Assassins Play Off td-20

by Warren Murphy

  "Pittsfield. You've still got that post office box there, don't you? What are you doing with a post office box in Pittsfield, Massachusetts? What does a Master of Sinanju need that for?"

  But Chiun folded his hands and was silent. The post office box had been rented long before, when Chiun had been ready to take up job offers, so that his assassin's profession could continue to support the aged and the weak and the poor, of his little village of Sinanju in North Korea. But the job crisis had ended and Chiun continued working for Dr. Smith, but he kept the post office box and refused to tell Remo what mail he received there.

  The stewardess was back. No. Remo did not want coffee. He did not want tea. He did not want an alcoholic beverage or Time Magazine.

  "Sir," said the stewardess. "I've never said this to a passenger before, but I bet you think you're something special. I bet you think every woman is just dying to fall in bed with you, doncha?"

  Her pale cheeks flushed red and her blonde shortcut bobbed in anger. Remo could smell her delicate perfume. He shrugged.

  "I wouldn't have you on a bet, buddy. Not on a bet."

  "Oh," said Remo. She left with her pillow and magazines but was back momentarily. She wanted to apologize. She had never talked to a passenger like that before. She was sorry. Remo said it was all right.

  "I'd like to make it up somehow."

  "Forget it," said Remo.

  "I dearly would. Is there any way I could? Just tell me and I'll do it. Whatever you say."

  "Forget it," said Remo.

  "Screw you," she said. And Chiun, seeing passengers stare, raised a graceful hand, the fingernails a symphony of delicacy.

  "Precious blossom, do not belabor your gracious heart. One cannot expect the rodents of the field to appreciate the precious emerald. Do not offer your gracious gift to him who is unworthy."

  "You're damned right," said the stewardess. "You got a lot of wisdom there, sir. You really do."

  "What did I do?" said Remo, shrugging.

  "Go back to your cheese, mouse," said the stewardess. She left with a triumphant smile.

  "What came over her?" asked Remo.

  "I have given the best years of my life to a fool," said Chiun.

  "I didn't want to bang her. So?"

  "So you took her pride and she could not leave until it was given back to her."

  "I'm under no obligation to service every woman who comes along."

  "You are under an obligation not to hurt those who do you no harm."

  "Since when is a Master of Sinanju a spreader of love and light?"

  "I have always been. But light to a blind man can, at best, only mean heat. Oh, how the Ke'Gan knows you."

  "Let him try turning off your soap operas one time. He'll get your love and light."

  CHAPTER THREE

  Smith was looking at his watch and waiting like any other piece of dry furniture when Remo and Chiun arrived at the seat opposite the Trans World Airlines ticket counter.

  "You're on time," he said to Remo, and to Chiun he gave a curt nod which might be interpreted as a small bow if one did not know that Smith was completely devoid of bows or any other sort of pleasantry. Courtesy required minute amounts of imagination and was therefore impossible for Dr. Harold W. Smith.

  The Donsheim Memorial Hospital, perhaps the most modern in the entire Chicago area, was on the outskirts of the city in the pleasant suburbs of Hickory Hills, away from the knifings, shootings, and muggings of the inner city, which desperately needed a supermodern facility like Donsheim and therefore, by the laws of nature and politics, had no chance of ever getting one.

  Smith walked around the hospital on the neat, grasslined concrete walk until he came to a gray door without a handle. It had only a lock, and Smith produced a key from a large keychain.

  "One of your outlets?" asked Remo.

  "In a way," said Smith.

  "Everything is in a way," said Remo.

  "The emperor knows the emperor's business," said Chiun, to whom anyone who employed the House of Sinanju was an emperor, as they had been in ages past. It was a breach of propriety that an assassin should talk openly to an emperor, which Remo understood to really mean that an emperor should never know what his assassin was thinking, a practical code worked out over centuries of experience.

  Yet Remo was an American and Smith was an American, and just as some things of Sinanju might always remain a mystery to Remo, this openness between Remo and Smith was just as strange to Chiun.

  The sharp smell of a hospital corridor brought back memories of fear to Remo, fear he had learned before he knew how to use his nerves for his own power. Smith counted doors, seven in all, and entered the eighth with another key. It was a chilly room, and Smith turned on the lights and buttoned the top button of his coat, shivering. Remo and Chiun stood still in their light autumn clothes. Eight large metal squares with handles stood neatly stacked against the wall. A sharp yellow fluorescent light cast a foreboding glare against the metal.

  In the center of the room with white tile floors, smooth for easy scrubbing, were three bare tables, seven feet long and three feet wide with white plastic tops. The disinfectant could not hide it, the constant scrubbing could not hide it, nor could the chill eliminate it. The room smelled of the rot of death, that sickly sweet richness of fatty nodes decomposing and bacteria-heavy intestines dissolving themselves.

  "He's in the third one up," said Smith.

  Remo rolled out the drawer to the center table.

  "William Ashley, thirty-eight, died of exposure," said Smith, looking at the bloated corpse. Facial hair had grown a stubble of beard through the slick dead skin. The eyes bulged under lids that reflected the fluorescent light above. The shoulders bulged as if Ashley had a giant's muscles there, and the hips swelled as if they wore football padding.

  "We found through X-rays that all four main joints, shoulders and legs, were damaged. Victim's lungs had filled with fluid caused by exposure. Was found on a bare floor of a chilly Highland castle, unable to move because of joint injuries. In brief, gentlemen, he drowned from his own lung fluids," said Smith. He thrust his hands into his pockets for warmth and continued. "He was one of our employees. What I want to know is do you recognize the method of killing?"

  "Cruelty has many forms and many faces. It is unfair to blame the House of Sinanju," said Chiun. "We are known for quietness and swiftness, nay, even for mercy in the speed with which we perform our duties. Kinder than nature we are and have been and always will be."

  "Nobody was accusing your house," said Smith. "We want to know if you recognize the manner of death. I know that our methods of concealment and secrecy are confusing to you, but this man was one who worked for us and did not know it, like most of our employees."

  "It is very hard to teach servants to know their job," said Chiun. "I am sure that, with the wisdom of Emperor Smith, within but a short time the laggardly servants shall know what they are doing and for whom they work."

  "Not exactly," said Smith. "We do not wish them to know for whom they work."

  "A wise idea. The less an ungrateful and stupid servant knows, the better. You are most wise, Emperor Smith. A credit to your race."

  Smith cleared his throat and Remo smiled. Remo was the only man who bridged the gap between the two older men. Remo understood that Smith was trying to explain that there was a force America was ashamed to admit existed, while Chiun believed an emperor should always remind his subjects what forces he had, the stronger the better.

  "In any case," Smith said, "this matter bothers me. The strangeness of the death raises some questions and I'd like some answers."

  "One cannot blame the House of Sinanju for every cruelty that happens," said Chiun. "Where did this occur?"

  "Scotland," said Smith.

  "Ah yes, a noble kingdom. A Master of Sinanju has not set foot there for hundreds of years. A fair and gracious people. Like yourself. Of much nobility are they."

  "What I'm asking is do you recognize
the manner of death? You'll notice the skin hasn't been broken but there has been incredible damage to the joints."

  "To three joints," said Remo, "and that was because they didn't know what they were doing."

  "I have X-rays," said Smith. "But the doctor who examined the body said all four joints were crushed. I remember that."

  "He's wrong," said Remo, "Both shoulders and the right hip are crushed. Sloppy hits. The left leg was the way it should have been done. The leg was taken out without destroying the joint."

  Smith set his lips tightly and took a plain gray envelope from his pocket. The X-rays had been reduced in size to look like .35 millimeter film. Smith held the film strips up to the overhead light.

  "Gracious. You're right, Remo," he said.

  "He has been taught well," said Chiun.

  "So you recognize the manner of death?" asked Smith.

  "Sure. Somebody who didn't know what he was doing," said Remo. "He got in a good lucky shot on the left leg, and then botched the job on the right hip and both shoulders."

  Chiun was looking down at William Ashley's body, and he was shaking his head.

  "There were at least two people who did this thing," he said. "The one who was correct in the left leg, and whoever else did the other work of butchery. Who was this person?"

  "An employee," said Smith. "A computer programmer."

  "And why would one wish to disgrace this what-ever-you-said?"

  "Computer programmer," said Smith.

  "Correct. That is the word. Why would one wish to disgrace him?"

  "I don't know," said Smith.

  "Then I know nothing about the way of death," said Chiun.

  "That doesn't help, Chiun," said Smith with a slight trace of exasperation. "What should we do?"

  "Watch everything closely," answered Chiun, who knew that Americans liked to watch their disasters to give them a good headstart, until even the most dense person in the land realized something was wrong.

  And then Chiun brought up something that had been bothering him. He had been promised a visit to his home. He knew it was a difficult journey and that it would cost much to deliver him to Sinanju. All was in preparedness even to the special boat that would slip him into Sinanju Harbor from under the water. But he had not gone at the time it was first ready because of his loyalty to Emperor Smith, long might he reign in the glory that was uniquely his.

  "Yes, the submarine," said Smith.

  Humbly, Chiun requested that he leave now for his visit. Korea in the late autumn was beautiful.

  "Sinanju is freezing, windy ice in late autumn," said Remo who had never been there.

  "It is home," said Chiun.

  "I know that is the home of the House of Sinanju," said Smith, "and you have served well. You have done wonders with Remo. It is a pleasure to assist you in returning you home to your village. But we will have difficulty in sending your shows to you. You might have to do without your television shows."

  "I shall not be in Sinanju long," said Chiun. "Just until Remo gets there."

  "I'd hate to have both of you out of the country," said Smith.

  "Don't worry, I'm not going," said Remo.

  "He will be there by the next full moon," said Chiun, and he said no more until the next day when he was preparing to board a plane that would take him to San Diego where his special ship would take him home.

  Chiun waited until Smith had gone to a booth to buy insurance on Chiun's life, before he told Remo:

  "That manner of death, Remo, it is very strange."

  "Why strange?" said Remo. "A duffer with one lucky hit and three bad ones."

  "There is a custom in Sinanju. When you wish to disgrace someone, to show that he is not even worth the killing, the ancient custom is to deliver four blows, then walk away and let your opponent die."

  "You think that's what happened here?" Remo.

  "I do not know what happened here, but I tell you to be careful until you join me in Sinanju."

  "I'm not coming, Little Father," insisted Remo.

  "By the next full moon," said Chiun, and then he signed the insurance form Smith put in his hands with a complicated ideograph that looked like the word IF drawn between two parallel lines.

  As Chiun's plane took off, Smith said, "A mysterious man."

  "Mysterious is just a western term for rude and thoughtless," said Remo as he felt the chill from nearby Lake Michigan whip over the guard rail at O'Hare.

  "Mysterious is my term for what you and he are able to accomplish, what you do. For instance, without using guns."

  Remo watched the white painted 707 with the stripes of red thrust into the air, its jets bellowing heat and smoke.

  "It's not that complicated when you know," he said. "It makes a lot of sense. It's simple when you know, but in its execution it can be complicated. Especially in its simplicity."

  "That's not really clear," said Smith.

  "Look at him," said Remo as he saw the plane circle. "Look at him. Just going home like that. Well, I guess he's got a right to."

  "You didn't say why you didn't use a gun."

  "A gun sends a missile. Your hands are more controlled."

  "Your hands are. But it's not karate, is it, or one of those?"

  "No," said Remo. "Not one of those." Chicago was a cold and lonely place.

  "Why you? Why Chiun? What makes you different?"

  The plane too quickly became a speck. "What?" asked Remo.

  "Why are you two so effective? I've had comparison readouts done with the martial arts, and once in a while there is an isolated instance of one of the things you do, but by and large it's just nothing like what you do."

  "Oh, that," said Remo. "The guys with the wooden boards and their hands and stuff like that."

  "Stuff like that," said Smith.

  "Well, I'll try to explain," said Remo, and he explained as well as he could, as well as he had tried to explain it to himself. For he had not learned it in terms of almost anything he had known before meeting the Master of Sinanju.

  First, the main difference might be the simple comparison of a professional football player and a touch football player. An injury that would send a Sunday touch passer to the sidelines wouldn't even be felt by a linebacker in the National Football League.

  "The pro does it for his living. It's beyond those levels of entertainment or even ambition. It's survival. The pro lives by what he does. There's no comparison. The second is Sinanju itself. It was, like, born out of desperation. I've heard it from Chiun. Farming and fishing were so poor in that village that they had to drown their own babies."

  "I know that the Masters of Sinanju supported their village by renting themselves out," Smith said. "Frankly, with the communists in North Korea I thought that might end."

  "Well, it might end in fact, but where Sinanju started, the method and the thought, was every Master knowing it was the life of his target or the life of his village's children. Every Master. For thousands of years. Down to Chiun."

  "Okay," said Smith. "For them, survival. But why your high competence?"

  "Well, in learning, the Masters of Sinanju found out that most human muscles were on their way to becoming vestigial organs like the appendix. They learned that most everyone uses maybe ten percent of his strength or intelligence or what have you. Chiun's secret is teaching the muscles and nerves and stuff to use maybe thirty per cent. Or forty."

  "That's what he does? Forty percent?"

  "That's what I do," said Remo. "Chiun's the Master of Sinanju. He does one hundred per cent. On his bad days."

  "And that's the explanation?"

  "That's the explanation," said Remo, turning from the guardrail. "As to whether it's the truth, I don't have the vaguest. It's the way I explain it."

  "I see," said Smith.

  "No, you don't," said Remo. "And you never will."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  When Hawley Bardwell killed his first man with his hands, he knew he had to kill another. It was
not like his first tackle in a football game where he heard the knee of the halfback pop in his ear. That was good. But to see a man going to die when you hit him with just your hand was beyond satisfaction.

  It was like discovering you had this tremendous need only when it had been filled, and then, in a rush of feeling so good, Bardwell had stepped back on the bare, new polished wooden floor of that drafty castle and watched the black belt guy spin backward, reaching to support the shoulder that would never move again.

  It was so simple it was laughable. The guy, named Ashley something, Bill Ashley or Ashley Williams or whatever, had taken that sanchin-dachi stance and had made a simple block, and then the left blocking arm itself was used to crack back into the joint. With the first pain of that, Bardwell had his second stroke right into the joint, and that was the beginning. Of course, he didn't have that guy all to himself. He had to share him, but he knew it was his blow that started it and when they left the guy squirming on the floor, that cold floor, pinned by the pain in his own joints, Bardwell knew football, karate, even three years boxing professionally, was like 3.2 beer compared to white lightning. It just didn't compare.

  So when Mr. Winch promised him his own kill, personal, nobody else to share, Hawley Bardwell almost fell down and kissed his instructor's feet. Mr. Winch was what he had always wanted as a coach or as a commander in the Marines. Mr. Winch understood. Mr. Winch had given him the power. No matter how tempting so far, Hawley Bardwell, six-feet-four of hard knotted muscle and chilling blue eyes and a face that looked as if it were hacked out of a stone wall, kept his hands to their purposes assigned by Mr. Winch.

  And when he had to wait by the cemetery in Rye, New York, and when a man who looked like his hit, but really wasn't, came to pay respects to one of the graves, that William Ashley, Hawley Bardwell held back. It was not the man. He was almost six feet tall with high cheekbones and deepset brown eyes, but he didn't have those thick wrists. So Hawley Bardwell waited his week as Mr. Winch had told him, and then drove down to New York City, parking his car in one of those incredibly expensive garages his wife had warned him about, and went to the Waldorf Astoria where he asked for Mr. Sun Yee as Mr. Winch had instructed.