Chiun commanded. "You are, after all, almost a Korean. If you could learn to control your appetite and your mouth, you would be a fine master."

  "My pride knows no bounds," Remo said.

  "So I have thought of this for many weeks. And I have told myself: Chiun, you are getting too old. There have been too many years and too many battles. Already, Remo is your equal. Silence! I have said, already Remo is your equal. And I have felt my strength waning as I thought these things, and I have said, no one needs Chiun any longer, no one needs him to be the Master of Sinanju, he is old and his meagre talents have vanished, and whatever he can do, Remo can do better. I have told myself all these things." His voice was sonorous and deep, now, as if delivering a sermon he had spent years mastering. What was he leading up to? Remo wondered.

  "Yes," Chiun said, "I have thought all these things." Remo saw his eyes twinkle. He was enjoying it, the whole speech. The old fraud.

  "And now I have reached my decision."

  "I am sure it is wise and just," Remo said, cautiously, not trusting the old fox.

  "The decision was forced upon me when you dispatched that baboon with your elbow."

  "Yes?" Remo said, slowly.

  "Do you realize your fist was a full eight inches away from your chest when you struck?"

  "I did not know that, little father."

  "No, of course, you did not. And in that instant, wisdom came to me."

  "Yes?"

  "Wisdom came to me," Chiun said, "and it said, how can you turn the welfare of Sinanju over to a man who does not even know to keep his fist against his chest when performing the back elbow thrust? I ask your answer to that question, Remo."

  "In conscience, you could not entrust Sinanju to such a worthless one as me."

  "That is true," Chiun said. "Watching your inept performance, suddenly I realized that Chiun was not so old and worthless after all. That it would be many years before you are ready to replace him."

  "You speak only truth," Remo said.

  "So we must resume our training to prepare you for that day. When it comes. Five or six years from now."

  Chiun swirled onto his feet. "We must practice the back elbow thrust. You perform it as a child. You disgrace my training and my name. Your lack of talent is an insult to my ancestors. Your clumsiness is an insult to me."

  Chiun was working himself up into a lather. Remo, who an hour before had despaired over Chiun's will to live, now realized how insufferable and overbearing he would be. An hour ago, he would have been overjoyed if Chiun would accompany him on his next job; now, he would make sure not to invite him.

  Remo stood. "You are right, Chiun, that I need the training. But it must wait. I have an assignment."

  "You will need my assistance. One who cannot even keep his fist next to his chest cannot be expected to perform creditably."

  "No, Chiun," Remo said. "This is a very easy assignment. I will be done with it and returned before you even have time to pack. Then we will go on vacation."

  "And then we will practice the back elbow thrust," Chiun corrected.

  "That too," Remo said.

  Chiun said nothing. But he looked pleased.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Baron Isaac
Nemeroff had rented the entire penthouse floor of the Stonewall Hotel in Algiers.

  He had done it in a manner unusual for the man who owned the corporation that owned the corporation that owned the hotel. He had sent a telegram to the hotel management asking to lease the floor for six months.

  He had sent telegrams to decorators and builders advising them that he wanted special remodelling work done on the penthouse floor.

  He had sent a telegram to the telephone company requesting that a company representative discuss with one of his aides the phone service required to be installed, including special conference lines and scrambler devices.

  By telegram, he had hired sound experts from Rome to make sure that the central section of the penthouse, which had been remodelled into a conference room, was absolutely un-bugged.

  It had taken him three weeks to do all these things and at the end of the third week, a small news item appeared in the Algiers English-language paper:

  What's on tap for the fabulously wealthy Baron Isaac Nemeroff? He's taken over the entire penthouse floor of the Stonewall Hotel, remodelled it and installed security devices that would do credit to the American Secret Service. Must be something big in the wind for the Baron. Hmmmm?

  Baron Nemeroff saw the news item while eating his daily breakfast, which unfailingly consisted of orange juice, grape juice, four eggs, one chocolate eclair, and coffee with milk and four spoonfuls of sugar.

  He sat on one of the patios of his gargantuan estate, high on a hill overlooking the interior city of Algiers, nodding his head in approval of the story. He folded the paper and placed it carefully on the table next to his empty juice glasses. He wiped his mouth and swallowed the last few flakes of éclair which he scooped up off the cake plate with his fingertips.

  Only then did he laugh.

  The baron's laugh was not a pleasant event. It sounded like a bray, and looked as if it should have been a bray, because it came from a face that was mule-like. Nemeroff's head was long and rectangular, with a jutting jaw and a sloped forehead. A thick shock of red hair flew backwards from the top of his skull. His eyes were big and seemed to be vertical ovals. The long, broad triangle of his nose was pasted grossly on a face whose skin was pale, freckled and testified to the anguish of sunburn.

  Nemeroff was six-feet-eight niches tall, weighed 156 pounds, and he required six meals a day to keep his weight that high. A metabolic imbalance burned up energy as fast as he could take it in. His body was always moving; a foot shook as it dangled over his other leg, his hands drummed on the table, he waved as if to shoo off imaginary insects. His sleep was restless, troubled and twitchy, and could cost him five pounds of his weight.