Balance Of Power td-44

by Warren Murphy

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  "Ugh. The very thought of a pickled egg is revolting. And my kimono is destroyed. It must be burned."

  "You have at least a hundred more."

  "And if a mother who has five children sees one of them drowned in egg juice, does she say merely that she has four others and blot the fifth child from her memory? This was my favorite robe. It is irreplaceable. And all for your silly assignment, which you did not even complete successfully. It should" not have been difficult to assassinate a man whose belly had been recently stuffed with bloody beef, white bread, and fountains of alcohol."

  "How do you know what he eats?"

  "I smelled it."

  "In the bar?"

  "No, no. Idiot. One could smell nothing in that place to compare with its own stomach-shattering fragrances. I smelled it outside, just before you attempted to display my belly to the world."

  "Outside where?"

  "Fool. On the fire escape. Great billows of bloody beef and an alcoholic beverage based on mesquite were emanating from his mouth. Had your breathing been adequate, you could have perceived it as well."

  Remo looked at the fire escape platform just above the front door.

  "The fire escape? You saw him up there?"

  "Why are you constantly amazed by what I say?" Chiun screamed. "I told you he was on the fire escape. Therefore, I obviously saw him. Perhaps you should join the ranks of your CIA. A person of your intelligence should be most welcome there."

  Remo exhaled deeply. "I don't believe it," he said. "I just don't believe it. You knew I had to get

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  to Daniels. You saw Daniels. And you didn't tell me."

  "It is not my responsibility to do your smelling for you," Chiun sniffed. "You have evidently grown so obtuse and perverted that you cannot even summon your olfactory senses to assist you. A fine assassin. Nothing but a thug. Why should I strain my powers to assist a thug in eliminating such a magnificent specimen of a man?"

  "Wait a minute. Two hours ago, you were telling me that Daniels was just another target, just another mission for the good of Sinanju."

  "I said nothing of the kind."

  "You did too, Chiun."

  "Then I have changed my mind. Your Mr. Daniels is a great man. A superb man. His leap to the fire escape was astonishing, for one who has tortured his body for so long."

  "I don't get it," Remo said. "Did he see you?"

  "Of course. One does not look upon the glory of Sinanju without notice."

  "What did he do when he saw you?"

  "Do? Why, he did only what was proper and fitting. He saluted me."

  "I see. Thanks. Thanks a very large pile, Chiun. He could be dangerous, you know."

  "So could you, former son, if you had not grown fat and slothful and still knew how to treat the Master of Sinanju with respect to his person."

  "One salute. You let him get away for one cheap little salute."

  "It was a sign of respect," Chiun said stubbornly. "Also a work of art."

  "Oh, come on. Now that's really too much. A work of art! A work-"

  "The salute was performed while Mr. Daniels

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  balanced on the balls of his feet, exquisitely, on the railing of the fire escape, out of the way of the window up there."

  "Big deal," Remo said, opening the car door for Chiun.

  "And he was dancing. The dance of the wind." Chiun demonstrated, his arms waving at his sides, his head turning slow circles.

  "That's not dancing. That's weaving. Daniels was drunk as a pig." He slammed the door.

  "Oh, to have had this specimen as a youth. To have been able to pass on the wisdom of Sinanju to one who dances even while poisoned, instead of a crazed pervert who desires to undress his master in the street."

  They were silent all the way back to the motel. "Are you going to fix dinner?" Remo asked.

  "Why should I eat? My body has already been desecrated."

  "Okay, I'll fix dinner."

  "What a specimen," Chiun reminisced, smiling dreamily. He saluted the wall.

  "I wish you'd quit this."

  Chiun sighed. "It was only an old man's remembrance of his one brief moment of recognition in this disrespectful world," he said. He saluted again.

  The phone rang. "Please answer the telephone, Remo," Chiun said. "I am too worn and broken to exert myself."

  Remo snorted. "You know I always answer the phone."

  It was Smith.

  "Have you completed the assignment?" he asked, his voice tense.

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  "No. Thanks to the Master of Sinanju and his appreciation of alcoholic ballet, I have not."

  "Good."

  "Good?"

  "You see." Chiun interjected. "It is not only I who appreciates this fine human. The emperor also sees his grace and seeks to reward him for it."

  "You've got to keep him alive," Smith said.

  "What for?"

  "Because someone's trying to kill him."

  "Yeah. I am."

  "Not any more. That envelope you couriered to me was made from paper fabricated in Hispania. There's some kind of connection. I can't get a fix on Denise Daniels yet, but that could take a while. Anyway, if somebody is trying to kill Daniels, it may be that he knows something-something of value to the U.S. That being the case, he ought to be kept alive until we know what he knows."

  "This is crazy. I was supposed to kill Daniels, but now that somebody else is trying to kill him, I've got to save him. Maybe that makes sense to you, Smitty, but it doesn't make sense to me."

  "Just let him do what he wants to do. Maybe it will stir the pot. But keep him alive. And Remo?"

  "What?"

  "That was good work, remembering to pick up the pieces of paper from the envelope."

  Remo looked over to Chiun, who was saluting passersby on the street below with a jaunty flick of his wrist. "Thanks," Remo said. He hung up.

  Chiun was beaming.

  "I'm glad you're having such a good time," Remo said. "Personally, none of this makes any sense to me."

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  "It makes perfect sense, brainless one." Chiun leaped to his feet as lightly as a cloud. "All emperors are crazy, and Smith is the craziest of them all. I will cook dinner."

  He padded toward the kitchen humming a tuneless Korean melody.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Bernard C. Daniels awoke in a flophouse two doors down from Mickey's, his home being three blocks away and therefore too far to walk after several days of riotous drinking throughout the town of Weehawken.

  He rummaged around in his pockets. The two hundred dollars was missing. Well, I hope I enjoyed some of it, he thought as he scratched the tracks of a flea that had made its home on his scalp.

  Then he discovered something that made him feel very sad. His credit at Mickey's Pub. was no longer good.

  He should have asked the Grand Vizier for more, But then, that would have been gone by now, too, he realized.

  "What day is it?" he asked the bartender.

  "It's Friday, Barney."

  He looked at the luminous clock over the bourbons, scotches and ryes which rested atop planks of

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  wood where the bar's mirrors had been. It read 8:30. It was already dark outside. "I'd better go," he said.

  If he didn't hurry for his appointment with the woman, he would be late. Four days late instead of three.

  The cab fare came to $4.95.

  Barney handed the driver a five-dollar bill the bartender had lent him. The driver swiveled his big neck, rolled and folded to resemble the Michelin Tire Man, and yelled after him: "You promised me a big tip. I never would have came to this here neighborhood for a nickel."

  Bernard C. Daniels could not be bothered with boorish taxi drivers, not amid the squalor surrounding him.

  He checked the number on the building. It was correct. It was wedged between unending rows of dirty, drab brownstones. Every window on the block appeared dark, hiding faded s
hades and curtains, when there were curtains.

  A weak street light glowed like a lonely torch high above the garbage cans and metal gratings that protected cellars. A single dog scurried with undue noise across the black-topped gutter. Traffic lights blinked their useless signals,

  Barney heard the cab pull away as he mounted the steps. It left with a grumble.

  The brownstone seemed identical to the others until Barney noticed the door and discovered it was only a distant relative of those stench-filled houses surrounding it.

  His knock told him. There was no doorbell. Only a thin layer of the door was wood. The knock sounded like steel, extremely heavy steel. Then Bar-

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  ney noticed that the windows were not really openings to the street at his level. There were Venetian blinds, all right, but they were permanently mounted on steel sheets that closed up the window.

  He knocked again.

  His instinct warned him, but only a split second before he felt the gentle point against his back. How many times had he felt that tender prelude to pain, that first searching of a man unsure of his blade? If he had thought, he might not have done what he did. But years of survival did not allow the mind time to think. There was a point at which the body took over, dictating its demands.

  Without will, Barney's right hand slashed around, twisting his body down and away from the blade and finding a target for the line of bone from his pinky tip to his wrist. It was a black temple. It cracked with a snapping sound.

  The man's head took off, followed by his neat small body encased in a neat black suit. The spectre tottered momentarily, then fell backward and would have tumbled down the steps, but for more than a dozen men identically dressed in neat black suits.

  They were packed into the staircase behind him and the mass of their bodies caught their comrade.

  A small bright blade with bluish edges tinkled beneath their feet on the stone steps. They all held similar blades. And they closed in on Barney almost noiselessly, a sea of shaven skulls making waves under the yellow light of the street lamp.

  Barney pressed his back to the metal door and prepared to die.

  Just then, two men moving so fast they were little more than blurs shot out of the darkness and into the moving sea of shining black heads.

  In an instant, the quiet street was filled with

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  screams and the groans of dying men as blade after shimmering blade dropped to the ground and bodies twisted like wire fell on top of them.

  For Barney, it was a vision of hell, witnessing the torment of men convulsed by pain and glad to die in order to end that pain.

  Barney thought about that pain as he fired up a cigarette and winked at the two white men who were causing it. Better them than me, he thought philosophically.

  But one of the men was not white. He was an aged Oriental sporting a turquoise kimono. "Jesus Christ," Barney muttered.

  It was all very confusing to him. Here were two guys, the same two guys he was sure were out to hit him, saving his life. And fighting like bastards to boot. He had never seen fighting like that. It was effortless, artful, utterly economical of movement, totally effective. Were it not for the carnage surrounding them, the young white man and the old Oriental could have been dancing a ballet.

  Very confusing. He would have to think about this matter. He would think about it immediately, in fact, just as soon as he had a drink of tequila to help him think better.

  As the two men silenced the last of the mob, Barney rose to dust himself off. His eyes followed the movements of the men as they dashed out of sight. The thin young man disappeared like a bullet. The old Oriental followed, his robe floating behind him.

  But just as Barney was preparing to knock again, the Oriental returned. Standing beneath the street lamp, grinning broadly, the old man stiffened like a tiny tin samurai soldier and flicked Barney an elegant salute.

  "Thank you, sir," Barney said, his voice echoing

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  down the street, and returned the salute. Then the old man was gone.

  Barney knocked twice more. After a long silence, the door surrendered and opened to him over a field of white plush carpeting. Standing at the door was the Grand Vizier of the Afro-Muslim Brotherhood, two flesh-colored Band-Aids decorating his forehead. Flesh-colored here meant brown, but against the Vizier's eggplant skin, the two strips of tape stood out like an accusation.

  "Am I late?" Barney asked.

  "What you done?" the Grand Vizier yelled, looking out over the heap of broken bodies in the street. One of the Vizier's large black hands came down to Barney's right shoulder and lifted him like a toy.

  "Leave him alone, y'hear?" came a woman's voice. "I'll take care of him, Malcolm."

  "Yes, ma'am," the Grand Vizier said and allowed Barney's feet to touch the floor.

  She wore white slacks and a white blouse and Barney almost couldn't see her because of the camouflage. The whole interior of the building, fireplace, sofa, lamps, walls, ceiling, steps leading upstairs, all were painted bunding white. Marble, wood and cloth, all as white as the inside of a bathtub factory run amok with hospital orders.

  Her platinum hair fit the decor perfectly. Barney shook his head as if to clear it. There was something about her. Something. He tried to think but couldn't.

  Malcolm, the Grand Vizier, stood out, as he left the room, like an ink blot on a snowy towel. In the room, a faint fragrance of lilacs replaced the stink of garbage outside. Barney sniffed. He preferred the garbage.

  "Beautiful," said the woman, peeking out the

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  door. She reached for a telephone, which was hidden by its absence of color, on a white table Barney could barely make out against the white wall.

  "Yes," she said. "Yes. Tell them, Malcolm, that their friends have all gone to Allah and will be re-warded there. Don't forget to mention that it was a white devil who killed them. Very good. Was it clean? Immediate death? Good. Well done, Malcolm."

  Barney heard, rather than saw, her hang up. She smiled, a pale, thin-lipped smile. "You killed all those men out there."

  "I had some help," Barney admitted. "A hundred-year-old Chinaman did most of it."

  The woman laughed. "You're charming," she said. "And the rest of the Peaches of Mecca will be impressed."

  "The what?"

  "The Peaches of Mecca. The bodyguard of a new revolution, a freedom movement so sweeping it astounds the imagination and thrills the soul. Of course, you just wiped out most of the Peaches. We'll have to get some new recruits."

  "Got a drink?"

  "You're a cold, hard professional, aren't you? Money is your grounds for loyalty, isn't it? You're cool, precise, knowledgeable about espionage, death, and destruction. You think only of the dollar and the power it gives you, isn't that right?"

  "Sure. Got a drink?" he repeated.

  She walked over to a well-camouflaged white bar. "What'll you have?" she asked.

  "Tequila." The very word touched his heart.

  She poured him a tumbler full of very expensive Bolivian firewater and handed it to him.

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  "You have quite a reputation for being a competent agent, Mr. Daniels," she said.

  He poured the contents of the glass down his grateful throat. "Agents with reputations are not competent, madam. They are dead. May I have another?" He held up the glass.

  "Of course. I want you to know before we begin, Mr. Daniels, that you will always have a drink waiting for you in my home."

  "That's real southern hospitality, ma'am," Barney said smoothly, accepting his second drink.

  "Anytime you want one, you just come on over and help yourself to my bar, hear?" "Yes'm."

  "Even if I'm not at home, I will leave instructions that you be admitted anytime you need a little drinky-poo."

  "I'll remember that, ma'am." She smiled at him like a sleek white cat. "I'm sure you will, Mr. Daniels."

  She sat down next to him on a white sofa. "That
was clever, what you said about agents with reputations being dead."

  "Pleased to hear it, ma'am." "Because you're going to be dead soon." "So you tell me."

  "Unless I help you. And I plan to help you." "That's right neighborly. How's about a little blast?" He offered her his empty glass again. "Tequila," he said.

  "In a minute. We want to talk first." "We do?"

  "What do you think the black man wants, Mr. Daniels?"

  Barney furrowed his brow in concentration.

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  "Can't say I know which black man you're talking about, ma'am," he said.

  "You're a bigot, Mr. Daniels." Her eyes flashed. "You don't know anything about the freedom movement, and you don't care."

  "I resent that," Barney said, rising. He eased his way toward the bar. "I care about freedom as much as anybody. There is nothing more important to me than freedom. At this very moment, in fact, the prospect of receiving a free drink from your bar is foremost in my mind."

  "You get back here. Come back to this couch this second; or I'll order Malcolm to smash every bottle in the house."

  "I'm coming, I'm coming." He sat down, his empty glass clutched in his hand.

  "You are a backward, white liberal bigot who doesn't understand the freedom movement. So I will explain it .to you."

  "I was afraid of that," Barney mumbled.

  "It's the great spirit rising from the newly emerged nations of Africa. It's written on the wind. The black man is pure. Untrammeled by white corruption, untouched by either communism or capitalism. He is the future."

  Barney sensed movement in the tightly wrapped milk-colored stretch pants and the full blouse that tightened at the waist. "What's so pure about him?" he asked, managing to tear his gaze from the sight of the woman's full bouncing breasts.

  "He never had a past. The white man robbed him of it."

  "Certainly," Barney said, as though seeing for the first time in the light shed by this dizzy daffodil. Nevertheless, surrounding this ripe albino plant was

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  green, green money, all watered by liquor. The black man was pure, yes indeedy. Barney couldn't argue with that.

  "He's like writing on a clean blackboard," Barney offered.

  "Exactly," said the woman, flowering with sudden happiness. "He's been robbed, whipped, raped, castrated, and ciphered as a human being."