Chinese Puzzle

by Warren Murphy

  In his mirror, he could see the pursuit car — its driver blinded by darkness — plow ahead on the Thruway toward New York. Goodbye car number three.

  “Barney Oldfield,” Chiun said. “A regular Barney Oldfield. Did it ever occur to you that your life would be safer if you stopped and did combat, Mr. Barney Oldfield?”

  “You can fasten your seat belt.”

  “I am my own seat belt. But that is because I can control my body the way civilized people are supposed to. Perhaps you should fasten your seat belt. Heh, heh.”

  “Reckless, inconsiderate driving,” said Mrs. Liu. “Do you know that driving at these speeds consumes gasoline more rapidly than driving at lower speeds? Besides, I want to find my husband, wherever he is, not precede him to heaven.”

  “Shit,” said Remo, and it was the last thing he said until they reached Boston. He wondered if he had been wise to shake the tail. But his mission called for finding General Liu, not endangering the general’s wife. His followers would pick him up again, if they hadn’t already, and he wanted the meeting on his terms, when his decisions would not be warped because of the danger to the girl.

  Now, he was in Boston, it was just after noon, and it felt somewhat exhilarating to know that someone thought you were worth $70,000 to kill. But as he walked back to his hotel, a vague anger began to grow. Only $70,000?

  A basketball player recently was sued for jumping a team, the team claiming he was worth $4 million. Four million for him and his life, and only $70,000 for Remo’s death. Inside the hotel lobby, Remo felt concentration on him. It was not strong and his anger had almost dulled his senses. Collecting the extra room key, he noticed a scruffy woman in a black dress and hat reading a newspaper. But her eyes didn’t move across the columns.

  Maybe he should sell tickets? He thought momentarily of collecting fees from everyone following him, Chiun and the girl. Maybe go up to the woman and say, “Uh, look. We’re the in thing this week. We’re going to be at Fenway Park on Saturday and you can’t tail us without a ticket that night. I recommend a good box seat so you can use a knife or even your hands if one of us should wander near the bullpen.”

  But Remo had been trained better than that. One never gave away the knowledge he was being tailed. One gives away nothing. As Chiun had said in the first weeks of training at Folcroft when Remo’s wrists were still sore from the current of the electric chair:

  “Fear is all right for you. But never induce it in your victim. Never exert your will on him. Never let him know you even exist. Give him nothing of you. Be like the strange wind that never blows.”

  It had sounded like any other of the many riddles Remo did not understand, and it took him years at his trade before he was able to perfect the skill of sensing people watching him. Some people experienced it occasionally, usually in crowded situations.

  For Remo, it was everywhere, all the time. Like in the lobby of the Hotel Liberty. And the apparently harmless old lady putting the spot on Remo.

  Remo strolled to the elevator. A crummy $70,000. The car stopped at the 11th floor. A basketball player worth four million dollars.

  The car door closed behind him. As the elevator started up, he went up in full jump, his chest stretched out to catch the nine-foot ceiling. And down he came again, dribbling an imaginary basketball, with a small cry of victory.

  He had seen Lew Alcindor in a game once, and on that jump, Remo would have gone over him. On most jumps, he would have, Remo thought. What Lew Alcindor did better than Remo was stand taller. And, of course, find a better job. One, not only with retirement benefits, but with retirement.

  Remo wondered, when that last day came, if they would ever find a trace of his body. “That’s the biz, sweetheart,” he said to himself and unlocked the door to his room.

  Chiun was sitting in the middle of the floor, his legs crossed, humming happily to himself, a tuneless, nameless song that he used to express happiness at a joyous event. Remo was immediately suspicious.

  “Where’s Mei Soong?” he asked.

  Chiun looked up almost dreamily. He wore his white robes of joy, one of the fifteen changes he had brought with him. Remo had a valise, the girl brought everything in her coat pockets, and Chiun had a steamer trunk.

  “She’s fine,” he said to Remo.

  “Where is she fine?”

  “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 lying 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 untense 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 rumors 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 Plensikoff’s 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 on, 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.

&nbs
p; “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.