Chinese Puzzle td-3

by Warren Murphy

  "In her bathroom."

  "She's taking a shower?"

  Chiun reverted to his humming.

  "Is she taking a shower?"

  "Ooowah, hummmmm, ooohwah . . . nee . . . shu . . . hmmmmmm."

  "Chiun, what did you do with her?" Remo demanded.

  "As you suggested, I made sure she would not escape."

  "You bastard," Remo said, dashing through the adjoining door. He had rented three rooms, the central one being Mrs. Liu's. The bathroom door was locked from the outside.

  Remo opened it. And saw her.

  She hung from the shower curtain rod, trussed like an animal being brought back to a village for a feast. Her wrists were bound with strips torn from sheets, and tied together over the chrome shower rod. Her feet were bound in the same fashion, over the shower rod, and her body made a "u" as she faced the ceiling, her mouth gagged, her thick black hair flowing toward the floor, her clothes laying in a pile by the tub. She was nude.

  Her eyes were red with anger and fear, and she looked pleadingly at Remo as he threw the door open.

  Remo quickly untied her feet and gently placed them on the rim of the white bathtub, then untied her hands. When her hands were free, she went for his throat, trying to dig her nails into the flesh. But Remo caught the hands with his left, and untied her gag with his right.

  "Hold on," he said.

  She screamed something in Chinese.

  "Now wait a minute. Let's talk," he said.

  "Talk, you fascist beast? You tied me up."

  "I did not."

  "Your running dog did."

  "He lost his head. He won't do that again."

  "Do not take me for a child, beast. I know the tricks. Your partner abuses me. You are friendly and then convince me of the virtues of capitalism. You do this because you have killed General Liu and now you wish me to join your capitalist clique and make a false report to the People's Republic of China."

  "This is no hustle," Remo said. "I'm sorry."

  "The word of a capitalist. How can I trust anyone without social consciousness?"

  "I'm not lying." Remo could see her body un-tense and set itself in quiet hostility to him. He released her wrists. She dropped her hands, and appeared to be going for her clothes, when she moved for a sneak punch, which Remo dodged without even moving his feet or changing his expression.

  "Bastard," she said, angrier now because she had missed. "I am leaving this country now and heading back for Canada and then home. You may stop me by killing me as you did my husband. But my disappearance will be the final proof my government needs of your country's perfidy."

  Remo watched her step into her coarse white panties of material that would be unsuitable for any American or Japanese woman.

  The mission was now a failure. He had been taken out of normal function, assigned as a bodyguard to prevent what had just happened-or something worse-and now he watched Mei Soong prepare to leave, with Dr. Smith's and the President's peace melted in the heat of her anger.

  Since he was out of function already, he would step further out of function. It was a crazy ballgame and if the pitcher were suddenly assigned to play first base, then, dammit, he would do it the way he thought best.

  While Mei Soong was hitching on her bra from behind, Remo stepped close to her and unhooked it. She tried to break free by kicking backwards toward his groin, but Remo spun her around and, laughing carried her into the bedroom and went down with her onto the tan bedspread, pressing her into the mattress, as her arms flailed wildly at his head.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  In the other room, Chiun was amusing himself, reading a detailed analysis proving how little the New York Times understood of the turmoil inside China. The Page One article talked of militaristic elements anxious to stop the premier's visit to America and of the desire among China's "more stable leadership"-Chiun snorted at that-to solidify relations with the United States.

  In Washington, the President was still planning for the Premier's trip, the Times said, but there were rumours that he was fearful the Chinese would cancel it.

  Chiun put the paper down. The press was slowly beginning to learn of the disappearance of General Liu. That could be serious.

  But cancel the trip? Not if the Chinese thought there was any way of milking even one dollar from the fools who ran the United States.

  His attention was distracted by noise from inside Mei Soong's room, and he cocked an ear to listen.

  Inside, Remo had pinned her knees with his body and with his left hand manacled her wrists together above her head. Her soft, smooth face was twisted now, the teeth clenched tight, the lips drawn thin, the eyes narrowed, a mask of pure hate. "Beast, beast, beast," she yelled and Remo smiled down at her to let her see his calm and to understand it, to know that his need did not make him weak and that he was in full control.

  Her body would be his instrument. Her hate and violent struggle would be used to his ends, not hers, because in fighting, she had surrendered her control and all he had to do was exploit it.

  His right hand moved beneath her smooth buttocks, and neatly tore the coarse cloth panties. With his fingers, he began to work the muscles of her buttocks, while he kept his face impassive. His hand worked to the small of her back, and then down again to the other cheek, reinforcing the tension of the lower body.

  He entertained the thought to kiss her on the lips, but that would be wrong now. He was not doing this for fun. Chiun had taken even that away from him. He had done the impossible. He had made sex boring.

  It was on an early training session, this one a month's long regimen at Plensikoffs Gymnasium in Norfolk, Va., a small building off Granby Street that only a handful of people knew was not an abandoned warehouse.

  It had started with the lectures, the dry riddles and Remo asking, "Okay, when do I get laid?"

  Chiun had talked about the orgasm, which was a major requirement for a relationship only when nothing else held it together. Chiun was sitting on the gymnasium floor in a robin's egg blue kimono with yellow birds sewn on.

  "When do I get laid?" Remo asked again.

  "I see we have exceeded your usual attention span of two minutes. Could it hold your attention if a naked woman were to walk in here?"

  "It might," Remo said. "But she's got to have big jugs."

  "The American mind," said Chiun. "You should be distilled and bottled as the American mind. Now. Imagine the woman standing here."

  "I knew it was too good to be true," Remo said. The wooden gymnasium floor was hard and making his duff numb. He shifted his weight and saw Chiun cast a disapproving look at him. Afternoon sunlight came through the dust-lathered windows of the gymnasium and Remo could follow a fly in its light, until it disappeared between the windows, then reappeared again in light.

  "Are you concentrating?"

  "Yes," said Remo.

  "You're lying," said Chiun.

  "All right. All right. What do you want me to do?"

  "See a woman standing naked before you. Create her outline. See her breasts. Her hips, the juncture of her legs. Do you see?"

  Remo indulged the old man. "Yeah, I see her."

  "You do," Chiun commanded.

  Remo did.

  "But you are looking wrong. What does her face look like?"

  "I can't see her face."

  "Ah, very good. You cannot see her face because that is the way you see women. Faceless. Now try to see her face. I will draw it for you. Simply. And I will tell you what she is feeling standing there undraped. What do you think she is feeling?"

  "Cold."

  "No. She is feeling exactly what she has been taught to feel since childhood. It could be embarrassment, or excitement, or fear. Maybe power. But her feelings about sex are social. And that is the key to awakening a woman's body. Through her social upbringing. You see, we must. "

  Remo counted two more flies in a dogfight. The overhead lights were one, but they were weak, doing little but shining out the information
that they were there.

  Then he felt the slap across the face.

  "This is important," said the old man.

  "Shit," said Remo, his cheek stinging. He stayed with the lecture as long as the cheek stung, which was approximately a half hour, and he learned how to unleash the woman's senses, the proper time, control of himself, and how to use his body as a weapon against hers.

  The next time he had sex, the woman was ecstatic and Remo less than pleased. He tried again with someone else. This time, it was like an exercise for him, albeit delirious enjoyment for his partner. One more try convinced him that Chiun had managed to rob him of his enjoyment of sex, and to transform it into just another weapon.

  And now, in a Boston hotel room, he was using that weapon to assault the mind and body of a young Chinese woman with small but exquisitely symmetrical young breasts.

  He allowed her to writhe beneath him until perspiration formed on her forehead and her breath came quickly, and all the while, he kneaded the base of her spine. When Remo felt her warm, lush body give less to each movement, accepting the fact that he was irresistibly atop her, accepting at least his presence because she could not fight it, the presence of an imperialist Caucasian about to commit rape, a man she hated, he stopped massaging the base of her spine and her cheeks, and slowly moved his fingertips down her right thigh to her kneecap, very slowly so she would not think it a deliberate move.

  She stared up at him resignedly, dull eyes and set mouth, saying nothing, but all her muscles finally alive and warmed from use.

  He stared into her eyes, and let his right hand rest on the kneecap as though it would not move again, as if they would stay like this for day upon tedious day. She smelled of freshness, something beyond bottling, the healthy fresh aliveness of youth. Her skin was golden and soft, her face eggshell round and smooth, her eyes deep black. And then Remo saw it in the eyes, that small slight desire that his hand move up again across her thigh.

  And he did so, but hesitantly, and even slower than before. But coming down to the knee again, he brought it down faster and slightly harder, then to the inside of the thigh, steady smooth warm strokes always stopping short of her essence. The dark rims capping her golden mounds formed sharper edges and Remo lowered his mouth to their concentric circles, then drew a tongue line down to her navel, while never ceasing the slow rhythmic force on the tender inner thigh.

  He saw her mouth relax. She would allow herself to be taken, even though she did not like it. This is what she would be telling herself. But she was lying to herself. She wanted him.

  Remo still held her small wrists above her head. He had broken the pattern of taking her by force. If he let go she would be obliged by her upbringing to try to fight her way free. So he held them. But easily.

  With his right hand, he worked her breasts, then her navel, her upper arms, her inner thighs before finally reaching her moistened essence. She was moaning, "You white bastard. You white bastard."

  Then, the penetration, but not fully, holding out, waiting for her to demand. And she demanded. "Damn you, I want it," she groaned, her dark eyes almost disappearing beneath her upper lids.

  He released her wrists now and with both hands began kneading her buttocks again, increasing pressure, increasing penetration, bringing maximum pressure on her sensory organ, willing her into orgasm, holding only for a bare moment of peak, then relaxing to the usual, ho-hum, hysterical shrieks of the woman.

  "Ah," yelled Mei Soong, her eyes shut in ecstasy, "Fuck Mao. Fuck Mao," and Remo suddenly withdrew fully and stood up. Under different circumstances, he would have stayed, but now he needed her to follow him, to be unsure that he would ever want her again. So he left her exhausted on the couch, and zipped up his trousers, having performed fully clothed.

  And then he saw Chiun standing in the doorway, shaking his head.

  "Mechanical," he said.

  "What the hell do you want?" Remo said, angrily. "You give me 25 exact steps to follow and then you call it mechanical."

  "There is always room for artistry."

  "Why not show me how it's done?"

  Chiun ignored him. "Besides, I think to do it in front of another person is disgusting. But you Americans and Chinese are pigs anyway."

  "You're some piece of work," said Remo who had enjoyed less passion in his sex, than a man across the street intended to enjoy in Remo's death.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  "I must talk to you, Chiun," said Remo. He shut the door behind him, leaving Mei Soong still sprawled, exhausted and drained, across her bed.

  Chiun sat down on the gray carpeted floor, his legs crossed before him in the lotus position. His face was passive.

  Remo sat down before him. He could, if he wished, sit for hours now, having worked for years on his concentration and body control He was taller than Chiun, but as they sat, their eyes were level.

  "Chiun," said Remo. "You're going to have to return to Folcroft. I'm sorry, but you're just too much trouble."

  And then Remo caught something, which he was sure he did not catch. He could not quite define it. Not in Chiun. In anyone else, he would have decided a preparation for attack or a decision to attack. But that was impossible in Chiun. For one, Remo knew Chiun had eliminated any telegraphing motions, at least as much as he was able, right down to the first flash of preparation which could sometimes be seen in the eyes but more often in the shift of the spinal column. Most people adept at the trade learned to give nothing from their eyes, but the shift in the spinal column was like hanging out a sign.

  And Remo, if he did not know that Chiun did not give out signs, and if he did not know that Chiun had deep affection for him, would have sworn at that moment, in the hotel room in Boston, with the doors shut and the blinds drawn, that Chiun had just decided to kill him.

  "Something troubles you," said Chiun.

  "The truth is, Chiun, that you've become impossible.

  You're going to blow this mission with your nonsense about the Chinese. I've never before seen you less than perfect, and now you're acting like a child."

  "Smith has ordered you to send me back?"

  "Now don't get upset. This is just a professional decision."

  "What I am asking is did Smith order my return?"

  "And if I told you he did, would it make things easier for you?"

  "I must know."

  "No. Smith did not order it. I want it."

  Chiun raised his right hand delicately, signalling that he wished to make a point and that Remo should listen with care.

  "I will explain to you, my son, why I do things you do not understand. To understand actions, one must understand the person. I must tell you of me and my people. And you will know why I do what I do, and why I hate the Chinese.

  "Many people would think of me as an evil man, a professional killer of people, a man who teaches other people to kill. So be it. But I am not an evil man. I am a good man. I do what I am supposed to do. It is our way of life in Sinanju, a way we needed for survival.

  "You come from a rich country. Even the poorest countries of the west are rich compared to my home. I have told you some small things about my village of Sinanju. It is poor as you do not understand poor. The land can support only one-third of the families who live there. That is in the good years.

  "Before we discovered a way to survive, we would destroy half our girl babies at birth. We would drop them sadly into the bay, and say we were sending them home, to be reborn during better times. During famines, we would send the male children home the same way, waiting for another time more propitious to birth. I do not believe that by dropping them in the bay we send them home. And I do not believe that most of our people believe it.

  But it is an easier thing for a mother to say than that she gave her child to the crabs and sharks. It is a lie to make grief more endurable.

  "Imagine China as the body and Korea as the arm. In the armpit is Sinanju, and to that village the lords of China and the lords of Korea would exile
people. Royal princes who had betrayed their fathers, wise men, magicians who had done evil. One day, I believe in your year of 400 and our day of the nightingales, a man came to our poor village.

  "He was as no man we had ever seen. He looked very different. He was from the island beyond the peninsula. From Japan. He was before ninjitsu, before karate, before all. He was, on his own island, accursed, having taken his mother as a woman. But he was innocent. He did not know she was his mother. But they punished him nevertheless, taking out his eyes with bamboo sticks."

  Chiun's voice began to quiver as he imitated pomposity: " 'We cast you to the scum of this scum land,' the Japanese captain told the poor blind man. 'Death is too good for you.' And the blind man answered.

  Chiun's voice now exuded integrity. His eyes lifted to the ceiling.

  " 'Hark,' the man said. 'You who have eyes, do not see. You, who have hearts, know not mercy. You, who have ears, do not hear the waves lap upon your boat. You, who have hands, do not comfort.

  " 'Woe be to you, when your hardheartedness returns and no doves mark its trail in peace. Because I see now a new people of Sinanju. I see a people who will settle your petty disputes. I see men of men. I see people of goodness, bringing their wrath to your foolish squabbles. From this day forth, when you approach Sinanju, bring money for the wars you cannot fight. That is the tax I place upon you and upon all those not from this village. To pay for the services you cannot do yourself, because you know not piety.' "

  Chiun obviously was very happy with the story.

  "Now, my son," he said to Remo. "Tell me what you think of this tale. With truth."

  Remo paused.

  "The truth," Chiun said.

  "I think it's the same as the kids going home. I think the people of Sinanju became professional assassins because they had no other way to make a living. I think the story is just another way of making a shit deal more acceptable."

  Chiun's face narrowed, the normal wrinkles becoming canyons, his hazel eyes burning. His lips were evil thin lines. He hissed: "What? Is that the truth? Will you not reconsider?"

  "If I am to lose your affection, little father, because I tell the truth, then I will lose it. I do not want a lie between us because what we have dies with a lie. I think your story of Sinanju is a myth, made up to explain reality."